Part Of My First Experimentation

I created various sketches from a simple toothbrush into a different form and aesthetic. It helps me to re-generate ideas and thoughts about what made toothbrush our everyday needs and how it can be shown in a more pronounced way. I drew a simple toothbrush in the middle and as it further our from the sketch paper, the formation and ways to even use it changes from one point to another.

This is the process how I interpret the work from the French artist, Sebastien Bouchard where I want to understand my point of question by using one of our everyday necessity object that is the toothbrush as it resembles the simplicity gadget. I took an image of a toothbrush and edit it out with the use of Photoshop where I copied the famous luxury icon, Louis Vuitton and applied it properly onto the body parts of the toothbrush.

Finally, I have managed to design a toothbrush with a well-known designed icon on the toothbrush as it creates a combination of luxury and necessity where my point is to describe the context that everyday objects are a thing that we see them just an ordinary-invisible gadgets. But, they are our most needed necessities that completes our everyday life. This is why I created this toothbrush with the famous icon as it shows that everyday objects consumed more than the things that what we want but what we need are more to be seen as the most 'luxury' things.

A Picture Is Worth To Describe The Different Aspect Of It

For this creation, context is everything as told by the French artist himself, Sebastien Bouchard. In his work, he was describing about what happens when one of the world's most recognizable brands is lifted from its high-society environment and plunged into a completely alien surrounding?

He then brought the question up in a form of an artwork that questions most of the user where he made it more attractive by the addition of a detailed hand-painted Louis Vuitton monograms on an African calabash bowl for a group exhibition in Dakar, Senegal.

"C'est la crise," or "crisis time," is what this artwork is called where it shows a great contrast effect of a famous icon that describes of luxury and unattainability (for most of the poor and slobs) with a combination of an inexpensive daily necessity object.

This project piece is one of an example how and what it meant with one of the question I am bringing up. That is,'What is necessity and what is luxury?'. This question will be part of my starting point of my final project through various experimentations.

The History Of Art Installation

Installation became well known and grew popularity during the 1970's. Installation is associated with conceptual art where it traced back to artists such as Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) where one of his famous installations called Fountain (1917) where he brings different perception towards the given installation that he presented in a different perspective and interaction.

In addition, a work of art by an artist writer who is an American avant-garde Allan Kaprow who published this book in 1966 called the 'Assemblage, Environments and Happenings' that were highly influence in the development of the installation genre where he describes the evolution of Happening as a progression from action in paintings to Assemblages, Assemblages extending into Environments, and Environments in-relation to environmental of sounds and effects that were created and 'invaded' by the interaction of people or spectators.

Another well-known modern installation artists include:

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) who installed one of his art piece called the 'Homogeneous Infiltration for Piano' in 1966, covered with felt and leather where it was being exhibited at Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris.

The German multi-media artist, Rebecca Horn describe as a person who believes in and promotes the truth or benefits of her ideas and theory towards her installation works. Her body extensions, sculptures, drawings and installations comment on bodily form. This is most obvious through her body sculptures but even in her mechanical like installations where there is a clear connection to the body. The illusion of feeling and interact with her work is the one thing that she sees the important part.

One famous young British artists like Damien Hurst who have had exhibited most of his works around Europe showing some of his most controversial work, including various animals being put and displayed in a container like in formaldehyde. As his works were mostly being displayed with frozen real human bodies and animals, most students especially within the Science department find it helpful as it gives them clear vision of every piece inside each and every part of the living forms.

Another one of his well-known work is the £50 million price, considered as one of the most expensive diamond encrusted skull, titled 'For The Love Of God'. The skull is covered with 8,601 flawless diamonds, which means three times the number on the crown the Queen wears.

Bruce Nauman who is noted for his neon light sculpture and video installations. Born December 6, 1941, in Fort Wayne, Indiana from America who studies contemporary art. Here, are some of his few works that he has exhibited throughout his lifetime.

From what I have looked through the aspects of installations has have made me able to understand with the help of examples from various installations done by various well-known artists. Not only that, knowing the history facts about installations made a clear difference between sculptures and installations where it mainly confused easily.

From knowing the basic part of installation enables me to thoroughly gave me a different view that will perhaps support my project as I go along.

