Event 1: Arts Party at the Hammer Museum
Recently, I had the chance to attend the Arts Party at the Hammer Museum. While the free beverages, ice cream, music, and pop-up activities were a bonus, the best part was the array of artwork that surprisingly incorporated a good deal of technology.
One particularly interesting piece of art was the "Something...Perhaps a Fugue or an Elegy," which was a contraption that featured an integrated hodgepodge of technologies - cameras, televisions, VHS players, amplifiers, metal chains, lights, wires, hardware, amongst other products. It was labeled start, stop, and on the back there was a message (shown below). What I found compelling about this piece of art was that if you dislodged everything separately, then technically every product would be a generic, mass-produced good. As Walter Benjamin stated in this week's material, because of the mechanization and mass-produced nature of a good that results in the lack of a unique existence and presence in a time and space, there is a devaluing that occurs in each separate good. However, when these technologies are integrated and physically fused together, it becomes one technology, one machine that is unique in nature - thus, achieving a unique existence and presence in a time and space and substantiating its value.
In regards to my interpretation of the art piece, I was truly moved by it. This technology, is aptly described as a "Fugue or an Elegy" (from the title), a fugue being a short melodic phrase and elegy being a sad poem utilized to memorialize the dead. Essentially, the technology could be interpreted as an instrument that enables the creation of the fugue or elegy. From my interpretation, when one presses start, one undergoes ones own personal journey and at the end, at the stop, one is presented with the message on the back, which informs us to not take ourselves too seriously and stresses our insignificance relative to the larger timeline of the world. When looking at the outdated technology utilized in the art piece, we can see how it parallels the anxiety and worries that we experience - that they are outdated because they are not important, not relevant to the world. Essentially, the message of the artwork tells us not to make life so complicated, that life doesn't haven't to be a hodgepodge of emotions and worry that do us no good, but that it can be simpler if you let it be. This is what the fugue or elegy is about, an artistic piece that memorializes those who didn't live life unobstructed from the inner and societal pressures that they placed upon themselves.
Overall, I highly recommend visiting the Hammer Museum if you get the chance. The artwork is really interesting and it is what I would consider one of the hidden treasures in Westwood. It was policy at the Hammer that workers couldn't take photos with visitors, so I got a receipt of my ticket to prove my attendance.
One particularly interesting piece of art was the "Something...Perhaps a Fugue or an Elegy," which was a contraption that featured an integrated hodgepodge of technologies - cameras, televisions, VHS players, amplifiers, metal chains, lights, wires, hardware, amongst other products. It was labeled start, stop, and on the back there was a message (shown below). What I found compelling about this piece of art was that if you dislodged everything separately, then technically every product would be a generic, mass-produced good. As Walter Benjamin stated in this week's material, because of the mechanization and mass-produced nature of a good that results in the lack of a unique existence and presence in a time and space, there is a devaluing that occurs in each separate good. However, when these technologies are integrated and physically fused together, it becomes one technology, one machine that is unique in nature - thus, achieving a unique existence and presence in a time and space and substantiating its value.
In regards to my interpretation of the art piece, I was truly moved by it. This technology, is aptly described as a "Fugue or an Elegy" (from the title), a fugue being a short melodic phrase and elegy being a sad poem utilized to memorialize the dead. Essentially, the technology could be interpreted as an instrument that enables the creation of the fugue or elegy. From my interpretation, when one presses start, one undergoes ones own personal journey and at the end, at the stop, one is presented with the message on the back, which informs us to not take ourselves too seriously and stresses our insignificance relative to the larger timeline of the world. When looking at the outdated technology utilized in the art piece, we can see how it parallels the anxiety and worries that we experience - that they are outdated because they are not important, not relevant to the world. Essentially, the message of the artwork tells us not to make life so complicated, that life doesn't haven't to be a hodgepodge of emotions and worry that do us no good, but that it can be simpler if you let it be. This is what the fugue or elegy is about, an artistic piece that memorializes those who didn't live life unobstructed from the inner and societal pressures that they placed upon themselves.
Overall, I highly recommend visiting the Hammer Museum if you get the chance. The artwork is really interesting and it is what I would consider one of the hidden treasures in Westwood. It was policy at the Hammer that workers couldn't take photos with visitors, so I got a receipt of my ticket to prove my attendance.
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