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THE ART ISSUE

Get SchooledStudent Artists Past & Present Word Art

FeaturingCORE Dance CompanyInternet ArtArt of the Mix

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DECEMBER 2013 l A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE RED & BLACK

2 AMPERSAND l DEC 2013

Growing up in a city mostly devoid of culture (except for the lucky ones who had an innate desire to create), coming to Athens was eye opening for me, and opened my mind to the potential for art in unexpected places.

When you think about it, Athens is kind of like one huge art gallery, home to some of the most talented, inspiring people in the southeast.

But it’s not just the Athenian product that’s inspiring; the producers themselves are works of art as well. That’s what we’ve tried to capture in this issue.

Art can, of course, mean different things to different people, so we asked around town what the word conveys to you (pg. 5). While some may believe that art in the classical sense of the word is obsolete, others would argue differently (pg. 4), and like anything else, that it is changing to adapt to the modern world (pg. 22). It’s no surprise that professionals compose a major part of the art scene in the Classic City, but students play an influential role as well (pg. 6), some of whom came here with very different pursuits in mind. Whether college has helped them to articulate the words (pg. 20) or the movements (pg. 24) to express themselves, many students find their artistic strengths in college. And, even if you’re not pursuing a degree in the arts, it’s important to remember the little things you do––like the way you wear your favorite coat (pg. 12) or the way you prepare your signature cocktail (pg. 18)––make you an artist.

What does art mean to you? What inspires the aesthetic in your home, wardrobe, music taste, or dinner plans? Share with us on Twitter @ampersand_uga or facebook.com/ampersand.uga, or tag us in an Instagram @ampersand_uga.

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Managing EditorLori Keong

Creative EditorGina Yu

Senior EditorKate Delvin

Design EditorHannah Fabian Bailey

Asst. Design EditorJG Ginsburg

Photo EditorKristyn Nucci Music Editor

Will Guerin Fashion Editors

Meredith Thornhill Marua Kouninska

Online EditorGrace Donnelly

Copy Editor Stephen Mays

EDITORIAL

Contributing WritersAllie Amato

Daniel Funke Abi Lambert

Stephen Mays Sapna Mistry

Diondra Powers Claire Ruhlin

Elizabeth Vogan Fashion Team

Ersta Ferryanto Surina Harjani

Maria Kouninska Meredith Thornhill

PhotographersEmily DardamanErsta Ferryanto

Penn Hansa Alex Laughlin Kristyn Nucci

Ben Rouse Nick Seymour

Emily Schoone Design Team

Hannah Fabian Bailey Abbey Boehmer Michelle Caudill

JG Ginsburg Sarah Jon

Abi Lambert Mandy Le

Maddie Shae Carson Shadwell

Mary Sommerville Killian Wyatt

Creative Director

Dan Roth Creative Assistants

Christine Byun Victoria Nikolich Bennett Travers

General ManagerNatalie Mcclure

Editorial AdvisorEd Morales

Asst. Editorial AdvisorErin France

Promotions DirectorAllie Amato

Office ManagerAshley Oldham

Distribution ManagerWill Sanchez

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephanie Talmadge

STAFF

PRODUCTION

Editor’s Note

Cover Illustration by Mandy Le

AMPERSAND l DEC 2013 3

4 ............ Cartooning Around

5 ............ Art Actually

6 ............ Get Schooled

12 .......... Cover Up

18 .......... Behind Bars

20 .......... Talk Pretty

Contents

PHOTO BY ANNA PENCE

Cover Illustration by Mandy Le

22 .......... Flashing Lights

24 .......... Universal Lines


CARTOON BY LAWSON CHAMBERS

As a North Indian Classical Dancer, there is no better feeling than putting on my ghungroos (bells that are worn around the ankles), getting on stage, and performing the piece that I’ve been perfecting for months

for the audience. Art holds a different importance in everyone’s life. We asked people around the Athens community to see what part art plays in their lives.

Art Accordingto Athenians

BY SAPNA M I STRY


ILLUSTRATION BY CARSON SHADWELL

Interacting with art is an experience that allows us to create connections with others using a visual language. I especially enjoy helping others engage with works of art to understand the personal impact that art can have on us.”

