Improbable Monument Powerpoint

Improbable Monument Final Proposal

Shawn McCafferty

Art 410



Improbable Monument Proposal

United Airlines Flight 93 departed from Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco, California on the morning of September 11, 2001. After being hijacked by four al Qaeda terrorists, the plane crashed in rural southwest Pennsylvania, killing its 37 passengers and 7 crew members. It was the only one of the four planes hijacked that day that did not crash into a building.

The passengers of Flight 93, informed of what had transpired at the World Trade Center that morning by means of mobile phone conversations with family, decided to forcefully resist the hijackers. According to accounts pieced together by the families, after calling "let's roll!", the passengers stormed the cockpit, and the plane crashed as a result of the valiant struggle inside.

The report of the United States 9-11 Commission issued on July 22, 2004 concluded that the passengers of Flight 93 never actually entered the cockpit, although they tried to breach the threshold by rolling the food cart into it. The committee's conclusion was that the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane when they judged that the passengers were only seconds away from overcoming them. It praised the heroism of the passengers, whose struggle prevented the plane from reaching Washington D.C., saving countless lives and possibly the Capitol or the White House.  

For my monument I want to give memory to those who passed in 9/11 on flight 93 which was scheduled to land in SFO International airport. I point this fact out because I wanted to bring the children, parents, and siblings of this flight home where they fought to be.  In my monument I want to honor these people by gathering 1-2 family members for each passenger and making a full sculpture cast of each one of them.  I would then place them in pairs around the airport on benches and in seats and waiting rooms.  I want to create an atmosphere in which a family would be at the airport waiting to welcome their loved ones.  Imagine a mother and father sitting in a terminal with their arms around their child in a group hug but the child was not in the middle of them.  Have a husband leaning over to kiss his long awaited wife but not have the wife on the other side of this kissing statue. Many ideas could be created and would cause a feeling of absence like something is missing. In fact there is something missing, a human being that didn't make it home.....

For one thing, the foundry process is very labor intensive. Once a completed clay sculpture is delivered to a foundry, the actual physical work of producing a finished bronze piece is only about 30% complete. Production steps at the foundry include: (1) Making a mold of the clay original (2) making a wax replica of the original, using the mold (3) chasing or smoothing the wax replica, removing mold marks etc. (4) making a ceramic mold around the wax replica. This takes several applications of ceramic slurry, which must dry between coats (5) firing the ceramic mold to drive out to wax replica (hence the term lost wax process) (6) pouring molten (about 1800 degrees F) bronze into the ceramic mold (7) after it hardens, removing the ceramic mold/shell by breaking and chipping it from the underlying bronze (8) welding the piece back together. In order to make a mold of, say, a horse, the legs, tail and probably the head must be molded separately; otherwise the mold could not be withdrawn from the original clay model. So appendages, protrusions etc. are severed from the original model and molded and cast separately, then welded back together after the bronze is poured. (9) chasing or smoothing the bronze piece. This consists of grinding off weld marks, ceramic mold marks and imperfections in the metal, as well as recreating such surface detail as hair or feathers that may have been obliterated by the welding and chasing. (10) sand blasting all or parts of the piece (11) an applying the coloration or patina. This is quite time consuming and, if done correctly, requires an artistic specialist who fires the oxides or acrylics onto the surface of the bronze with a huge blow torch. This phase is almost always done under the artist's supervision. (12) basing, or installing the piece onto the base, usually either wood or stone. Incidentally, the typical base costs for table model-sized bronze pieces are currently about $75 to $125. With labor charged at $65 to $85/hour all these steps add up.

The cost of materials is also a big factor, as the cost of bronze has skyrocketed over the past few years. Most bronze used in fine art casting is silicon bronze; 95% copper, 4% silicon and 1% manganese. The price of copper has risen 500% in just a few years from a low of near $.75 to around $3.50/lb currently.

Those are the hard costs of producing a piece of fine art bronze. Travel costs add up rapidly. So, add in the soft costs of Diesel fuel, motel rooms truck rentals, material costs, hourly wages, foundry usage and they add up quickly.

Total costs of the project is estimated at 1.5-2 million dollars. Each piece takes about 1-2 months to make, which by myself would take almost 4 years to make at least one family member for all 37 passengers and 7 crew members. With collaboration this time could be cut dramatically but costs would go up.  Cost of bronze is about 3.50/lbs and each piece will weigh roughly 275 lbs.  For one statue of 6ft it would cost about 1,000 dollars for the bronze alone.  With that estimated the total cost for each statue in bronze is about $40,000.  Material costs such as clay, wire, tools etc estimated at $20,000, transportation of statues $5,000, equipment such as foundries etc. $100,000, and labor costs estimated at 1 Million dollars.