*The Difference Between Sculpture And Installation

At the very first glance, some installations may resemble the traditional craft based sculptures. But this is actually an illusion. Installation art effectively inverts the principles of sculpture. Meaning, sculptures are designed to be view from the outside as a self-contained arrangement of forms whereas, installations often envelop the viewer or the user in the space of the work. The viewer enters a controlled environment where it sometimes featuring objects as well as lights, sound and projected imagery. The forms of the compositions are to be seen as secondary importance. What is most important is the effect towards the viewer's spatial and cultural expectations and experience as well as giving the viewer critical thoughts.

Above are one of the examples that are installation based where this was designed for 'For Use/Numen' by Vienna and Zagreb who had wove a web adhesive tape around scaffolding at the DMY, Berlin. The project was involved wrapping 45 km of tape about the posts over four days.

The idea for the installation originates in a set design concept for a dance performance in which the form evolves from the movement of the dancers between the pillars. The dancers are stretching the tape while they move, so the result shape is a (tape) recording of the choreography.

An example how installation can actually give the viewers or the users effects on the spatial and cultural expectations towards the given environment.

A photograph showing a sculpture called "Maman" done by a well-known artist, Louise Bourgeois where it was being displayed at the Tate Modern in London few years back. An example of a sculpture where it only projects how only the artist is describing it.

Types of Installations...

This visual art form varies from in a form of a very simple to the very simple to the very complex installation. An installation can be either presented in a gallery based, digital based, electronic based and web-based where possibilities have no limits where it only relies on how and the way each and every artists with their own concepts and intentions in presenting their work of art to give out messages. Nearly any type of materials or media can be considered as part of contemporary installation art, either in a form of natural or man-made objects as well as in a form of new media such as video, film, photography, audio and performance.

Some works are suitable to be put indoor whereas some are called public art where it describes as a way to construct in an open-air community spaces or public spaces. Some outcomes might be in a form of mute, while others are in an interactive form where interaction is needed to understand the work that has been being installed in a certain space.

Let's look through one of the artists who influence the style of post-modern art.

"I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty." -Barbara Kruger.

The influence of feminism highlights the challenging within the power of relationships and undermining the power and authority of the female form by using agitprop (political propaganda, especially in art or literature) style with pictures and images of her way to express her point of view to the viewer.

Video installation breakthrough was in the 1990's where it was multi-screen editing where it mainly articulates in a form of flat video being played on a wall or screen as to give out an interactive immersion where it intensifies to the viewers visioning what has been played in the video to give out an interactive style of message. This kind of idea is an example from an artist who created one of his digital interactive artwork called Legible City, 1989 by Jeffrey Shaw.

In the Legible City, the visitor is able to ride a stationary bicycle through a simulated representation of a city that has been constructed digitally by a computer generated three-dimensional letters that form words and sentences along the sides of the streets where Mr. Shaw with Dirk Groeneveld used the actual cities such as Manhattan, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe where the existing buildings in the cities are being replaced in a form of text and wordings. Traveling through these cities of words is consequently a journey of reading where choosing the path is an act of choosing spontaneously.

On the other hand, another example of an installation artist Claire Bishop who is excellent in her critical history in a form of installation art base where she suggested that contemporary installation can be traced back form the styles of Dada and Surrealism in the early of 1960's.

Bishop's history of installation art have made a new form of revolution in a way to trace back the history yet bringing it in a form of modernity. Which is to say, examining not only the physical characteristics of installation art but also the ideas and values that upbringing this mode of expression.

There are three important points where Bishop has guided herself in analysing her works her works in installation art form.

First, the aspiration to create a more direct involvement between the viewer and the work of art; Second, the observation that installation art presents the viewer with fragments that must be explored and assembled in a manner that 'activates' the viewer; and, third, the expanded (more extensive) sculptural such as Krauss in 1979 where Krauss's reformating of sculpture as "not-architecture" as a positive justification for the "quasi architectural integers" of minimalist art was an elegant rhetorical turn, giving tactics of deconstructing the traditional concept of the precious work of art; In other words, the use of found objects and materials.

What Is Installation?

Installation in terms of art has also in relation to the new genre of contemporary art where it varies in a form of 2-D and 3-D materials to have an effect or influence the way we perceive or experience within a particular space or area. Moreover, installations are also describe as a way to make the viewer or the user to think deeply, critically about the value of life and realising today's in an increasingly uncertain world such as facing, for instance, climate change, globalised consumerism and social fragmentation.

