Event 1: Undestanding - Art and Research

This week, I was able to attend the “Understanding – Art and Research” exhibit at the Building Bridges Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. The exhibition was a collaboration between the UCLA Art|Sci Center and the Building Bridges Gallery with artists from the University of Applied Arts Vienna contributing works that focus on three different aspects: relation, education, and translation. Relation seeks to apply different artistic practices to challenge different perspectives. Education focuses on the emerging sector of “art-research-based teaching” that proposes that research based teaching should be grounded in art. Translation is about developing new ways to understand and cognize specific themes and topics.

Mirror selfie with the reflective background of the exhibit

            One of the most unique aspects of the exhibit itself was that there was an interactive app that went along with it that would overlay a video of the artist speaking about the work of art on the actual art piece via any smartphone’s camera. This initial experience of using an app to interact the exhibit already made clear the exhibit’s purpose: to show how art is being transformed with technology and the practical applications of this overlap.

Screenshot of the app that overlaid the artists talking about their work

            Two exhibits stood out particularly to me, albeit for different reasons. The first one was the “Evaluating Visionary Architecture” that focuses on creating scale models for architectural projects that have sensors that respond and dynamically change based on human interaction. The aim is to demonstrate how unconventional artistic approaches can be a solution to many problems even across architecture. This stood it because it really hit home on the idea of the practical use of using an artistic, dynamic model to translate to real world change and development. The second exhibit that really stood out was the “Relation” project that consisted of a trench coat with different statements that would be completed via camera and change every time. This was a cool method of making a piece very interactive with the user and combining technology with art to not only make a dynamic, changing piece, but also to pass a powerful message as seen with the attached picture.

The iPad that overlaid different terms on the coat - unique!

The architecture based exhibit

            Personally, I found this exhibit a great experience. I not only found a very cool art gallery close to UCLA in Bergamot Station, but also the exemplification of what we have been learning in this class – the overlap of art with other disciplines, in this case technology. While each project has a different purpose in the exhibit, it only goes to show how vast and applicable this overlap is. I would definitely recommend this exhibit to everyone taking this class because it really captures, what I feel is the essence of the class.