Brain storm for Monument

For my monument i want to give memory to those who passed in 9/11 on flight 93 which was scheduled to land in SFO International airport. I point this fact out because i wanted to bring the children, parents, and siblings of this flight home where they fought to be.  In my monument i want to honor these people by gathering 2 family members for each passanger and making a full sculpture cast of each on of them.  I would then place them in pairs around the airport on benches and in seats and waiting rooms.  I want to create an atmosphere in which a family would be at the airport waiting to welcome their loved ones.  Imagine a mother and father sitting in a terminal with thier arms around their child in a group hug but the child was not in the middle of them.  Have a husband leaning over to kiss his long awaited wife but not have the wife on the other side of this kissing statue. Many ideas could be created and would cause a feeling of abscence like something is missing. In fact there is something missing, a human being that didn't make it home.....

My Culture Jam

For my Culture jam I decided to mess around with the Panda Express logo.  I had some issues working in Illustrator but i really wanted to stick with it in order to learn the program. I don't have color printing abilities so i decided to import my image into photoshop and show iconicly what i would really like to do if i had the ability or motivation to do some real street art.

Here is a Panda Express at a stadium that i thought would be a prime spot to pull a good Jam.

 

I also thought that it would be funny to jam in front of a drive through since the workers normally don't look at the drive through menu board.  It would be interesting to see the reactions of the people who drive through to get food and see the Dead Panda sign and decide not to eat there.

I picked this image because i wanted to make it a fight to the death. I think Beijing Beef will win, he has like 50 lbs on his opponent.

Culture Jamming Artist....Obey

Shepard Fairey


An American contemporary artist, graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skate boarding scene. He first became known for his "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known in the 2008 Presidential election, specifically his portrayal of Barack Obama as a figure for Hope. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today's best known and most influential street artists. His work is included in collections all over the U.S.
Shepard Fairey was under a law suit over the Barack Obama Hope image and according to recent news a judge has dismissed copyright lawsuits between an artist who created the Barack Obama "HOPE" image and The Associated Press but has left a March trial date in place for related claims between the news service and companies that sold merchandise using the artist's image.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a one-page order publicly filed Tuesday that a "suggestion of settlement" led him to dismiss claims between artist Shepard Fairey and the AP. He said the claims could be reinstated within a month if either side requested it.

Through his constant repetition of his different designs of Andre the Giant Sheppard has become one of the top street artists of the 21st century.  His continuous use of this image in graffiti has made him an icon in Los Angelos CA.  Sheppard often uses large print outs from Kinko's and with paste, rubs the image against a wall of his choosing to quickly get in and out without getting caught by any law enforcement.

I just liked these personaly.

Prague Clock Tower Over the Years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjWJHEmFfPA&feature=player_embedded

This was the coolest light show i have ever seen in my life.  They use the real building and led lighting to alter and scew your view of the Tower.

Random Project

Step 1. Flip a coin to decide left or right directions.  It does not matter which side is left or right you still have a 50/50 chance.  Once you have assigned directions to your coin roll a 6 sided die to decide how long you will travel in a given direction.

Step 2.  Set a timer for a corresponding value of time in minutes. ( If I roll a 6 I travel in that direction for 6 minutes).  When the timer goes off you will take a picture of whatever it is you are looking at when you are at the end of your time. 

Step 3. Once the picture is taken you will flip the coin to determine if you will take the next available left or right direction. Once you have your direction you will roll the die again to see how long you will travel in that direction once you turn onto it.  (do not start the timer until you make the randomly decided turn left or right)

Step 4. Take a minimum of 6 pictures for the sake of time if you would like to take more than 6 feel free.  No direction other than left and right shall be given, the only time you will be traveling straight is for the duration of your die roll after you make the turn left or right.

Photoshop:

First step: Change the canvas size to fit the image horizontally in height. ( so if i used a sheet of paper that is 8 1/2 by 11 i would make the height of the canvas 8 1/2)

Step 2: Take all your photos and drag them into photoshop and immediately change all the opacity for every image to 80 %.

Step 3: In order to keep the Randomness you must make sure you line the images horizontally in the order that you took them.  When you place the images, place them exactly half way into the image making the image half overlapped on both sides by different images.

Step 4: Once you have laid all the images into place merge all visible layers into one and random number generate 1 number between 80-100.  Take that number and change the saturation of the large image to alter its appearance.

And that should do it!!

Destiny's version

 

Destiny's version

Chance Artist Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly

An american painter and sculptor associated with hard-edge painting, color field painting and the minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity. His art pieces often involve vibrant colors and tones using different shapes and placements of images.

Key Ideas

• Kelly intends for viewers to experience his artwork with instinctive, physical responses to structure and color rather than with attempts at contextual analysis. He encourages this active participation through bold and contrasting colors that engage the eye, layered panels protruding from the wall and irregular forms that challenge perception.
• Kelly's real-life observations are the backbone of his work. He produces direct - yet abstracted - replications of the shapes, shadows and contrasts he perceives around him. At the same time, while using reality as inspiration, he aims to establish new, unrecognizable forms.
• Kelly was pioneering in his view of the painting as an object. He creates canvases free of gestural brushstrokes or imagery, so their content resides purely in their physical shapes and interactions with the surrounding space.

