Title of Event: BU Drawings
Date & Time of Event: Tuesday, December 5th, 5 pm
Location of Event: Holmes hall 130
Type of event: Exhibition
Artxpose #3
Title of Event: Samek Gallery Theatre
Date & Time of Event: Tuesday, December 5th, 2023, 4:30 pm
Location of Event: Samek Art Gallery
Type of event: Exhibition
Bird references project 4
Animal Intelligence – Citlali Rodriguez
I listened to an audio podcast from Science Friday, Radio hour about the “Secret (Smart) Life of Bees” and it focuses on a study regarding the European species of bumblebees: Bombus terrestris. This study in which bees had to move a ball from one location to another in order to receive a reward. There was much learned from this study, even when there were things already known about bees; such as the fact that it is known that bees are able to push various things in the name of a reward. But through this particular study, it was learned that bees have, not only a remarkable level of flexibility, but the fascinating ability to learn from their sisters despite being uninformed about the task and having no previous exposure.
I find it interesting that this was deemed important because this glimpse of a bee’s brain and thought process gives us a sense of understanding integrative brain function and multitasking. Bees have very complicated brains, more so than the average human would think was possible, especially considering humans have 85 billion neurons in their brain. And this complicated brain, with about 10,000 – 100,000 brain cells, can be described to be as small as a pinhead!
Thesis: The complexity and congestive ability of an animal has to be determined outside of the scope of “human intelligence.” Trying to meet just that standard is completely dismissive of the abilities all animals have simply because the definition of intelligence is so influence by this cognitive notion of human intelligence.
Artxpose #2 – Citlali Rodriguez
Citlali Rodriguez #1 Artxpose
collages
Writing assignment – Citlali Rodriguez
Key Experience: I didn’t know I could love as much as I do until I met my best friends.
For the first time in six years, I was three months clean of self harm– all because of one single summer spent with all of them. An achievement I thought would never happen– did. Because of our sleepovers, our little ice cream dates– a car ride with the window’s down. It’s those moments that made me realize life isn’t all that bad. Moments that made me feel so clear headed, my face hurt all the time from how much I was smiling. My chest felt light, fluttering like a hummingbird with all the love that filled my being. Like a flower growing from a crack in the concrete, I was healing.
My knees were scraped from how hard I would laugh to the point that I couldn’t keep myself upright. My voice was scratchy from how loud and often I was talking. My body was sore from the games we played, from wrestling in the ocean water to playing twister when none of us have played a game since we were in elementary school.
We were kids again. And I learned to live.
Key words:
- Love
- Light
- Growing
- Laughter
- Summer
- Comfort
- Warm
- Childhood
- Clean
- Healing
Citlali Rodriguez, TRANSFIGURATION
TRANSFIGURATION by Olivier De Sagazan
Immediate Response
It is awful and I can’t look away. The style, the mess is akin to seeing a car crash and refusing to look away even as the vehicle burns away before your very eyes. It is a wreck—grotesque but I can’t pull my eyes away. The flower heart with eminent of there being a human like structure unsettles me. The way it simply just stares forward, lacking any obscene pose invokes this heavy, uncomfortable feeling as though I witnessed something I should’ve never seen if it weren’t for my curiosity. Personally, I can’t even describe it as a human being, or man. The being is genuinely just that: a thing.
Objective Description
Where one would see human eyes, there are red orbs that, due to their material, lack any shine or identity. Where the nose should be is a black splatter of black paint that seems carved in and sunken into the “head” of the figure. The mouth is layered, as though partially a mask and it has torn at the seams. It follows this theme of red by having red paint that drips from the viewer’s right side. The skin is white, but not cleanly so—it is marked with streaks of grey from the clay that is splattered throughout the being in general. Sticking on most of this clay is paper or something similar that distorts what would be seen as the face. Outside of paper, a multitude of flowers are placed in respective areas: white small flowers on the forehead, sort of the brain aspect, green weeds growing from behind the figure/from the figure, purple flowers on the torso and up—stopping just barely around the jaw without being placed on there and finally, red petals on the sternum with roots around it.
Technical Decisions:
It is a definite embodiment of a human structure but where vital visual features would be, alternative materials are placed as a sort of replacement. For example, paper or paper mâché as the face’s skin, red bottle caps as the eyes, red lining where the lips would be, pink petals where blush would appear. The deliberate placing of the petals and their color also change the outlook of the work of art. While the piece of static, the material dramatizes features that keep you from looking away. The flowers on the shoulder and upper chest being purple also invokes one to think about a deeper reason its design. For example, the color of the petals on where the brain” or the “spine” and even the “heart” make some sorts of sense, but the purple stands out due to nothing else being purple. Even the location is different as it is not within a museum nor is it in a room—it is outside in front of a black painted wall; and even that is unnormal because the painted spot a sort of circle around the being.
The Work in the World
The motif of flowers and plants has me interested the most. While I can’t really identify them, the ones in the back look like weeds. This caused me to wrack the ends of my brain to try and remember what the flowers were because they seem quite familiar. If I am correct, they might be “Creeping Charlies” which are an invasive weed species that destroys fields it invades. I am quite unconfident about the flowers on the head, for they seem like “baby breaths” which are lovely flowers that, in summary, mean “infinite love”. Does this mean infinite love of knowledge? Of change? Then the weeds growing from his spine make me wonder if there is an invasion within his body and thus changing the way I look at the work of art.