Carissa DiCindio, Curator of Education, Georgia Museum of Art

To me, art is a way in which I can freely express myself. There is no right or wrong as to how something should be played, as long as it sounds aesthetic to the ear. As a percussionist, I enjoy interpreting various com-positions by portraying the poetry of them when I play. Art is simply a way in which an artist can speak without necessarily using words.”

Tarika Dhalmia, Tabla Player

“Dance is my outlet. It is the venue through which my soul speaks. It is me, and I am it. It soothes and exhilarates! It challenges and motivates! It is where mind and body come as one. It is where I find my true self. An expression of life through movement. From triumphs to struggles, dance is and forever will be a part of me.”

Bobby Leitmann, UGA Ballroom Dance Club

To me, art is a language. It is used to communicate to an audience’s thoughts, feelings or ideas that words often cannot express. My whole life feels artistic... from my studies to what I am wearing.... it’s all a visual stimulant for me.”

Erin Nortathomas, Singer (Vocal Percussionist for UGA Noteworthy)

“Art is the universal language. Artists from the past speak to us today, and I speak to people currently through art. However, artwork goes beyond language and culture: It’s timeless.”

Stan Mullins, Owner of Stan Mullins Art Studio

“A lot of artists would say art is for yourself. It has to be this back and forth. But I absolutely care what people say about my work, beca use it helps me, and it’s very encouraging to get good remarks about my cocktails. It’s a combination of both. Art is this thing that can pull us away from real life for a minute or inspire us or make us see things in other perspectives.” Jimmy Rowalt, Highwire Lounge Bartender

What does art mean to you? Tell us @ampersand_uga

“It means everything, it is everything. It’s maintaining a relationship or being a nice dude. Everything non-essential to survival, what we do in our down time, so it means everything. It gives us a point even if it’s pointless.” Jon Miller, Hand Sand Hands (Band)

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Draw(n( To ArtThere’s much more to the Lamar Dodd School of Art than painting and drawing. Some students that wind up there, though, came to the University of Georgia with different intentions but found themselves drawn to producing art when their other pursuits didn’t feel quite right. Lucky for Athenians, those students made the switch, and we reap the benefits of their unconven-tional artistic accomplishments.


PHOTOS BY NICK SEYMOUR

Not Your Ordinary Pillows

Emily Newdow spent her days working at a cubicle in Atlanta and had no idea how to operate a sewing machine only three years ago. Since then, she has moved to Athens and launched Stitch 9, her own line of quirky, handmade pillows that she sells through her online shop and at local stores Community and Doma.

Newdow initially ventured into the craft after she thrifted her first sewing machine from the Salvation Army for $25 and buckled down to teach herself the basics.

“I had never done any sewing,” she admits. “I figured it all out myself — definitely learned some better tricks on YouTube.”

With their quirky designs, Stitch 9’s pillows offer a refreshing contrast to their mass-produced counterparts. Newdow hand-crafts each piece from upholstery-grade fabric and adorns her creations with designs of high-fiving cats, anatomical hearts, vintage silhouettes and paper airplanes.

She first began selling her pillows at Community while still living in Atlanta after Sanni Baumgaertner, owner of Community, took notice of Newdow’s booth at the Indie Craft Fair.

“I was trying to recruit some local artists that make beautiful things that I could sell at the store, and she was one of the people that really stood out to me at the fair,” Baumgaertner says. “I think the pillows were just really beautiful, and you could just tell that she had a great aesthetic, a great sense for interior design — and it turns out later she actually is an interior designer.”

Doma also sells Stitch 9 pillows, and Susanna Drennen, owner of both Doma and its sister shop, Suska, appreciates the distinctive style

and well-constructed quality of Newdow’s pillows. “I like that she’s got a combination of a very modern and a very retro aesthetic,” Drennen says. “I think the quality of the fabric and her construction technique make them special.”

