Art
Behind the scenes: Selecting on-campus art – Grand Valley Lanthorn – Grand Valley Lanthorn
On both Grand Valley State University campuses, one prominent feature in their buildings is the art hanging on the walls. Many may wonder where it comes from, who selects it and why. The people behind the art on campus are a part of the GVSU Art Gallery.
On the GVSU Art Gallery’s website, four prominent on-campus buildings are featured, including DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health, Raleigh J. Finkelstein Hall, Lake Huron Hall and the Office of the Provost. Each building has its own distinct collection of artworks curated specifically to dress its walls.
Alison Christensen is the Art Gallery’s Project Manager and Curator of Public Spaces and is responsible for the process of curating and placing all public art on campus. She also serves as the GV U-Club Executive Board Secretary, as well as a GVSU alum, earning degrees in 2004 and 2019.
The process of selecting art to feature has multiple steps, but it’s relatively similar for any specific piece or project. It all starts with a meeting between Christensen and department heads, where they discuss what’s desired and how to narrow the options down.
“I’ll ask things like, ‘What are the themes or topics relating to your department, the primary role and function at the university? How does your department interact with our students?’” Christensen said. “‘What are the concepts, colors and feelings that you would like the artwork to amplify and support in your space? How do you see the artwork in your space supporting your programs?’”
Christensen says that this line of questioning helps her understand what is being hoped for and helps her be more creative with how she interprets the requests.
“I then put together a digital set of art options for them to review,” Christensen said. “I ask that they share the digital set of options with all working in the space allowing each person a vote on their favorite works of art. Once I receive feedback on the art selections, I start to lay the artwork out on a digital drawing of the space/building.”
Each piece of art is placed in its respective building for a reason. The curation is meant to inspire and inform students about a wide range of different topics. The pieces are featured in order to encourage civic dialogue, foster creative and critical thought as well as providing a path for reflection and the ability to nurture empathy with others.
“We see our public spaces as a continuation of the classroom and therefore should be a space for students to feel inspired and give them the opportunity to be exposed to imagery and concepts they may not have otherwise been exposed to,” Christensen said. “Having so many works of art on public display is unique to our institution and we feel the artwork enhances the students’ GV experience.”
When asked about the meaning of the artwork on campus to GVSU’s student body, Christensen said that it’s hard to truly gauge the level of appreciation for something like public art.
“The thing with artwork is that it is hard to quantify how it makes someone feel or how it impacts their lives,” Christensen said. “On the flip side, it is easy to understand that plain white walls feel cold and boring. I know that there are works of art on campus that students enjoy or have touched them in some way. We have heard these kinds of comments and they mean the world to us.”
Although it’s nice to hear students appreciating the art on campus, Christensen says that her main goal with placing art on campus is to get students engaged.
“I also know that some students don’t really care about the art around them and that’s okay too,” Christensen said. “It’s not my job to make sure they appreciate everything that is around them while at GVSU. It is my job to give them as many opportunities as possible to engage with the artwork, find meaning in it, see themselves in it, feel heard as a result of it, use the art in their field of study and feel accepted in their own uniqueness, just like every unique work of art they encounter on campus.”
For more information on the GVSU Art Gallery, featured buildings and how to get art displayed in a department’s building, visit the Art Gallery website.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Unique art collection on display CTV News Vancouver
Source link
Art
This N.B. artist joined an online movement. Now her art is being shown across the world. – CBC.ca
Since joining a community that dreams of an internet free from giant corporations that can exploit users’ time and data, Victoria West’s digital artwork has been exhibited across the globe.
West, a photographer and digital artist based in Burton, 30 kilometres southeast of Fredericton, has had her work shown in Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Townsville in northeastern Australia, Miami, New York City, and even a museum in Albuquerque, N.M., — all through connections she’s made in Web3.
West warned it was a “rabbit hole,” but what she found in wonderland she doesn’t believe she’d find anywhere else.
Web3 is a future version of the internet.
The work of Victoria West, a photographer and digital artist based in Burton, was recently showcased at an immersive exhibit in the Big Apple.
Web1, West said, was the first version of the internet, in which users passively consumed information.
As the 2000s dawned, Web2 emerged, and users could now post their own content — think Twitter, blogs, YouTube. People are now creating more and more in digital spaces, but the downside of Web2 is that corporations are technically still the owners of all that creation, and they could take your data and potentially do with it as they please.
