I shared this link with a few people already, but I will now spread it to all of you good people! I think this site, while not being as clear a framework as it could, does include some content areas that I think would enhance the experience of the CAM website: the ability for users to comment on eachother's work, networking functions (collaboration encouraged through a collective), event pages not simply relative to the Raleigh community but to the larger global community, a shop where artists could have their work sold or have hand-made goods for purchase. These are all popular attributes in the art blog communities online, therefore I find them to be essential if CAM is to be in the ranks with some of the larger existing "centers" and especially if CAM is going to exist soley on the web until the physical CAM is built. I talked with Lauren about a fledgling concept to incorporate the idea behind community sites like Myspace and DeviantArt.

ArtDorks

Next is FecalFace, a similar site to ArtDorks, but nevertheless a good resource for contemporary artists (mostly Bay Area).
FecalFace

Last, I have a few quotes from some reading I've been doing:

"Where does process begin and product end? There is good graffiti art now turned into cheapened logos, like Keith Haring's work, and clever grafitti on inner-city trains, and lousy graffiti on new buildings, historic walls, and public sculpture."

"We have entered the era of the temporary contemporary. Yet we continue to build flamboyant new containers as cemetaries for art-"casms" that soon find themselves too strapped for cash to admit new art "isms," while older institutions scream for storage space."

^I think this brings up a good point: we need to think about the long term, how will this identity evolve? How can CAM gain the attention of the public eye but not, to be blunt, shit where it sleeps?

"Every object is known, in conservator's terms, as a little time capsule that leaves us, but only the present is truly material."

its all about the material. "Form follows desire."

…participants in the contemporary art world have not yet developed a systematic understanding of how that once integral element of the bourgeois public sphere has irretrievably disappeared. It has been replaced by social and institutional formations for which we not only do not have any concepts and terms yet, but whose modus operandi remains profoundly opaque and incomprehensible to most of us. For example, we have more artists, galleries and exhibition organizers than ever before in the postwar period, yet none of these operate in any way comparable to the way they functioned from the 1940s to the 1990s. We have ever larger and evermore imposing museum buildings and institutions emerging all around us, but their social function, once comparable to the sphere of public education or the university, for example, has become completely diffuse. These new functions range from those of a bank—which holds, if not the gold standard, at least the quality and value warranties for investors and speculators in the art market—to those of a congregational space, semi-public at that, in which rites are enacted that promise to compensate for, if not obliterate, the actual loss of our sense of a once given desire and demand for political and social self-determination… excerpt from “the predicament of contemporary art/roundtable” in ART SINCE 1900

“University art museums can do things that larger municipal museums cannot. Rorschach says: mount more daring exhibitions, engage students in ways likely to nurture a lifelong passion for the arts, involve experts across disciplines in the interpretation of visual culture.”
“Visiting a museum is fun, but it’s also exhausting; it is an exercise in thought and in trying to sort out what is meaningful from what is not meaningful.”
Article on Nasher Museum at Duke director Kimerly Rorschach

here's some links i thought quite inspirational [imagine string quartet]

GraphicThoughtFacility

2x4

MIX-m

dispatx

k. totally incomplete list. but something to look at.

interactive. galore. interdisciplinary. [TRONIC]

WHOA. CAM + interactive walls....

graphic thought facility

/// general interest entry

This morning I was reading an article in the times and thought it was good for general interest. Just as CAM being a teaching hostpital the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC wants to be a laboratory for cultural change.

Times Article

I have 2 readings hanging on the wall as you walk in.

One is about different learners, the museum, and the experience. It was a reading from Merediths Theory class.

The other is from a book: Art as Experience-it talks about environment, the environment we create for the user/viewer to have an experience. How we use senses, sensations, etc. And impulsion. It goes pretty deep but there are some good paragraphs.

Feel free to copy them!

Also, I have another book on the wall from my anthropology class. It talks about "the meaning of a place" or home. The different views on a place. I have some areas tagged in the book.

here are all of the links as far as the pixel stuff goes, for those who are interested.

+ a pretty nice open source pixel drawing program. some REALLY smart features in it.
http://www.opensword.org/Pixen/r3b2.php

+ this is one bitmap font maker that will download a font file of your font
http://www.pentacom.jp/soft/ex/font/edit.html

+ assorted pixel art sites
www.habbohotel.com
www.pixelfreak.com/v3/en/links.html (this guy also has a pretty good intro thing to pixel art

+here's the link for scriptographer that travis was talking about
www.scriptographer.com/

+ pixel art tutorial
http://www.19.5degs.com/element/832.php

Love Eternal

To start us thinking about typefaces, that are not connected explicitly to a certain look or that lock us into one direction or another, I think these and other digital faces are really coming up nicely in the GD world. The application of something that has just a little bit of personality while maintaining an objective form might be our best bet. Check the links to other typefaces at the bottom of the page for more.

