IN RESPONSE
Art and Music is a common language through which to reflect, question, and explore the world around us. In this project, Art 1 and Art 2 students collaborated with Music Production to create an artistic and emotional response to current events reported in the news media. Art I students recorded short videos and created mixed media artworks to express their responses to Charlottesville and Harvey, two events that have dominated summer news coverage, while students in music used a combination of real audio and original digital compositions to create an accompanying musical response. The collection of videos and artworks on display in this exhibition are experiments in movement, materials, and audio.
Anthony Houdek
Destroying Us
Sheet metal on wood
10/17/17
In my piece, Destroying Us, I showed an emotional response of anger towards the protests in Charlottesville, VA and outrage for the White Supremacists. I did this by tracing the United States on a piece of wood. I then cut the wood out and I traced the wood onto a piece of sheet metal, cut the sheet metal and nailed the metal to the wood. After all of this I destroyed the metal by drilling it and hitting it with a hammer. This represents the United States destroying itself and it also shows the anger and violence that has been plaguing the United States. I created a complete opposite United States that did not have any deformities to show how perfect the United States would be as a whole without bigotry and racism. Besides showing an emotional response, Destroying Us is also an attempt to show my view of the United States, a nation that has been destroying itself since it’s first day as a country. I used the destroyed sheet metal as a way to shock people; to see how damaging the actions of all of us can actually be on such a fragile nation. It is my job as an artist to shock people and speak on current events. Shock value will always make people pay attention to the deeper meaning of events and it will spark a conversation and make them question what they already know.
Is it the responsibility of an artist to respond to current events?
"It is not the artist's responsibility to speak on current events but it is the artist's responsibility to make thought provoking work. If a current event aligns with a message the artist is trying to convey, then they should absolutely make a response to the current event through their art."
"It is the responsibility of the artist to respond to the current events.I believe this because we have to draw more attention and give recognition that will sooner or later affect our lives.Its better to address these situations now and try to fix them before they become hard to stop without violence."
"I don’t think it is an artists responsibility to respond to current events, but their response would be beneficial and make viewers have a better understanding and opinion of the current event. Artist are game changers and innovators. We need people who can shape people and make the world a better place."
Jefferson Massey
Look Through my Lense
Wooden chair
October 24th, 2017
In my Art 2 project, I made a wooden chair to represent my response to the Charlottesville, Virginia image. I made a chair because I want the audience to picture themselves as the victim. The image showed an African American officer standing with his hands crossed but in the background it’s Nazi affiliated people protesting against people of color. With the chair people will sit down and watch the film that will be presented. The chair was designed not to be comfortable, the reason being is to show everyone is not comfortable with their job but you still have to do it anyways. The materials that I used for this project was 2x4’s wooden pieces, nails and a drill. It was a short building time but the measurements were the most important part. The role of an artist is to make work in response to current events because we are living the present time with with these events and we need to figure out the best ways to approach them benefiting everyone.
Lizy Negron
Ignorance: The Trump Edition
Drywall and Paint
10/23/17
For Art II, our first project was to respond to a current event, specifically what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia. In Ignorance: The Trump Edition, I chose to create a wall since it’s very significant to Trump. I went with the route of focusing more on the ignorant things that Trump has said because some of the quotes hit close to home. For example, I put “Puerto Rico, you’ve put our budget a little out of whack”. This quote was put onto my wall because, as my father informed me, Puerto Rico was forced to become a part of the United States. Puerto Ricans did not want to become US citizens. My family is Puerto Rican, so my ancestors were affected by this. It’s very hypocritical of Trump to say that considering Puerto Ricans were imposed to become US citizens. I chose go with black and white lettering and different sized fonts to get straight to the point and to make the person looking at my art piece to feel overwhelmed. I made some quotes bigger than the others to emphasize them a little more.