Saturday Night Fever and the Death of Disco

         Disco was born in the 1970's, when Moog machine made electronic sounds popular. Music transformed from being all traditional instruments to being created by synthesizers and other new sounds. Giorgio Moroder was a prominent figure in the development of disco when he took sounds from all different music genres and created the song "I Feel Love", sung by Donna Summer. This is when Disco took off.

          Because disco was everywhere, anyone believed they could create disco music. This led to the quick downfall of disco. Anything was turned into disco, including Beethoven's 5th symphony and duck noises in the song "Disco Duck". People started to hate the genre because of all the crap that claimed to be disco. Then when Saturday Night Fever came out, it is said that Disco officially died. According to the article, "many of the biggest hit disco singles had come and gone". However, the movie Saturday Night Fever reminded people what real disco was all about. John Travolta's incredible and energetic dancing embodied what was so great about disco in the first place: it was a crowd pleaser. Disco music almost forces you to dance, and that's why it was so popular in the first place. Also without disco music, we would not have house music, which is a huge part of music culture.

Breakdancing

          Breakdancing, also known as B-boying, is a form of dance created in the 1970s by young blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York City. It revolves around hip hop music with upbeat tunes. Although it began in New York, the media helped it spread all around the world and turned it into a popular form of dance that anyone can get involved in. Some more experienced break-dancers often incorporate acrobatic and gymnastic moves into their dances, while less skilled dancers just stick to traditional hip hop dance movements. The four main break dancing moves are called the toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. Toprock is standing dance moves, downrock is dancing on the ground, power moves are acrobatic moves that require speed and strength, and freezes are held poses where a dancer must hold themselves off the ground. Overall it is a powerful and vibrant form of dance.

          Here is a video of breakdancing from the 70's. You can see how the emphasis is on floor movements, whether the dancer is suspending himself off the floor or actually dancing on the floor. It takes immense  strength and endurance to learn how to breakdance, and these dancers are amazing.

Matthew Barney

          Matthew Barney seems to have strange sources of inspiration for his work. The most normal is his use of ordinary materials and turning them into art, such as creating sculptures out of vaseline. I also noticed a lot of appearances by animals in Barney's work. He also seems to be intrigued by fantasy and strange creatures. For example, in one of his pieces he used the horns of a ram and in another video he used a person painted as a leopard clawing someones back. He also includes zombies in one of his videos in the Chrysler Building. He definitely stretches beyond the boundaries of ordinary human life and explores different creatures in his work.
           While he does incorporate non-human creatures, he definitely is interested in the phenomenon of human life. He explores embryos and their life cycle, and he represents human sexual organs through the positioning of dancers. Earlier in the film, it is said that Barney uses creativity and human biology to create a "vision of the meaning of life itself". I think that is what Barney's work revolves around. He is using art to discover what life is, and what the human's place is in this world. 

Nam June Paik

          There were a few major thoughts I had while watching the documentary on Nam June Paik. First of all, I was impressed at how diverse of an artist he is. He paints, he sculpts, he performs. It is difficult enough to perfect one art form, but he seems to be able to do everything. He can take any random object, such as a guitar or a television, and transform it into art piece, and that is incredible.
          I also love that all of his pieces are alive. The shots of the hundreds of television screens all stacked on top of each other was the first one that caught my attention. Every image that came on one of the screens was bright and colorful, and the constant changing of the images made the televisions active and alive. I also enjoyed the "Global Groove" Korean dance that the video showed for a short time. The intensity of the music, the bright green background, and the energetic movements of the dancer all combined to make the piece engaging. Also the "Global Groove" TV Cello incorporates television, music, and technological effects to create an interesting piece filled with color and sound. All of these art pieces are so lively that you can't take your eyes off of them. I can clearly see why Nam June Paik is the father of video art.

Above is a picture of the "Electronic Superhighway". I think this piece perfectly embodies Nam June Paik's artistic style because he has taken the technology of television and mixed it with sculpture. The TV's are arranged in a way that creates the image of the continental United States, and the vibrant colors and energy that radiate from this piece captivate the audience and basically embody Nam June Paik's art as a whole.

Flash Mob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tJoIaXZ0rw
I was watching "500 Days of Summer" last night and this scene reminded me of the flash mobs we talked about in class. Obviously it's not a real flash mob because it was choreographed and scripted in a movie, but it still embodies the general idea of people joining together and performing in a decontextualized space. I love this scene!

Xerox Project

This project was a creative interpretation of the human body in an unexpected form. I used my dad's printer to make copies of my body parts, including my face, my hair, my arms and legs, my feet and hands, and my stomach. I then spent hours meticulously cutting my body parts out, and then brainstormed how to display them.

I have always had a love of music, and I wanted to integrate the copies of my body with something that relates to music. My favorite instrument is the piano, but I realized it would difficult to find a piano that I would be allowed to turn into a work of art. Instead, I borrowed one of my dad's many acoustic guitars because it was convenient and accessible. I did not plan any of the arrangements of my body cut-outs on the guitar, it just flowed. I taped pieces down in a way that was visually appealing, and covered the entire guitar. It ended up almost representing the human body with the face at the top, the arms and hands near the middle and on the neck, the stomach in the middle of the front, and the feet and legs near the bottom. I am very pleased with how it turned out.