The story it tells:
I wonder what transfiguration the being go through in which they found themselves in this position. The title is being “TRANSFIGURATION” is direct enough to give me an idea that the being has been changed in some ways but not really the reasoning as to why. I wonder if the flowers, plants, and weeds play the direct role I am inferring to. Ie: does the being have an infinite sort of love for change? For itself and its ability to change? How about the Creeping Charlies? While I can’t find their meaning, they’re an invasive, destructive, but stunning weed. Does this mean that he feels as though in his being, this change is something he cannot control? That is pervasive in the way it holds them hostage?
It is awful and I can’t look away. The style, the mess is akin to seeing a car crash and refusing to look away even as the vehicle burns away before your very eyes. It is a wreck—grotesque but I can’t pull my eyes away. The flower heart with eminent of there being a human like structure unsettles me. The way it simply just stares forward, lacking any obscene pose invokes this heavy, uncomfortable feeling as though I witnessed something I should’ve never seen if it weren’t for my curiosity. Personally, I can’t even describe it as a human being, or man. The being is genuinely just that: a thing.
Objective Description
Where one would see human eyes, there are red orbs that, due to their material, lack any shine or identity. Where the nose should be is a black splatter of black paint that seems carved in and sunken into the “head” of the figure. The mouth is layered, as though partially a mask and it has torn at the seams. It follows this theme of red by having red paint that drips from the viewer’s right side. The skin is white, but not cleanly so—it is marked with streaks of grey from the clay that is splattered throughout the being in general. Sticking on most of this clay is paper or something similar that distorts what would be seen as the face. Outside of paper, a multitude of flowers are placed in respective areas: white small flowers on the forehead, sort of the brain aspect, green weeds growing from behind the figure/from the figure, purple flowers on the torso and up—stopping just barely around the jaw without being placed on there and finally, red petals on the sternum with roots around it.
Technical Decisions:
It is a definite embodiment of a human structure but where vital visual features would be, alternative materials are placed as a sort of replacement. For example, paper or paper mâché as the face’s skin, red bottle caps as the eyes, red lining where the lips would be, pink petals where blush would appear. The deliberate placing of the petals and their color also change the outlook of the work of art. While the piece of static, the material dramatizes features that keep you from looking away. The flowers on the shoulder and upper chest being purple also invokes one to think about a deeper reason its design. For example, the color of the petals on where the brain” or the “spine” and even the “heart” make some sorts of sense, but the purple stands out due to nothing else being purple. Even the location is different as it is not within a museum nor is it in a room—it is outside in front of a black painted wall; and even that is unnormal because the painted spot a sort of circle around the being.
The Work in the World
The motif of flowers and plants has me interested the most. While I can’t really identify them, the ones in the back look like weeds. This caused me to wrack the ends of my brain to try and remember what the flowers were because they seem quite familiar. If I am correct, they might be “Creeping Charlies” which are an invasive weed species that destroys fields it invades. I am quite unconfident about the flowers on the head, for they seem like “baby breaths” which are lovely flowers that, in summary, mean “infinite love”. Does this mean infinite love of knowledge? Of change? Then the weeds growing from his spine make me wonder if there is an invasion within his body and thus changing the way I look at the work of art.
The story it tells:
I wonder what transfiguration the being go through in which they found themselves in this position. The title is being “TRANSFIGURATION” is direct enough to give me an idea that the being has been changed in some ways but not really the reasoning as to why. I wonder if the flowers, plants, and weeds play the direct role I am inferring to. Ie: does the being have an infinite sort of love for change? For itself and its ability to change? How about the Creeping Charlies? While I can’t find their meaning, they’re an invasive, destructive, but stunning weed. Does this mean that he feels as though in his being, this change is something he cannot control? That is pervasive in the way it holds them hostage?
The Blossoming Relationship between Art and Science by Citlali Rodriguez
In the film Proteus, I learned that there are over five thousand radiolarian species- many of which are over five hundred million years old. Radiolarians are microscopic, one cell organisms that are found at the bottom of the sea. Haeckel was their discoverer. When listening to Haeckel’s upbringing, it was so interesting to hear how his upbringing itself was quite a moral paradox, especially for this time period. The conflict in him existed so stronging because he was raised as a Christian and scientist. Though he was often pushed to choose science over art and his feelings of romanticism, his passion for art was something that made me rather fond of Haeckel as I watched the documentary. As someone who was passionate about the renaissance as a teenager, I was always a lover of the relationship between art and science. It was incredible to see how the two go hand in hand and the growth in their relationship made incredible changes within the world and the way it works. The change in academics always stunned me because it was a challenge for so long until one realized the absolute value of art within science and of science within art. In my perspective, the implications of creating these radiolarian sculptures revolve around the fact that a relationship between art and science is completely possible. It is physical, tangible proof that the two concepts are intertwined in such an intimate and thought-provoking way.