Newdow earned a Bachelor of Arts in interior design at UGA and worked in commercial interior design for four years in Atlanta. Her creativity continues to inform Stitch 9’s design element. “I just feel like there’s enough people in this world that we share the same design sentiment,” Newdow says. “So if I really like something, somebody else out there is gonna really like it too.”

Many of her design ideas are also inspired by custom orders. She came up with the high-fiving cats silhouette after a woman called in requesting a custom pillow she could give a sick friend. “All I know is that she really likes cats and that she likes the color purple,” the customer told Newdow.

Every Monday through Thursday night after she arrives home from her job as facilities manager at the Georgia Center, Newdow retreats to her sewing room– which houses spacious shelving units to hold her fabrics– and works on pillows for three to four hours. On Fridays, she typically devotes the whole day to sewing.

“This is one thing that makes me feel like I’m not brain-rotting in the evenings: that I can come home and start and finish a project. I have the idea and I can fulfill the idea and I have something at the end that I can hold up and say, ‘look what I did,’” she smiles. “It’s just a creative outlet I need in my life to be happy”.

BY CLAIRE RUHLIN


tory of art during the Renaissance. Chen says he has never felt as much enthusiasm as the the time he spent in Italy.

“I felt suddenly energized… I realized studios are the perfect environment for creativity,” he says. “After that summer, I decided to transfer to studio arts.”

The art classes he took in Italy and the ones he is now involved in at UGA have given him more confidence than any other classes have before. He can express himself fully and has found content-ment that he couldn’t attain through other practices.

“With calculus and science, I felt that my mind patterns didn’t fit, and I felt barriered at every step. In the visual arts, I don’t need to walk, I can fly,” says Chen.

After completing his studio art degree, Chen plans to go back to school for landscape architecture. He believes he must have the mindset of an artist to truly excel in the world of design. He says his friends don’t understand why he would drop out of land-scape architecture to learn studio art, only to go back to landscape architecture, however, they are still very supportive of his work.

“I see his symbolism expressed in his art pieces. There is also an aspect of storytelling,” says Siyu Xiao, a landscape architecture major at UGA.

Chen emphasizes that the study of art has benefited him in every aspect of his life. He adds that while it is common to view life like a straight line, it is also a very narrow-minded view. Even when we diverge from the path or feel like we are back to the same place we started, we are not. In this sense, life could be viewed like a spiral, moving in circles while still climbing upwards.

Chen found encouragement in his creative insights and that the most efficient path is not always the best one to take. Intrinsic motivation has fueled his inspiration to not only make self-grati-fying decisions, but also create avant-garde art installation pieces.

Laundry detergent drips from a ceiling pipe onto a chair cushion as a crowd of curious spectators tilt their heads to bet-ter examine an atypical bedroom. Wooden panels protrude horizontally out of the wall to resemble asymmetrical furniture, while decorations of red roses, ceramic pots and a dated tele-phone decorate the space. “My Contaminated Urban Furniture” is an installation developed by Jiacheng Chen, a studio art major at UGA, and displayed in the Double Space Exhibition at the Lamar Dodd School of Art.

This piece highlights the irony of seeking cleanliness and perfection while living in a chaotic, urban environment. Such a harmony is unattainable through the unreasonable construction and is even more disrupted by the detergent that spills into the space. This highly conceptual piece is one of many works created by Chen.

With inspiration from contemporary Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, Chen’s work interweaves themes of balance and disruption. “When I first saw Chen’s installation, I was very interested in the abstract furniture. The space felt very familiar but also un-known,” says Jamison Edgar, a third-year sculpture major at UGA. “After Chen explained the work, I began to view the dif-ferent elements of the installation and could relate to the over-load of imagery we see everyday.”

To find the balance in his own life, Chen needed to explore different opportunities available to him. He grew up in China and moved to the U.S. after high school to attend UGA as a landscape architecture major. Feeling that he wasn’t in the right major, he switched to a degree with interdisciplinary studies. Through both majors, he still felt a lack of inspiration and even questioned whether he wanted to remain in college.

