Photography Scavenger Hunt

1) Asymmetrical

2) Symmetrical

3) Radial

4) Person and their surrounding space

5) Person up close

6) POV of an Ant

 7) POV of a Bird

8) Stable

9) Unstable

 

Identity Items

 

1)  The first item is my Ipod.  I use my Ipod constantly whether I am driving in my car, working out at the gym, walking to class, or working on studio.  I usually think of it as a type of mental release and escape, but due to my use of it, I guess it is more of  my way of transitioning from one place to another.  - Flowing Transition


2)  I try to take care of my body and keep myself in shape.  This dumbbell is one of the set I keep in my room.  I use these when I cannot find the time to make it to the gym.  Working out provides me a physical release of tension. - Physical Release






3)  This item has two meanings for me.  It is a soccer ball and soccer is my favorite sport. It is also a signed Manchester United ball, my favorite team.  Soccer was the main sport I played growing up and I still follow it avidly. - Beautiful Game





4)  These are several of the architecture books I have accumulated over my collegiate career.  They vary in focus and length but each have taught me a small part of the architectural universe.  I hope to continue to explore the field of architecture by reading more academic books on the subject. - Growing Passion

5)  This is the study Bible I received after I finished my confirmation class in 8th grade.  To me it represents the only true word and rules in the universe.  My knowledge of the Bible is very limited but I hope to become better versed in the scripture as my life continues. - Love/Law










6)  My Xbox has provided countless hours of video game and Netflix entertainment in my downtime.  I grew up playing video games with my friends. Although I don't have as much time as I used to, I still enjoy the occasional chance to kick back and escape from reality for a little bit. - Virtual Escape

7)  My collection of buckeye nuts represents my obsession with Ohio State.  I have supported the Buckeyes since I was in elementary school and absolutely love the university.  I have collected buckeye nuts for years and use them as decoration in my room, even if it is a bit corny. - Crazy Nut

 8)  To accompany my Xbox, I have a pretty large collection of video games.  These are just a few of my favorites.  My interests in genre of games is pretty diverse but I always enjoy a good game of FIFA soccer or Mario Kart.  I really enjoy kicking back with friends on a weekend and playing a few of our favorite games. - Fun with Friends

9)  This is my current sketchbook.  I primarily use it for my architecture studio classes, but I have also used it for Art Edu 252 and history classes to take notes.  It is extremely useful whenever I have a new idea and want to explore it on a page or even just to remember a particular thought I have had. - Inked Memories

10)  I would be dead without my laptop.  I don't think more than a day or two has gone by, since I first got my laptop in the summer of 2008, that I have not used it.  My most frequent  uses for it include socializing, homework, and communications.  - My Life

     This composition is an interpretation of my life as I view it now.  Much of my life is spent on my laptop.  I complete schoolwork, send emails, play games, connect socially, etc.  It feels as though my laptop is consuming my life. To me this image is supposed to portray that my laptop (technology) is absorbing or has absorbed all the important aspects of my life.  In a way, I am trying to make a social commentary on the trends of people in today's society.  People are consumed by their gadgets and gizmos, spending as much time in a fabricated, virtual reality, as they do in the actual world.  The words are intentionally made somewhat obscure to attempt to portray that these ideas and images are being consumed by my laptop or are meant to be read as projections of my life.
     I feel that this composition might be difficult to understand as it is difficult to read the words and some of the items are more difficult to interpret due to distortion and blurring.  The composition may seem to be trying to connect seemingly unrelated items.  However, all aspects of this image, from interests in soccer and exercise to architecture and religion, represent parts of who I am, with my laptop as the center of my universe.

Perceiving the Unnoticed

This map and series of images are meant to convey the opposite of that which I normally perceive on a typical walk to class.  I have lived in a house on West Norwich Avenue for the past 2 1/2 years of my life and my walk usually takes me from down the alley onto Lane and meanders through the business college until I reached Knowlton Hall.  This quarter, having class in the Shoe, my walk takes me just a bit further on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  However, despite this subtle change, I did not perceive anything different in my surroundings. 

