Final Paper: Artist Review Nemo Gould and Carl Pisaturo

Nemo Gould

 

Nemo Gould was born October 3, 1975 in Minneapolis, Minnesota but soon moved to Nevada City, California where he grew up. Named after the Protagonist in Windsor McKay's comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland," Gould's work has ironically evolved to reflect quite similar styles and methodology of comic books and science fiction. He is an American artist and sculpture who is known well for his kinetic found-object and two dimensional graphic work. Most of his work gives off a whimsical feeling even though it is made from harsh metals and wood. The way he mold his pieces together create a smooth and delicate representation. He cites Clayton Bailey as one of the main artists his gets much of his inspiration from.

He earned his BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in 1988, as well as earning his MFA from the University of California Berkley. He was the Alma Matter of his parents, potter Linda Webb Elfert and ceramic artist and sculpture Arther Gould. Much of his work has been displayed at the San Jose Museum of Art, the Berkley Art Museum, and the Arizona Museum for Youth. He also has other work that can be found in national media such as on the Discovery Channel, Wired Magazine, Travel and Leisure, Make Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2007 Gould was chosen as an Artist Residence at San Francisco Recycling and Disposal, Inc's Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center. This is seen as an extremely high honor in the Bay Area found-object artist circle because of the opportunity to have free access to all the waste that is collected daily.

After finishing his education, Gould found himself free of constraints and able to express his true self. This led him to follow many of his childhood dreams. We can see this through his work as he explains, "My work appeals tot he 7-year-old boy mind, because I still have one... I take silly very seriously." His art let the viewer attempt to reconnect with their inner child and reminiscence in the wonders and dreams of youth through material found in their dull and consumer driven adult life. Gould's intentions are to evoke a childlike response from an uninterested adult.

Gould's Statement to his work is:

"What makes a thing fascinating is to not completely know it. It is this gap in our understanding that the imagination uses as its canvass. Salvaged material is an ideal medium to make use of this principle. A “found object” is just a familiar thing seen as though for the first time. By maintaining this unbiased view of the objects I collect, I am able to create forms and figures that fascinate and surprise. These sculptures are both familiar and new. Incorporating consumer detritus with my own symbology, they are the synthesis of our manufactured landscape and our tentative place within it-- strong and frail at the same time."

Man-on-a-bike

 

 

This is Gould latest perspective of his man-on-a-bike theme, which is also his favorite piece. It is a mixture of brass and aluminum on top of a wooden piece that is solely for display purposes. Materials: Brass lamp pieces, garlic press, bicycle brake parts, film editing machine parts, boat motor parts, erector set chain and sprockets and aluminum fly wheels.

Other Works 

By Nemo Gould

Carl Pisaturo

Carl Pisaturo can currently be found productively working as an applications engineer at Standford University. His true passion, though, is maintaining his live exhibit in San Francisco known as Area 2881, named after its address. His goal is to create a very service living environment completely out of kinetic sculptures. 

Pisaturo's most proud work is his Slave Zero series, which are half human scale robotics figures that have twenty one servo actuators and forty two degrees of movable range freedom. The series was designed and built by Pisaturo in 1997 and finishing the complete series in 1998. His partner through the series, Frank Garvey, helped construct the finely sculpted body panels of each of the individual robots in the series. Slave Zero and a mate are intertwining the boundaries between sculpture, dance and theater, while broadening the language and interpretation of each.


The two machines in the series have the basic human range of motion in their arms, wrist, neck and jaw. Each individual hand had a total of eight linked joints which are controlled by two separate servos. The torso of the robots are also able to turn side to side with 180 degrees of motion. Pisaturo has spent a great deal of time and effort making these machines seem so human like. They are extremely smooth in their range of motion, which really helps with his concept and interpretation of dance and theater.
 
I really liked Pisaturo's work because it is so incredibly complex, even though he describes it as fun work. Gould's perspective really ties into Pisaturo's work in the way that he explains something to be fascinating when you don't really know it. Pisaturo is not fully aware of  how fascinating his work is and that simple fact makes it so much better because he does  not ramble on about the fact that his work is so unique and fantastic.

The Slave Zero series of robots have twenty one servos driving forty one joints with thin cables and an electronic control system which allows several widely spaced robots to be controlled by a team of operators.

