Tag Archives: art

Making art out of “McMansion doors”

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Making art of McMansions is not that unusual in recent years but specifically focusing on their doors is:

How housing became a commodity — and what ultimately led to the housing crisis in America — is the theme of a new work of art by Koumoundouros. It’s on view at the Hammer Museum, and is called the “Dream Home Resource Center.”

But it might not be what you typically think of as art.

Two giant doors enclose the exhibit. They once belonged to a McMansion in nearby Orange County, but have since been repainted in rainbow colors by Koumoundouros. Inside the clear glass walls, it’s actually a pretty white spare room — with a few striking differences. To the left, a giant whiteboard is updated weekly with statistics on the economy — from the most recent homeless population numbers to news about the Detroit bankruptcy filing. Wrapping around the rest of the room: a rainbow timeline following different threads, all piecing together what housing looks like in America today.

The most unusual aspect of the exhibit sits dead center in the room: An informational booth. Here, the artist curated a number of guests — from real estate brokers to homeless rights activists.

There may be other features of the typical McMansion that receive more attention: the undulating roof lines, the foyers, the stucco or fake stone or fake brick finishes. But, the humble door doesn’t get as much attention. An interior door might be a six-panel dark wood door or perhaps a french door, such as between a den and a great room. The exterior door is likely to be a large one, double-wide, ornate or with plenty of glass, and proportionately fitting the outsized foyer which may include two stories, pillars, and surrounding windows.

All that said, I’m not sure there is a single image of a “McMansion door.” The Soprano McMansion had a double set of double doors – a vestibule sat in between – with frosted glass. Cynics might note that the garage doors on McMansions might actually be more important.

Using algorithms to judge cultural works

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Imagine the money that could be made or the status acquired if algorithms could correctly predict the merit of cultural works:

The budget for the film was $180m and, Meaney says, “it was breathtaking that it was under serious consideration”. There were dinosaurs and tigers. It existed in a fantasy prehistory—with a fantasy language. “Preposterous things were happening, without rhyme or reason.” Meaney, who will not reveal the film’s title because he “can’t afford to piss these people off”, told the studio that his program concurred with his own view: it was a stinker.

The difference is the program puts a value on it. Technically a neural network, with a structure modelled on that of our brain, it gradually learns from experience and then applies what it has learnt to new situations. Using this analysis, and comparing it with data on 12 years of American box-office takings, it predicted that the film in question would make $30m. With changes, Meaney reckoned they could increase the take—but not to $180m. On the day the studio rejected the film, another one took it up. They made some changes, but not enough—and it earned $100m. “Next time we saw our studio,” Meaney says, “they brought in the board to greet us. The chairman said, ‘This is Nick—he’s just saved us $80m.’”…

But providing a service that adapts to individual humans is not the same as becoming like a human, let alone producing art like humans. This is why the rise of algorithms is not necessarily relentless. Their strength is that they can take in that information in ways we cannot quickly understand. But the fact that we cannot understand it is also a weakness. It is worth noting that trading algorithms in America now account for 10% fewer trades than they did in 2009.

Those who are most sanguine are those who use them every day. Nick Meaney is used to answering questions about whether computers can—or should—judge art. His answer is: that’s not what they’re doing. “This isn’t about good, or bad. It is about numbers. These data represent the law of absolute numbers, the cinema-going audience. We have a process which tries to quantify them, and provide information to a client who tries to make educated decisions.”…

Equally, his is not a formula for the perfect film. “If you take a rich woman and a poor man and crash them into an iceberg, will that film always make money?” No, he says. No algorithm has the ability to write a script; it can judge one—but only in monetary terms. What Epagogix does is a considerably more sophisticated version, but still a version, of noting, say, that a film that contains nudity will gain a restricted rating, and thereby have a more limited market.