Enter Web3, which still exists more in theory: nobody and everybody owns the internet. This version aims to be decentralized. It doesn’t eradicate the distrust some people have in mega companies like Google and Meta — it just removes the need for it, because no one person or organization can own the blockchain Web3 operates on.
West said within Web3 there’s an art movement, with artists working together and taking control of their work. Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci had an internet connection, as well as Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. It’s the renaissance all over again, West said, except it’s happening with digital art.
“And it’s happening online on a much bigger scale.”
Before learning about W3 in 2021, West said she was in a photography bubble.
Photography isn’t the art form West imagined herself pursuing when she was younger. But when she bought a camera after the first commercial digital models arrived on the market in the mid-2000s, she was hooked.
“I was bothering everybody around me to take their portrait,” she said.
She built up her portraiture business, becoming involved with the Professional Photographers of Canada and competing in photography contests. Still, West didn’t want to just capture moments — she wanted to make them.
That’s when artificial intelligence came on the scene.
West was using Midjourney, a generative AI program, when it was still in beta testing. Around the same time she became involved with Web3, she experimented with blending AI-produced textures into her photography. In her business, AI quickened her workflow and allowed her to change backdrops and furniture.
While creating a piece in 2023 called When I Die, West wanted to design a man underground with roots blossoming into a tree. Well, there aren’t any blossoming trees in Canada in February, West joked — so she made the tree using AI.
“I feel like someone took handcuffs off me, and I’m free,” she said.
Lauren Cruikshank, an associate professor in culture and media studies at the University of New Brunswick, has spoken about the use of AI in universities, but she also thinks about it through an artistic lens.
From the camera to spell check, Cruikshank said the same discussion happens with each new medium: how much of the artistry belongs to the artist, how much to the tools they’re using?
“For some people where it gets uncomfortable is where the role of the human is minimal compared to how much the AI tool is creating or having creative influence,” she said.
With AI, Cruikshank agreed there are degrees — there’s a difference between prompting an AI to generate an image of a beautiful sunset and claiming it as your artwork and what West is doing, combining AI with her own artistry.
“That sounds really compelling to me,” Cruikshank said.
When West first saw Lume Studios on Broadway in lower Manhattan, the place she’d eventually display Eden’s Dye, her immersive art exhibit, she knew she wanted it immediately.
She collaborated on the exhibit with some of her Web3 friends. Los Angeles actors and poets Laurence Fuller and Vincent D’Onofrio wrote poetry to accompany each piece of art, which West created using both photography and AI. A coder friend joined the crew, and the result was a floor-to-ceiling immersive exhibit. West’s collaborators also choreographed performances to complement the art, using music produced by AI.
“Why wouldn’t I do that if I can?” West asked. “It’s freeing, I think, and lets you push the boundaries of photography and what you can do with it.”
While the exhibit leaned heavily on romantic, classical themes and Baroque aesthetics, Eden’s Dye is almost a premonition: minted, digital artwork taking up entire walls in people’s homes, flowers growing from code, experiencing art in virtual realms.
Demand will only grow, West said. Technology will progress and the internet will change. But what she really wanted was for people to walk into Eden’s Dye and be amazed by the art they were experiencing.
“They came because of the art, and they were there enjoying the art. You don’t really need to understand anything beyond that.”