Best Fonts of 2005

Here's an iteration I'm starting to be happy with:

The C has been moved to the top (where the A was because it was the first letter being read) but the problem seems now that the A is somehow the most interesting character (a little more complicated than the C, and that is why it's being read first. Thoughts?

Also, I really like the clarity and the use of conventions in digital art that the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney uses for their website. -------click

TBrock - are we in a position to select a typeface for purchase?

also- this is probably a link you have all seen, but http://www.rhizome.org/ is one way of visualizing a public space where contemporary art (net art, in this case) is noted, debated, and explored. Rhizome began as a self-sustained non profit digital space, and is now affiliated with a physical space, so it's a noteworthy model/transition....

Josh,

I like the exploration, but I agree, the A seems interesting and almost easier to read and the "C" becomes more obscure. My eye almost wants to close in the space for the C and make it an "O". I see "A" then "M" more dominantly. and "C" last. Just some thoughts.

Andy Friedman: an artist/poet/... I have more info on him on my desk and a cd to listen to. He is also playing at the duke coffeehouse tomorrow nite if anyone is interested. There is an interesting BBC interview I have on a cd about him. A good quote from it that he says is to "connect with the current that drives the work, not the work itself..." check out his website. I got all this info from Zoe over at the NCSU gallery, she is trying to get him to have a show here sometime in March possibly. Maggie Fost also knows him.
SUN 1/22
DUKE COFFEEHOUSE @ DUKE UNIVERSITY
(DURHAM, NC)
Crowell Bldg
East Campus
(919) 684-4069
9PM

http://www.andyfriedman.net/tour.html

Last night I had the pleasure of attending an artists' roundtable discussion at UNC... the artists were mother and two daughters - Betye, Alison, and Lezley Saar

their work is very much about folkology, narratology, history, and education

some ideas that cropped up as the talk evolved formed connections for me as to what our goals are right now, in terms of research // gestation:

+ collective memory - this relates back to routine for me.. thinking about the common ground that society has, and how one can use that as a base or entry point. they were talking specifically about the icon of "Aunt Jemima" and what she has illustrated over the decades, but I feel that we need to be aware of the collective consciousness/memory of the audience today. (of course - you all already knew that). once we are aware of these things, we can destabilize or reinforce.

+ curation as artistic process - this stuck with me as we prepare to make our posters and essentially curate a show for the audience that we choose (for now). we also talked about the possibilities of personal curation online for visitors - again cycling back to curation as ART, curation as EDUCATION

the artists also talked alot about how the collaboration on one piece was very different when the context of each piece was each artist's mind/studio... that context completely changed when the work moved to the ackland, and so the work itself changed.

+ do something creative everyday

+ hip hop as urban storytelling Lezley explored the cultural connections and disconnect between art and lifestyle projected via album covers in 1950s America vs. 21st c. America. She found that this piece really spoke to a lot of younger kids, and it opened the door to a lot of conversation and ideas that she otherwise wouldn't have been privy to. ... this resonated with me as being widely divergent, something that we are tasked with right now.

//ok that's it for now.

came across this while doing a general research on artists. starts bringing to mind options for other exhibitions and themes.
this one dealth with (though I don't know if CAM wants to go there yet)
spirituality and religion.
but some of the quotes offer a general outlook on contemporary artists' goals and intentions.

David Ellsworth, one of the nation's most acclaimed wood sculptors, speaks about contemporary artists and their need to express the sacredness in their work and reasons why:

To a striking degree, contemporary artists speak more comfortably about spirituality than about organized religion. As David Ellsworth says, they are the sojourners who wander in the hills rather than the settlers who live easily in the valley. Spirituality seems more authentic to them because they have had to create their own ways of expressing it, whereas religion connotes the teachings of preachers and priests who may have never seriously questioned the tenets of their faith. In this respect, artists are the outsiders still capable of raising questions silenced by civilization. Living in the hills gives them a critical perspective on the settlement below.

read on... www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9054/9054

came across this while doing a general research on artists. starts bringing to mind options for other exhibitions and themes.
this one dealth with (though I don't know if CAM wants to go there yet)
spirituality and religion.
but some of the quotes offer a general outlook on contemporary artists' goals and intentions.