This assignment first made me think of all the things I typically see and/or have noticed for over the past 2 years.  I originally planned the call these things out in a series of images, highlighting what I most commonly perceive almost everyday of my life.  However, upon further investigation, I noticed a more interesting pattern.  By being forced to stop on my route to take photographs, rather than just walk along with my headphones on listening to the latest Jack's Mannequin or Snow Patrol song, I began to notice things I usually ignore.  Things, such as various signage across campus, that have disappeared into my surroundings over time, day after day.

I started to count the number of signs that I found in the pictures that I had taken, intending to capture something else.  I was astounded by the number of signs I picked out ranging from building labels to parking signs to traffic warnings to dumpster graffiti.  I chose to call out these newly perceived objects in my environment by slightly obscuring my surroundings and highlighting the various signs, pulling them out of obscurity and into focus.


I also just finished applying to graduate schools a couple of days ago.  It's been a rather long process but it feels good finally be done with it.  I'm slowly beginning to upload my work to the web.  A digital copy of my undergraduate portfolio is accessible by clicking on the Issuu link.  I am working on a more extended profile for Archinect as well.

Messing with Photoshop in class

The Accidental Masterpiece...Shared Sentiments

I found that I could easily relate to the content of this article, like some of the others before it.  I keep finding myself drawing parallels between the thoughts regarding the contemporary art scene and the academic field of architecture I am investigating at the Knowlton School.  This discourse between Stephen Metcalf and Michael Kimmelman explores and wrestles with some of the issues that frustrate me when it comes to design related subjects.  Metcalf touches on the subject almost immediately.  From my understanding, a common opinion existing in the world today is that art is only meant to be understood by a select few and that many people feel they lack the qualifications to interpret it.  The result is that art has become the lifestyle for the rich and over-educated, when even they might not understand it.  The result is that many people, who don't "get it" from their initial encounter with a design piece, simply shrug their shoulders (both figuratively and literally) and choose to turn away instead of attempting to understand what is sitting in front of them.  They treat things objectively rather than subjectively, as Metcalf states, and base their decisions on what a "higher" authority tells them.  Kimmelman echoes my sentiments saying that people who exist outside of the art world just assume that it isn't meant for them.

I found it interesting that Kimmelman notes that more people visit art museums than ballgames.  I never would have thought this to be true based on my experience with other people's reactions towards art or architecture they do not understand.  But maybe he is correct in that these people are looking for something from art but do not know what they are looking for.  I enjoyed this back and forth discussion but did not know many of the references that Kimmelman and Metcalf were relating to so I could not delve any deeper into what they were discussing.

 I have found that these two buildings, the Knowlton School of Architecture and the Wexner Center, are not understood by the general student body and therefore are underappreciated for what they offer the university.

Interpreting Big Ideas

"I think that painting or the kind of I prefer to explore, is about unknowns or looking for questions more than answers" - artist Brice Marden

     I am not always support the use of quotes but this one in particular intrigues me and suggests that the best art investigated new possibilities and not just the established path/way of doing things. This reminds me of my favorite poem (even if it is considered to be somewhat of a cliche).

