Installations and Environments

This class offeres upper division undergrads a chance to explore non traditional media and time-based concepts in art. The approach is simultaneously theoretical and technical, combining hands-on exercises with reading. Projects are assigned in the following areas: Conceptual Art, Performance, and Environmental Installation.

In keeping with the twentieth century shift of focus from medium to idea as a working methodology, this course stresses thematic development. Students explore a conceptual basis for their artistic production to encourage development of a consistent body of work. Additional emphasis is placed on the necessity of and options for documentation.

Ryan Lawless

Laura Hyunjhee Kim

Anyone Can Say I Love You But You Belong To Me

This installation was created to evoke a physical and visceral response from the viewers. Installed in a small water tank room of a dingy basement, the piece was viewed individually under the guidance of the artist. After each viewer was handcuffed with a leather belt and blind-folded, he/she entered a narrow hallway that led into a small room. In complete darkness, the viewers were seated on an old tire and allowed to take off their blindfold when themusic came on. A video was shown to the viewers and they were directed to watch it until the artist reentered the room. The black and white video hada fast tempo image of a blind-folded boy screaming and violently shaking accompanied by a loop Marilyn Monroe Anyone Can Say I Love You, specifically edited to repeat the phrases Anyone can say I love you,Love you, But you belong to me in a random order. After three minutes, thevisual ended with a black screen. The viewers were abandoned in complete darkness with just the loop of music coming out of the black television screen for another 30 seconds. After the video ended, the artist came into the room and turned on the lights for the viewers and led them out of the room.

http://www.lauraonsale.com/

Trina May Smith

Interstice

As you enter the gallery, you can see a glowing grid and there is a base heavy sound that fills the room and gets into your bones. It sort of lures you in and you are compelled to move closer. As you get closer there is a projection on the floor that you couldn’t see from a distance. The projection is a random loop of war images. There are bombs going off, people in face masks, heavy machinery etc. The projection on the wall is constantly shifting. The same images that are on the floor are distorted layered randomly in various sizes. You can not tell at all what the images are on the wall but they relate by color etc. to the floor images. There are 800 plaster squares that make up the pattern on the wall and floor. The paper airplanes that the projection is going through cast shadows on the floor and wall and create an ominous feel. The audio is of a helicopter blade slowed down to about the speed of a heartbeat and there is also a sort of distant sounding higher pitched tone that is reminiscent of a war siren that fades in and out. The pattern speaks of the underlying way that happenings such as war cycle through our societies. In addition the pattern on the wall has a digital feel, which speaks to the notion of how information is presented through the media. The images on the floor are the reality of what is happening…

https://toryfolliard.com/artists/trina-may-smith

Zoe Berg

Untitled

Untitled by Zoe Berg is a fabric and video installation, using red hued sheets and clothing cut at the seams, sewn together. The material expands a narrow passage way, bleeding into video projections depicting the fabric subtly moving.

https://www.zoeberg.net/

Luke Ahren

This piece accomplished many things for my current body of work. This was the first step in getting my work into the world outside of a gallery setting with a public audience in mind. The idea of interrupting a mundane space was of interest in this project. With the work I am setting up an idiosyncratic abstract visual language that lies in between natural and synthetic, organic and inorganic, referential and non-referential. The shapes and forms come from my own empirical observation of life. When installing the work I am conscious of each individual piece as a function of the whole. This references social networks and interactions in a symbiotic community.

Reo Glancy

Mood Ring

This site-specific installation at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI features a glass display case enclosing a white plastic hand chair. The hand is adorned with a ring that contains an analog television screen. As there is static on the TV, a pair of headphones rests outside of the case for the viewer to tune in and listen. This piece is installed alongside the museum’s permanent chair collection. Mood Ring conjures a forgotten past while poking fun at contemporary notions of interactivity.