EVENT BLOG 4: HAMMER MUSEUM- JEANINE OLESON

Hand-woven wool piece entitled Perspectus...a...um.
During my visit to the Hammer Museum, I also visited Jeanine Oleson's exhibit entitled, "Conduct Matters". In my opinion, this exhibition was truly an embodiment of the hybridization of art and science as it used various technologies and medium to not only create a piece of art but also make an empowering statement to the public of how capital and its production has changed our ways of interpreting sensations, particularly how dependent we are on the production of capital (i.e. technology) in order to gain information. Walking into the dimly-lit room, my eyes are immediately drawn to the the large patterned rug-like piece entitled Perspectus...a...um. Made of hand-woven wool fabric, the plaid patterns of the piece reminded me of high-end fashion. Upon later realizing the significance of the exhibit, particularly Oleson's theme of the significance of capitalism in the growing altering of society's consciousness through materiality. In this case, the high-end fashion symbolizes the growing materiality in society and how mindful individuals have become towards vanity and overall seeking sensation through material things rather than experiencing them through other means. This theme is further explored throughout the exhibit, specifically highlighted in the art film, Crossed Wires.

Snuck in image of a Hammer museum worker who could not take a picture
with me and the artist's work entitled Matterspeaker connected to a copper wire.
Another piece that I found interesting was a speaker made of terracotta that was connected to a copper wire. The use of copper wire throughout the exhibit appeared to reflect how information can be moved, or in this case, "conducted", through material; copper is typically associated as a very conductive metal, so information can then be sent through the metal.

Panoramic still of the art film entitled Crossed Wires.

The film Crossed Wires further illustrated the idea of Third Culture between art and science as the video includes four performers as they encounter different settings, particularly that of a cave, mine, and city. As the four experience each setting and describe in a monologue the sensations they feel as they try to understand the world around them. This represents the idea of Third Culture as the artist uses video and includes settings of the production of material, in this case copper, as a means to reflect their perspective in art. 

Selfie at the Hammer Museum.

Through my experience at the exhibit, I definitely would recommend this exhibit to my peers as it reflects the core values of this course. I believe the artist's use of technology and copper in order to reflect the impact of capitalism on human consciousness and our growing dependence on material to gain information.

Works Cited
Oleson, Jeanine. 2016. Sculpture and Video. Hammer Projects: Jeanine Oleson, Hammer Museum.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WEEK 3: ROBOTICS + ART

Image
Prior to this week's unit, I was not aware of unique back and forth relationship between art and technology. I had always assumed that technology reflected art, as seen through digital art, but not the other way around. In retrospect, literary and film pieces I have seen, such as George Orwell's   1984   and the film   The Wizard of Oz , demonstrate how art can precede and conceive future technological advancements. The novel 1984 , published in 1949, introduces a dystopian future society that uses technology such as the Telescreen, described as something similar to today’s flat screen, to survey and communicate with its people (Smith). 1984 is a dystopian novel written by George Orwell that portrays various pieces of fictitious technology that have later been invented. Although The Wizard of Oz is not the first technicolor film, it is one of the first films to effectively use the process of technicolor to bring to life a piece
Read more

WEEK 2: MATH + ART

Image
Being a math major, I often view mathematics as an art. As explained by Professor Vesna, mathematics is "the study of the relationships of numbers...structures, spaces, transformations" (Vesna). For me, I see the beauty in the relationship between such numbers and mathematics' ability to explain all phenomena, whether it be the physics of atoms or the explored fourth dimension (or nth dimension) mentioned in both required readings. In spite of my perspective of mathematics as an art, I have never delved much into the specific connections between math and art. Although I had a basic understanding of math's relation to art in terms of architecture, due to my lack of background in art and my ironic lack of appreciation for geometry, I was not aware of the various principles of art that stemmed from mathematics. For example,  Professor Vesna in lecture discussed math's involvement in the shifting paradigm towards realist art,  in particular the concepts of va
Read more

WEEK 8: NANOTECH+ART

Image
Stained glass art uses nanotechnology.  Beginning unknowingly in ancient times through pottery and later stain glassed art, nanotechnology is a field that is fairly new and often misunderstood. As described in this week's article, it is difficult to comprehend the notion of nanotechnology in the traditional philosophical and visual sense in that "there is nothing even remotely visible to create proof of existence" (Gimzewski and Vesna 2003). Beginning with the structuring of carbon to the recent findings in the field, nanotechnology is slowly growing to become a part of everyday life through its applications and uses in art, medicine, and other fields.  In order to visually grasp such small material, many researchers use Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STMs) as the STM images the surfaces of the material at the atomic level. Through the imaging, they use contour mapping to outline the structure. I found this very interesting as it was very applicable to some of the
Read more