Jackson Pollock is quite an interesting artist.  He went against the norm of traditional painting, and made many question his works with true passion and intensity.  In a recent lecture by Dr. Richard Taylor (above), a professor in the UO Department of Physics, he talks about the scientific as well as the artistic research done on Pollock’s work along with the results that had come along with it.  It was something quite new to me even though I already knew of Pollock’s work.  It was an eye-opener and somewhat of an inspiration.

What made me surprised about Pollock’s work?  Well, from what I knew before the lecture, Pollock’s paintings were just splatters on huge canvases.  At first, many thought of this as nothing.  It was something quite new and out of the art norm.  They thought it was a joke and did not appreciate the time and process behind his ideas.  What I did not know was that Pollock’s time span of work was not what I expected.  One, he once took six months to actually start a painting because the size of the canvas intimidated him.  And when he actually starts working on a painting, he must use fast and swift strokes instead of pausing after each splatter.  He must have had to know exactly what he wanted quite well in order to just continuously move across the canvas without making a mistake.  That is quite impressive.

I am not so sure how I will incorporate Pollock’s ideas or methods he used into my project.  My project sort of seems to take a little more time to do and needs that attention to the very, very fine details.  I am also gonna be using more of a paper and pencil type of project.  Maybe, I can try to do fast sketches without stopping to fix anything to see how well I can do it.  Something a little different, so it could be fun to experiment.

After the lecture, I had more of an appreciation for Pollock’s artwork.  He is a great artist, but I never really gave his work any deeper thought.  I understand more of how hard it was to do his work along with how much it is worth compared to back then and now.  I feel that I should do more research into artists from the past and get a better grasp on their meanings and designs.  I think it would really expand my field and knowledge in the art field even more, and benefit me when I start to pursue my own career.

From the beginning when art first started out, many advancements and techniques were discovered and created.  A huge approach that challenged art was Jackson Pollock’s fractals.  Pollock’s fractals, physically, were paint splatters on a giant canvas.  The colors of the paint splatters depended on the theme he wanted to focus on.  In an online article, Perceptual and Physiological Responses to Jackson Pollock’s Fractals, it goes into depth about what the fractals actually meant and what affect it has on the human brain.  With experiments and comparisons, they had concluded that Pollock’s work really did have a deeper meaning to it than meets the eye.  I must agree with this article.  Pollock’s art might have just looked easy enough for just anyone to do, but the manner of how it was done and the goal of what he had wanted to portray through this painting, no one could truly replicate, thus, making his art incredible.

To look more at the physical aspect about the paintings, the article points out the inspirations, colors, and D value of the paintings.  Some of the art that Pollock had done was in nature.  He first started drawing out islands and perfected his technique over the next few plus years.  He would start off with an anchor layer and build up his colors from there, layering one after the other.  Pollock also had changed his D values.  D values are parameters used to describe patters that occur at different magnifications and how they combine to create fractal shapes.  The D values range between 1 to 2.  The closer the value is to 1, the smoother the area with no fractal structures, while 2 is where the area is completely.  According to the image on the left, on the D scale values are tied into certain nature fractals.  Now this is where the sight of a person is used because of the Pollock’s fractals.

According to a study, people first seem to scan over the artwork once and then look for a focal point to expand off of in order to study the details better.  Luminance, color, and orientation are factors that actually draw in the eye of a person more while viewing abstract and representational art. After a little experiment of showing images on a screen of Pollock’s work, the results showed the variation of where the viewers’ eyes would look, jumping from one spot to another.  It was confirmed, in the study, that the eyes usually follow a standard fractal trajectory of D value 1.5.  The study continues beyond that though.

Going more into the esthetics of fractals, another experiment was conducted.  They wanted to find out if the D value of the fractals presented were influencing the viewer’s esthetic preference, not directly, but subconsciously.  They presented two images with different D values to them, all in three different categories: nature’s processes, mathematicians, and humans. and asked the subject which one is more appealing to them.  The results showed that people’s preferences were between the range of 1.3-1.5, close to the results from the previous experiment mentioned.