Furthermore, installation artists see their part of presenting their works in giving out message to the viewer or the user are more important than with the means used to achieve it. It is also in a way, more grounded (an area of knowledge or subject of discussion or thought) where it shows and also can be physically use or interact with.

Installation art came about in the 1990's as a significant movement in post-modern art such as Hans Haacke, Victor Burgin and Barbara Kruger who previously influence the style of post-modern art.

When Consumerism Overtook Biodiversity Meets Modern Art

And here is where Art meets Modern Art. For my project of research, I don't intend to do mostly on theoretically but also practical based as for me to be engage with my work. To understand and interact is what I will look down onto my major project. This is when Art meet science and science meets Art... Modern Art...

...So, I will then introduce the meaning of installation, types of installation, the difference between sculpture and installation and the history regarding on installation..

..I then move onto part of my experimentations as I go along with my theoretical writings..

We, As The Consumers Just Eat Things Up...

The continued health of human societies depends upon a natural environment that is productive and contains a wide diversity of plant, animal, and microbe species. Life on the earth comprises at least 10 million species of plants, animals, and microbes, while in the United States there are an estimated 750,000 species, of which small organisms such as anthropods and microbes comprise 95 percent.

The sustainability of the forest ecosystems and other natural ecosystems are in danger from the expanding world population, which now totals of more than 6 billion. With an estimated growth rate of 1.4 percent per year, it is projected to reach 12 billion by the year 2050. Further, due in large part to the growing human population and diverse human activities (supported in large part by fossil fuels), the current extinction rate of species ranges from approximately 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rates. This is alarming for several reasons. Foremost, biodiversity is essential for the sustainable functioning of agricultural, forest, and natural ecosystems upon which human survival and health depends. The loss of a key species (e.g., loss of a predator) creates an imbalance among the remaining species, and can sometimes rest in the collapse of the entire ecosystems. Altering a habitat may also improve the environment for an infectious disease, like dengue.

Species diversity affects the quantity and quality of human food supply. For example, conserving pollinations and natural enemies of pests is essential for successful grain, fruit, and vegetable production. Improving food production decreases malnutrition. Yet, at present, the rapidly expanding human population is intensifying the need for increased food supplies. In the year 2000, more than 3 billion people were suffering from malnutrition which is the largest number and proportion of people to date. Each year, between 6 million and 14 million people die from the effects of malnutrition.

In many parts of the world, especially in developing countries (e.g., in the Sahelian region of Africa), severe shortages of vitamin A are causing blindness and even death. Worldwide, approximately 250 million children are vitamin A deficient, and each year vitamin A deficiency causes approximately 2 million deaths and 3 million serious eye problems, including blindness.

Similarly, iron intake per person has been declining, especially in the Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the People's Republic of China, and South America, because overall shortages of food result in inadequate nutrition. In 1998 more that 2 billion persons were sufficiently iron deficient to cause anaemia in 1.2 billion people. An estimated 20 percent of the malnutrition deaths are attributed to severe anaemia.

Malnutrition is also associated with parasitic infections that are found in areas where conditions of poverty and inadequate sanitation also exist. The health of malnourished individuals, especially children, is seriously affected by parasitic infections, because their presence reduces the availability of nutrients. Parasitic infections diminish appetites while increasing the loss of nutrients, by causing diarrhea and dysentery. Hookworms, for instance, can suck as much as 30 milliliters of blood from an infected individual each day, lowering his or her resistance to other diseases. Because an estimated 5 to 20 percent of an individual's daily food intake is used by the body to offset the effects of parasitic illnesses, the overall nutritional status of a parasite-infected person is greatly diminished over time.

As a human population continues to expand and biodiversity declines, waste grows and its disposal becomes a major environmental problem. Each year, the total quantity of waste produced by humans, livestock, and crops weighs about 38 billion tons worldwide. Numerous invertebrate animals and microbes function to degrade and recycle wastes. Their preservation in ecosystems is essential to maintain a healthy and productive environment.

Worldwide chemical waste and pollution are also major environmental problems. In the twenty-first century in the United States, 80,000 different chemicals are used and released into the soil, water, and air; worldwide, an estimated 100,000 chemicals are used. In the United States, more than 1,100 kilograms of chemicals per person are used each year; nearly 10 percent of these are known carcinogens. Each year nearly 3 billion kilograms of pesticides are applied worldwide. These toxic chemicals cause 26 million human poisonings annually, with about 220,000 deaths, and affect approximately 750,000 people with chronic diseases like cancer.

