I've already mentioned the impact Jim Sanborn, Michael Craig Martin and Yoko Ono have had on this project but have failed to mention Cao Fei and her use of technology which challenges the traditional formats of visual art.
I also love Marina Abramovic's idea that "the work is the audience."
Check out this Art:21 video to learn more Cao Fei and her work:
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Results:
Somewhere during the course of the class, the setting were switched on the camera; there are a few photos left on the hard drive that will be uploaded soon. Thank you all who participated, helping see my project to completion!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Directions & Yoko Ono
 |
| Pedestals for project |
Directions:
Consider the space...
It could be anything.
As an observer
Take a picture of what you observe
_____________________________
Turn the dial on top of the camera to the “AUTO” position.
Press the flash button until the screen display on camera reads “ FLASH OFF.”
As an observer, take a picture of what you observe
Turn the dial on top of the camera to the “OFF” position
Replace camera on the pedestal
Take a business card
Visit the blog to observe the results!
_____________________________
My name and the title of the work will compose another, more simple panel and will be placed on the pedestal as well. It will read:
Schrödinger's Cat
Kathy Webb
Contemporary Art
Final Project
Fall 2010
The camera, a Kodak EasyShare CX7525 will be placed on the smaller pedestal constructed from foam board atop the larger display component. A business card holder will also be placed on the larger pedestal so observers of the project/ AKA the audience, will later be able to observe the result of the project, as will those who happen to stumble upon this blog.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Concept as Explained for the Purpose of My Project
I have always been fascinated with both quantum physics and the visual arts. Like Jim Sanborn, I am interested in examining scientific concepts through an artistic lens. For the purpose of this project I am creating both a blog and an interactive work of art in order to explore the ideas presented by Edwin Schrodinger's infamous thought experiment.
I have also been a big admirer of Michael Craig Martin's iconic conceptual work entitled An Oak Tree, which accounts for the concept and title being entirely separate from the object presented for the duration of my final project.
It is important to note that the audience being observed may or may not act differently depending on whether or not they notice they are actually being observed. We won't know the final result until the pictures are observed.
Directions
for Installtion
I have also been a big admirer of Michael Craig Martin's iconic conceptual work entitled An Oak Tree, which accounts for the concept and title being entirely separate from the object presented for the duration of my final project.
The Blog
The blog is both an online entity and a non-object, existing as both simultaneously. It allows the observers of this project to read my observations on the the world around me and my thoughts about the significant events that have shaped my personal experience thus far, through the scrapbook of tidbits I am compiling on the attached pages. By reading the comments and the web traffic reports associated with this blog, I can also observe the impact it has had. Therefore I am acting as both the observer and the observed at the same time, as is the audience. However I am leaving an end result up to chance. The observers of this piece always have a choice to either comment or not on my project.
The Artwork
I will be placing a digital camera on a pedestal asking the observer of the piece to interact with the other members of the class, by showing me their observations. The audience becomes both the observer and the observed, simultaneously. Again, the end result is left completely up to chance, and will be posted on the blog.
It is important to note that the audience being observed may or may not act differently depending on whether or not they notice they are actually being observed. We won't know the final result until the pictures are observed.
Directions
for Installtion
Consider the space...
It could be anything
As an observer
Take a picture of what you observe
The Concept As Explained through Poetry
This is only an excerpt:
The story of Schroedinger's cat (an epic poem)
May 7, 1982
Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."
— Cecil Adams
*Full version to be found on the Straight Dope website
The story of Schroedinger's cat (an epic poem)
May 7, 1982
Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."
— Cecil Adams
*Full version to be found on the Straight Dope website
The Concept As Explained by Television:
Turns out television can be educational afterall. The popular CBS program The Big Bang Theory explains the concept of Schrodinger's cat through the possibility of intimate relationships:
The Concept as Explained by Steve Martin:
In Steve Martin's Book Pure Drivel he explains Schrodinger's principle through the following examples:
Original Premise
A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, a hammer kills the cat; if the atom doesn't decay, the cat lives. As the atom is considered to be in either state before the observer opens the box, the cat must thus be considered to be simultaneously dead and alive.
- Erwin Schrodinger, 1935
Wittgenstein's Banana
A banana is flying first class from New York to L.A. Two scientists, one in each city, are talking on the phone about the banana. Because it is moving in relationship to its noun, the referent of the word banana never occupies one space, and anything that does not occupy one space does not exist. Therefore, a banana will arrive at JFK with no limousine into the city, even though the reservation was confirmed in L.A.
Elvis's Charcoal Briquette
A barbecue is cooking wieners in an airtight space. As the charcoal consumes the oxygen, the integrity of the briquette is weakened. An observer riding a roller coaster will become hungry for wieners but will he thrown from the car when he stands up and cries, "Elvis, get me a hot dog."
Chef Boyardee's Bungee Cord
A bungee cord is hooked at one end to a neutrino, while the other end is hooked to a vibraphone. The neutrino is then accelerated to the speed of light, while the vibraphone is dropped off the Oakland Bay Bridge. The cord will stretch to infinite thinness, the neutrino will decay, and the vibraphone will be smashed by the recoiling bungee. Yet an observer standing on the shore will believe he hears Tchaikovsky's second piano concerto performed by Chef Boyardee's uncle Nemo.
Sacajawea's Rain Bonnet
Lewis and Clark are admiring Sacajawea's rain bonnet. Lewis, after six months in the wilderness, wants to wear the rain bonnet, even when it's not raining. Clark wants Sacajawea to keep wearing it and doesn't want to have to deal with Lewis, who conceivably could put on the bonnet and start prancing. However, an observer looking back from the twenty-first century will find this completely normal.
