Arlington Arts Center

I enjoyed our surprise field trip last Friday. After a whole week of classes, it was nice to get out of the classroom and look at actual work. The Public/Private exhibit was thought provoking.  I had mixed feelings about some of the pieces and I found describing and discussing them with friends and family over the weekend helpful. Not to mention Febreez makes great dinner party conversation. People have much stronger thoughts and feelings about air freshener than I anticipated.

I found the piece with the two newscasters intriguing. It reminded me of what the world is like with Facebook. I am relatively new to the whole Facebook thing and not a particularly tech-savvy person. I tend to use it in a really basic way-looking at/sharing pictures and sending messages much like email. However, I have friends that use it as much more of a personal "journal-like" thing. I am still coming to terms with how I feel about people describing what they are eating, thinking and doing at various times of the day. This piece seemed to me to be a really clever commentary on this phenomenon. For me it asked the question what really is news and what do I need to know to participate and function in the world? Do I need to know what my cousin made for dinner last night? Also what is the consequence of having all of this information out there? Do we get overwhelmed by the minutia and unable to distinguish things that are important from things that are not? Of course I don't have any answers but I appreciate that this piece made me revisit these questions. So I guess I will just finish my cookie, get in the car and head home to make tacos tonight:)

Arlington Arts Center

Well surprise surprise! We went to Arlington Arts Center which works out just super for me cause AAC is the subject for my project in Museums and Communities, so I got to kill 2 birds with one stone! Yipee !

I had never been there before and I picked it as the subject of my Museums and Communities class project purely cause it is in VA and I wouldn't have to go into DC to visit. 

The exhibit "PUBLIC/private" was interesting to say the least. But I am not gonna lie, it does bring up that question to me of "what is art?" I'm not sure who is qualified to say what is/isn't art but if it's me I am going to say some of that stuff was not art,  or at least it was bad art!

I did however enjoy the news show from the "Everything That We Know News Network". There were 2 computer screens set up showing a mock news show that husband and wife team, Chris Barr and Veronique Cote, did. The two of them acted as newcasters and reported the "news" about family members. They talked about mundane (and not so mundane) things that were going on in the lives of their family members as if it were the news. At the top of the screen there was a rolling scroll of "up to the minute news" which was actually things family members were submitting via twitter. 

I thought it was hilarious! It went along with the theme of "public/private" taking the private lives and issues of these people and bringing them into the public realm and I suppose hopefully, raising awareness on certain issues that effect us all in day to day life.

My least favorite was the video of the lady with the red signs that stood around in different spots in DC waiting for a reaction. I watched that video for a good 10 minutes I think and on the card next to it, it said that some people did have some surprising responses as they walked by. I saw none of that, people didn't even pay attention to her. I'm still trying to decide if it is still art when nobody pays any mind to it. 

Arlington Center of the Arts

Hi All,

I really enjoyed our field trip last week. I have never been to the arlington center of the arts before and I thought it was a pretty cool place.

The activity I enjoyed the most HAD to be where we sat in a room with this Febreze airfreshner contraption. There was this small room that had paper, pens, and this cd looking device that gave off different febreze aromas. With the paper and pens we were supposed to record our reactions to the different smells using words, stories, or drawings. Once we completed the activity we could hand in our paper to the front desk and they would eventually hang the paper in the room with a bunch of other stories/drawings.

I had fun writing. The smell reminded me of a hotel I stay at when I visit my family in Kansas. I briefly wrote about a memory I have from kansas and a few other random thoughts that came to mind.

Also, after the activity I was completely relaxed! Sitting in the small room smelling the aroma had completely relaxed me, along with recording my random thoughts. It was a release that I was not expecting to be so rewarding. Even Mark commented on my new relaxed nature.

In my art therapy class we have to keep a visual journal. I have decided that this week I will experiment with different smells and then record my feelings/reactions in my journal using words or pictures.

Thanks for the experience Mark! See you all Friday.


cheers!

Nikki and Tina's night out

Nikki (from last semester's collab studi0) and I went out with some friends this past weekend. We went to "Science Club". Turns out this place has a blackboard for people to write chemical equations or something (some people were really doing this too). So Nikki and I decided to do some collaborative art right there! We did a figure drawing. This is the picture of it, there's some more to it but I couldn't fit it all in the picture. Aren't we great?