March 3 daily notes

It seems I forgot last week's notes.
Well I need to not let that happen again...

This week I got my next project assignment: a group project to create a piece that's political in nature. Unfortunately I was absent last wednesday but luckily nothing important happened in that time. We watched some videos on people who have created politically charged works, such as Cai Guo-Qiang, an artist who works with gunpowder for his artwork, and who enjoys the uncontrollable nature of the medium. another artist we looked at was Krysztof Wodiczka, who filmed people talking about crime, and how they were affected (such as people who lost their loved ones to violence, criminals telling their stories, people who were raped/abused/etc., and he projected them onto buildings in cities that were iconic for the area, and included a speaker setup to allow everyone to hear their stories being told.

Another Artist we looked at was the one who created the Vietnam Memorial, and the story of how the piece was hotly contested and how she had to fight to get it created as per her idea. I had never realized that the creation of that monument was so controversial, and It really helped me get an idea of the sort of forces that often support and contest political works, especially ones that do not glorify an idea or concept such as war or patriotism.

We formed groups and my group is going to be working with an idea for Environment. Perhaps something to do with recycling, perhaps something to do with the way we live nowadays... we don't really have any ideas yet.