Intervention at Dolores Park

Dolores Park in San Francisco is a wonderful park where local San Franciscans go to relax and enjoy the sun with the family and friends. But it was not always a happy hang out for youth to elders. At Dolores there were two Jewish Cemeteries here before they moved to San Mateo County in the late 1880's and early 1890's (Hills of Eternity and Home of Peace Cemeteries). They actually were the first to relocate south of The City, mainly because new land was impossible to find after the Gold Rush happened.
There was a totally different vibe when Dolores was a cemetery not only in that area, but within the entire city. We wanted to bring to attention to the people who love being at Dolores that it was not always the happy place it is now. We placed grave stones at the park to represent the bodies that were once buried there. Many people that we talked to had no idea that Dolores was a cemetery and they had different reactions. Some people did not care and said "Oh, I did not know that. Cool." While others wanted to learn more about the cemetery and the reason for its relocation.
We found this project very interesting because we were able to bring back into attention to the people that Dolores was a cemetery and not always the hang out that they have grown to love.

We were able to talk to a bunch of people carrying around our grave stone asking them if they know that Dolores Park was a cemetery and that it was relocated to San Mateo.
The grave stone reads... "R.I.P. In the 1880's Dolores Park was a Jewish cemetery. The cemetery was relocated to San Mateo after death was no longer allowed in San Francisco.

Making my Own Sign

I made a Caution sign warning people that there are Crying Children Ahead. I did this because there are so many signs telling people they have to stop doing things or be more safe because there are children in the area. I wanted to make this to warn people that there are children in the area, not for the safety of the children, but for their own safety. If someone has a headache, or hang over or they just really don't like kids, they know that they are coming into a kid zone, and they should approach with caution. I am planning on putting this sign up next to a day care or a play ground.
I used Illustrator to complete this project and I was difficult, but it was not as hard for me was the Culture Jamming project. I got a hang of Illustrator and I think that I will be able to do other projects with less frustration.
The pictures out side are the photos that I took of my sign if front of a kids school near my house. While I was taking the photos one of the teachers came out and asked me what I was doing. I explained to her that I am taking a picture of a sign that I made in front of the school and I would not be leaving the sign there. She asked to see it and when see got her hands on it, she did not like it and told me that she was going to throw it away and I could get in trouble for vandalism. I nicely told her that she can have that and I already got all the pictures I needed for my project. It was a very interesting conversation.

Culture Jamming

To the right is the original Ford logo and below is my edited version. For some reason a broken black border is surrounding my image. It does not show up on Illustrator, only on this blog. Unfortunately I could not get ride of it. I hope that it does not take away from my Culture Jamming piece.

I found the idea of this project to be very interesting. Taking a logo or symbol and changing it, so it is still recognizable, but totally changing the meaning. I took the Ford automobile logo and changed the letters around to read "Fuck!". I did this to show all of the problems that the Ford company is having with their cars. There have been many accidents due to a faulty gas pedal and some deaths have occurred. I believe that my piece shines a light on this issue with a some what comical sense.
To transform the original logo to my culture jamming one I used Adobe Illustrator. I have never used Illustrator before and I had a lot of difficulty navigating through the program. It was very frustrating for me, and all I wanted to do was to go back to Photoshop. After a little bit of kicking and screaming I was able to complete the project. I don't think I will use Illustrator as often as Photoshop or other programs, but I am really happy that I know how to work it a little bit better than before.

Seeing the Past in Present Tense by Paula Levine

“Monuments and memorials can activate you, awaken and open your present, by reintroducing ideologies that have lapsed or require considering again. They can defy physics, allowing your past to occupy the same place as your present”
This article is trying to convey that monuments are not only a thing in a public space, but they can trigger different emotions and memories with people who visit it or they can tell a story of the area the monument is located in. “Public monuments helped to celebrate and cement this progressive narrative on natural history… memorials to heros and events were meant not to revive old struggles and debates, but to put them to rest.” So not only do monuments preserve a place in history for fallen heros or an heroic event, it shows that something great was accomplished and will bring forth the memory of that said event to the viewer.
I was recently in Washington DC and I came across the Lincoln memorial. I was surprised to notices that I did not only admire the scale and the skill put into making this statue, but it made me think about all the turmoil in the American past and even in the present. I remembered everything I have learned in my past history classes while gazing upon this monument and then compared it to my ethnic studies classes on racism today. I came to think about all of this just by looking at a stone statue of a man. After reading this article I remembered this event happening to me, which allowed me to understand that Levine was talking about on a personal level.

The Eiffel Tower by Roland Barthes

The Eiffel Tower is famous symbolic icon of France. If there is merely a photo of the tower, I as do many others. instantly think of France. To many it is not just a building, they become part of it when visiting, as did Barthes. What Barthes tries to convey within this article is that one may not only become part of the Tower, but the may become part of the dream that the Tower presents. He describes his notion of the natural; first one would have to look at the object, in this case the Eiffel Tower, integrate the obvious and then look at what is natural. There can always be a connection to what is man made and created to what is natural. This article could not keep my attention as needed, so I did not read it very diligently. But what I got from it was that the symbionics of certain objects carry great meaning.

Interview with Eva Sutton on Unnatural Science

This article gives a clear description of what a hybrid actually is in the eyes of an artist. Sutton genetically engineers natural animals with other natural animals to make an unnatural creature that does not resemble anything on earth. “It's creating an animal that in parts is recognized as a natural animal and yet, when it's hybridized in its totality, it's completely unnatural. And, in fact, it's monstrous. Sutton views herself both as an artist and a scientist; she never wanted to have to make the decision to become one or the other. So her found the medium of the two; “ Science states meaning and art expresses it.”
The piece that she shows on her website of Unnatural Science is of a hybrid of at least three different animals. The head is of a goat with a bubble like connection to a torso of a colored enhanced bird of come sort within an egg shaped bubble connected to the rear of either a hippo of some type of pig. They are all connected by what looks like to be a small bone within clear bubbles. It is very interesting and does not look like anything that one could find in nature. And if it were to be found, it would be extremely frightening.

Here is the link to view the Hybrid piece:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/egg/205/sutton/peeps/peeps.html

Culture Jamming by Mark Deny

I really enjoyed reading about the concept of Culture Jamming; “a media hacking, information warfare, terror-art, and guerrilla semiotics, all in one.” I have always seen art pieces that have transformed a well-known symbol or icon into something with a different meaning while still keeping the resemblance to the original piece. “Culture jamming, by contrast, is directed against an ever more intrusive, instrumental technoculture whose operant mode is the manufacture of consent through the manipulation of symbols.” I believe this quotation describes the concept of culture jamming head on. The idea of jamming is to do anything that steps in front of the culture one lives in, to stop the flow of media. Like a slap in the face, or to knock a person into sense of what is really going on around them and what the media and “people in charge” of the media is really trying to sell them. I found by reading this article there are many artist who have used culture jamming to bring a point across, I just could never give there art a categorization until this article.