Approximately 75 percent by weight of the chemicals released into the environment can be degraded by biological organisms. Thus, species biodiversity helps provide continuos cleanup of contaminated sites (such as residue of pesticides in agriculture), and has a significant advantage over other techniques. Conserving beneficial natural enemies not only controls crop pests but also helps reduce the amount of pesticides applied.

In addition to degrading chemicals, some invertebrate and microbe species also degrade and recycle biological pollutants in water resources. Again, the biological pollution problem is particularly serious in developing nations. About 1.2 billion people in the world lack clean, safe water because most household and industrial wastes are dumped directly into rivers and lakes without treatment. this pollution contributes to the rapidly increasing incidence of diseases worldwide and 90 percent of all infectious diseases found in developing countries. A lack of sanitary conditions contributes to about 2 billion human infections of diarrhea, resulting in about 4 million deaths, per year, mostly among infants and young children.

Sometimes altering a natural habitat inadvertently leads to the spread of an infectious diseases. Diseases like schistosomiasis that are associated with contaminated fresh water are expanding worldwide. In 1999, it was estimated that schistosomiasis caused 1 million deaths per year. The escalation of the incidence of this disease followed an increase in suitable habitats for the snail that serves as the intermediate host of the causative agent, Schistosoma mansoni. Thus, construction in 1968 of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and its related irrigation systems was followed by an explosion in the prevalence of Schistosoma mansoni, which increased in the human population from 5 percent in 1968 to 77 percent in 1993.

Considered together, the natural biodiversity of plants, animals, and microbes functions in many ways to enhance the health and quality of life enjoyed by human society. In view of the likely continued growth in human population, and the resultant alteration of the earth's fragile natural ecosystems, greater efforts must be made to conserve biodiversity as a natural and essential treasure.

History In Relation To Biodiversity...

The variety of all living things; a contraction of biological diversity. Biodiversity can be measured on many biological levels ranging from genetic diversity within a species to the variety of ecosystems on Earth, but the term most commonly refers to the number of different species in a defined area.

Recent estimates of the total number of species range from 7 to 20 million, of which only about 1.75 million species have been scientifically described. The best-studied groups include plants and vertebrates (phylum Chordata), whereas poorly described groups include fungi, nematodes, and arthropods. Species that live in the ocean and in soils remain poorly known. For most groups of species, there is a gradient of increasing diversity from the Poles to the Equator, and the vast majority of species are concentrated in the tropical and subtropical regions.

Human activities, such as direct harvesting of species, introduction of alien species, habitat destruction, and various forms of habitat degradation (including environmental pollution), have caused dramatic losses of biodiversity; current extinction rates are estimated to be 100-1000 times higher than prehuman extinction rates.

Some measure of biodiversity is responsible for providing essential functions and services that directly improve human life. For example, many medicines, clothing fibers, and industrial products and the vast majority of foods are derived from naturally occurring species.

In addition, species are the key working parts of natural ecosystems. They are responsible for maintenance of the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, regulation of the global climate, generation and maintenance of soils, recycling of nutrients and waste products, and biological control of pest species. Ecosystems surely would not function if all species were lost, although it is unclear just how many species are necessary for an ecosystem to function properly.

What is Consumerism?

Consumerism ia a pattern of behavior that is basically refers to social and economic systems where our creations and the desire to purchase goods and services at a higher and faster rate which then creates of what causes and affected our today's ways of consumption; damaging such as our environment, economy, society and human institution.

Moreover, the term "consumerism" is also used to refer to the consumerist movement or can be also referred to as consumer activism, where it attempt to restrict by law and inform consumers by requiring practices such as packaging and advertising that were to be shown without any doubts about what they are presenting and offering to the consumers.

By consuming things like food, clothing, DVDs, and computers we are drawn into a set of complex, asymmetrical, and changing relationships with other people over time. Therefore, consumerism is considered and to be seen as relational, and historically contingent.

Mapping It Out

Mapping out with the use of a mind map where I listed out the pin-points of my projects and how in the end our future will be as we go through all these points.

My first task is to generate starting point from which to develop my research project. During my first weeks of studies, I created few ideas around the topic that I have intended to do. My ideas range in scale and type where it encompasses whole areas of consumerism in relation with the problems around the ideas whilst also focusing on small observations, situations, materials and processes.