To go even further, the research and experimentation continued to see how fractals affected humans’ physiological states.  In order to do this, they presented subjects with high and low stress level scenarios.  They would create a scene of stress while having to face a continuous image on the wall and then give these experimenters a 1-minute period of rest by. It showed, in the end, that the least stress risen was at the D value of 1.4.  To extend the research more, the researchers chose to go into the neurophysiological responses by having people be exposed to different levels of D values.  According to the D values, natural landscapes had more of relaxed results rather than townscapes.

So has Pollock really created something that is too easy for anyone to just do?  I personally think not.  Although Pollock had just did splatters of paint, there is some techniques behind it.  With the fractal data taken into account, one must know how much paint needs to be splattered onto the canvas in order to appealing and easy to look at for the viewer without stressing them out.  It is like putting red and blue together, but separately.  If one were to want red and blue paint to criss-cross each other without too much blend, the artist must know when to stop adding a certain amount of paint in order for each color to be distinct without ending up as a mush of purple.  I know I can have trouble trying to distinct how much color should be used, and I do screw up with the amount.  However, even if it is just paint splatters, I really think that they it can be incredibly appealing and fascinating to just look at and ponder about things.

Although people take Pollock’s splatter or fractals have everyone being confused or just not interested, there is more to the backstory of his methods.  From extensive research, it proves that humans do react to these fractals more than one would expect.  It is a subconscious process, but it does happen.  Our spectrum of fractals is quite average on the scale.  But this makes Pollock’s work way more intriguing.  How was Pollock able to figure out the right amount of paint to put on a canvas without the use of research?  How was he able to advance his technique even further?  I guess it takes a lot of time, observation, and patience, but Pollock really did an amazing job when presenting his art.

By the end of the term, I need to present a project.  This project is to mix my strong field, art, with a side I am not extremely familiar with.  Science.  I could not think, in the beginning of wanted to do as a final project.  I am not too good with coding, I was not the best in my biology or chemistry classes back in high school, and other forms of science I could not really get myself into.  I do enjoy science and I think it is a fun experience.  I mostly enjoyed labs and discovering something new that I have never seen before.  I thought about it for a bit, and I came to a project that I would find quite entertaining to do.  I chose to tie in art with the human body, or human anatomy.

I always found the human body fascinating.  In fact, psychology was one of my favorite science subjects because I was curious how the brain worked.  When I took art classes, I learned how to draw a human skeleton and I immersed myself into this project more than other ones.  I always draw human characters, eyes, mouths, hands, etc., even when I am only doodling.  I even have a poster of a skeletal system hanging on my wall as a reference (right).  It is not an easy thing to draw, but I love the challenge of it.  Human movements are also great to really get into detail with.  This is where muscle movements and how one’s body twists in certain ways causes the topic to become even more intriguing.  I am honestly getting excited while I am writing this journal just because of this one subject.  So, it is clear that I really have a deep interest about human anatomy.  Now even if I say I am interested in human anatomy, I am not really into how all the intestines or stomach works.  I am mostly interested in the basic structure that makes up the human body such as the bone structures and muscles.

Now for the actual project.  Since I really enjoy drawing human figures and faces, I decided that I would just do that.  I plan on taking pictures of different people in different poses and expressions.  Then, I would draw how their body structure would look to do a comparison of how each person is not the same even if what they are doing is.  I can also do facial expressions or, if I wanna go way further, try and draw the skull of someone just by looking at their face.  Once again, a challenging area, but I will definitely find joy in this project.

I have not done too much research on the field I am concentrating on as much.  All I know, from what I have drawn, the skeletal system of a person is incredibly complicated.  There are bones in between the main ones everyone refers to almost all the time.  As for the muscles themselves, that will be quite hard to grasp onto.  I am not familiar with muscle structures as much as the skeleton, so I might have to do more research on that part of the body just so I can understand how it works.  Once I know what muscle moves what, not too specific, but at least basics, then I can figure out how to draw the human body even more accurately in movement.

All-in-all, I really look forward to working on this project.  It will help me both in my art and science field.  I will be able to dedicate time into learning about how the human body works along with how I can draw it whenever I can.  It will definitely add to my doodles.  This is starting to get pretty exciting for me.