When Chen heard about UGA’s study abroad program in Cortona, Italy, he knew he had to go. The decision for a non art major to travel across the globe to study art may have seemed aimless, but for Chen, it was a way to discover more of himself and the world. There he studied painting, sculpture and the his-

BY ELIZABETH VOGAN


My ContaminatedUrban Furniture

PHOTO BY ANNA PENCE


Of Talking Heads and Pink Fabrics

BY DIONDRA POWERS

Humanoid stick drawings. Multiple faces uttering the same word. Giant heads made out of melted-down solids. These sound like the makings of a Tim Burton movie, but they’re actually the everyday designs of Maddie Zerkel, a third-year textile major at UGA. She has an eye for the slightly creepy and eccentric. Creepy isn’t the word most people think of when picturing fabrics, but it’s the word Zerkel chooses to run with.

This aesthetic consistently appears in her ceramics, fabric and screen printing. A ceramics piece that sits on her window sill is a testament to her design style: one student started to make the body of a squirrel, before passing it on to Zerkel, who then added a human hand in place of the squirrel’s head.For her designs, Zerkel finds inspiration in “things that animate and become almost figure-like,” she says. “I really like creepy things. A lot of my favorite artists do kind of disturbing or confusing images. And so I always look at things that are a little off-putting.”

She spent most of her childhood drawing human figures, a theme that is still reflected in her work today. At a younger age, drawing was an emotional coping mechanism. “It might have been emotions of feeling lonely, or emotions of feeling out of place in such a small rural town and having ideas and opinions that people did not agree with,” Zerkel says. “I think that drawing figures and people just kind of became my friends or my family or how I would understand other people’s reactions.”

For a period of time, Zerkel did a lot of drawings on the idea of social anxiety or social inadequacy. “It ended up looking kind of creepy or unsettling and it made you feel really weird because you’re looking at this person who had such like anguish on his face and other people look so happy,” she says. This created an unsettling combination of the way other people’s emotions were reacting to each other.

In addition to drawing, Zerkel finds peace in the weaving process, where every step is repetitive. In order to set the loom, 300 strings must be pulled individually through a tiny hole. Next, like a piano, treadles are stepped on, yarn flips up and one thread is pushed through. Repeat process for an hour until roughly two inches of fabric are weaved.

She estimates spending 50 hours working on her newly completed 180-inch scarf. “I really like it because it’s kind of meditative because you’re really doing the same thing over and over again,” she says. “But it’s a very kind of calming process, it’s not too stressful.”


Her roommate, Dana Balch, a fourth-year public relations major, gets to see all of Zerkel’s artistic ability first-hand. Everything from ceramics to woven fabrics to personal screen-prints of which Zerkel designed for their apartment.Zerkel and Balch manage a style blog called Athens Street Style, where they take pictures of people with trendy clothing styles in Athens.

Zerkel, who can look put-together while wearing a striped shirt, plaid jacket and paisley pants, describes her personal style as “eclectic.” Balch trusts Zerkel’s eclectic fashion sense for the aesthetic quality of the blog and is constantly impressed by the surprising fashion taste her roommate displays.

“She has put colors together that I never thought would look right,” Balch says. “She has a really good eye for color and texture combinations, which I guess it’s very fitting that she’s a fabric design major, and I think that’s part of the reason why [the blog] pulled her so much.”

When Zerkel isn’t weaving on a loom for hours at a time or looking for the next Athenic style star, she can be found at Community, a local boutique that repurposes vintage clothing and sells handmade goods made by local artists. Zerkel began at Community as an intern in 2012, working on signage and art for the store. She has since upgraded to cashier while continuing to design in-store displays and art.

Zerkel is still perfecting her “work process” and figuring out what works for her, so she isn’t comfortable selling her creations in Community. Although her fabrics aren’t yet for sale, her art can be found all around the store.

Seyi Amosu, an employee at Community, enjoys seeing Zerkel’s art around the store and is always looking forward to her newest visual installation. “She just does a lot of really cute things to make the store look better and feel more homey and a lot more artistic,” Amosu says.

In the entrance are wooden painted rounds that spell out Community, while up the stairs is a curtain of leaves with painted tips and drawings of cut-off jean shorts on garland hung from the walls.

