Submerged

I came across a really cool eco-art piece that I wanted to share here. HSBC bank hired an advertising agency in Mumbai to create a piece for their campaign on global warming. A bird's-eye view of the New York City skyline was placed in the bottom of a pool in Mumbai, India, to capture the attention of the swimmers. The message, I gather, is to show people what New York City (or any coastal city, really) might look like someday if there was a climate change.

(image source: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/11/29/climate-change-activism-hsbc-bank/)

There's one pool I'd love to swim in sometime!

Final Project

I chose to do my piece at Belle Isle, due to needing a water source and because I've never been there before. It was fun to become familiar with a new place. Anyway, there was some interesting Earth Art there already. I want to share a couple pictures here before getting around to my own work.

This is an outline of some sort (perhaps for a building), made with long logs of wood and surrounded by stones.

An old lantern, hanging off a log of wood (which was probably cut). Some type of wire is wrapped around the log.

Now my project!

"Hang up the Suit"
Earth Art Piece

Originally, when thinking of ideas for this project, I wanted to do something in the water. I'm a swimmer and water - and interacting with it - is an important concept to me. Unfortunately, it is a little chilly outside these days (thanks to winter being just around the corner). So, instead, I decided to do a piece about not swimming (in December, anyway). I'll explain my reasoning behind each picture as I put them up. Enjoy!

I decided to start with the suit in the water. I couldn't be swimming, but my suit could do it for me. I really like how the colors of the suit look in this picture. The sunlight hitting the suit while it's underwater makes everything so vivid.

In this shot, it looks as though the suit is getting out of the water (because it's much too cold). The suit is supposed to represent the idea of 'swimming'. I hope that comes across in these pictures.

Now the suit is being hung up to dry. It's no longer needed because you can't swim in this type of weather. It's not of any use until the warmer weather sets in again in the spring.

In this next shot, I used a different color suit because I think the black works better here. I found a little pond that was frozen over with ice. You can't swim in it, thus the suit is only laying on the ice, and not in the water.

I thought this rock could get better use out of my cap and goggles than I could. I really was curious to see how it would look, rather than wanting to add it to my piece. But, I think it came out pretty well!

These goggles are no longer of any use, so they've sunk to the bottom and are now collecting dirt. You can see the rocks beginning to pile up around them.

Thus ends my swimming piece. But, I have another couple pictures to put on here.

I found these huge mushrooms (I think that's what they are...) growing on this fallen tree. They looked like bowls to me, so I put some fruit I found and a bunch of leaves into the 'bowl' and added some objects of my own (the cup, knife, fork and spoon). Now it really looks like a meal! This isn't part of my 'Hang up the Suit' piece, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Cappadocia

(image source: http://www.wernercollection.com/ColorMyWorld.htm)

Tuesday's class reminded me of a show I watched on the History channel, as part of their series entitled 'Cities of the Underworld'. The show documented the city of Cappadocia, Turkey, which houses a large system of underground cities, first carved out over 3,000 years ago. I was reading in Lippard's text, the section Homes and Graves and Gardens, where she talks about an artist, Alice Aycock, who did a piece commonly called the Williamstown mound. This mound is like a cave, with passages underground - many with 'dead ends', to signify frustration or claustrophobia. This is reminiscent of Cappadocia, carved out of softer tufa rock from past volcanic eruptions. The pagan Hittite nation needed to save themselves from war with other powerful empires (like the Mongols, Persians and Romans) because Cappadocia sat in the center of the major trade routes, making the area a very appealing prize.

(image source: http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/1237/53/)

Cappadocia is riddled with 'booby-trapped' passages, much like Aycock's mound being riddled with dead-end passages, to ward off invaders. Some passages had holes in the ceiling, where spears could kill the enemy by the head. Millstones were rolled into place to block off passages to keep the invaders from accessing parts of the city. This primitive defense system (creating 'dead-ends' like in Aycock's work) helped to save the pagan nation from destruction. You can see one of the millstones in the upper-right hand portion of the above picture.

I don't want to get into too much detail, but I did find the History channel show I watched on Youtube. I'll post the links here, if you'd like to check it out. It's really amazing what people thousands of years ago managed to achieve.

Cappadocia - Part I

Cappadocia - Part II

Cappadocia - Part III

Cappadocia - Part IV

Cappadocia - Part V

I'm in the process of tweaking my final project. I'm not entirely satisfied with it. But since I have finals (two on Monday, in fact), I can't get around to it until Tuesday. So, it will be posted on Tuesday, promise. Just a crazy busy weekend!

Land-Art

I came across an Australian land artist who's work resembles what I decided to do for my own project. At land-arts.com, you can take a closer look at Brad Schwede's artwork. Much of what he does is taking elements found in nature and building onto the earth. The environment plays a big role in his projects, because they are subjected to whatever forces are generated by nature. These forces either could alter or even destroy the piece. A lot of his work involves the use of circles, a symbol I wished to incorporate into my final project piece. The circle, to me, represents unity, balance, completion...all ideas I wanted to incorporate in a final art piece.

I will post my project in full over the weekend. For now, I encourage you to check out Brad Schwede's website and take a look at his art. He explains his reasoning behind every piece, it's all incredibly interesting to read.