Syd's Space

I decided to paint the mountains from the courtyard of my apartment building. I let my friends choose the colors from the 10 I had. The idea behind this was that even though I was the one painting it felt like everyone’s art. I didn’t think one minute of this showed enough of the process so I sped it up in order to show the multiple friends come and go throughout the day. Our courtyard faces the mountains during sunset and I’ve always wanted to commemorate all of the days spent watching the sunsets from our courtyard together. We collectively decided on colors and mountains and spent the day appreciating the mountains and brainstorming this piece. Will definitely be doing something like this again.

Reading 2: I thought the concept of addressing the missinformation and the current beliefs of their society was interesting and also likely why this was so groundbreaking. It is a great example of something that is talked about so frequently, but is not comprehensible until truly seeing how disturbing and wrong it really was/is. I really enjoyed reading the entire thought process behind this piece and how thorough they were in approaching this topic the right way. I think it is a prime example of how many people simply ignore the things that make them uncomfortable to think about intead of addressing why them are so uncomfortable, this is exemplified greatly by how many people were disturbed by this work. 

Experimental Art Video: "Deadline"

Andy Shauf - "The Magician"

Year of Work1996

The idea of examining modern media by starting with shadow puppets is spot on, we dont realize it as kids when we sit with our flashlights and make up insane narratives to assign to the shadows we create with our hands, but we are essentially making our own movies. These productions most definitely set the stage for projections to come to fruition. Projections allowed us to view and share the understanding of realities outside of our own, something we'd only been able to do by spoken word or still images prior to. I think the lengths that artists had to go to in order to create and share this kind of art is truly inspiring. In todays era it is so simple and easy to make and share media, which truly is spectacular, but the hard work that had to go into sharing media back then speaks to the passion behind the message. To create in this era required intention. It required a passion to share your ideas. It required work in order to do so. I think that there is something so impressive about wanting to be heard or understood so deeply that you work that hard.

This series takes the 10 most RAW and real parts of a series about addiction that I could find. As someone who as lived it, I hope these images shed some light on how violent and ugly it really does get. While I feel like in some aspects this show glorifies substance abuse, I feel that these specific scenes capture the ugliest parts of the disease. The parts of a disease that people don’t talk about, the parts of the disease that are only exploited after someone has fallen victim to the point of death.

It’s not a lot, but it’s honest work. A classic. Somehow better at warning than a picture. 

I wanted to exemplify how we glorify drugs in social settings. Inspired by euphoria and the common highschool experiences that many of us share, I feel that the light we view drugs in is not realistic nor is it healthy. I grew up in a household of substance abuse and never shared this outlook on drugs personally and it fascinated me how anyone could find something so dangerous so appealing. This was my attempt to bridge the gap in my understanding in hopes if I was selling the idea as well, maybe I'd begin ti understand it. It also evaluates the evolution of how drugs are introduced throughout our adolescence. 

Glorifying Drugs