09
Oct 15

The Art Assignment | Sorted Books

This week the Photography One students will be completing Nina Katchadourian‘s assignment from the PBS web series The Art Assignment.  

 

Here is a little more about the assignment from The Art Assignment’s YouTube channel.  
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Published on Aug 28, 2014
In which we meet Brooklyn-based artist Nina Katchadourian in Lawrence, Kansas, at the former home of American writer William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997). Nina takes us on her journey of sorting Burroughs’s book collection and challenges you to sort some books yourself!Episode 13 Instructions:

1. Choose a person you know or would like to know better
2. Take a look at/through their library
3. Make 3 stacks of books to develop a portrait of the person
4. Upload it to your social media platform of choice using #theartassignment
5. Fame and glory (your work might be featured in a future episode)

Learn more about Nina’s work: http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/

And read about William S. Burroughs: http://www.burroughs100.com/


05
Jan 15

Before Photography – Photographic Processes Series


03
Jan 15

Science Shows Art Can Do Incredible Things for Your Mind and Body

Arts.mic or Mic.com just published an interesting article on art’s effect on the human brain.  Some of the highlights of the article were that “experiencing art decreases stress levels” and that “the brain is hardwired to process art.”  The article also noted that the biggest benefits come from actually producing art.

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“Along with the perks of enjoying and experiencing art, there are real-world benefits to making the art with your own two hands. According to a 2014 study, producing visual art improved psychological resilience and increased brain activity for the participants by the end of the experiment.

The study had two groups of recent retirees. One group was given lessons by an art educator and the participants actively created pieces of visual art that displayed their own personal form of artistic expression. The other group was treated more like a discussion class, where they talked about and interpreted selected paintings and sculptures. Both groups had their brains scanned before and after the period of courses.

The brain scans of the two groups before the classes (T0) and after 10 weeks (T1).Source: Anne Bolwerk/PLOSOne

Of the two groups, the one that produced art reaped the neural benefit of increased connectivity in the brain’s default mode network over the ten weeks of art class. This area deals with cognitive process like introspection, self-monitoring and memory.

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As Hyperallergic points out, the researchers speculate that the first group got the gains because of the combination of motor and cognitive processing. They state in the study, “The visual art production intervention involved the development of personal expression and attentional focus on self-related experience during art creation.” Utilizing motor skills and thinking about art together becomes more beneficial instead of doing either separately. “

Click the link below for the full article:
http://mic.com/articles/106504/science-shows-that-art-is-having-fantastic-effects-on-our-brains-and-bodies


17
Nov 14

iPhone Photography Tips + Hacks

If you’re interested in photography here are some great tips and tricks that can turn a basic cell phone camera into so much more.

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http://www.lipstiq.com/others/7-photography-tricks-you-didnt-know-your-smartphone-can-do/


27
Oct 14

Michael Stripe of REM Prompts College Students

In a recent SPIN article REM frontman Michael Stripe is prompting students at NYU in a new collaborative project “NEW SIGHTS, NEW NOISE”.

“Each week, Stipe and a different special guest will give the class’ 18 students a prompt, and they’ll respond with ‘100 images and gifs, both found and made, all of which will be uploaded to a private class website,’ and projected on the walls, automatic for the people (sorry). At the end of the class, the space at 80 WSE Gallery will open up to the public so they can see what they accomplished.”

For more on the project check out the whole article:
http://www.spin.com/articles/michael-stipe-art-classes-teacher-nyu

Wouldn’t this be a fabulous project for a digital photography, digital media, or graphic design class?