Everyone always turns their heads toward something that catches their eyes.  It may be something small or big, plain or detailed, shiny or matted, and the list goes on and on.  Whichever draws someone in more, nobody pays more attention to these factors than the one who presents them.  Presentation is key.  This can go for companies, advertisements, or even events at schools.  A huge field that has developed over the years with presentation is the internet.  Almost every single person visits one or more websites.  Some sites are sketchy while others are trusting.  How does one tell which is which?  By how the site looks.  Joshua David McClurg-Genevese wrote an article about how a website must be designed using certain principles and elements and how to use the web to their advantage to make the site more captivating.  I can agree with all of what Genevese has pointed out because of personal experience with the web environment.

Genevese had presented a few articles about web-designing.  I will be concentrating on two of these articles.  His first was entitled Designing for the Web concentrating on the little details of the basic web.  He gives five characteristics that make up the web-environment.  Resolution, designing for browsers, web-safe colors, graphics compression, and text.  Instead of going into great detail about each subject, I will give brief summaries of each based off of what Genevese wrote.

First, resolution.  This topic can be interpreted or referred to in different ways.  In general though, resolution is usually the quality and size of images, videos, or the web browser itself.  Higher resolution equals higher, grade A quality.  Web browsers are second on Geneves’s list.  Browsers are things used to actually connect to the internet.  A couple commonly used are Chrome or Firefox.  Each has their own pros and cons, so designing an actual website on them all depends on what you want and how much the browser can support your design and data.  Third, web-safe color is a set color palette that is rendered consistently in browsers on two major computer operating systems.  According to Genevese, “a true cross-platform Web-safe color palette is 216 colors”.  Distortions of colors in images could occur if one were step outside of this palette.  Next, images need to be optimized for the web so the right colors, size, and format can be rendered.  This is called graphics compression.  GIFs, JPEGs, and PNGs are three most commonly used graphic compression options presented.  Lastly, the way words are expressed onto the site.  This is also known as text.  There are multiple fonts available for someone to use with personalities of their own.  To make it more captivating, it would be best to choose a type of text that fits with theme one is going for.

In Genevese’s second article, Principle and Elements of Design, pertains to the designs of websites using incorporating the elements that artists use when creating a piece or taking a photo.  It is quite straightforward talking of the basics such as proportions, colors, lines, balance, etc.  All of these elements and principles are taken into account when trying to create something attractive and not so confusing so the user may have an easier time looking at the site and not want to click out right away.

The reason I agree with Genevese’s material he had wrote about is because I can understand how the internet and websites work.  I am on my laptop for almost the whole day.  During this time, I usually go onto a site called YouTube.  I discovered the site when it was first starting out in 2006.  Back then, its website design was still starting out, and it was not as sleek as now.  The colors were the same as today, red, black, and white, but, each person’s channel, a feature of YouTube, was based on their own color scheme causing it to be confusing, and the layout was a little unorganized.  Today though, a person’s channel’s profile and banner design’s are still individually customized, but the colors do not clash and the layout for each channel is the same.  It is less confusing and jumbled and very easy to follow if someone were to just start using the site for the first time.  I put a comparison of the front page of YouTube below this paragraph of 2006 and 2016.

YouTube Front Page 2016

YouTube Front Page 2006

Since YouTube is a video based site, the resolution of videos are taken into account.  1080 pixels and 60 frames per second has become the highest, smoothest resolution that YouTube has offered so far.  It is incredible how well the videos play compared to ones that are only 480 pixels and 30 frames per second which used to be the highest resolution that was used a few years ago.

Each site is created differently, but based off of Genevese’s article, the basic rules he presented of what makes a site is quite on point with sites today.  Even if a person does not realize that they are doing it, their minds know what is attractive and pleasing to the eye.  Once again, presentation is key and very important to anyone who uses the internet to present something through a website.

What do you see in this photo? How do you feel? Any hidden meaning?

“Art Meets Science” has introduced many ideas as well as many people.  In a recent lecture by Lisa Freinkel, she introduced to the class a new way to begin the journey of discovery.  Understand one’s own world first.  She emphasized how each person has their own way of perceiving life or the content within it.  People see the same objects or events, but the way it is interpreted is either a tad bit different or entirely different from each other.  I found this lecture captivating because I felt that I could connect to this main focus.