Apollo's Non-Apple Non-Strudel
Imagine Apollo running backward around the rings of Saturn while holding a hot dish of apple strudel. In another universe, connected only by a wormhole, is a dollop of vanilla ice cream. The vanilla ice cream will move inexorably toward the wormhole and be dumped onto the strudel. Yet wife swapping is still frowned upon in many countries.
Jim Dandy's Bucket of Goo
Jim Dandy is placed in a three-dimensional maze. His pants are tied at the ankles and filled with sand. Every time he moves to another dimension of the maze, he must review the movie Titanic, first with one star, then with two stars, then with three, while never mentioning its box office take. If he completes the maze, he will then be able to untie his pant-legs, and the spilling sand will form a bowling trophy that Jim Dandy may take home.
The Feynman Dilemma
A diner says to a waiter, "What's this fly doing in my soup?" And the waiter says, "it looks like the backstroke." Yet if the same scene is viewed while plunging into a black hole at the speed of light, it will look like a Mickey Mouse lunch pail from the thirties, except that Mickey's head has been replaced by a Lincoln penny.
George Hamilton's Sun Lamp
George Hamilton is dropped into an empty rental space next to a tanning salon on the dark side of the moon. There is no way into the salon except through an exterior door, but if George exits, it could mean dangerous exposure to deadly gamma rays. George could open his own tanning salon by tapping the phone lines from next door and taking their customers. And yet George is cooked when he exits the rental space while using a silver-foil face reflector.
Original Premise
A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, a hammer kills the cat; if the atom doesn't decay, the cat lives. As the atom is considered to be in either state before the observer opens the box, the cat must thus be considered to be simultaneously dead and alive.
- Erwin Schrodinger, 1935
Wittgenstein's Banana
A banana is flying first class from New York to L.A. Two scientists, one in each city, are talking on the phone about the banana. Because it is moving in relationship to its noun, the referent of the word banana never occupies one space, and anything that does not occupy one space does not exist. Therefore, a banana will arrive at JFK with no limousine into the city, even though the reservation was confirmed in L.A.
Elvis's Charcoal Briquette
A barbecue is cooking wieners in an airtight space. As the charcoal consumes the oxygen, the integrity of the briquette is weakened. An observer riding a roller coaster will become hungry for wieners but will he thrown from the car when he stands up and cries, "Elvis, get me a hot dog."
Chef Boyardee's Bungee Cord
A bungee cord is hooked at one end to a neutrino, while the other end is hooked to a vibraphone. The neutrino is then accelerated to the speed of light, while the vibraphone is dropped off the Oakland Bay Bridge. The cord will stretch to infinite thinness, the neutrino will decay, and the vibraphone will be smashed by the recoiling bungee. Yet an observer standing on the shore will believe he hears Tchaikovsky's second piano concerto performed by Chef Boyardee's uncle Nemo.
Sacajawea's Rain Bonnet
Lewis and Clark are admiring Sacajawea's rain bonnet. Lewis, after six months in the wilderness, wants to wear the rain bonnet, even when it's not raining. Clark wants Sacajawea to keep wearing it and doesn't want to have to deal with Lewis, who conceivably could put on the bonnet and start prancing. However, an observer looking back from the twenty-first century will find this completely normal.
Apollo's Non-Apple Non-Strudel
Imagine Apollo running backward around the rings of Saturn while holding a hot dish of apple strudel. In another universe, connected only by a wormhole, is a dollop of vanilla ice cream. The vanilla ice cream will move inexorably toward the wormhole and be dumped onto the strudel. Yet wife swapping is still frowned upon in many countries.
Jim Dandy's Bucket of Goo
Jim Dandy is placed in a three-dimensional maze. His pants are tied at the ankles and filled with sand. Every time he moves to another dimension of the maze, he must review the movie Titanic, first with one star, then with two stars, then with three, while never mentioning its box office take. If he completes the maze, he will then be able to untie his pant-legs, and the spilling sand will form a bowling trophy that Jim Dandy may take home.
The Feynman Dilemma
A diner says to a waiter, "What's this fly doing in my soup?" And the waiter says, "it looks like the backstroke." Yet if the same scene is viewed while plunging into a black hole at the speed of light, it will look like a Mickey Mouse lunch pail from the thirties, except that Mickey's head has been replaced by a Lincoln penny.
George Hamilton's Sun Lamp
George Hamilton is dropped into an empty rental space next to a tanning salon on the dark side of the moon. There is no way into the salon except through an exterior door, but if George exits, it could mean dangerous exposure to deadly gamma rays. George could open his own tanning salon by tapping the phone lines from next door and taking their customers. And yet George is cooked when he exits the rental space while using a silver-foil face reflector.
Currently Under Construction
Over the next week this blog will transform itself into my Contemporary Art final for Connie Stewart's class at the University of Northern Colorado.
It is intended to explore themes and concepts introduced throughout the duration of course and attempt to illustrate how they have developed over the duration of my lifetime, as reflected in the visual arts.
I am using Schrodinger's principle to form the foundation of my project; the very act of observation changes that which is being observed.
Hope you enjoy watching the development of my project & please feel free to comment as it develops!
It is intended to explore themes and concepts introduced throughout the duration of course and attempt to illustrate how they have developed over the duration of my lifetime, as reflected in the visual arts.
I am using Schrodinger's principle to form the foundation of my project; the very act of observation changes that which is being observed.
Hope you enjoy watching the development of my project & please feel free to comment as it develops!
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