Everyone
is attracted to different types of art. Some like traditional and other not
along those lines, for this project we had to find two artists under the
umbrella that constituted as digital media. AS presentations where presented I
saw that everyone had a different taste or an attraction for something
different. For my project I wanted to stay a long the lines of art pieces
having to do with video games or something with that feel. Through my extensive
searches I found two artists Jose Ulloa Acosta and Alan Kwan. These two artists
captured my attention and for good reasons.
Jose
Ulloa Acosta is an artist based in Chile.
He earned his Bachelors in art at Pontificia Universidad Catholica de
Chile. It’s one of the six catholic universities that Chile has. He also studied at the Universidad
Metropolitana de Ciencas de la Educacion, meaning
metropolitan university of sciences for education. And he is now studying at
the University of Barcelona for his Masters in production and artistic
investigations. The piece that caught my attention from him is called Fabrica
la Ruina, meaning created ruin. It was a video installation in his gallery
‘Construir la Ruina.’ which was exhibited July 5 - August 3 in 2010.
Essentially the piece is a video of brick blocks shaped as Tetris shapes
falling and then breaking upon impact with the floor. The sound that
accompanies the piece is the classic Tetris game music. The background is black
so your sole focus is on the bricks. The bricks come down in a slow motion
kinda like stop action. And a little before impact its normal speed footage of
the blocks breaking.
http://www.ulloa-acosta.org/page/video.html [First video on the page]
Alan Kwan is a media artist and filmmaker that is based
in Hong Kong. He had over 10 years of film experience and has won many awards
at film festivals including Hong Kong International Film Festival. He is
currently working on something called Lifelogging. His current system for his
Life logging glasses, which is just a rigged system of a camera in his glasses,
is what I focused on. The video he made describing the program Memory palace
was just so captivating. It’s a program designed to be a companion piece to the
lifelogging glasses. The lifelogging glasses record your daily experiences and
at the end of the day you import your ‘memories’ into program Memory Palace.
Memory Palace is a virtual world where your video clips take forms of blocks.
You can move these blocks around and also cut them into shorter clips. You are
able to add different buildings to store your memories in, and you are also
able to add decorations. In this virtual world there is a town. Within the town
are people who walk around with segments of your memories as their heads. You
are not able to edit these clips. This program was quite interesting when I
first saw it, yet it raises many questions.
Memory Palace from KwanAlan on Vimeo.
When reading about Jose
Acosta’s piece, I found a very inspirational description for it. What he wanted
for the viewer to see was not his art but the meaning behind it. What he wanted
to convey was the idea that the Tetris blocks are the social influences and
essentially memories and things that make you yourself. Just like in Tetris you
build up and make the pieces fit. When the blocks are rectangular and destroyed
he is trying to say that we are not made up and we don't have to be defined
under those things. We don't have to be created by that mold society put on us.
I fell in love with his meaning and now knowing what he was trying to convey I
wouldn't be able to make my own interpretation of the piece. In Alan Kwan’s
program you have the basic idea of just storing memories. What I got out of it
was so much more though. The idea that you can remember everything precisely is
a bit scary. You not only have the good but you also have the bad. You can log
in and relive all those good times, but also remember that with good also comes
bad. I find the meaning behind this piece to be grounding, that those memories
make you who you are, including the good the bad and the boring. Without those
you would be no one but a blank slate.
In interpreting the two I found many similar and
different ideas and concepts behind them. Memories seem to be a big part in
both the pieces. Acosta uses his in more of a destructive way, while Kwan views
his to be cherished and stored. Memories are the central focus of both od the
pieces. There are a lot of differences between the pieces as well. Acosta’s is
a video while Kwan’s is essentially and game program. The biggest difference I
found in between them are the way the interpreted the concept of ‘memories.’ While both projects are amazing
in there own ways they also have faults with them. I would have wanted Acosta’s
piece to be bigger and more in your faces and I would have loves Kwan’s piece
to be more out there.
Walter Benjamin talks about the recreation of art pieces
and the aura of the piece. Digital media is kind of a tough one when it comes
to reproducing and feeling the aura. Many would say that digital media doesn't
have an aura, but it does. The two pieces both have amazing auras. Acosta’s
piece has a slightly darker aura while Kwan’s has kind of a happy one. They
both make their presence known. On to the next point would any of these be
reproducible and still have that same aura? Not at all. They both have
something going for them. In Kwan’s case it would be difficult to reproduce
suck a unique idea such as the lifelogging idea. On the other hand it would be
just as easy to take that same concept and make your own with it.
In conclusion this two
pieces ‘Fabrica la Ruina’ and ‘Memory Palace’ are both unique pieces that
caught my attention. There were a lot of wonderful things and a lot of things I
did not like about each, but whether I like it or not is none of their concern.
You should make art for yourself not for the attention of others.--I contacted both but no reply so far
http://bilbaoarte.org/?p=1398317&lang=en
http://www.kwanalan.com
http://www.galeriamacchina.cl/construir-la-ruina-jose-ulloa-acosta/
http://www.ulloa-acosta.org/index.html
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
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