In the class lecture, Freinkel had the students partake in some activities.  One of these activities, as a type of an ice breaker, was to say the first thing that pops up in a person’s head.  Some people mentioned about certain things they were waiting for to come such as seasons of shows or upcoming events they were to attend.  I chose to mention my younger brother’s birthday since it had recently passed.  As the lecture continued on, she gave each person a packet of optical illusions with different images on it.  Some of the students, including myself, could catch the images being represented right away, but others had a harder time and had to be talked through seeing to seeing the second image.  An activity that was pretty fun to “revisit” was the “Dress that broke the Internet”.  The blue-black or white-gold dress.  Everyone knew of this dress, but the colors they all saw were different.  One of the students could switch between seeing blue-black and white-gold.  Others just saw blue-black, and the rest saw white-gold.  The class talked about their thoughts or experiences they had due to this dress, all being different.

Freikel’s lecture connected with me because I knew what she was talking about.  I knew that the way I thought was very different from everyone else in the entire world.  I’d say that the person who could ever think closest to me would be my younger brother.  But even if we have almost similar thoughts, that “almost” is quite a gap.  I have the brain of an artist, as my mom would put it.  I think up of ideas on the fly and can express them quite easily.  I give a lot of detail when explaining things because I think that every single detail counts, which is a downfall of mine when writing essays or telling a story.  I cannot focus on something for a long period of time unless my brain believes that it is “worth” to retain.  Other than that, my brain would wander, and I would not be able to stay on topic, especially in school.  The list of how my mind and view of the world works could go on and on, but this is pretty much the basic.  I am unique in my thinking no matter who I am compared to.

The lecture by Lisa Freikel really gave an insight of how the students in class worked in their heads.  Each person had their own unique thoughts about the activities given even if they were just simply looking at pictures.  No matter what, the minds of each other could never align correctly.  It may become extremely close, but there will always be that one little bump that sends the thoughts in many directions.

In the article Art Practice as Research in the Classroom, by Julia Marshall and Kimberley D’Adamo, it focuses on the new subject ‘art-based research’.  What they believe is that art-based research provides models for art practice-as-research in art education.  This type of art is made up of a research process which new knowledge is created or discovered.  They also believe that art-based research is “less linear, rule-bound, and ordered” compared to normal artmaking which is “rigorous and systematic”.  Although there are times where artmaking can be what they described from time to time, I would still have to disagree with what Marshall and D’Adamo says.  I personally believe that artmaking is just as free and unsystematic as art-based research in both a classroom or outside of one.

Marshall and D’Adamo states that art-based research has a way of teaching quite different than normal classes.  It stresses the artist’s thinking and the student’s work is seen as more of an evidence of learning.  Art practice is self-guided and motivated mostly by the student themselves.  It is a way for exploring a wide range of concepts and promotes higher awareness and thinking.  It is also mentioned that art research puts together creation and critique and changes how the students see themselves.  Art research allows students to go down their own path to discover new meanings and ideas.  An essential tool for this field is a “research workbook” which is a mixture of notebook, sketchbook, laboratory, and repository of findings from research and data collected.  It serves as a tool to help ideas start and grow.  Students have, according to research and studies, realized that research and thinking skills acquired in the art-based research classroom can also be applied to other academic studies, along with obtaining new research skills and the motivation to work autonomously governing their own decisions.

Although art-based research seems to be a field that pushes the limits of students and has their own unique way of doing so, I cannot help but to relate it directly to normal artmaking.  Being an artist myself, I can relate to all of these details describing art-based research.  Art alone can motivate a student to follow a range of ideas and discover or acquire new skills to forge their own path.  “Creation and critique” is a huge key in creating art pieces since there is a process along with opinions from themselves as well as others on how to make the piece even better.  The “research workbook” tool that was mentioned is incredibly like a normal sketchbook.  Ideas are created in it and the artist can practice techniques they never used before without going straight to the actual creation.  Artwork does not follow rules or a certain “agenda”, but rather goes according to the mood swings of the artist or what is presented at the moment.

Art-based research is an interesting field that should be looked into more, but it is not exactly the most unique field there is out there.  After an explanation, I personally cannot help but think of this as art itself.  The only difference I can think of is that art-based research goes more into the “data” or scientific detail  of certain objects or things.