David Ellsworth, one of the nation's most acclaimed wood sculptors, speaks about contemporary artists and their need to express the sacredness in their work and reasons why:

To a striking degree, contemporary artists speak more comfortably about spirituality than about organized religion. As David Ellsworth says, they are the sojourners who wander in the hills rather than the settlers who live easily in the valley. Spirituality seems more authentic to them because they have had to create their own ways of expressing it, whereas religion connotes the teachings of preachers and priests who may have never seriously questioned the tenets of their faith. In this respect, artists are the outsiders still capable of raising questions silenced by civilization. Living in the hills gives them a critical perspective on the settlement below.

read on... www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9054/9054

while doing research on the cam identity, I stumbled upon this awesome flash site. pay attention to the transitions and how the 2D becomes 3D in a second. it will be inspiring for all!

Tokyo Plastics—click on V.2 near the top

another good site for everything contemporary (thanks for referring me josh)

Never Happened

While stubbling through student websites off Tony's site I found a previous student's thesis from school dealing with teaching/learning in interactive media. This is great for all of you interested in the educational side of CAM and everyone interested in interactive design. But be warned there is a lot of information to read... but well worth it!

interactive learning

As I contemplate this poster/artifact for identity...I'm returning to a previous discussion from last semester about how one makes a poster for another artist/designer. Do we make the poster reflect the artist's work? Essentially the question comes down to this: Should CAM be a reflection of the art it shows? Or, should it act solely as a container for that art?

awesome questions Travis... i think the concept of a thematic exhibition really opens up the context + form of the "poster". what does a poster become when it speaks to routine? how do you account for the audience of greater raleigh that may or may not care about contemporary art?

i think the whole point of CAM is to dig a lot deeper than the art itself, and get at the insertion/discussion of IDEAS in the community that transcend the art object(s). this is a fortunate situation for us - we aren't limited to showing a photo of the artists' work (although i think that's a valid visual approach too).

I've been experimenting with the logo (and purely the logo) in a three dimensional environment. This study is very elementary and has no ultimate goal. It's completely open ended. This stuff just gets me going.

Can we agree on a logotype? Is it ok to have this in lower case (especially considering there are few ascenders/decenders, and the first letter could be a form of caps)? Do you notice the differences? Which one is better (I have an idea, but i don't like to be biased)?

I like the second and third (from the top) iterations the best, I think running the r & a together along with the r & y together in the last one is a bit too much and might not read 'contemporary' at a smaller size. Also, I wonder if INITIATIVE should be in all caps while the "contemporary art museum", though larger, is set in lowercase. INITIATIVE comes across louder even with its smaller size and as we know this is going to prove a battleground already.

i really like the fourth choice. it takes a second for my eye to get it, but that's what makes it. it's timeless but has a kick.
i think the r-a arch looks a little awkward but in a good way.
the space between the e and u of museum needs to be tightened up a bit i think.

Great job!! I will implement on the letterhead for tomorrow.

i like #3, how the r and t connect.. i'm not sold on the one r and y connecting though.. i like the 'contemporary' and 'museum' of the first one better

i've shared this with Josh, but I think the lower case is a fine variation and actually more welcoming and appealing than an upper case version. the ascenders and descenders add the character without detracting from the read path and the simplicity. if anything, i would work on the spacing between each individual word and the i.c.d. qualifier.

Second one! The detail of only the r is perfect. When it happens twice its a little tooo much but just right once. I like the lower case, but a variation of uppers could be nice. I think its nice though to have the ascenders and descenders, when its all caps it might be more difficult to read. Nice job! i like it a lot

and then there's always all caps: (I think that theres something so much more pleasant about the rotund forms of this font in lower case [to me] and all-cap-slab just seems so... illegible)

and kerning has never been my strong point.

i agree with lauren about the connecting r and a being only in 'art'. I feel like this shows that the focus is on art and that this is where the creativity happens. Nice work Josh!!

i agree with lauren about the connecting r and a being only in 'art'. I feel like this shows that the focus is on art and that this is where the creativity happens. Nice work Josh!!

one more: here are the iterations with apex, for all to see and openly compare. the qualifier for the second two is also apex.

which looks entirely too much like

it's stifled and mechanical

Ok, I would have to agree with Lauren and Colleen, the r and t should be the only loving couple in the bunch. Im also feeling the lowercase, rather than the all caps. And yes, apex is a little more rigid than caecila, just a little bit.

i do agree with you that the last all caps apex looks too blocky. however, i feel ok about the lowercase form, and i think apex NEW is loads better than the charlotte sans. much bigger family, and looks better at larger sizes.

just weighing in :) i've incorporated your caecilia/charlotte as of yet though.

thank you so much for hammering this out!