Self-Portrait Art Project

I found this project interesting because it showed how people viewed themselves in a subjective and an objective way. It also allowed for other people to interpret the picture as they see fit. I found the objective to be more of a persons look and the subjective to be more of a pathway to seeing someone's personality. These self portraits, I feel, allow  a person to show people what they want about themselves. By this, I mean that a person can choose pictures that may make them look more appealing or they may choose different angles to make them look different. This project really allowed me to see different sides of my classmates I may have never seen.

Scrapbook10

I found this pinecone near the path behind Dorchester. It caught my eye because there weren't many left and I thought about it almost being spring. There are still dead plants and such which bothered me because it is March. I feel like things should be slowly coming back. It didn't seem as decomposed as I thought it would be and I felt it represent how certain things can really keep form even though it was probably laying there for a while. People see pinecones as a nuisance and feel that they are boring, which they are. There is real no value of pinecones except food for squirrels. It is not art at all due to the fact that it is a dead part of a tree. It fell off and will now decompose into the Earth.

Scrapbook9

The object I found is a piece of plastic construction fencing. I found it near Goodpaster where there was previously alot of construction. It was lying in the dirt half in, half out. It caught my eye because of the contrasting color as well as the curiosity I had regarding what type of trash it was. I found it hard to decipher what it was until I pryed it out of the ground. It is supposed to keep people out of construction zones but I don't see how something that soft and weak could handle that job. The orange does provoke a feeling of danger or caution. I don't see it as art due to the fact it was used to fence off a construction site and accidently was ripped and left in the dirt. A person did not put it there in an artistic expression.

Scrapbook8

I found this starbucks cap near the path by St. John's Pond. It was maybe an inch off of the brick path. It caught my eye because it was face up and stuck in the mud so it was almost level with the rest of the ground. I had to pry it out in order to examine it further. It stood out because it was a metal object in an otherwise natural space. It must have been discarded there when someone had finished their frappucino. It enters into that sphere where you can now find modern commodities everywhere. Starbucks is such a huge part of American culture that it is even found embedded in the dirt in a small campus in the middle of no where. It is definitley not art because it doesn't really take us away from the real world and let our mind wander but instead it probably reminds someone that, "OH! I havent had my coffee yet today."

Scrapbook7

I found this orange peel off of the path between Dorchester and St. John's Pond. It was lying in the grass along with a few other pieces from the same orange. It caught my eye because its vibrant orange color contrasted the greenish brown grass. I picked this particular peel out of the bunch because it still had the tropicana sticker on it. To many people a rind on the ground like that represents the consumption of a fruit. It is directly corrolated with the idea of someone eating orange pieces. Its not art because it was just the natural covering for a delicious fruit. No one artistically put the peel on the orange. It was created by nature to protect the fruit. It deserves our attention for that same reason though. It shows that something can be protective and attractive to the eye at the same time.

Scrapbook6

I found these metal covers over a manhole near the library. They were resting over the hole obviously to cover for the missing manhole cap. One is a turquoise color and one is red. It drew my attention because I saw these color sheets of metal just laying in the grass and I wondered why they were there and how they got there. The fact they are covering a manhole intriqued me because I dont feel they are as safe as a regular manhole cover. The colors and just the shape in general caught my eye. The more I thought about it the more i realized that it made me think about how people are like those covers. Squares trying to cover a circular area. It reminds me we all don't exactly fit the mold society wants us to but we still serve a purpose. I don't really feel it is art because it is just there for protection. It was never meant to really have an artistic meaning to it.

Artist 6

Ken Goldberg is an artist and engineering professor at the University of California, Berkley. He created a robotic arm surrounded by a neatly organized garden. Users can interact with the garden via the internet. They are able to sign in to water or even relocate plants. The lives of the plants depend on the ability of people to log on and care for the plants in a timely fashion. His type of art goes with the idea of letting the viewer interact with the project and tweak it any way they feel fit. People do not know if it is real or fake because all they know of it is through the internet. I feel it is neat to be able to take care of something living even though a person may be thousands of miles away.