Although her art evokes feelings of loneliness and a general uneasiness, Zerkel finds happiness in the process of producing it. “For me, [happiness] is the idea of being satisfied and it doesn’t have to be jubilant or joyful, it’s just the idea of being satisfied day to day or being satisfied with your movements or your actions,” she says. “As of right now, that’s my idea of happiness. Ask me later, it’ll be different.”

PHOTO BY ALEX LAUGHLIN


BY MARIA KOUNINSKA & MEREDITH THORNHILL


BY MARIA KOUNINSKA & MEREDITH THORNHILL

Art has the power to speak for itself. The craftsmanship of a coat—the stitching, embroidery and lining—is a work of art. When you behold an intricately detailed winter coat, functionality is an afterthought. Your body becomes the canvas and the coat is the masterpiece. Let the coat speak for itself.

left: Minx right: Agora Co-op

PHOTOS BY ERSTA FERRYANTO

left: Minx right: Agora Co-op



From left to right: Agora Co-op,

Community Service Boutique, Community Service Boutique


Hair: Model Citizen Salon / /Kasey {last name TBD} Make-Up: MAC Belk –Athens // Margret Rhodes Basham

Model: Kendall Forward

Location: Lamar Dodd School of Art UGA

Art of the MixBY ALLIE AMATO

PHOTOS BY EMILY DARDAMAN

Bars seem to breed here in Athens. With over 50 of them, bar-hoppers are never at a loss for options, especially with the distinct personalities each bar radiates. However, it is disappointing when bartenders are missing creativity, valuing quantity over quality of their drinks.

Beverage-connoisseurs roll their eyes at a bartender who uses store-bought Bloody Mary mix instead of combining the ingredients––tomato juice, vodka, Worcestershire and horseradish sauces, lemon juice, lime juice and spices––themselves. Everyday bar-goers may see a bar simply as a place to hang out, grab beer and socialize, so they could care less about their bartender’s skillset. The drinks simply need to get the job done.

For bartenders that are committed to their trade, however, there is a certain art behind the making of a drink.

What does it take to make a true cocktail? The knowledge and experience of the bartender probably plays a factor. Maybe it’s the ingredients in the drink or the atmosphere of the bar. Jimmy Rowalt, a bartender at Highwire Lounge, figured out through experience that one simple element is key. “What it all came down to was quality products and proportions,” he says.

One important characteristic of bartending that is often lacking? Precision.

Making a great drink corresponds to an accurate measurement of exceptional ingredients. “People see me measuring when I’m making any cocktail. They’re kind of shocked by it and call me a

‘chemist,’” he says. “This is how it’s supposed to be done.”Additionally, what makes a great cocktail reflects the knowledge

and interest of the bartender who is crafting the drink. When customers request the bartender to recommend a beverage, there is an unexplainable thought process used to provide them with exactly what they are looking for.

The bartender’s ability to recommend based on his or her own personal preferences allow them to put a spin on typical cocktails and crafting it to the customer’s liking. “I like making Old Fashions, so I know how to guide that more,” Rowalt says. Catering to the customer’s preference, a bartender can create something unique by, for instance, a Walnut Old Fashion, which was developed by Rowalt recently for the season. It contains a walnut liquor from Austria, which is a twice-distilled brandy infused with walnuts, spices and herbs. Another whiskey drink he created, The Almond Branch, was inspired by a unique cocktail he had tried before, which he decided put a unique spin on.

The art of crafting, creating and presenting a beverage for a customer not only provides them with a tasty drink, but an enhanced experience as well.

Few could argue against the experience that comes along with a handcrafted beverage made by a knowledgeable mixologist. Whether you drink a craft beer or a homemade cocktail, your ordering experience can have artisic value in it with the help of an A-list bartender.


The Almond Branch (Jimmy Rowalt’s signature cocktail, Highwire Lounge)

ice

blackberries, muddled

1/2 ounces amaretto

1/2 ounces freshly juiced lemon

1/2 ounces simple syrup

1.25 ounces Bulleit Bourbon

Shake well, pour over ice.

Top off with a splash (1 ounce) of Blenheim spicy

ginger ale.

Garnish with lemon and blackberry.



