Holmes
Art Xpose
Kress Collection
Materials; Erin Wiehn
Project 3 Writing Assignment; Erin Wiehn
Animal Intelligence Response:
For my research, I read articles from National Geographic, SeaWorld, and The New Zealand Herald. All of these articles talked about penguin’s unique ability to navigate land and ocean terrain. They have a great internal sense of direct and rarely get lost due to their impeccable memory. Penguins make their way across large patches of ice and large bodies of water, even spanning upwards of 1000 miles. Despite going so far in seemingly uniformed territory, penguins have the ability to navigate their ways right back to where they came from. This is a critical part of their survival. Direction is not penguins’ only type of intelligence though, as these articles also mentioned aspects of hunting, flocking, noise recognition, and ability to regulate body temperature.
Thesis:
To best represent a penguin’s innate ability to navigate its surroundings, the goal is to make a penguin standing on its two feet with a compass engraved into its belly.
Erin Wiehn ArtXpose #2
Title of Event: Failure Lab Lecture
Date and Time: Thursday October 5th at 6pm
Location of Event: Holmes Auditorium
Type of Event: Artist Talk and Reception
Erin Wiehn ArtXpose #1
Title of Event: Shepard Fairey Artist Reception
Date and Time of Event: Thursday October 5th 11 am
Location of Event: Samek Art Gallery
Type of Event: Artist Reception
Personal Experience
Throughout my life, there have been more than one experience that I would say helps define who I am. More than just an experience though, there is one place that has effected me more than anything else. Black Point, Connecticut, is a small and rocky beach that juts into the Long Island Sound. My father’s family has been going for over sixty five years, instilling a strong sense of home for me, my brother, my dad, and my extended family. This allowed me to grow up at the beach. To me, the beach brought me calmness, joy, freedom, creativity, and relaxation. I longed to go back during the long winter months to the warm sand and the cool salt water. I day dreamed about being able to ride bikes and play tennis with my cousins and see my summer friends who were scattered all over the East Coast during the year. It gave me a sense of familiarity, reunion, and belonging. Nothing beats the feeling of having a calm, relaxing day in sand, and after taking a clean, refreshing outdoor shower. Going to the beach is something that will always be near and dear to my heart. It is a place I will continue to keep in my life.
List of Terms
- Calm
- Joy
- Clean
- Refreshing
- Freedom
- Warm
- Home
- Beach
- Creativity
- Relaxation
Erin Wiehn: Kid and Dog
Immediate Response:
When I first saw this sculpture, it was immediately the one I gravitated to out of any piece in her gallery. It seems simple yet intricate: the shapes looked effortless and unfinished but it feels intentional. I was drawn to the simplicity of the two opposing colors. I also found the facial expression of the person funny. Every part of the human structure looks like it was molded with fingers, possessing the indents of a finger print and the shape a thumb leaves when you push too hard on clay. On the contrary, the dog looks much smoothers and straight cut instead of being molded.
Objective Description:
Looking at this sculpture, you immediately see a black human-like amorphous form facing forward, towards you. The figure is standing. Just behind him, is a white figure with the distinct shape of a dog or a wolf that is standing sideways. The way it is standing you see the entire length of his body and one half of his face. The human-like figure has it’s left limb out, creating a ninety degree angle, and the end of the limb falls around the dogs neck. The gesture appears kind hearted, like when you put your arm around someone for a picture. The other limb is at around a forty five degree angle and there is a slight bend in it. On its face, there are holes to represent two eyes and a mouth. The eyes are very small and circular and the mouth is larger but also circular. The dog does not have a defined face. The structure is placed upon a white box with a plain white background.
Technical Decisions:
In this piece, I think the composition plays a really important role. Although this piece is static, it represents the motion of the human figure putting its arm around the dog. This piece is also definitely harmonic due to the position the two figures are in. The arm placement is not malicious like in attempts to hurt the dog, but like a gesture of friendship. I also found the color choice very interesting. The harsh and stark difference between the dark and the light, but also the way they compliment each other. I believe this color choice was intentional and deliberate for some sense of meaning.
The Work in the World
This piece of artwork connects to the world due to its representation of man and nature in unity. The relationship between man and its animal counterparts is something that was so vital to the survival of human kind. It impacts so many parts of our history and daily life: food, protection, travel, trading of goods, companionship, and so much more. The way the two figures are standing together as one exemplifies their connection. Especially the gesture of the arm implies that they have some sort of relationship, like a hunter and the retrieving dog for example. There is emotion contrived in their still depiction of friendship, trust, and reliance. These feelings are ones that have carried on throughout human history as humans and animals learned to live in alliance with each other.
The Story it Tells
Especially from the title, Kid and Dog, the story I get from this piece is the relationship between a child and a pet. Especially due to the size of the human figure, it is not very tall or big compared to the dog, I am lead to believe it is representing childhood. There is a special type of relationship held between a child and a pet, where they learn the abilities to trust, take care of, rely on, and love each other. This can be a key component of how a person becomes who they are due to learning these skills at such a young age.
Proteus Summary; Erin Wiehn
After watching the film, I have a deeper appreciation and understanding of the deep history that revolves around the Radiolarian. The Radiolarian is a one celled organism that is found at the bottom of the sea. It has a skeletal and glace-like structure: made up of shells that form from absorbing silica from the ocean’s water. Out of the more than 15,000 known species of radiolarians, 5000 were discovered by Ernest Haeckel. Haeckel was a Biologist and artist who spent his life trying to merge the gap between art and science. His work specifically on the aspect of “art forms in nature” is what interested me most. This is because of his intricate use of patterns and structures that he defined as evolutionary art. Specifically, he grew extremely fond of the Radiolarian as he believed this creature embodied the unity he’d been searching for. He continued to dedicate his life to the research and discovery of Radiolarians for ten years. Through his research, he developed ideas and theories of evolution. Later he was recognized as a major figure in the history of evolutionary theory. After his intense research, he began to travel around the world to talk about his findings and his theories on evolution. With this sharing of ideas came a lot of criticism and backlash and his work became heavily controversial. The one I found to be the most interesting were the comments to do with his theory on race. In Haeckel’s theory, he defined phylogeny (the development of an organism) and ontogeny (the evolution of an organism) as one in the same. He created a racial anthropology to explain how different people evolved from different organisms, therefore creating a racial hierarchy. Although there was less integration of cultures worldwide in this time period, his thought process was inherently racist and even was used to reinforce the German thought process in World War Two. I also found it interesting that his peer Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Miklucho-Maclay, whom he studied with closely for many years, had a completely different view on race and evolution. Maclay’s in fact is viewed as very progressive for the time. Overall, the history of the Radiolarian and those who studied it was way more interesting than I thought it would be. It affects more aspects of history than I expected it too and is a really crucial part of a lot of different scientific histories.