The larger article suggests algorithms can do better at predicting some human behaviors, such a purchasing consumer items, but not so good in other areas, like critical evaluations of cultural works. There are two ways this might go in the future. On one hand, some will argue this is just about collecting the right data or enough data. Perhaps we simply aren’t looking at the right things to correctly judge cultural products. On the other hand, some will argue that the value of an object may be too difficult for an algorithm to ever figure out. And, even if a formula starts hinting at good or bad art, humans can change their minds and opinions – see all the various cultural, art, and music movements just in the last few hundred years.

There is a lot of money that could be made here. This might be the bigger issue with cultural works in the future: whether algorithms can evaluate them or not, does it matter if they are all commoditized?

Using camera obscura to bring the city indoors

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I’ve run into photographer Abelardo Morell’s camera obscura work before and here is Morell’s official site with plenty of stunning photos. Two quick questions:

1. Are these rooms liveable while the images are on the wall? The artwork is interesting in itself but it would even better if a homeowner could go about their everyday business with these images present.

2. What about doing this in larger buildings and larger scenes? Imagine a 200 foot wide cityscape in a larger space.

You can indeed paint McMansions and the suburbs

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One columnist is taken aback when someone is able to paint the suburbs:

Some while back, I sniped that, while landscapes of the kind that made the New Hope School of Impressionist Painting so influential continue to be painted in the absence of the actual scenery, the McMansions that knocked farmland off the map seem not to have inspired anyone.

I was wrong. For several years, pastel artist Michael Wommack of Langhorne has been exploring the suburban grid, affectionately in the case of Levittown, where he grew up, and with more of an edge when it comes to pretentious developments in the former hinterlands.

Wommack’s “A False Sense of Security,” among works on view at Pennswood Village through May 12, was inspired by a cul-de-sac in a pricey neighborhood the artist drove past one day…

He calls his tract-house studies “The Suburbia Series.” “People who know Levittown call it ‘The Levittown Series,’ ” he says.

This might confound suburban critics who often argue that suburbs have little redeeming value. Art dealing with the suburbs, whether it is in novels, on the big screen, or on canvas should then be devoted to the hidden dark sides of suburbia. But, suburbs, like other locations, are made up of people trying to make sense of the world, however misguided their efforts might be. For someone who grew up in one of the Levittowns, it sounds like a perfect subject to me.

It would then be interesting to see how people respond to such paintings. Would critics take non-critical depictions of the suburbs seriously? Would exactly would purchase paintings depicting Levittown-like communities?

Painting the church of Walmart

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Lots of “normal” activities take place at Walmart so why not spiritual matters as well? Artist Brenden O’Connell has taken up the subject:

For the past decade, O’Connell has been snapping photographs inside dozens of Wal-Marts. The images have served as inspiration for an ongoing series of paintings of everyday life — much of which involves shopping, which O’Connell calls “that great contemporary pastime.”

“Wal-Mart was an obvious place” to look for inspiration, he tells The Salt. “It’s sort of the house that holds all American brands.”…

Wal-Mart stores, he notes, are “probably one of the most trafficked interior spaces in the world.” In the tall, open, cathedral-like ceilings of Wal-Mart’s big-box stores, he sees parallels to church interiors of old.

“There is something in us that aspires to some kind of transcendence,” he told me back in February. “And as we’ve culturally turned from religious things, we’ve turned our transcendence to acquisition and satisfying desires.”

In conversation, O’Connell comes across as thoughtful and urbane. He’s well aware that, as a company, Wal-Mart can be polarizing. But “regardless of your feelings about it,” he told me back then, “it just is. It’s like an irrevocable reality that’s part of our experience.”

On the occasions that we go to church and then Walmart afterward, I have joked that we are visiting America’s two kinds of churches. This may not be too far from reality considering the number of shoppers at Walmart, its yearly sales, and the power of its brand. But, it is really that surprising that a retail store could be the contemporary version of a spiritual space when our country is so devoted to consumption and shopping?