BY STEPHEN MAYS

What looks like a ransacked and burgalled room is actually Judith Ortiz Cofer’s office in her attempt to package 26 years worth of memories from teaching at the University of Georgia. She’s retiring. To her more recent students, Cofer is best known a role model in her advanced creative writing courses taught in the English department. The adverb-hating wordsmith whose courses held extensive waiting lists didn’t begin her career as a workshop-leading mentor, however, though that may seem hard to believe now.

A Poet’s Past


Making the Writer“My path and goal was to teach, because I loved school,” Cofer says. “I was determined to lead a life around books. That was my focus — whatever I had to do to get my education.” The proliferation of writing programs, especially creative writing, didn’t arise until after she finished graduate school in the 70s, Cofer says, but she found herself drawn to writing while working on her thesis.

Cofer recalled researching her thesis with large orange index cards, taking notes for her topic on one side before sneaking away from her studies to the poetry section of the library to write lines on the reverse of the cards.“I can trace my need for poetry and my need for writing to those days when I had completely immersed myself in literature and was thinking about literature not as a means or a background but rather as something that I could do too,” Cofer says.

It wasn’t until she was teaching, however, that Cofer began writing her own poetry. At the suggestion of her then boss, a woman named Betty Owen, Cofer began submitting poems to journals for publication. There were nothing but rejections the first few years, but after her first acceptance, she better saw her work.“I realized that I had been writing really bad stuff,” Cofer laughs. “I started reading journals and educating myself.” Cofer wrote poems for eight years before she had enough to combine into a manuscript, and her first book wasn’t published until she was 35.

It was at her first poetry reading, while she was teaching at a community college, that Cofer says she realized she didn’t have to rewrite the “great chain of being” in order to be a successful poet.

“I heard these poets writing about supermarkets and living and all that, and I said, ‘Wow! Poetry belongs in the real world.’” Teaching the Youth

“Teaching writing is a privilege that I had to earn,” Cofer says.She began her career teaching composition and American literature courses. After gaining seniority, she taught courses with more specific topics and niches. It wasn’t until she became a full professor that she was able to teach sections devoted primarily to writing.

Cofer says she never saw many obstacles when teaching creative writing other than overcoming others’ doubt for the legitimacy of the courses as compared to other English classes.

“I never considered dropping a class, ever,” says Julian Traas, a former student of and intern for Cofer’s class, “but that class, for five seconds, I thought, ‘Maybe I can’t handle this.’”

From the beginning, Cofer knew she wanted her courses to be rigorous. She wanted structure that would demand performance from her students, not allow someone to take her course under the presumption that it would be something easy when nothing else offered.

“You have to think about the assignments,” Cofer says. “You have to work at them nearly every day.”

The other two interns for Cofer’s class, Blair Ivey and Morgan Scott, both describe Cofer’s regiment as “dedicated”

and “intense.” Recalling her favorite saying of Cofer’s, Scott says, “Kill

your darlings.” Ivey and Trass both nod in agreement. The three-

worded piece of advice means, simply, to take your more prized and coveted lines of writing and, if they do nothing to influence the core of the story, kill them.

Despite being self-conscious and apprehensive of the course at first, all three interns say they have a new appreciation for what the students put into the course. Scott says she holds herself to a higher standard when writing, asking herself what Cofer would think of the piece while editing.

“I knew, as a writer, that I would be an imposter if I didn’t teach my students that writing is the most demanding discipline that they can engage in,” Cofer says.

After so many years of teaching and leading students toward being better writers, one has to wonder what Cofer will fill her time with now.

“I think I’ll write a book,” laughs with a wide smile.

