Who's Bad?

You know it, you know.

Coming Soon.

Art 21 - Cao Fei

I have used Art 21 videos in my high school installation art class to help frame students' thinking in a broader, more out-side-of the box way. The videos make great discussion tools, and are a good resource if you have 8:00am Monday morning art class.

The Cao Fei video we discussed in class (thanks Kent!) is from the current season (5) and is thus not yet available on line. Here's a little teaser though from the Art 21 site:

"Dear ladies and gentleman, I’m China Tracy—the avatar of Cao Fei—and I’m her interpreter.” Cao Fei’s digital Second Life alter ego acts as the English translator for the Chinese-speaking artist throughout the segment, guiding the viewer through seven multimedia projects.

Role Playing Games

Video Games in general hold little appeal for me, so it is extra difficult to imagine myself spending hours-days-years developing a character through which to engage in on line fantasy role-play.

I do acknowledge, however, that this activity does hold great appeal for large numbers of people.

http://geniushackers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/gaming-huge-lan-party.jpg

I wonder if there is an effective way to access and utilize this type of role-playing, game-based communication in classrooms, or if part of the fun, or all of the fun is in the escapism.

I am the jock in this, and only this scenario

I was talking briefly with the woman who runs this in Chaffee County Colorado


http://www.coloradomountainpleinairfestival.com/

I don't see dates fro 2010 yet, but sign me up!

Pi Day!

Google's home page reminded me that today, 3.14, is Pi Day. I can't wait for 1:59 and 26.5 seconds.

I use to have a curmudgeonly math teacher who would break character once a year on pi day to do the pi dance (something of a little jig) on March 14th at 1:59pm. The kids, they loved it.

<- The pi dance looks a little something like this chap to the right.

Newsweek on Art

I never have time to read the Newsweek's that renew as quickly as my NPR membership, but they have had few recent articles on art that I took the time to peruse.

This article, "But What Does it Mean?" notices a decline in the hackneyed uber-self conscious, personal/political art to which we have all become so accustom. While I find some of the conclusions a bit suspect (while the art world might be done with exploring identity, there are a lot of other people out there who shouldn't be allowed to skip ahead to a post-politically-correct society), I generally agree with the sentiments if this article.

This short piece, "Art Attack", made me laugh out loud about the power of good art to make you woosy, or to induce "aesthetic rapture".