Other Works 

By Carl Pisaturo

Nemo Gould and Carl Pisaturo have both mastered the art in making detailed machines. Both Gould and Pisaturo start from scratch when making their art. Both claim to use all found materials which are usually different types of metal for the main structures in their work. They also both claim to have the mind of a child which is seen through the way their work presents itself in a lively and playful manner that evokes the audience to interaction with the art in order to take in the full experience. They both also spend a great deal of their time playing with their machines during and after they are created.


While both create very intricate, science-fiction themed machines, there are differences between the two that make them stand out as their own unique pieces. Gould pieces are often very smooth and delicate looking and are often to categorized into more of the Fine Art category, as they are often seemed to be very decorative. On the other hand, Pisaturo's work is much more rigid and precise. Everything has a place and a certain action it is supposed to perform.


Often displayed on stands, Gould's work requires a human to physically operate the individual moving pieces for them to become interactive. Pisaturo is completely opposite in the fact that his machines require a very skilled team of multiple engineers to operate all the different movement that his robots can perform. His robots can even perform human-like tasks, such as picking up a wine glass.

Lecture Reviews

Mark Tribe

Mark Tribe is a unique digital media artist who has had many different types of exhibitions over the years.  All of his artwork stemmed from the theory he believed in which was that all human beings are homosapians, but more importantly, they are homoperformians. He described this terminology in the way that people are self-performing animals and we are constantly performing in everything we do. His specific example was about an audience applauding at the exact appropriate moment and then again remaining quiet when necessary. In these moments of expected action and reaction, we reveal who we really are to ourselves. I was able to understand this very clearly, because in sociology (my major) this is known as a double-consciousness. We understand see the person we are in our own eyes, as well as though other people's eyes.

The first project he described to us was known as The Carpark. I found this magnitude of an art piece very neat. It was not only a piece of artwork, but a performance and social experiment as well. Tribe and two other artists collaborated to create this performance. All of the car owners at a university were categorized into separate groups based on the car color and directed to go to a designated area when they arrived the day of the experiment. Carpark became well known through the media attention it attracted and showed the world how performance is art.

Carpark from Mark Tribe on Vimeo.

Tribe also talked about protest as a public performance of politics. The specific public protest performance he talked to us about was the Dystopia Files project. This was a compilation of footage from different live protests and the action police took against the protesters. The interactive exhibit he constructed with this footage was projected from behind a frosted glass door so that it was only partially seen by its viewers and also appeared backward. Once a person opened the door to see what was behind it, a motion detector was activated and the video would turn off  and the room would light up to show tons of file cabinets with the names of different protest groups written on each drawer, but all of the drawers were locked.

Tribe was much different than any other artist I have learned about before. All of his projects were unique and provoked a deep thought process to discover meanings and reality. There was a purpose and meaning for everything and I found that to be quite intriguing. 

The two questions I had were:
1. Did you  have many people that did not want to go along with the CarPark project because they wanted to park near where they were going, or for other reasons?
2. Did you ever have a file drawer that accidentally got unlocked or were they permanently not able to open?

Exibition Review

 Paho Mann

Paho Mann is the second artist to exhibit in the Scatter and Heap Exhibition showing in the Sheppard Fine Art Gallery. Mann lived in New Mexico most of his life but, he is currently living and working out of Dallas, Texas, at the University of Northern Texas. He received his BFA from the University of New Mexico and his MFA from Arizona State University.

The project he had exhibited in the gallery was very interesting. He has taken millions of photos of trash at the dump and categorized it all by color. I have to say, I have never really payed any attention to how many different colors of plastic items we use. The final photograph displays were of a larger image on top that was a layered composite of all the items of that color and below were tiny individual photographs of each individual item that made the top piece. I really had an appreciation for how much time this all must have taken him and how much dedication to a project it must take to sift through garbage all the time. Although, once I looked closer and noticed that a lot of the objects were the same, I speculated whether he may have used some of the same pieces more than once to have a bigger impact. There were not as many of the same object that I would think there would be many of, which is why I wondered if he threw a few extra in. I wish I would have been able to find him during the showing, because I did not think of these questions during his lecture.