Research From Wikipedia and Ellsworth Kelly Biography
Ellsworth Kelly, evading critical attempts to classify him as a Color Field, hard-edge, or Minimalist painter, has redefined abstraction in art, establishing himself through his drawings, paintings, sculptures, and prints as one of the most important artists working today. Kelly's visual vocabulary is drawn from observation of the world around him—shapes and colors found in plants, architecture, shadows on a wall or a lake—and has been shaped by his interest in the spaces between places and objects and between his work and its viewers. He has said, "In my work, I don't want you to look at the surface; I want you to look at the form, the relationships." Rubin noted that “Kelly’s development had been resolutely inner-directed: neither a reaction to Abstract Expressionism nor the outcome of a dialogue with his contemporaries.”^[12] Many of his paintings consist of a single (usually bright) color, with some canvases being of irregular shape, sometimes called "shaped canvases." The quality of line seen in his paintings and in the form of his shaped canvases is very subtle, and implies perfection.

New 3D

I am not voulanteering for this....... Looks very uncomfortable.

GAFFTA Field Trip

The Art 410 class went together to GAFFTA or Gray Area Foundation for the Arts which is located at 998 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94102. 

We attended GAFFTA on a rainy day and I was immediately taken by the sounds the art created. At first, when the tour guide turned on the displays i thought that the weather had turned into an incredible storm.  The sound being generated sounded like the building was under siege from a beat down of rain that echoed throughout the building.  Of coarse the weather had not started to act up, in fact it was the culmination of vibrating art pieces that summed up this sensation of sound. Every piece made by the Swiss artist Zimoun seemed to contain some form of motion, often with much randomness to it.

Frances was kind enough to let me have some pictures since i did not bring a camera. 


As you can see most of the pieces on display involved tiny motors that moved objects around frantically.  I enjoyed our visit to GAFFTA and like most others thought that one of the bonus's of this trip was the fact that the gallery was free with exception for donation.  The venue was a bit small and only contained a few rooms but overall it was a very fun experience and i would go back to see another showing sometime in the future.

Extended body, the ability to fly

Growing up we are all subjected to images of people and characters flying.  I was no exception to this and have often dreamed of flying with no apparatus or machine to guide me.  There is no way I could logically make a human fly like superman, or for that matter an angel.  We are skinned animals and would be hard pressed to integrate a gene of a species that is not a mammal.  So I researched into flying mammals and found bats the most genetically compatible for splicing, but the wing span of a bat would mean the average wing span for a human to fly would have to be about 8 ft.  I thought having our wings attached to our arms and torso would be really hard for us to go about daily life in a regular way, is I thought if we had bat style wings attached to a separate shoulder joint on the back we could fly more comfortably similar to a dragons back or an angel and looks cool too.  In the end you would need to genetically make the wings and change a couple things to the body such as extra shoulder joints and similarly the muscles to make them function.  Side effects would be new wardrobe and fashion industry. End of public transportation, lower pollution, increase in metabolic rates and lower the level of obese humans.

As We May Think

The first aspect of this article that i really enjoyed was Bush's idea for glasses that would record your daily experience through snap shots taken by a little trigger hidden somewhere on your person. This portion was quickly followed by the idea to have dry photography.  No dark rooms and red lights to produce photos but an immediate production of your photo.  I do not believe we have glasses that have camera attached to them but we do have dry photography in the form of digital cameras.  We take photos very easily and take them home to our printers where we can produce the photo immediately without any kind of dark room.

The section i like was when Bush talked about man and his ability to compute.  Bush stated that we are "primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs." (Bush, section 4, As we may think)  We are not machines and not meant for instantaneous calculation we are however great with logic and finding ways to use information we gather to create great things.

As far as my predictions for the future, i feel that we may find a way to create a livable atmosphere on mars through use of algae and bacteria.  We have sent ships successfully to mars and will not perfect the travel but make it more efficient.  I also predict that we will discover and put into place a new form of energy outside of fossil fuels.  We are already using other sources of power such as solar, wind, and water energy but we are discovering aspects of hydrogen energy.  Honda has already produced a vehicle which is hydrogen fueled we just need more automotive companies to hop on board and help research more efficient use of this technology.  We may also be able to recreate the power of the sun and harness that to power homes and cities.  Lastly, this is the child in me, but i would like to see some kind of hover technology in the form of skateboards like in back to the future, or flight suits on your back for personal flight.

Zoetrope

This is a modern Zoetrope and also includes how a zoetrope works and a little about its history.  Please take a peak at this it is quite amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5khDGKGv088

This is how to make one.

http://education.eastmanhouse.org/discover/kits/files/3/zoetrope.php