Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Generative Topic: Aspect
My generative topic from the aspect magazine assignment is group identity.
I feel that for a long time identity has been a personal concept rather then a group concept. It is great for children to work on who they are as a person and how they view themselves. Now in 2009 I feel it is also important for children to assess who they are as a class, as a school, as a generation.
In class we discussed systematic thinking and organization. They way we do things shows something about us. In the art piece that I presented, " Pedestrian" we see how humans move and interact in accordance with each other. Not only that, but we see the viewers of the art piece, interacting with it on another level. They become the birds eye view, the observer of the "system" that we all live in.
I think that a lot could come out of this in a classroom, Such as: Class projects in which the children have to work together and create a common language for the classroom, small group projects, asking questions, thinking about the present and the future, etc. It's definitely an idea I'm excited to explore.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Aspect Mag: On Location- Shelly Eshkar and Paul Kaiser
Shelly Eshkar and Paul Kaiser- "Pedestrian"
Pedestrian is a public projection ( viewed like a sculpture) that portrays people and groups in everyday activities and various movements. The image is projected onto the same surface as we walk on, the ground.
The figures move about so realistically due to the technology of motion capture. Motion capture uses the real life movement of people and translates it into digital form. The people on the projection stand, sit, walk, run, lie down, start and stop, dance, etc.
In the commentary of the art piece, George Fifield mentions how the movements throughout the piece can be compared to the way ants move and congregate. The "swarming behavior" of insects is comparable to the movement of humans. How people behave in a crowd comes into question.
This piece took me a while to figure out the generative topic. I feel there could be a few options. The one that I settled on is group identity.
How a group moves and works together determines a lot about it. Earlier I talked about the swarming of insects, that is characteristic behavior that they have. Humans have our own body language, our own group behavior. It is very animalistic because we ARE ANIMALS. Sometimes I think we forget that.
I think the idea of group behavior is becoming more current to our society. It is debatable whether this is a good or bad thing, but I feel that people are being less individualized, and more generalized. Through the internet, through "groups" "friend lists" "Personality profiles". Ever notice that everyones "personality profile" HAS to be formatted the same way, just the information is different? That already puts you in a group...
Basically our society moves and works as a collective. This piece forces us to watch ourselves in a fashion that is typical of ants, or other small creatures that we ma look down upon. It addresses the fact that our group has a place, has an identity within the grand scheme of nature.
Generative Topic
For my mid-term project my generative topic was emergent behavior.
Emergent behavior is a phenomenon within the natural world. The flocking of birds, schooling of fish and burrowing of termites are some examples of emergent behavior.
The definition is: the way a complex system and/or pattern aries out of relatively simple interactions. (Wikipedia)
Using this idea within the classroom I feel I could teach students about individuality in that each of them would create something according to the same lesson, the same basic concepts and yet each student would create something unique. Students would learn about how different people interpret things in different ways. Or maybe they interpreted the project vary similar to one of their other classmates. I would be very interested to see how the project turns out.
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