 I found Mann’s work to be very eye opening because it really forced the viewer to think about the amount of waste them as an individual produces and the impact it has on our world. What does our waste say about us and what can we do to change the amount of waste we leave behind?  We all buy tings and it would be very difficult to absolutely never buy anything plastic, but we could definitely make a difference by simply being aware of the amount of unnecessary waste we leave behind and try to find alternate situations when we can. By putting all of this information on display, Mann has given his audience a reality check about the shocking fact of the amount of waste humans are polluting our world with. 

http://www.pahomann.com/

Final Projects

Johnny Cash Project

On the Johnny Cash Project you can participate by drawing your interpretation of randomly selected frames from the original video. I chose these two from the ones I was given. I wanted to participate in at least two of them because I felt it would have more impact in myself participating and my contribution to the ongoing project. I wanted to try and get a couple consecutive frames, but I was unable to get any with them being randomly selected every time. http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/

For the Collected visions project you can choose to write a story about a picture that is already on the site or submit your own work. I chose to submit a picture and a story. Along with the photo and the story I was also asked to submit all addition information via email to the site so that they could use the photo. I took this photo not too long ago while I was babysitting this little boy in a park. I thought the image capture so much desire in the little boy, who is only two and a half in this photo. I knew it would be perfect for making up a story for this project. The short story I submitted was:

Everyday I come to this park to play in the dirt, get pushed on a swing, and crawl up the slide. I only wish I was big enough to see over that net or even know how to get past this fence. One day I will be big and strong and get to do the things I want to do, not the things I am helped with or told to do. http://cvisions.nyu.edu/mantle/info.html 

The fourth piece I chose to participate in was one of the "Assignments" on Learn to Love Yourself More. The assignment I chose was to draw a constellation from your freckles. I knew this was perfect for me because I have so many random little freckles on my arms and for my entire life I have always starred at this group of them that make the Big Dipper. I have always thought it was funny and I am glad I get to share it through this project. http://learningtoloveyoumore.com/reports/9/9.php

YouTube Mixer

I chose to mix a bunch of different Daft Punk videos of the same song because the lyrics and beats in this song blend really well together. I think one song alone sounds like it is mixed together with a bunch of others already, so I got the idea to mix even more together. This worked out well and is meant to keep you bouncing all over the video with all the different styles pictured. http://www.unr.edu/art/site/areas_of_emphasis/digital_media/projects/Amanda%20Carroll/index.html

Anti- BLAH BLAH BLAH- by Amanda Carroll and Alli Williams

Alli and I chose to make this item in a fashionable way, so that parents would not feel so ashamed when making their children where them. We designed a comfortable and breathable mask that blocks out 90% of the unwanted noises that escape your child's mouth. That mask comes in pink of blue plaid for you little boy or girl, and you can also buy additional skins to match any outfit or occasion. Everyone wishes they could have something to quiet their children up but feel bad saying so; but we made all their wishes come true! We had a great time making these masks and consequently have even had a few nursing school friends say they would be great for them to wear too!

After coming up with our idea, we came up with the plan of how to make it. We chose to use medical masks and sew on assorted fabics to promote our different designs and make them able to block out more noise. Once we had our product designed, we came up with a way to promote it and designed and ad that could be used in any Chindogu book. After our ad was made, it was time to make a commercial. I found this to be the hardest, but most fun part of the project. I had not yet worked with editing videos in Final Cut, so it was a bit of a challenge, but we figured it out! The video has all of the needed aspects of an informercial. It is quick, catchy, and hilarious!

Assignment #3 Animation

I wanted my animation to truely bring my triptych to life. In the triptych, you are forced to imagine all the different situations that are about to take place and through the animation, I was able to show what I had imagined would happen if everything came to life. I used a lot of flashing and repeatetive movements to give my views a quick upbeat feeling. I created something fun and interesting with the intentions of being able to see something different going on everytime you watch.

Assignment #2 Bite Me

I originally had a much different themed idea for this project, but then I decided to go with the sporadic chaos look. I titled this piece Bite Me, because if you closely look around, all the animals are getting attacked or attacking. As your eyes roam through the triptych, you will see a sort of game being played with all the animals running away, hiding, biting, shooting, and overall creating a huge mess of trouble. Every time I hope you notice something new to look at.

Assignment #1 Then and Now

When I first laid my eyes on this old picture in a Thrift store, my immediate reaction was, "Well, that's definitely not what kids are up to these days." With coming right out and saying that, I attempted to show the different pressures and influences that younger generations have to face in a world where the forbidden are so easy to come across on their own.