Pirates of the Smithsonian

            There is a lot of controversy over whether the Smithsonian should still show their “Shipwrecked” exhibit. In 1998 on the coast of Indonesia’s Belitung Island, local fisherman diving for sea cucumbers discovered a shipwreck vessel containing objects from China’s Tang Dynasty.  Due to the Indonesian government’s poor regulation, the fisherman began looting the treasures. Some of the treasure ended up being sold on eBay. They eventually took control of the situation and hired Seabed explorations to excavate the site. Seabed sold most of the excavated artifacts to the Singaporean government for $32 million and gave the Indonesian the recovered artifacts and $2.5 million. The Smithsonian’s plan was to bring the artifacts that are already on display in Singapore in their “Shipwrecked” exhibition to DC. There is an argument whether they should do this or not because the artifacts are considered to be looted and weren’t excavated properly. Smithsonian is also a member of the Council of American Maritime Museums which follows the saying, “shall not knowingly ... exhibit artifacts which have been stolen ... or removed from commercially exploited ... sites." A lot of people think that the Smithsonian should cancel their exhibition because of this.

It is hard to say which side is right or wrong in this debate, but I think that Smithsonian should still go ahead with their plans on the “Shipwrecked” exhibition. The artifacts that in their exhibition, according to the Smithsonian, are from Seabed, and aren’t the stolen ones. In my opinion, they aren’t doing anything wrong. They have permission to use the artifacts and aren’t using the stolen ones or stole them themselves. I don’t see this as going against their statement they follow because Seabed went in and excavated the site after being hired, paid the Indonesian government, sold the artifacts to Singapore, and recovered the stolen ones. The artifacts are already on display right now in Singapore and these ones are the excavated ones by Seabed.

I think it is important for them to show the exhibit so everyone will be able to see the artifacts and experience that culture. The Practices of Looking book talks about how a person understands the meaning of something by experiencing it. It is different seeing an object in person than just an image of it. If everyone was able to go to the Smithsonian exhibit and be able to really visualize and touch these artifacts from the Chinese Dynasty, they could get more of a sense of the Arab and Chinese culture and the trade between the two countries. It also proves that it really did exist. Finding the shipwreck was a huge moment in history and everyone should be able to experience that part in history. Museums are meant for displaying moments and time pieces in history so we can get a sense of what it was like in that time period and culture.

            Many museums have displayed pieces or artifacts that weren’t from their country or culture or that were stolen before. The British Museum has a piece of the Parthenon in Greece that was removed in the early in 1800s by the Ottoman Empire. This was considered vandalism, so they then offered to pay for it. The Geneva Convention has gotten back some of the artwork stolen from Jews by the Nazis during 1933-1945. The Louvre’s collection was shaped by colonialism. This means, “A relationship of domination that helped to rationalize French proprietary rights to a colony’s cultural production” (422). These rights from colonialism are still under negotiation. The Smithsonian didn’t take any artifacts from another country or use the stolen artifacts, so I think they should still show they exhibition.

Milton Glaser

            Milton Glaser is an artist and graphic designer. He is most well known for his I heart NY logo. Throughout the documentary, he gives multiple examples and quotes of what he believes art truly is. One quote he used in the documentary to define art is, “the purpose of art is to inform and delight.”  He talks about how art is what society determines it is at any point in history. Glaser is a strong believer in working hard to create art. You have to work hard to get people understand what you are showing. He believes the best way to make people understand art is to make the art like a puzzle. With the creation of a puzzle, people are forced to stop and stare at what you are showing to try and understand the meaning of the art work. Glaser believes that all art work has to have an opposite and relationship between good and evil. Glaser has created many different well known designs, but he never wants to be capitalized as a style.

            Milton Glaser’s quote, “we should always operate by interruption,” truly defines how his art work and designs are created. Glaser likes to work out in the same space around all of his coworkers. He thinks this helps things get done faster because everyone can hear everything and know what is going on. Operating by interruption allows for everyone to feed off of each other’s ideas and creativity. It allows for new ideas to flow easier. One of the moments in the documentary shows Glaser reading over an idea and making a sketch while being on the phone. Art is constantly changing, so he believes there shouldn’t be a starting and ending time to creating a design. Glaser likes to take the time to enjoy everything. To him, experiences are everything. When you operate by interruption, you are able to take the time to stop and just enjoy what you are doing.

