ITP Classes (old posts, page 5)

Carrie Mae Weems

For the last class I prepared a short presentation on Carrie Mae Weems. Weems is a African American photographer who addresses issues of sexism and racism with her work.

Pictured below is a selection of her work from The Kitchen Table Series, (1990). The series depicts staged scenes of a romance narrative.

various scenes of a kitchen table with a single light above it, a bird cage in the corner, and with a woman sitting at the table along with a man or her female friends.

The Kitchen Table Series (1990), by Carrie Mae Weems

This is the last meeting of my History of Contemporary Art class with Roselee Goldberg. Although I still one more paper to write, the class is drawing to a close. It's been immensely enjoyable and I am very glad I signed up for this. There's a lot to learn studying art.

Wooden Box

For my Subtraction final I made this decorative box:

square wooden box with lid leaning on edge of box.

Every time I look at it I'm amazed I made it.

The reddish-orange wood comes from a Padauk (pah-DUKE) tree commonly found in Africa. It also goes by the name Vermillion.

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Sprint 2

This week we put most of our efforts into designing the user interface. We put together a presentation to share with the class to show our progress.

More detail is available below.

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Relational Aesthetics

Relational Aesthetics is a term coined by the curator Nicolas Bourriaud to describe art that rejects the manufacturing of traditional art objects and instead attempts to establish new human relationships through collective experiences and new interactions. The art puts the interaction at the center of the work instead of the artist or any physical manifestations of the artist's work.

As a member of a group I helped put together a presentation on Relational Aesthetics that we shared with the class.

Two Weeks Remaining...

Two weeks remaining in the class and I finally was able to make progress on writing my own style transfer code. I didn't write it from scratch, I rewrote the existing code I found online to improve the code quality and make it fit my workflow. I'm going to continue working to make further improvements over the next few days.

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Hank Willis Thomas: What We Ask Is Simple

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976) is an American conceptual artist and photographer who addresses themes of identity, history, and popular culture as they relate to African Americans. His work shows the stereotypes used to portray African Americans as well as the uniqueness and humanity of the individual beneath the stereotype.

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Bernd and Hilla Becher: In Dialogue with Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt

Bernd Becher (b. 1931) and Hilla Becher (b. 1934) were German conceptual artists and photographers who worked as a team to photograph buildings and industrial structures. As internationally recognized artists the couple met Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre and engaged each other in an artistic dialogue, supporting each other’s creativity.

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Cyprien Gaillard: Nightlife

Cyprien Gaillard (b. 1980) is a prominent young French artist who makes films, sculptures, and paintings. His work focuses on the artistic expression of concepts of entropy, destruction and humankind’s impact on nature.

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Sprint 1

Our next assignment for Collaborative Design is to write code for a crude prototype. It doesn't have to look pretty; we just need to vet our ideas and build something to see if things work as we expect.

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Four-Axis Mill

This week's assignment is the Four-Axis Mill skill builder. Our goal was to get some experience using the machine.

I milled this simple object out of a dowel rod that was left over from a previous assignment.

Cylinder piece of wood with small pieces cut out of it.

Not everything went as expected. I did learn a lot about the limits of the machine though, and that makes me happy.

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