Although art is mostly associated with drawing and painting, the field varies from sculpting to acting to media.  Photography, a medium increasing in the art field, is used quite often among everyday people, artist or not.  If he/she sees a scene that needs to be captured, they will pull out a phone or camera and instantly snap a shot.  Scientists have also adapted this process.  When discovering molecular structures or how a substance reacts to another, the visual results turn out to be more than just data on graphs.  Chris Palmer’s article focuses around this mixture of fields.  Palmer presents a variety of photos taken by multiple scientists who were in the middle of experiments and discoveries.  With these examples, Palmer emphasizes that some of the most beautiful and interesting things really do exist, but it sometimes needs a little help from a scientific mind to be exposed.

“C. Instagram” Meredith Wright

“Medusa” Jamie Barr & Cliff Brangwynne

The examples given in the article are all photos taken of organisms or substances that need a microscope in order to be viewed. Amazing images are created and the scientists have taken the opportunity to take a photo of it and display his/her discovery to the public. A couple of the images mentioned in the articles named “Medusa” and “C. Instagram” (above) were captured when microscopic worms were being studied. “Medusa” was taken when the scientist Jamie Barr was coming up with a new imaging protocol to understand signaling molecules more. She found this discovery “shocking”. The other worm related image, “C. Instagram” was taken through the microscope lenses with the iPhone of Meredith Wright. Wright posted the image she had taken onto Instagram and got comments from friends who were nonscientists asking for more information about this strange image and its content. In a molecular biologist’s, Anthony Ambrosini’s, opinion, he sees science as a way to explore the art behind it and what the image is trying to tell the viewer, communicating ideas or stories.

With the pieces presented in this article, I personally find this quite interesting and captivating. It is incredible how something I have seen as just data or even too plain can be presented in such a new way. It is a new approach that I have not seen very much of. It is increasing, but maybe not as fast as it should be. This does not only stop at microscopes or living things, the mix of science and art can be applied to machinery as well or just simple environmental studies. Being not of a science fanatic as much as an art one, I cannot create these images or projects of science by myself or even altogether. That is what also makes me drawn to these images even more. They are new to my field in art and I would like to learn how to do one myself someday. I may take a while and it might not be as good, but I believe it would be a fun small project to expand my knowledge. If the UO had any types of works similar to the ones in the article, I would like to take a look at them and see what else a scientist had discovered that came out to be more than expected.

In the present and oncoming years where science and art are starting to merge greatly, the genetic makeup or organism designs are turning into visual pieces of art. What has been only restricted to being seen through microscopes can now be enlarged and shown to the world. It sparks the interests of the viewers and makes them question what exactly is going on in the picture. It has become more of an immersive experience and I would like to see more studies in this field take place in the studio. Or at least make it an option, whether one would have either a scientific or art background, or both. Something new and fresh to add to the list of visual art.

Artists are everywhere.  Walking along the sidewalks of streets, in their studios, or even on a school campus teaching a class.  This also goes the same for scientists.  They’re either at school as well or in a secret lab located in Area 51 doing amazing out of this world experiments.  Even though these two groups have quite different objectives, their motive is still the same.  They want to learn more about what they are studying.  Now there is an actual middle ground between these two subjects.  This is where artist and scientist come together as one person.  The amount of people who are in this field has been increasing over the years, contributing to both the sciences and arts with their own little experiments and displays for the world to see.  Although I am not an art-scientist myself, I am just an artist, I would find it quite interesting to try it out myself just to expand my knowledge on the topic.  To help me get an idea of what I should do for a beginner’s project, I chose two art-scientists who caught my attention.  Hdoto and Tomas Saraceno.

h.o. (hdoto) is a group formed in Japan consisting of members that are specialized in the fields of computers and programming along with engineering.  In the beginning, they decided to base their projects on the search for themes that were invisible and universal such as communication and time.  The members would interchange between projects depending on their area of study.  As new members joined, h.o. decided to point their interests towards social aspects using advertisements.  I could make a connection with the members because I have had the opportunity to study a little bit of programming back in high school.  The subject, to me, was quite hard to understand and actually do, so it amazed me on how many people have a huge profession in this area.  Besides just the computers and engineering, the mixture of art and computers have been a great combination in my opinion.  Their ideas are also quite cute and unique allowing interaction with the audience, which I believe is a great factor in presenting pieces such as theirs.  I might even figure out a way to allow the audience viewing my art to connect with it further.

