Event 1

On April 19th i attended Linda Weintraub's workshop based around her lecture 'WHAT'S NEXT? Eco Materialism and Contemporary Art". of course being the person i am i got there early to check the space out and maybe get a chance to talk to the artist a little before hand. Once everyone got there and signed in she sat us down and asked us ours names, major and how much percent of the week month or our life do we think we spend walking or being on ground that isn't created by man. most peoples answers were in the 1 percent range. This set up short presentation she gave us before hand about some of the topics we should think about while exploring and interacting in the workshop. we were asked to take off our shoes if we liked and proceed into the gallery space. 

inside the space were a series of circular stations on the floor that all represented a different way of interacting with materials that she provided in boxes. in the middle of the room was a large circular station about the sensation on materials on a humans foot and the feeling of walking without shoes. she explained how most people barely ever walk around without shoes on and virtually never feel the ground beneath them except through there rubber soles of there shoes. i took off my shoes and shocks and walked on pine needles, plant materials, tree bark and moss. I tried to connect with my body by closing my eyes and really feeling how my feet interacted with the materials. among other stations were things like handling materials like pine cones to bird feathers to tasting maple syrup, breaking apart earth like materials to create dirt and trying to measure the weight of a birds nest compared to penny's. all of these materials had different prompt and ways in which she wanted you to utilize them. this is all happening while you are sitting on the floor so you are really connecting with you body, which i think is her whole idea for this workshop.

before hand she explained and ask if everyone knew what neomaterialism was. This is a big topic and idea she thought about in the process of creating this work. the idea that we are all constantly connected to manufactured and processed items and nothing we use or touch now is raw or materials from earth. i feel like her art exhibit is a push against science advancements and pushing toward finding a connection with our bodies and the environment again. when asked how much time we spend being on non man made ground it was kind of a shock to me and made me start thinking more about the authenticity of materials and things we gather in our life. i think her art exhibit push to show that we should invest more time and energy in find more natural processes and environmental ways of producing the same thing we have now. i see her exhibit as a push against science and technology but i think that science and technology can be good things and if these two cultures of science and environmentalism can be join and utilized more mainstream in society we can help ourselves connect more with our planet.





 Joshua Simons. "NeoMaterialism." Sternberg-press. N.p., 2013. Web.http://www.sternberg-press.com/?pageId=1435

Linda Weintraub. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.  http://lindaweintraub.com/

 "Neo-Materialism, Part I: The Commodity and the Exhibition." Neo-Materialism, Part I: The Commodity and the Exhibition - Journal #20 November 2010 - e-flux. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.


ECOCENTRIC ART+SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM. YouTube, 21 Apr. 2017. Web. 24 Apr. 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0w7H26vt2I

"Neomaterialism – Evolutionary, Functionalist, Ecological, Marxist." Making Anthropology Public. N.p., 20 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2017. 

 

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