I got excited when I saw that one of our textbooks for Visual Aesthetics is “Why Is That Art?” Now I can be art snob! I thought. I will be able to answer that question, sound like I know something about art!
I kid. Kinda. I can just pretend to be an art snob, talk in that snobbish high-minded voice and pretend that I’m cooler than I really am.
I realized the past few months that I really like art museums, especially modern and contemporary art. I like looking at the art, exploring what the artists’ intents and statements are. But I know nothing about art. I recognize a few names, but that’s about it — I can’t say why something is art and why it’s not, not at all. I’ve had no formal art education, unless you count a semester in high school (yes, a semester — I switched to an independent journalism class as soon as I knew I had that option. I was terrible at art.). In college, in my American Studies classes we discussed art and how it fit with American themes — I had an entire class called American Photography, American Visual Culture — moreso than in any of my Communications classes (I was a double major). The closest was Visual Storytelling, a storyboarding class I tried to get out of, where the focus was on film and film principles like cinematography. I picked up basic newspaper design and layout principles in high school, and haven’t really progressed from there.
I consider myself to have a good eye. I know when there needs to be more white space, when the text is too small, when there is a need for balance in a particular interface. What I don’t have is the technical know-how — the production skills that I severely lack. Most people in this program are familiar enough with Photoshop and Illustrator that they can do assignments, but for me, Bootcamp was effectively the first time I had to use these tools in any meaningful way. I’ve managed to avoid production classes for this long in my life, but I knew that I needed them to get where I want to go. Frankly, that’s where my worries lie: that I won’t be able to do the assignments, or won’t be able to execute something that fits with what I want, because I can’t figure out a way to do it technically.
I expect to have a greater understanding of design principles and basically consider this class Introduction to Art and Design. I’ve decided to think of myself as an artist or a designer for the semester in this class, pretend to be someone else for awhile. Obviously, I cannot get better at all the software if I don’t use it, and I know I have to get over my insecurities in order to be this awesome web strategist/communicator/messenger/designer/person I want to be.
Also, it’d be pretty cool to go into a museum and know some things.
P.S. Here are some of the awesome exhibits I’ve seen recently. No one will be able to actually see these exhibits in their actuality now, as most of them have closed, but they are all related to the program and all are super, super SUPER COOL. Unfortunately, a lot of the good stuff is hard to find or not viewable on the sites, but I want to share nevertheless. Good references.
ArtGameLab at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — Crowdsourced games
Graphic Design — Now in Production — Visitors voted on new logo designs, in addition to showcasing cool typography, motion graphics (they had a TV rotating television opening credits for shows like Game of Thrones), and design across other media
Talk to Me: Design and the Communication Between People and Objects — Awesome and supercrowded exhibit last summer that showcased metrocard machines, graphical designs of all sorts of data, interactive exhibits, apps and other types of games and interfaces purporting to get people to interact with the world around them and promote change.
And both the SFMOMA and the NYC MOMA have exhibits on Cindy Sherman. (NY) (SF)