Alex and Dusky, preliminary interactive map

The Western Way + Decisions

If one more person says, “Western way of thinking,” hinting at the way Western culture is corrupt, horrible, black and white, leading us to destruction, to the tipping point where humans go all Madmax – I’m going to scream. This, of course, is an overstatement. I notice the sways in people’s perspectives and want to warn them that thinking completely in the Eastern way isn’t going to be all that great either. It’s a panacea trap. We’ve got to somehow identify the imbalance in the world and balance accordingly, not just point a finger at one component and say that’s how we got here.

When people criticize binary thinking, they are obviously trying to shoot for the stars and balance. However, even if we go the rhizomatic route completely, it may lead us down the “only way” path into a pattern of thinking that becomes static – and dead.

We die when we don’t adapt. We die when things are static. The same is true for culture.

Do you believe that in order to take action you must make a decision? What does this decision look like? Is there a fork in the road or another structure? If it’s a fork, then that’s binary thinking.

So, how do you move toward a systems world if the decision-making process still processes in binary code?

A photo taken while in Tibet awhile back. Eastern way. I think the Eastern way is beautiful like an individual person’s idiosyncrasies. We need each individual’s values and voice in order to maintain the constant balancing act of a system.

Art & Design

Since being in the MFA Collaborative Design program, the question of what’s the difference between art and design has come into being again.

At one point, I thought of art as more personal and ultimately selfish and design as more for the masses and selfless. I pictured the artist as starving, introverted and an emotionally-driven creative practice to produce artwork while the designer ate a little bit more, wore those trendy glasses, could be introverted or extraverted, and relied on marketing personas to get them to the end product.

The last few weeks I’m thinking that art is inquiry and design is impact. If you are only in the inquiry stage, then you don’t have much action, but if you’re only focused on the impact stage, it may only result in tunnel vision toward a solution. Obviously, I think you need both, but these two types of thinking frustrate me at times. It’s a constant balancing act.

I hope that my blog postings don’t slow down too much. I’m starting to write for Pacific Northwest College of Art. You can view my postings through PNCA here. Until next time, keep questioning and taking action.

Brain + Mapping

Next, the way the splice of brain is mapped out can actually map out my own personal brain stories – according to whether it it the part of the brain for emotion – memory, visual, etc. This is going to be challenging, but show people not only my personal life journey, but create a life journey for them as well.

I will be highlighting the area of the brain that is triggered when being moved by art. In a way, the person will be experiencing that part of the brain, meanwhile, – the actual structure of the entire piece will actually be framed around that part of the brain. macro. micro. This is the same area as when activated by experiencing nature.

left interior frontal gyrus and temporo-parietal junction

My message tags: brain – biophilic structures, macro + micro, multiple perspectives
brain emphasis on location for being “moved” and relaxing with art is same to experiencing nature

I will be showing macro and micro perspectives of biophilic brain structures of the brain with emphasis on how the same part of the brain is activated when experiencing nature as is for being moved by an art piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being moved by an art piece and experiencing nature triggers the same part of the brain.

Brain structure mimics aggregation and rivas of biophilic forms:

Harper’s Playground

We visited this a week or so ago, and it was an amazing experience. Harper’s Playground is designed to be fully accessible to all and designed, literally, by the surrounding community. It is thought-provoking and the storyteller, Cody Goldberg, is an amazing social entrepreneur – along with his wife, April Goldberg.

Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge

This painting was done for an assignment called “Sense of Place” maps. The Dusky goose is the umbrella species for the area. I thought that the Dusky was similar to the surrounding lands around the refuge – because the landmasses – though boundaries make them separate – are interdependent on one another. They are interdependent because of bioregion and also human values that shape the land.

I’m hoping to push these paintings/drawings further by detailing the plumes of the birds with other flora and fauna in the area.

Here is the story I have started out with to describe the map – it needs some work, but you will get the point:

The Dusky Goose and Red Head Duck

The duck cried that it had lost its way

Because its home didn’t look like before

The goose heard the duck crying

And tried to comfort it by offering some wapato

The duck felt better after being fed

And began to ask the goose why the land had changed

The goose explained it was because of humans

And the duck began to cry again

The goose said not to worry

The duck’s life would still flourish

The goose said, “I’m the reason you can still nest on this land.”

And the duck, although saddened by the changed thanked the goose.

You see without the Dusky goose, there would be not refuge for wildlife.

So, the Red Head Duck thanked its lucky stars for the Dusky Goose.

Living Frames: Micro & Macro messages

After mapping out the coordinates of my first living frame expedition, I began to realize that I wasn’t too stoked about how it looked from above. Now, I realize that I want my works to be viewed in both macro (aerial) and micro (single living frame) levels to emphasize my believe of being aware of the parts and whole. Also, I may be experimenting with forested areas and urban areas – and apply living structures to how I map out the living frames.

Story is very important as well, and there may be a chance to do an artistic overlay onto these pieces through GIS mapping. Thus, giving the experiencer the chance to see the living frame one-by-one, the frame placement as a whole and further artistic point of view through GIS overlay.

Here is my thought process:

In the first, I had overlaid a nautilus shell to give guidance to frame placement in Forest Park trail area. In the second I have overlaid a pine cone over a map of the more urbanized Portland area. These frames could highlight the biophilic tendencies of the place or more specifically, the image I would be using for frame placement.