Friday, October 5, 2012

The Art of Altogetherness


In the words of Christo, the work of art is not each piece involved, or the process by which it is created, but “the work of art is altogetherness.”  He really embraces the idea of art being a product of the whole. It is not one piece, or color, or stroke that makes a piece of art; it is the combination of all these elements. It is a piece of art in it's entirety that is beautiful (thank you Alex Anna for wording it this way).  In 1973, Christo and Jean-Claude conjured up the idea to build a fence that would travel across the landscape for over 24 miles.  Made out of plain while panels that moved with the wind, “The Running Fence” outlined the invisible contours of the landscape.  It's incredible how breathtakingly beautiful something as simple as a white fence can be. It really did move and breathe with the contours of the land as if it was alive: “born along a hillside, breathing [with] the land, and dying without a trace” (thank you again Alex).  Another amazing portrayal of altogetherness was the In B Flat website.  Yes, each piece was interesting and pretty in its own way, but as videos were combined, and the pieces began to fit together, the music/creation as a whole was incredibly beautiful.  I was extremely impressed.  Enough to say that out of all the artworks we have looked at so far, this one has been my favorite.  Overall, this discussion of combining old and new media has led me to realize how connected old and new media are and will be.  It's very true that we make new media because of old media. This even ties back into what we've talked about in previous weeks about how almost all media is "recycled." We might "borrow" or take inspiration from some form of old media and turn it into new media, but once that new media becomes old, we might take something from it and make it new again: creating a cycle that never ends.

This week, I actually created what I planned out in last weeks blog.  I wanted to somehow portray the theme of boundary dissolution by combining my own traditional media (dance, specifically ballet) with some form of new media.  So from here I decided that I wanted to try dissolving the boundary between visual art (painting) and dance.  In simpler terms, I was the paintbrush and my movements were the brushstrokes.  I chose to use blue paint to represent ballet and yellow paint to represent contemporary so that there was a more visible distinction between the two genres of dance.  From here, I went on to film some simple steps (mostly just playing with the paint that was dripping from my toes) in black and white.  However, I was able to use a feature on my camera that allowed me to retain one color in the picture (first blue, and then later, yellow).  This way, the viewer only sees the color and picture being created altogether rather than focusing on the movement.


In the end, I achieved what I wanted to.  The colors mixed together to form green, depicting the dissolution of the boundary between ballet and contemporary (hence the black and white + green picture at the end of the video).  I’m very happy with how it turned out and luckily didn’t have any major technical difficulties this time.  I hope you enjoy!!

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