AV Sara Bielski
Video Reflection By:
Sara Bielski
Both the American Vision video and The Way Things Go video were very eye-opening to me. I found it interesting when The Way Things Go explained the ideas behind American acceptance and being patriotic along with consumer culture and celebrities. American Visions kept my interest by elaborating on the ideas behind cultural influences and how we value the importance of the human hand. These kinds of thematic subjects tied together and helped give a better understanding of our country, our art, and our identities.
Flags, red white and blue, stars and stripes, freedom, peace, are all words used to describe the profile of America, or at least what we want our profile to be. Society today has trouble looking past the negative and finding the positive in our culture due to fear, lack of trust, and being closed-minded. As artists in the studio, we need to learn to adapt to those things and overcome them so as to express from another angle, what our country has come to be over the past millions of years. Sometimes we are proud of our country, and at other times we fear it and become angry with what is going on. America is ever-changing, and to me, so is art. This leaves an interesting relationship between the two, and I further believe this is why so many artists take such interest in making our country, or elements or events of our country their subject matter. Artists have the largest avenue of expression and I find it unfortunate when that avenue is not put to good use. Jasper Johns and his focus on America and all its imperfections is an excellent example of this. He went against the norm and found that what appears to be pleasing to the people can also be somewhat controversial to the people as well. Using elements of war, death, life, and peace all at once was an excellent contrast in his application of ideas.
Art to society can be a number of things. Pleasant, disturbing, hurtful, heart-wrenching ... the list goes on of what kind of perceptions are applied to our society's work. I mentioned earlier that I believe art to be an avenue of expression, and how I value the importance of expression. As humans, we are constantly looking for ways to express ourselves. Communication, facial expressions, body lannguage, applying the senses are merely some of the hundred upon thousands upon millions of way we have to communicate. Without these skills our country would not run smoothly, and it would not be pleasant, and it would lose its appeal that so many people find. Using art in any of the possible forms can only better our communication. Art allows society to interact at their own pace, at their own will, and at their own level of understanding. It can bring a society together by those means and by means of simply discussing or comparing thoughts and ideas. It opens up a world where yes and no answers do not exist, and where right and wrong can be interpreted differently, and where we are all at the same level having been subject to something for the first time. Time after time we can look at the same piece of art and find new alternate meanings. I think as a society constantly searching for meaning we find that pleasurable which intrigues us, giving us a high appreciation for the artists who help us tune into that aspect of our culture. Andy Warhol's pop art and consumer cultured work connected people that were home to that era. Even now, his work from that time can still be interpreted and seen as a sort of blast from the past, or even something that connects a common ground to both cultures of then and now. I am a very big fan of his work. I take interest to it because it was something new and innovative and something that people were almost taken back by at first but then understood as time and culture continued to progress.
Work like Andy Warhol's art dealt with much of what the celebrities and much of what the public was starving for. The glitz and glam gone wrong or other controversial issues. I think people take to his work because society is so hung up on "reality" and fame and fortune and continuously wondering what it would be like to live a day in the shoes of someone else. This struggle with identity is was compells certain people to hold interest in having a sense of belonging or similar connection with those things normally out of reach in our so-called reality. This need for a connection to something can even be extended to inademate objects. I never noticed the connection until we watched the clip of the domino effect on all the objects with the bags, tires, fire, liquids, balls, etc. As one thing ended you had a sense or a feeling about what was happening next so the interest wasnt brought to an abrupt stop by simply ending the sequence, it kept you interested in waiting for the next reaction to be set off in order to further the sequence. The connection between myself and all of the non-living objects in the sequence was more about movement. Even though the objects had no real-life characteristics they moved and caused equal or opposite reactions and we as humans perform everyday tasks that have the same result. Making that connection shows that I can identify with things other than people, and for the first time I actually thought about other instances I may not have realized before seeing that video.
America, America's art, and America's people are all woven into an extremely complex web of connections through perception, senses, feelings, and or experiences. By recognizing the connection and the constant change between all of those things, artists can establish how to keep people intersted and how to distinguish what turns people away. Once those things are recognizable, they can pick and choose what meaning they want to convey through their work and because there are so many different avenues of expression, we find equal or different meaning in almost everything around us to give each individual their own understanding of all the complex connections hidden in between.
Another reflection
PCS Sara Bielski
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