Chris Coleman

Along with being able to have breakfast with Patrick Kelly, I was able to both attend Chris Coleman's lecture, and have breakfast with him, just in reverse order.

Chris's lecture focused around a couple of his completed pieces, and also around a few pieces he is currently working on. While Patrick's word was based heavily around photography, Chris's work was based more around sculpture and video, often a combination of both. The first piece he showed us involved both a video display, and also the sculpture that created the video. As you entered the display, a video camera recorded you, and fed the image to a computer which, depending on your physique and the color of your clothing, determined a pattern that was fed to the sculpture. the sculpture was a large table set with ~144 computer fans, which were covered with a billowy cover. as the air blew up, it created landscapes with the covering, that were fed via a live feed to the TV monitor set in the outer hall where you entered. the pattern that the computer made triggered a sequence of on and off for the computer fans, so as you watched the TV monitor, the "landscape" that was being made was a direct reaction to you. viewers could then go around behind the wall that the TV was in, and witness the sculpture itself. this is a true installation piece: it reacts to the viewers and it engages the viewers.

Chris's work, for the most part, is a commentary on our current socioeconomic situation in this country. i felt that this theme became a little old after awhile. i am not sure how to explain it. Patrick's work dealt heavily with nature, but more from a "i am in nature creating media" point of view, than Chris's "this is what we are doing to ourselves" point of view. i definitely agree things need to be done, and that we arent in a good place right now...but somehow it just didnt jive with me all the time.

Reponse to "Extended and Prosthetic Bodies"

i feel that this reading forces the question of "what is art?" to resurface inside me. obviously with the introduction of new technologies and materials, new forms of art will surface, but i feel that there are limits that sometimes are pushed a little too far.

take for example Orlan's performance surgery. there have been surgery shows on TV for years now. is the only difference that hers has crazier costumes and backdrops? or perhaps is the difference that she aired it with the intent of having it be viewed as art?

this then begs the question: "is art done for the artist? or for the viewer?" if it is being done for the artist, well then there needn't be any qualifiers at all. as long as the artist is happy with the work, all is good. however, if the work is aimed at the viewer, than is the artist considered to have failed if the viewers are not connecting with the work?

Stelarc's hook piece did not do much for me, except for invoke a grimace of pain. if that was his goal then amen to him, but i did not really vibe with the commentary of astronauts in zero-g.

so another thought that enters my head is "the appreciation of art linked to education?" can only people who have studied and understand these super modern, sometimes bizarro exhibits or performances really get them? does the fact that sure, i could lay myself in a pool of honey and pretend to be a fetus, or inhale my own excrement, but i just didn't think about actually doing it and someone else did, did make it art?

so then who truly qualifies the art? i find Horn's finger extensions to be extremely interesting. the idea of extending ones appendages in order to remove oneself from the object and the interaction is a spot-on commentary on rise of the internet and fall of interaction in modern society. does this mean that her finger extenders are art, but her giant red arm pillars aren't, because i am not inspired by them near as much?

i wonder if in hundreds of years, the things that people are doing today are going to be regarded in the same aspect as how we view the classics from the renaissance. are people going to talk about the 20th and 21st century and label our artists the next generation of Van Goghs and De Vincis? did people in their times, ever view their work not as revolutionary, but ever as odd, disgusting... not artwork?