The second artist is Tomas Saraceno.  Saraceno has an architecture degree and postgraduate degrees in Art and Architecture.  His pieces focused on new, sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment towards an “aerosolar becoming”.  Although not much is said about him in his biography, I just like his focus about how to explore the environment and including it into an art perspective.  Art and the environment is quite beautiful together if one knows how to capture it correctly.  One of his works, “Poetic Cosmos of the Breath” really caught my attention.  It was a colorful inflated sheet that caught the light of the rising sun in the morning.  I have never seen someone do this kind of interactive art before, and I also loved how the colors just flowed on the sheet thanks to the wind and sun put together.  Even though I am not sure I will be using the natural environment in a piece soon, I just thought that the reason I am attracted to Saraceno’s work is because it sparks a type of feeling of awe of how beautiful something that needed so little to be.  Simplicity literally turned out to be more in the end.

Although my art piece by the end of the school year is not final yet, I decided that I these artists could help me move in a direction that would suit me and the art and science field.  Though I may not do exactly what they have done or in the same science field as them, their pieces are still make me think deeply about what can be done with what is given, either artificial or natural.  I look forward to the experimentation of ideas even more, knowing that the outcome could be as amazing as their own.

The environment is both visible and invisible to the human eye.  What the world can see, it is all very beautiful.  However, is the non-seeable just as beautiful and breathtaking?  Ned Kahn, an artist in Northern California took this issue into account.  He decided to take his artistic ability and his academic background in environmental studies and morph these two into sculptures.  An artificial creation having movements influenced or caused by the environment around it.  On the University of Oregon campus, one his works stands.  The Wind Fence (above) was a sculpture made in 2003 as a part of Kahn’s wind series.  This sculpture portrays the use of a simple art sculpture design and how it helps the wind manifest into a more physical form.

This sculpture is a curved form of seven huge metal faces upon stands.  It is quite large and extends from one side of the walkway to the other, hovering over the sidewalk so people may walk under it.  The faces are made up of tiny squares that are all hanging side-by-side on metal lines all in multiple rows.  When the wind blows, the squares flap, causing them to reflect light off and on their shiny surfaces.  This piece was placed in a wide spacious area that was not completely confined by buildings or trees.  This allows the sun to shine right on the sculpture and leaves room for the wind to blow easily through the area to animate it.

Kahn’s intention of the piece in the first place was to capture the movement of the air currents, thus, requiring the piece to be all visual.  Going back to the placement of the piece, the area must have been a huge factor.  Certain wind currents must be passing through that clearing that no one really notices.  Students, teachers, and visitors just of think of wind as nothing more but wind.  Kahn wanted to change that.  He wanted to make the invisible visible in a “flashy” manner.

I personally find his way of art and science quite fascinating.  Above is a personal sketch I did of Kahn’s piece.  It catches my interest of how the environment plays a role almost invisible to the human, yet a simple idea of making a sculpture that is influenced by the wind could capture how it works.  I have seen this sculpture in action.  It looks amazing as the squares move according to not only one big gust of wind, but the constant small breezes that pass through.  They do not move all at once, switching in and out of reflecting and not reflecting, glimmering nicely on a sunny day.  The squares themselves look like waves on the ocean.  I also find it amazing how he was able to pull this whole project off.  Since I am not strong in sculpting or 3D design and prefer drawing and painting, it would be quite a difficult project for myself to even think up.  I could only paint what I see in front of me or what I imagine the wind to look like.  Kahn was able to capture the wind in its true visible form.

Kahn is not the first to use the wind as the main influence in an art piece.  Theo Jansen had also the same idea of movement caused by wind.  Jansen had built moving sculptures that was only powered by the wind.  Jansen made these moving sculptures out of PVC pipes and had them walk along the beach.  This was a project meant to help push sand onto the dunes in order to preserve them from the rising sea levels.  Both Kahn and Jansen knew that the wind could be used in order to create or show a physical performance, whether it just be glimmering small squares on platforms or an actual moving creature.

The wind sculpture by Ned Kahn gives a new perspective of a simple element in the environment that is taken for granted in everyday life.  No one can see it, so no one notices it.  However, when Khan had created that sculpture, anyone could now see how the wind truly works.  It is an amazing approach to both the art and science fields that cannot be easily done by every artist.  Kahn’s knowledge and interest in both fields of art and science have helped him achieve not only this project, but many, many more, sharing the environment’s true face to the world.