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

     The second paragraph of the "Big Ideas and Artmaking" article, which discusses how a "big idea" provides art making with significance, grabbed my attention because that is how I operate as an architecture student.  Architectural design can generate fascinating physical forms but if it lacks meaning then it is superfluous.  It is this endeavor to produce a meaning that, as the the author states, pushes the artist's product beyond a simple craft exercise of technical skills and manipulation.  This is a situation I have faced for the entirety of my collegiate career.  I believe this need for significance extends to all creative fields: sculpting, painting, architecture, drawing, fashion, furniture design, graffiti, collage, etc.  The author also provides some well known artists who fit this "big idea" approach to design to strengthen his argument.
     The only parts that seemed silly were the little tips teachers on how to interact with students regarding the subject matter of the article.  While reading the article, I felt as though I were a student and the tips were written to address an instructor.
     I found the article by Terry Barrett, "Interpreting Visual Culture", interesting in that it attempted to explain the the subconscious way we interpret the our visual surroundings.  As an architecture major, I am somewhat used to interpreting what I see in the physical world.  I have taken an Intro to Architectural Theory, which while partially exploring the historical development of the field, also investigates formal reasons for the way things are designed and the ways they affect our subconscious perception of the world.  In the course, I studied buildings, painting composition, glassware, etc.
      I feel that the introduction to this article could have made this point more clearly.  While the author provides many examples to support their argument, the main idea is somewhat lost.  The examples could have been better integrated into the explanation of our subconscious visual perceptions instead of providing for the bulk of the written content.

Responses to "The Heresy of Zone Defense" and "The Cheese Monkeys"

     I found the "The Heresy of Zone Defense" to be an interesting article regarding how rules have restricted and liberated the freedom and creativity of basketball as a sport.  I was particularly interested in the comparisons drawn to fine art.  The establishment of rules can have drastic implications on how anything creative gets played out.  People often try to have better control and understanding of a topic or area of interest by developing rules.  However, as the article points out, doing this can have a negative impact and hinder the full potential of that topic.  I am also a bit of a sports nut so the comparison of basketball to fine art grabbed my attention.  The fast paced opening paragraph provides excitement before the author segways into his more serious point.

     While I appreciate the argument made by the author, Dave Hickey, I believe he could have made his point in a more concise document.  Other examples and more than just a couple comparisons to fine art would have made a stronger case for his argument regarding rules in basketball.  At times he also states that basketball has developed these rules that restrict it yet without such rules, the sport would change in nature and identity.  Pushing the limits of these rules are the cause for the reactions in the crowd which he describes.

     In the article titled, "The Cheese Monkeys," I found the sarcastic comments inserted by the author to be humorous and they kept the reader's attention.  I appreciated the discussion regarding the governing theories behind formal arrangements.  It introduced several concepts, Left to Right, Big vs Small, Top to Bottom, and in Front of and in Back of, which are very influential in any message depicted by art or propaganda.  I am regularly aware of these ideas, yet due the thinking of the Western world, I understand the implied implications subconsciously.  I believe these basic concepts will aid me in formal compositions both in this class and future artistic endeavors.    

     The article itself didn't bother me, but it prompted me to consider how this world might be different if these governing theories were inverted or did not exist.  People understand particular implied meanings based on the formal arrangement of objects within a composition.  However, these meanings would cease to exist or falter if such rules did not influence our subconscious.  The composition of objects to produce a message or meaning relies heavily on these organizational principles and would struggle mightily without them.

Introduction

 My name is Brian Koehler and I am an undergraduate architecture major at Ohio State.
This is the first blog entry I have to write for Art Education 252.  I never thought I would have to write for an art class so this should be interesting.  It is cool though that the class is inside the football stadium.  I never realized there were classrooms inside the stadium.  I have used the Adobe program Photoshop many times before in my undergraduate college career in architecture to produce renderings for projects so I am excited to be able to further experiment with the program as a means of artistic representation.  I am also interested in exploring other methods of representation such as photography and video.  I hope to learn a lot from this class and taking advantage of the opportunities it presents.  I am in my 4th year at Ohio State and as I fulfilled almost all the required architecture classes to get my Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture, I plan to pursue other creative interests in my remaining two quarters here, starting with this class.  I am in the process of applying to grad schools where I plan to continue my education at the graduate level and earn a Master of Architecture degree.

My Top Five List would be:
1) Manchester United (my favorite soccer team)
2) Architecture (my major and growing passion)
3) Ohio State Buckeyes
4) Running (when I have the time and energy)
5) my girlfriend Bryn