/* OOVVUU Targeting */
const path = ‘/things-to-do’;
const siteName = ‘wellandtribune.ca’;
let domain = ‘thestar.com’;
if (siteName === ‘thestar.com’)
domain = ‘thestar.com’;
else if (siteName === ‘niagarafallsreview.ca’)
domain = ‘niagara_falls_review’;
else if (siteName === ‘stcatharinesstandard.ca’)
domain = ‘st_catharines_standard’;
else if (siteName === ‘thepeterboroughexaminer.com’)
domain = ‘the_peterborough_examiner’;
else if (siteName === ‘therecord.com’)
domain = ‘the_record’;
else if (siteName === ‘thespec.com’)
domain = ‘the_spec’;
else if (siteName === ‘wellandtribune.ca’)
domain = ‘welland_tribune’;
else if (siteName === ‘bramptonguardian.com’)
domain = ‘brampton_guardian’;
else if (siteName === ‘caledonenterprise.com’)
domain = ‘caledon_enterprise’;
else if (siteName === ‘cambridgetimes.ca’)
domain = ‘cambridge_times’;
else if (siteName === ‘durhamregion.com’)
domain = ‘durham_region’;
else if (siteName === ‘guelphmercury.com’)
domain = ‘guelph_mercury’;
else if (siteName === ‘insidehalton.com’)
domain = ‘inside_halton’;
else if (siteName === ‘insideottawavalley.com’)
domain = ‘inside_ottawa_valley’;
else if (siteName === ‘mississauga.com’)
domain = ‘mississauga’;
else if (siteName === ‘muskokaregion.com’)
domain = ‘muskoka_region’;
else if (siteName === ‘newhamburgindependent.ca’)
domain = ‘new_hamburg_independent’;
else if (siteName === ‘niagarathisweek.com’)
domain = ‘niagara_this_week’;
else if (siteName === ‘northbaynipissing.com’)
domain = ‘north_bay_nipissing’;
else if (siteName === ‘northumberlandnews.com’)
domain = ‘northumberland_news’;
else if (siteName === ‘orangeville.com’)
domain = ‘orangeville’;
else if (siteName === ‘ourwindsor.ca’)
domain = ‘our_windsor’;
else if (siteName === ‘parrysound.com’)
domain = ‘parrysound’;
else if (siteName === ‘simcoe.com’)
domain = ‘simcoe’;
else if (siteName === ‘theifp.ca’)
domain = ‘the_ifp’;
else if (siteName === ‘waterloochronicle.ca’)
domain = ‘waterloo_chronicle’;
else if (siteName === ‘yorkregion.com’)
domain = ‘york_region’;
let sectionTag = ”;
try
if (domain === ‘thestar.com’ && path.indexOf(‘wires/’) = 0)
sectionTag = ‘/business’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/autos’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/autos’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/entertainment’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/entertainment’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/life’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/life’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/news’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/news’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/politics’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/politics’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/sports’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/sports’;
else if (path.indexOf(‘/opinion’) >= 0)
sectionTag = ‘/opinion’;
} catch (ex)
const descriptionUrl = ‘window.location.href’;
const vid = ‘mediainfo.reference_id’;
const cmsId = ‘2665777’;
let url = `https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?iu=/58580620/$domain/video/oovvuu$sectionTag&description_url=$descriptionUrl&vid=$vid&cmsid=$cmsId&tfcd=0&npa=0&sz=640×480&ad_rule=0&gdfp_req=1&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&env=vp&impl=s&correlator=`;
url = url.split(‘ ‘).join(”);
window.oovvuuReplacementAdServerURL = url;
These aren’t your grandma’s quilts.
Being a grandmother herself, Lorna Costantini said she’s not a huge fan of the above phrase, but she can’t help but use it to describe modern quilting.
Fires in Happy Valley-Goose Bay under control with no current risk of explosion – CBC.ca
Bitcoin halving, Trump Media stock falling, and banks rising: Markets news roundup – Quartz
Maple Leafs vs Boston Bruins playoff series – CP24
Silver investment demand jumped 12% in 2019
12 Bizarre Things People Did Just To Make Social Media Content
Global Media Markets, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F – TV and Radio Broadcasting, Film and Music, Information Services, Web Content, Search Portals And Social Media, Print Media, & Cable – GlobeNewswire
-
Media22 hours ago
DJT Stock Rises. Trump Media CEO Alleges Potential Market Manipulation. – Barron's
-
Investment23 hours agoPrivate equity gears up for potential National Football League investments – Financial Times
-
Real eState15 hours ago
Botched home sale costs Winnipeg man his right to sell real estate in Manitoba – CBC.ca
-
News21 hours ago
Canada Child Benefit payment on Friday | CTV News – CTV News Toronto
-
Business23 hours ago
Gas prices see 'largest single-day jump since early 2022': En-Pro International – Yahoo Canada Finance
-
Business15 hours ago
Dow Jones Rises But S&P, Nasdaq Fall; Nvidia, SMCI Flash Sell Signals As Bitcoin's Fourth Halving Arrives – Investor's Business Daily
-
Science20 hours ago
Marine plankton could act as alert in mass extinction event: UVic researcher – Langley Advance Times
-
Media24 hours ago
Three drones downed after explosions heard in Iran’s Isfahan: State media – Al Jazeera English