The global culture of the business office

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Photographer Louis Quail has a new book of photos of offices around the world – and they have a similar look:

Since 2006, Quail has photographed offices in Russia, South Africa, Germany, the U.S., the U.K., Cambodia, United Arab Emirates, Santo Domingo and China. Municipal departments, call centers, financial brokers and commodities traders all feature in Quail’s series, Desk Job…

“As we have moved into the technical and information age, there has been a shift towards more office-based work,” says Quail of globalization. “Whatever our job title or geographical location, our tools and environment are becoming similar. It is quite perverse; to travel around the world to photograph inside an office that looks like its in Croydon [U.K.].”…

“The employee is defined by the few cubic meters, which exist around them. They must not just work, but live, eat, pray and occasionally sleep as if ‘chained’ to the desk in perpetuity,” says Quail…

“Companies tend to strive for straight lines and uncluttered office spaces, where as individuals have an urge to colonize and personalize,” says Quail. “In these pictures we see the tension but ultimately workers are intrinsic to the organizations they serve and are best placed to change them if they choose.”

Quail argues this is a side effect of globalization. An office in Dubai looks like an office in Australia which looks like an office in the Chicago suburbs. And he hints at the root of this homogeneity across global offices: an interest in making money within a global business network.

It would be interesting to pair these photos with a history of how the corporate office look spread around the world. Where exactly did it start, who spread it (people or corporations or organizations), and how quickly did it catch on?

London’s iconic Tube map turns 80

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First distributed for free on a trial basis in 1933 because officials didn’t think it would be successful, London’s Tube map turns 80 this year:

Instantly recognizable the world over, the simple yet elegant diagram of the 249-mile subway network is hailed as one of the great images of the 20th century, a marvel of graphic design. Its rainbow palette, clean angles and pleasing if slightly old-fashioned font (Johnston, for typography buffs) have endured since hurried passengers first stuffed pocket versions of the map into their raincoats in 1933.

“It’s a design icon,” said Anna Renton, senior curator at the London Transport Museum. “You shouldn’t use that word too often, but it really is.”…

Inspired, some say, by electric-circuit diagrams, Beck straightened out the lines, drew only 45- and 90-degree angles, and truncated distances between outlying stations. Then he submitted his unusual schematic rendering to the London Underground’s publicity department…

The design led to imitations around the world. Within a few years, it was copied by the transit system in Sydney, Australia. The New York subway map of the 1970s also paid homage to Beck’s brainchild.

And it still inspires design efforts today.

It is interesting to read how this map became so successful even as it skewed the actual spatial relationships between lines, stations, and London itself. The map may make more conceptual and aesthetic sense but it doesn’t fit aboveground London. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to test the mental work London residents have to do to match the map to the city.

Can Chicago art convince suburban residents that they have a responsibility to help fight violence in the city?

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Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones argues that the Chicago art scene can help convince people in the suburbs that they should help fight violence in the city:

But there’s another common theme gaining steam this winter. Many of these artistic responses to violence are trying to impress upon people that geography does not inoculate a city — a region, a nation — from responsibility. Because the killings have, for the most part, been confined to certain neighborhoods, it has been possible for the rest of Chicago to live, work and go about its business mostly untouched. There is this crisis, a crisis of which Chicagoans increasingly are aware, yet still it often is not seen. Were this violence evenly spread throughout the city’s ZIP codes, then there certainly would not be business as usual. Of that there can be no question.

So in works like “Crime Scene: A Chicago Anthology,” staged by Collaboraction on Milwaukee Avenue and full of compelling insights, the point is made that the killings have been taking place very close to the actual artistic venue. Indeed, in art exhibits and performance lobbies across Chicago, you can often see so many maps and charts, it feels like you are in a police incident room. It’s not far from here, these pieces keep reminding us. You could ride a bike there in 20 minutes. If you’re driving home, you’re probably going farther. This is a crucial element of raising awareness.