PHOTOS BY EMILY SCHOONE

BY ABI LAMBERT

House and Universe, Mark Callahan, Video Series

I f you’re tired of hearing the empty expression “It’s 2013” as if it is supposed to have some indication of the progress humanity has made, you’re not alone. I

once watched a movie where a character said something homophobic and another character replied “It’s 1985! Who still talks like that?” We haven’t strayed away from the cliché, but 2013 marks the year the Internet multiplied itself to kill “twerk” and all other slang. Internet addiction and loss of privacy are no longer considered problems but is the modern lifestyle. Simply put, the Internet has changed everything. This kind of social change is the very thing scholars and artists brood over. The advent of the Internet is comparable to the social consequences the Industrial Revolution and the world wars in the early 20th century conjured. These events inspired artists to change the meaning of art via the Dada movement, Expressionism, and Minimalism. For the first time people started asking the question you may never want to hear again in art class: “What is art?”Add graphic design and computer-generated art, and we have ourselves in the 21st century of “what the hell” art era. As high end cameras have become more and more affordable and computer design programs like Illustrator, SketchUp and Photoshop have come into existence, people without trust funds and without refined artistic skills can put their creative visions into reality. With the assistance of lightning fast communication, micro-niche fads and communities are sprouting left and right through the ever-availability of artistic platforms. The Internet has redefined the meaning of ephemeral as trends like Seapunk come and go in less than a month and a slang word can lose its vogue just as quickly.Mark Callahan, a professor at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, studies and participates in this contemporary movement in art history. He currently teaches a course called “Net Art.” Net Art as he defines it can be either art that requires the Internet to exist or art that doesn’t necessarily require the Internet to exist but wouldn’t make sense without knowledge of the Internet.Professor Callahan is a self-proclaimed net artist but began as a printmaker. In the early 2000s, he created a web page to showcase his work. He found that through this website, more people were seeing his work than had ever seen it in a gallery, which is what originally drew him towards art

related to the Internet. As he looked into net art more closely, he found that artists had been creating art via the Internet since the early ‘90s. A site in particular called Rhizome had been a major catalyst to archive this work. Some net art aimed to make a statement about the effects that the Internet and technology have on society while others were meant to be funny, ironic or just aesthetically pleasing.Callahan began the Net Art seminar in 2005 and believes that the both Internet and the topic of conversation have changed immensely since the advent of the class. When he first began the course, he and his students talked about how to make web pages and what technology was available to them, whereas today his students engage in discussion about Internet culture.“We see things like Sea Punk, which was appropriated by Rihanna in the mainstream, but it is a culture that has come through the Internet twice now,” Callahan says. “Once, about a year ago, but it had already been utilized by net artists in the mid 2000s.” The Internet has become such a powerful cultural hub that celebrities and stylists must cling to it to stay on top of trends. Callahan dwelled on the significance of outdated graphics and how they are used both aesthetically and as social commentary.Callahan’s own work is inspired by the process of artwork. When it comes to printmaking, this would involve woodcutting, inking and printing. For net art, he is enthralled with conversion, uploading or scanning, which is what he wants his viewers to think about when they look at his art. Time is a major theme of his work and how it is involved with space and memory. The speed of the Internet’s communication influences Callahan’s popular piece “24 Hour Miss South Carolina” — the embarrassing 30-second Miss South Carolina speech/viral video slowed down so that it lasts 24 hours. He wants to slow down the short-lived aspect of the Internet in his work and force people to take time rather than just scroll over. This greatly contrasts the flashy Windows 95 graphics of Tumblr-type net art that aims to grab attention.One ofCallahan’s students, Tristan Mcneill, whose exit show is this semester, feels differently about the Internet and net art. “With my art, I am reacting to the over-intellectualization


