Radical Cartography

I am part of a family of artists. My dad and all of my older siblings are “right brained” and access their creativity on a daily basis. I believe that this is how I got my artistic ability and my love for the arts. For me this project is personal and involves my journey to get where I am today in the arts at K-State and where I will end up in the future. I made a list as far back as I can remember of how I became interested in art.

Home (art with dad)

Preschool (art as favorite subject)

Gradeschool (art classes, art camps)

Gradeschool-highschool-trips to art museums, art featured in State Fair shows

High school art classes

College tours to choose the best art program (high school)

College- freshman, sophomore, junior year art classes

Scholarships won from artwork

Graphic design studio tour visits to figure out where I want to end up (Nashville, KC)

Where do I want to end up?

Essentially, this map will be a deconstructed map of my journey with the arts. I am originally from Hutchinson Kansas but my art has taken me to different parts of state and even out of state. I will deconstruct the maps of these different areas that art has taken me and place them in order with where my journey started all the way up until the present.

Logo Heist

I looked into the cultural values of different companies and wanted to expose companies that practiced poor labor laws and/or health risks to humans and the environment. I found several companies that weren’t ecologically efficient as well as many that had poor labor practices. I have been familiar with companies like as Nike that have low wages for their overseas employees, both young and old, but I wanted to dig deeper. I found that companies like Nestle, Walmart, and Hanes all have this unfortunate practice.

I also looked into Monsanto, an agricultural company that uses GMO’s and lies about the effects. The pesticides that Monsanto produces can cause cancers, skin disorders, spontaneous abortions, premature births, and damage to the gastrointestinal and nervous systems.  I illustrated this by making the logo say “Must Say No” because it has the same number of syllables as Monsanto and I played with the plant they have in their logo to look like it is taking over as a genetically modified vegetable would.

Cultural Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs Review

I was unaware of what exactly cultural jamming was before reading this article by Mark Dery. I read this article. I also looked up images of what this looks like today and I realized that I see it quite often, people defacing ads to expose what a company is really about and/or who they take advantage of. I found it interesting that the article discussed the effects that television have on us, essentially brainwashing us into seeing what they want us to believe to be true.

The article discussed the Reagan years and the manipulation of images to create something that they wanted the people to see. The article also mentioned the lack of information that is fed to us if it is damning to the government. For example, he mentioned a filmmaker that brought back distressing images of Iraq under U.S. bombardment. He was fired and the footage never aired and people voted for the right not to know. This is what people thought of it in a pole done by The New York Times: “Given a choice between increasing military control over information or leaving it to news organizations to make most decisions about reporting on the war, 57 per cent of those responding said they would favor greater military control.”

Mark goes into detail about how the public should take action in controlling the message and its multiple ways of interpretation. In other words, as the audience, we have the ability to expose an underlying message that something might have. He also explains what it means to be a cultural jammer: “Culture jammers answer to that name. “Jamming” is CB slang for the illegal practice of interrupting radio broadcasts or conversations between fellow hams with lip farts, obscenities, and other equally jejune hijinx.” Mark went into detail about how cultural jamming has inserted itself into our culture today for example, “Outlaw computer hacking with the intent of exposing institutional or corporate wrongdoing is one example; “slashing,” or textual poaching, is another.” these are just a couple ways that cultural jamming is at work.

After reading this article I looked into cultural jamming more and found out just how much can be exposed about a business just from a few damning words slapped on alongside a companies logo. It challenges the audience to look into what a business is all about. This article was interesting because I didn’t realize how wide spread it was today. I now know to keep an eye out for more signs of cultural jamming.

Exercise 2 Postcards/Mail Art

I made two postcards for this project based on things that I enjoy. I love biking so I thought of the biggest biking event in the world. I based this first postcard on the Tour De France because it is something I would enjoy watching. The second postcard is a quiet, tranquil setting because when I vacation I like to go to places with a lot of air and room to breathe. This image made me think of tranquility the most. I wanted to make my postcards unique from what you would normally see on a drug store shelf. Overall this was a fun project and I enjoyed getting creative with it.

Project 2 Augmented Eyesight

I was eight years old when I first had to get glasses. Since then, every eye appointment I have had has shown that my eyesight is almost always decreasing. Sight is one of the most important senses that we have that some people unfortunately lack. I am interested  in Eye Write, a team that is working together to create a low cost eye-tracking system that allows ALS patients to draw using their eyes as well as BrainPort, a device created to allow blind people to see using the nerves of their tongue. With my idea, technological advances would allow for people who completely lack eyesight to be able to see in their mind by creating a brain map.

For a person who was born blind, their eyes are not connected to their brain or their retinas are not sending signals from their photoreceptors to their brains. Scientists have not been able to figure out how the retina works in processing signals in order to create an artificial eye that would allow a blind person to regain all of their eyesight. Since this is such a challenge, I came up with an idea that would allow a person to be able to see completely by allowing their mind to create a brain map and ultimately allow them to see completely with their mind.

