The Bean!: Ryan

Jeromie and I got a chance to be major tourists and take photos with sculptor Anish Kappor's Cloud Gate (nicknamed The Bean) in Millennium Park. It was definitely on my list of must sees while I was here. It was only a couple blocks away from our hotel, luckily.

Chicago's beautiful towering buildings are even more incredible as warped organic curves in Cloud Gate's reflection. We approached the massive piece of art while watching our doubles on the surface, the cityscape wrapped around behind us.


After Gawking at the Bean, we headed over to the Art Institute of Chicago (our CAA IDs got us in for free), where we saw the artworks we had only seen projected in a dark art history class. The most famous piece was of course (because of art historical and pop culture recognition) A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte painted by Georges-Pierre Seurat. Picasso, Van Gogh, Warhol, and all the greats were also present of course, but
what really got my attention more than the Paintings were some of the more recent new media works



Being Not Truthful Always worked Against Me
by Ralph Ammer, 2006

An interactive projection showing an animated spider web that attachs to you as you walk past it. I love this piece because it is an example of how digital art using interactive programming makes people want to move around and be part of art, and make stupid gestures while strangers watch them.

CAA Thursday Feb, 11: Ryan

Art in the Age of Dispersion

Michael Mandiberg, a member of the Eyebeam Art Group, spoke at a session I attended today called New Media: The Culture of Dispersion. He considered and shared his experience with The internet and sharing an invented idea or product.

One vocabulary word several of the speakers during the session used was: Snack. Snacks are quick instantly gratifying, interesting finds, like a site, video, picture or idea on the web. People who use services like Delicious or Digg bookmark snacks. It's sort of the like the internet is full of little ceramic figurines and when you find one you like, you take it and put it on your mantel to enjoy later.

Michael Mandiberg went on to explain how he considered success on the internet "being copied". You know your snack has reached its potential when people are imitating it and spreading it elsewhere. Snacks are not about financial gain, but about influence. You birth the snack and then let if go alone into the world in hopes that it will flourish without you.

Michael also spoke about open source software and objects. The term Open Source is usually associated with being "free", but it actually means the creators give out the source code used to build the product so you can alter and build upon the software if you have the knowledge. I never really thought of objects as being Open Source, but Michael shared several open source object projects with which he was involved. These were objects that could be built and altered by anyone who liked the idea.

Image at the top of this post is Micheals Bright Idea Shades Project: http://eyebeam.org/project/cfl