House and Universe, Mark Callahan, Video Series

Outlets, Tristan McneillVideo Projection onto outlets

of art in a way,” McNeill says. “I don’t think I really employ any sort of strategy to challenge this over-intellectualization of work. I mean, that itself would be intellectual process.” Mcneill is a part of the Art X program in the school of art, and much of his art combines computer-generated graphics with a physical medium. One of the pieces for his exit show involves a video he shot of a surgeon’s lecture combined with an image he photoshopped in. In the middle of the frame are two white squares that, when he projects the video at the exhibit, will be filled by the outlets on the wall. A previous installation he created involved a video projection on top of painted canvases. Mcneill does not consider himself a net artist because he believes categories to be very limiting. Mcneill does not make his art with the Internet in mind, nor does he have an Internet connection at his home.Mcneill did not originally consider computer-generated art as an option. “I first started making websites in like fifth or sixth grade and made GIFs,” Mcneill says, “but I didn’t really see that as an art. Taking the net art course helped me get exposed to different kinds of art.” He adds, “I didn’t originally see GIFs as a fine art.” While the net art course brought Internet art to light for Mcneill, he isn’t fully satisfied with that option as his path for a career, nor his path as an artist. He believes the computer art he makes is not for the fine art world but more appropriate for venues like Tumblr. “There are plenty of beautiful, thought provoking aesthetic experiences available on the Internet that aren’t marketed as net art, and many of those are more interesting to me than works of ‘net art’,” he says. Mcneill sees his own art as more of a continuation of abstract expressionism and modernism than net art. Maybe it is a little premature to identify an art movement that we are in the midst of, but at the same time, history seems to be moving much faster than it ever has before. As Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, once stated, “The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even printing.” As we live in a world where the press of a button can eliminate entire cities halfway around the world and tweets can ignite revolutions, there’s no wonder people have so much to say. In the Western world, we have become defined by the media we consume, so who is really surprised that the newest art movement is centered around the newest communication media?


Bathers in a Shopping Mall, Tristan McNeillGIF

Cloud Salsa, Mark Callahan Animation of Scanned postcards

Dancing On Air BY DANIEL FUNKE

PHOTO BY KRISTYN NUCCI


Some may consider the philosophies of science and art fundamentally at odds with one another, but one dance company at the University of Georgia creates a mid-air

performance in order to blur that dividng line. In 1991, Bala Sarasvati founded the CORE Concert Dance

Company within UGA’s department of dance with a special focus on student training and conceptual freedom.

“The founding philosophy was that students are preparing for the professional field by intensive training and by training within a company that stays together and learning all the as-pects of being in a professional company,” Sarasvati says.

The company collaborates with various other departments in deriving inspiration for choreography and is known for its multimedia performances. In the past, Sarasvati has worked with the ecology and marine sciences departments in creating artistically diverse performances. For CORE’s latest produc-tion, Sarasvati teamed up with the physics department.

“This new [production is] with physics and physics prin-ciples, getting people interested in looking at the sky, the universe, and something beyond what is in their iPhone, and to wonder and to ask questions and to expand the notion that our earth is about more than just what’s before us,” she says.

The newest production melds dance, aerial, astronomy, physics and digital media into one piece of choreography. Through collaboration with Sarasvati, physics professor Wil-liam Dennis will make concepts such as black holes and the electromagnetic spectrum key focal points in the piece.

“It’s an opportunity for us to use a completely new medium to try and show others the excitement that we feel about phys-ics and the beauty that we see in physics behind the equations, and to do that in a way that’s accessible and interesting to people,” Dennis says.

The performance, scheduled to debut at the New Dance Theatre in February, marks the company’s first time using aerial dance moves in a piece.

“The aerial was sort of a natural evolution, to take [the dance] into the air, and not in a circus sort of way,” Sarasvati says. “Dancing from the floor into the air is just an expansive way to artistically express and tochallenge dancers in ways that they would not be normally challenged, and to connect them in their bodies and to the environment in ways they’re not con-nected.”

The addition of aerial dance, superimposed on an astrono-my-inspired backdrop, is a physical representation of the col-laboration between departments. The concept of the piece is to inspire viewers to appreciate the beauty of the sky.

“All of the microscopic processes that we think about as physicists could actually translate into dance concepts,” Dennis says. “It started us thinking in a completely different way.”

Sarasvati says her choreography is heavily based in her own inspiration as well as student ambition.

“I love simply kinetic dance movement that works with rhythms and phrasing and someone that watches it; it moves them,” she says.

“Something really has to vibrate with me in a deep level, and then the interest starts to unfold, and then I trust that students [will] come to me, that somehow there’s an interest for them. A vision of student learning [is] really what’s important in education.”

The company has travelled around the world to showcase their work, including performances in Beijing and Vancouver at internationally renowned dance festivals.

Alumni of the company have gone on to perform in large productions for groups such as Cirque du Soleil and Pilobolus.