This would be in the form of a contact lens. The lens puts sensations into their eyes which would translate to a brain map and allow them to see in in their mind. Much like light hits the cornea, the contact lens would essentially be the “light”. The sensations would move through the cornea, to the crystalline lens (part of the eye that further focuses light and allows to eye to see approaching objects) at this stage the sensations would allow a person to recognize how close or far away they are from an object without physically seeing it with their eye. From there, the sensations would reach the retina, the part of the eye that converts the images we see into electronic signals. Finally, sensations would move to the optic nerve which then sends these sensations to the visual cortex.

My idea stemmed from BrainPort, a device that allows a person to see by relying on the nerves of the tongue’s surface to send light signals to the brain.  This device uses a video camera that collects visual data that is worn like a pair of sunglasses on the user. The data is transmitted straight to a handheld base unit rather than to the eyes. My idea is similar to this but instead of it being translated into a handheld device, the sensations will translate into nerve signals that go directly through the eye and into the brain. This in turn will create an alternative form of vision in the brain, which I refer to as a brain map.

Challenges:A person who is born blind has other senses that compensate for the lack of a fifth sense. Won’t these overcompensating senses get in the way of a contact lens that is suddenly making a blind person see?

-No, the contact lens will essentially work in the way that the eye uses light, only no light is available, it is just the sensations and the nerve signals. It does not really affect their eye sight, it affects the images that the brain makes therefore, their other senses will not get in the way.

Why this is beneficial?  A blind person has no frame of reference for sight when they are born, this will essentially give them that frame of reference and furthermore, even though they will still be medically blind, it will make them able to see everything we see; the only difference being that it takes form in their mind.­­­­­­

Research: Augmented Body

Research

“Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind “See” with Their Tongues”

The concept of “seeing with your tongue” really inspired me. There are new innovations on the rise that give people the ability to see. Finding a way to give sight to the blind has proven to be a difficult task among scientist but they have come up with creative ways to make this possible. Basically, with this invention, people are able to see using signals that are sent to the tongue via a system of electrodes that sit on the tongue. Each electrode corresponds with a set of pixels, some pixels send a strong pulse while others send no signal. The information from these signals is then sent to either the brain’s visual cortex or its somatosensory cortex (it is not known for certain).

Link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-blind-see-with-tongues/

“10 Body Parts Science Is Replacing”

This article discusses how parts of the body that no longer work, are becoming frail, or are damaged can create a way for science to move in and replace parts of the body and allow us the ability to ­experience things we otherwise would not be able to.­­ Things like prosthetic hands, supersensitive skin, noses that smell disease, and artificial eyes are just a few of the ways that our bodies  can be augmented in to doing new and crazy things. I used this as a reference when trying to decide how technology can interact with the body.

Link: http://listverse.com/2013/12/11/10-body-parts-science-is-replacing/

Image links used for reference

http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/100512_Myelinkontrolle_cm/index_EN

http://www.webervisioncare.com/contact-lenses/

http://roguehealthandfitness.com/category/brain/

Augmented Body Proposal

I was eight years old when I first had to get glasses. Since then, every eye appointment I have had has shown that my eyesight is almost always decreasing. Sight is one of the most important senses that we have that some people unfortunately lack. I am interested  in Eye Write. A team is working together to essentially create a low cost eye-tracking system that allows ALS patients to draw using their eyes.

 

My idea behind this project is similar but also opposite. Technological advances would allow for people who either completely lack or have failing eyesight to be able to see based on their other senses.

They will not only be able to recognize certain things based on touch, hearing, taste, and smell but technology will now allow for them to fully see based on their reaction to these other senses.

Chance and Indeterminacy Final

Overall, my ideas for the execution of this project are relatively simple. I am following traffic and drawing lines. Using this simple recipe (mentioned in the previous posts) I ultimately ended up with a very unique piece of art. After much thought and experimentation I decided that adding colored based on what type of car was driving by would give me a more creative result, I think this added a lot to the aesthetic value of this piece.
This final piece shows the traffic patterns of cars driving past my house. This is the result of an hour of watching cars beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Truck=green line
Car=orange line
SUV=blue line
Van=red line

Project 1: Chance & Indeterminacy

Following Traffic Part 2:

Keeping with my original concept of following the traffic patterns of cars by drawing lines based on the direction the cars traveled, I decided that I would add a couple more elements. Each type of car was assigned a color of marker that I would use to draw the lines.

Blue=van

Orange=truck

Green=SUV

Red=car

I also decided that instead of numbering each car, I would simply add a circle at the end of the lines.

For the end result of this project, I either want to continue to add on to the traffic patterns that I have started or move to a busier street. I believe that heavier traffic patterns will create a more interesting work of art in the end.

Self Portrait

For my self portrait project I wanted to incorporate pictures that I felt best represented me and what I love. I chose two paintings that my dad made for me because he inspired me to do art throughout my life. One painting is of a flower and the other a bird. I included a tea kettle because I enjoy tea very much, that is also why I incorporated my cat mug (I also like cats). I included the opening page of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, because it is one of my favorite reads. I wanted these things to appear as a reflection.