Ambient Advertising

            Ambient advertising is any type of advertising that is meant to be unexpected. It is put in places where ads aren’t usually seen in to interrupt your daily routines and activities to catch your eye. The creators of these types of ambient ads do this so you will stop and actually pay attention to the ad and possibly invest in what they are trying to tell you or sell to you. Most ambient ads have a certain meaning behind them that is more important than just a perfume ad in a magazine. The difference of ambient ads than normal ads is the attention grabber. When you see an ad in a magazine, on a billboard, or on TV, you flip past it, fast forward through it, or simply just ignore it because you expect it to be there and it is nothing new to you, but if you see a random statue or huge object where it isn’t supposed to be you can’t help but stop to see what it is or what it is about. Then it is stuck in your head, and it might even make you want to get involved with what it selling or go out and buy it.

            I think ambient advertising would be very effective with Otterbein students because I think college students are a more open minded audience when it comes to taking the time to pay attention to their surroundings and getting involved in current issues. A good ambient ad is simple and cheap, which is perfect for a college student who is creating one.  A good ambient ad has to be flexible, creative and practical, which is also good for a college campus. There are many creative options on where to put an ambient ad on Otterbein’s campus, and you would always have students stopping and staring at the ad. Students always seem to be more open with speaking their opinions.

            The first ad I chose was the Tropicana: Billboard powered by oranges from ibelieveinadv.com. DDB created a billboard created all out of oranges that generated electricity.  The oranges were powering a neon sign that says natural energy and a Tropicana sign.  The ad was to advertise Tropicana and to promote natural energy. It took them 3 months of testing, tons of wiring, and shocks of copper and zinc to be able to make this billboard. It was placed outside in the street. This ad is targeting natural energy and everyone to use more of it. I chose this ad because I think it is amazing how they made the neon sign light up just by using oranges.  This ad is effective because it proves to people that you really can use natural objects to generate electricity and energy.

            The second ad I chose was also from ibelieveinadv.com. It was the Big Bloom Bubble Gum: Big Bloom ad.  Big Bloom wanted to show people that kids could blow the biggest bubbles with their gum. So in order to do so, they took a pink large balloon that is used at car dealerships or grocery stores, painted Big Bloom on it, attached a life size kid mannequin on the end, and set the balloon off into the sky. The idea of this was supposed to look like a kid blew such a big bubble with his Big Bloom bubble gum that he floated up in the sky. The audience was geared towards kids. Big Bloom wanted kids to think that they too could blow this big of bubbles.  I chose this ad because of all the creativity and thought that went in it. I wish I could have been there to see it. I think it is a really good idea to sell any type of gum. Their ad is so effective because they went through all of these measures to make it look so realistic and do something that no one has done before to sell their gum. People couldn’t help but stop and stare at a huge balloon with a kid hanging from it soaring through the sky because it isn’t something you see every day.

Commodity Self

            I do think we construct our identities through consumer products. We live in a very materialistic world where people want the newest and most expensive item. A lot of people judge people from the items they own or how they dress prior to speaking to them because of this. If a person drives a BMW or Lexus or is dressed in designer clothes, you would assume they have money based on the products they own. Some people buy expensive products that they can’t afford just to obtain an identity that comes off as being rich or high class. Products are advertised in a way that is meant to be appealing to everyone and make them think they cannot live without it. The products are portrayed as cool and hip to get the consumer to buy them and feel as if they aren’t cool if they don’t own it.

            We are products of products. A brand is no different than any other shirt or object if there is nobody representing it. People represent themselves and express themselves through clothing, accessories, cars, and the music they listen to. On the clothes and accessories you buy, there is a brand name, and when you wear it you are representing that brand. By doing this, you are helping to promote that brand and getting their name out there. You are a walking advertisement for that brand, and becoming identified with that brand. Brands can’t successfully exist without us buying the product and becoming the product by using or wearing it.