Many of these works, such as “It Shoudda Been Me,” created for the eta Creative Arts Foundation by the University of Chicago’s Dr. Doriane Miller, one of the first in Chicago to understand that fictionalizing violent scenarios makes it easier for those who live them to talk about them, have been created to tour. Officials from the Chicago Park District were at Collaboraction on Monday, checking out the piece as possible programming for neighborhood parks. Clearly, there is a need for such programming in the neighborhoods where this level of violence is a daily reality. Especially this summer, when nerves will on edge all over Chicago, the amount of that programming will need to increase. It’s one way to keep kids off the streets.

But I kept wondering about the places beyond the boundaries of the Chicago Park District, beyond the hipster neighborhoods like Wicker Park. What about Wheaton or Winnetka? Are the stories behind the violence in Chicago understood there in the way that the city’s stunning cultural assets are understood?

This is a fascinating argument: can art bridge the gap between city violence and suburbanites who have the luxury of watching the problems of Chicago from a distance? Jones hints at the broad gulf between suburbs and city and even between the wealthier areas of Chicago and the areas experiencing more violence and difficulty. Urban sociologists have been discussing these for decades. The Chicago School classic The Gold Coast and the Slum noted the cultural gaps between the wealthy and poor on the near north side in the 1920s even though the two groups lived in close proximity. Work in the last 50 years has emphasized how suburban growth has contributed to the problems of the inner city by removing social capital, resources (in the form of jobs, money spent on highways rather than mass transit, tax revenues, etc.), and middle-class norms and values. People in the suburbs may lament the violence in Chicago but how willing are they to act against it or contribute to actions that might help or sacrifice some of their own life?

The trick seems to be to get the suburbanites not just to experience the art or the true stories of violence. Rather, Jones wants the suburbanites to act in response to what they see in art or the news. This is a much tougher nut to crack.

Seeing stars in the world’s major cities if they had no lights

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Photographer Thierry Cohen has put together a number of images of what the sky above major world cities would look like if the cities had no lights. The takeaway: city dwellers would see a lot of stars. Here is one example:

Photographer Imagines What World Cities Would Look Like Without Lights thierrydarkened 3

 

My first thought is that such scenes would only be possible in reality in a post-apocalyptic scenario (which is quite popular these days). But perhaps a city could undergo a project like this for a night or weekend? Imagine a positive sort of Carmageddon but not quite Earth Hour which is more about reducing energy use and environmentalism.

Applying microsociology to the face of the Mona Lisa

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Sociologist Randall Collins uses microsociology and the concept of microexpressions to examine the Mona Lisa:

The purpose of micro-sociology is not to be an art critic. I only make the venture because so many popular interpretations of the Mona Lisa blunder into social psychology.  But reading the expressions on photos is good training for other pursuits. Paul Ekman holds that knowledge of the facial and bodily expressions of emotions is a practical skill in everyday life, giving some applications in his book Telling Lies. And it is not just a matter of looking for deceptions. We would be better at dealing with other people if we paid more attention to reading their emotional expressions—not to call them on it, but so that we can see better what they are feeling. Persons in abusive relationships—especially the abuser—could use training in recognizing how their own emotional expressions are affecting their victims; and greater such sensitivity could head off violent escalations.

Facial expressions, like all emotions, are not just individual psychology but micro-sociology, because these are signs people send to each other. The age we live in, when images from real-life situations are readily available in photos and videos, has opened a new research tool. I have used it (in Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory) to show that at the moment of face-to-face violence, expressions of anger on the part of the attacker turn into tension and fear; and this discovery leads to a new theory of what makes violence happen, or not.  On the positive side, micro-interactions that build mutual attunement among persons’ emotions are the key to group solidarity, and their lack is what produces indifference or antipathy. And we can read the emotions—a lot more plainly than the smile on Mona Lisa’s face.

Watching for microexpressions definitely makes social interaction more interesting. Ekman’s work suggests telltale signs on people’s faces reveal their true underlying emotions and also people tend to have very quick initial expressions before they put on their face or mask of what they are trying to express. Goffman’s ideas about impression management still apply, we generally are trying to save face and maintain our social status, but it is harder than simply saying the right things or acting in the right way as our facial expressions can still give us away.