Class Presentations

There were many different presentation styles used for the visual essays. Some people chose to use scripts, while other chose to go with no notes. Also what people actually talked about varied greatly and how they used the pictures to support what they were saying. Many people chose to largely talk about each individual picture, which was the method I picked for the most part. While a few others simply talked about an overall theme and just had the picture in the background enforcing that theme. I enjoyed the second method the most, but found it harder to create a presentation like that.

Old vs New seemed to be a pretty common theme along with architecture. There were many example one campus and examples from around the world. Centennial Olympic Park was also a common theme, probably because it is close to campus. I enjoyed being able to see everyone else's work and compare them to my experience.

Visual Essay

I experienced a lot more than just art while working on this visual essay. Which was the point.  I found out much more about the city of Atlanta while looking for my pieces of public art. And I learned about photography and how to take better pictures. I hope that skill shows in my essay because I tried to work on taking interesting shots of public art. I have never really seen myself as a photographer at all before this project. A couple girls, who I practiced my presentation in front of, even complimented the pictures and they didn't even know that I had taken them. I not only became a better photographer but I also worked on my public speaking skills. That maybe could have been a part of this project that I could have improved on a bit more. Maybe it could be a topic to work on in class, just a suggestion for future classes. Overall I really enjoyed this project. But I think I'm ready to get back to the High because I don't want to waste my $35 membership!

Nature as Public Art

Natural Bridge
Sewanee, TN

Nature is the perfect example of public art. Nature creates its out benches and walkways and provides us with breathtaking landscapes. Nature does not need the help of an artist to be created. A city does not have to pay money to create nature (unless they are landscaping, which in that case they do, but that isn't really true nature). Many tourist towns revolve around nature and the views it provides in order to draw in tourists. And it works. People like the views and hikes they can see and go on. Public art does not always have to be man made; it can sometimes be created naturally.

Out of the Ordinary Bus Stops

While at home this weekend, I started to observe more of the local art. Home for my happens to be Athens, GA. Some of the art can be UGA related, but I won't post about that. I found the bus stops that were decorated by local artists very interesting. I've seen them pretty much all my life, or at least all long as I can remember. (So that really means as long as I've be driving) Athens uses local artist to decorate public areas throughout the city. More bus stops were actually recently built with musical themes and more will be built soon. You can visit this website to see more information. I think that this is a great way to display public art in a useful way and encourage the use of public transportation.

Functional Public Art

The theme that I'm pretty positive I am going to use for my project is functional public art. I've had the best luck finding this type of art around Atlanta, and I can also understand functional art the best. Some example of functional public art I have found include picnic tables, bike racks, walkways, fences, and fountains. These things all serve a purpose and become art second. But since I was on a mission to find art, when i saw most of these items I immediately saw them as art, not functional piece. It wasn't until later when I uploaded the pictures to my computer that I realized that most of the pictures I took were of functional items. I hope to get out tomorrow and have one last day to take pictures. It just seems so hard to find art around Atlanta, at least compared to other places I have been. Atlanta is just not an artsy city. But by finding art in the things that most people would overlook I think that I will be able to come up with plenty of pictures for my project.

Animated Public Art

An example of one of the artist's walls

Here is an amazing video of a mixture of public art and graffiti. The artist uses graffiti, which can be seen as public art to some and not to others, to create images on walls that were put together to make this video. I personally agree that this is public art because he has made this available to everyone and the space used to create the art was public. This person's ability is extraordinary. How they can paint one picture then paint another and make them all cohesively flow together into a movie is beyond anything I could ever imagine doing. I hope this person continues to make public art so that onlookers can enjoy there work (or not enjoy it...everyone has their own opinions.) You can go to this person's website to view more of their work. It tends to be a bit more morbid, but they paint murals on publics walls and  more videos can be found on their site as well.

The Past Decade in Pictures

I came across this website that uses pictures to represent the major events in this past decade using pictures. I feel as though this website fits with the theme of Mirzoeff's article. Artistic views of real life events are shown using pictures. Some of the most life altering events of our lives are represented on this site such  as 9/11 and the election of Obama. It seems like at first glance that almost all the pictures are war related, but when you go back and take a closer look you realize that they really aren't. I was going to talk about how sad it was that this past decade is represented by pictures of war and terrorists, but then I found pictures of the Beijing Olympics and Michael Jackson's death. Each picture is amazing in that is can take you back to the moment when that even happened. You are right where you were when you first heard the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane, which happened to be my fourth grade classroom, or you are taken back to last summer when H1N1 broke out at your summer school program...or maybe that one is just me. I found all of these picture wonderful and sad and a great walk down memory lane and none of these events ever need to be forgotten.

And for any followers who are not in my class here is the link to the article by Mirzoeff if you wish to read it.