           

Wassily Kandinsky

            Wassily Kandinsky was born on December 16^th, 1866 in Moscow. He didn’t always start out as an abstract painter, but instead as a Docent of Law Faculty and later became a Professor of Law at Derpt University in Tartu. It wasn’t until he visited an exhibit that was displaying the different works of French expressionists that he decided to give up law all together for painting. He was inspired by K. Monet’s Haystack and Rihard Wagner’s Lohengrin. He entered the Munich Academy of Arts where he then he studied under Franz Stuck. It was there he met Gabriela Munter, an artist who he travelled throughout Europe with. He based most of his paintings on the landscapes and colors he saw and exhibitions they visited. Kandinsky kept most of his feelings and emotions inside and only let them show through his paintings. He is known as one of the first abstract painters.

            Kandinsky’s paintings vary from colors, styles and pictures depending on what city he was in and what time period it was. Most of his pictures are bright colors with dark backgrounds. A lot of his pictures don’t have people in them. His earlier work portrayed his fascination with colors when he was a child. He used his fascination for colors in his painting, “Looks on the Past”. Later on in his artwork, he incorporated music and melody in to his paintings to give them a sense of movement and harmony. Kandinsky published his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art in 1910 that demonstrated his geometrical progression in abstract art. These paintings included descending series of different circles, triangles, and squares.

            I chose Kandinsky because he was one of the first abstract painters and was believed to have started the rise in abstract paintings. I find his paintings beautiful because of all the bright colors. I like how there is a variety of paintings. He painted landscapes, people, shapes, and collages of random colors. He made his paintings more about feeling and movement instead of the overall picture. I found it very interesting too how he went from being a professor of law to being a painter, and just from seeing two paintings he decided to give up law and paint for the rest of his life.  Both of those professions just seem so opposite from each other.

Here are some of Kandinsky’s paintings:

 Murnau St.

Improvisation 19

Murnau - Kohlgruberstrass

All Saints 1

Farbstudie Quadrate

Works Cited:

Barnett, Vivian Endicott, et al. Kandinsky. Guggenheim Museum: New York, New York,

     2009.

Whitford, Frank. Kandinsky: Watercolours and Other Works on Paper. Thames and Hudson:

     New York, New York, 1999. 

Harrell Fletcher

            Harrell’s work is all about the community and portraying the personalities and stories of the people living in that community. In the Garage Sale series, he was able to do this by collecting items from different garage sales and putting them into his gallery. Each item contained a tag on them explaining the story behind the item from the previous owner. The story tag was a way for the people looking at the item to be able to get to know something about the person who owned that item. Having all these different items from garage sales with their stories showed the different cultures, lives, and personalities of the different members of the community. At the end of the gallery, Harrell made the gallery a garage sale by letting people buy the items. This connected the people of the community because with the item you got the story tag and knew the meaning and history behind what you were buying making it seem more valuable than a garage sale item.

            Harrell’s main idea behind the Garage Sale Series was to make art accessible to everyone. He achieved that buy using ordinary items we see every day and wouldn’t care about and giving them a special meaning behind them. It also showed that not all art is the fancy expensive paintings that we all see in museums. This is a reflection of community arts because he did it for the people of the community to portray the different lifestyles and personalities inside that community just by taking simple items from their garage sales.

Connection with Low Expectation and the Search for Community in an age of Alienation.

            Hal talked about how with the use of peep we have redefined our culture. Peep is just a definition for websites like Facebook and YouTube that are exploiting people’s lives for entertainment, personal benefit, communication, etc. This has changed our culture because now people are communicating online instead of in person. Our world has become a virtual world. People stay inside to play video games, watch TV, or surf the internet more than they go outside. If you want to look anything up or find a person you haven’t talked to or seen in a few years, you can just type that in to the computer and find it in seconds. Our generation now has become less dependent on the outside world and physical interactions that people alienate themselves in their houses.

            Hal also talked about how peep has redefined the word friend. He talked about how so many people have hundreds of friends on Facebook, but out of the hundreds you really only talk, hang out with, or know a select few. Why do you still friend request them then? People add these people usually to look at their profiles, to see what people have been up to, or to see what they are doing with their lives if they haven’t seen them in years. With their friends on Facebook, people have low expectations from them. You wouldn’t ever expect them to be there for you if you were going through a crisis like you would your best friend.  Hal talked about a woman who blogged about her life  because she felt like she could be herself with the people following her blog and was comfortable enough to share with them her stories, but in her normal day  to day life she didn’t feel that same way. A lot of people feel more comfortable being themselves around complete strangers or in a virtual world rather than the real world.