Extra Credit Event: Artist Talk by Michol Hebron

FAIN 315 Internet Studio Presents:

Artist Micol Hebron 

Wednesday, September 23 at 9:15 am in Watt Hall B6.  

Micol Hebron is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes studio work, curating, writing, social media, crowd-sourcing, teaching, public-speaking, and both individual and collaborative projects. She has been engaged in individual and collaborative projects in Los Angeles since 1992. Hebron is an Associate Professor of Art at Chapman University; the founder/director of The Situation Room resource space for the creative community; the Gallery Tally Poster Project about gender equity in contemporary galleries; and the Digital Pasty/Gender Equity initiative for the internet. In the past she has been the Chief Curator at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art; the director of the UCLA Summer Art Institute; an editorial board member at X-Tra magazine; an independent curator; a conservator at LACMA, and the co-founder of Gallery B-12 in Hollywood in the 90s. She has served on advisory boards at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibtions, Birch Creek Ranch Residency (Utah), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and UCLA. She is the founder of the LA Art Girls, and the Co-Founder of Fontbron Academy. She employs strategies of consciousness-raising, collaboration, generosity, play, and participation to support and further feminist dialogues in art and life. Hebron has presented exhibitions, performances, and lectures at numerous international institutions. The best way to reach her is through social media.

http://micolhebron.com/

Roski Talks: Stefan Bucher

April 1, 2014

Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture given by Stefan Bucher.  Bucher is a writer, illustrator and graphic designer.  He is California based and is the creator of the design firm, 344.  Before Tuesday, I had never heard of Bucher.  I am always excited to learn about and explore the work of artists and designers, whether new to just me or to many.  Bucher took us on a journey through his own independent artwork and projects he had worked on for companies.  It was amazing to hear him explain the evolution of his ideas; I felt like I had an inside look into his mind and his thought processes.

He discussed his book, The Graphic Eye, first.  This was one of his first creations, and by the end of his lecture, you could truly understand how much his work had evolved from this first coffee table book.  He went on to discuss the creation of the Yeti Story, a project he initially developed as a window display for Saks 5th Ave. that developed into a story book and stuffed animal toy.  After this, Bucher was hired to put together the graphics and design the space in the Monte carlo for the Blue Man Group.  It was neat to hear how much Bucher enjoyed this task and how fun it was for him to design simple things such as the carpets, lights and gift shop; they all came together and looked magnificent!  

Finally, Bucher discussed his Monster series, probably what he is most well known for.  His monsters are creations from ink blots that all have such outstanding personalities.  I found his idea behind them fascinating, that he started with an ink blot so he didn't feel as if the monsters were created out of nothing.  I enjoyed Bucher's talk, mostly because of his extremely eccentric and outgoing personality.  He is a quirky guy, but an excellent public presenter.  He engaged with us as the audience.  

Bucher's website: http://www.344lovesyou.com 

Roski Talks: Stefan Bucher

April 1, 2014 at 
7:00 PM

Gin. D. Wong Auditorium,
Harris Hall

Stefan G. Bucher is the man behind 344lovesyou.com and the online drawing and story-telling experiment dailymonster.com, which has spawned the wildly successful Monster Maker iPad app. 

He is the author of several books, including "100 Days of Monsters" and "344 Questions—The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself Guide to Insight, Survival, and Artistic Fulfillment." He has created designs for David Hockney, Judd Apatow, and The New York Times. He designed the titles for the motion pictures "The Fall," “Immortals” and “Mirror, Mirror” by director Tarsem. 

His time-lapse drawings appear on the Emmy-award winning TV show “The Electric Company." He recently designed the Blue Man Theater at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, and in December of 2013 Saks Fifth Avenue adapted his illustrated book “The Yeti Story” into animatronic holiday window displays for their flagship store on Fifth Avenue. 

ROSKI TALKS ARE PUBLIC LECTURES FEATURING CREATIVE LEADERS FROM ACROSS THE FIELDS OF ART, DESIGN, FASHION AND MARKETING. 

DIRECTIONS:Take the Expo Line to Expo Park/USC and follow the map. Meter parking available along Vermont and campus parking available for $10 cash/credit card at Gate 1 on Watt Way and Exposition Blvd.  

Inge Druckrey: Teaching to See

This is a great little video. :)

Inge Druckrey: Teaching to See from Edward Tufte on Vimeo.

Lupton DIY talk - Extra Credit

Design Your Life featuring Julia Lupton Visions and Voices
	Friday, March 25, 2011 : 2:00pm University Park Campus Doheny Memorial Library (DML) Friends Lecture Hall, Room 240 Admission is free. Reception to follow.
While pundits worry about the increasing amount of time young people spend online in dematerialized virtual spaces, we have also witnessed an explosion of practices and devices that return our attention to the hand. From the online craft vendor Etsy to the tactile interfaces of our iPhones, the body and the digital are deeply interlaced. The Touch of the Hand in the Digital Era is a two-part series that will consider the particular roles that touch and the emotions play in our sense of self and the world. Julia Lupton will offer a wide-ranging exploration of the D.I.Y. impulse of the past decade. The do-it-yourself movement, which signals the resurgence of craft and the handmade in contemporary life, exists in interesting tension with the widespread use of digital media. Julia Lupton is ideally poised to address this seeming paradox. She is a noted Shakespearean scholar who has published a series of popular books focused on design and everyday life, including Design Your Life, D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself and D.I.Y. Kids. She will also engage the audience in a hands-on D.I.Y. experience. Related Event: Feeling the Screen: Tactility and Emotion in the Digital AgeMonday, October 4, 4 p.m. Doheny Memorial Library, Friends Lecture Hall, Room 240 For more info, click here. Organized by Philip Ethington (History and Political Science) and Tara McPherson (Cinematic Arts). Co-sponsored by the Center for Transformative Scholarship. Image: Ellen Lupton For further information on this event: visionsandvoices@usc.edu

Shepard Fairey

I went to “A Conversation with Shepard Fairey” about a month ago too but forgot to make a post about it. Luckily, I took a whopping 13 pages of mini-sketchbook sized notes during the actual event.

First off, the person who interviewed Shepard Fairey was a straight up noob, and asked some really stupid questions. The interviewer was one of the head faculty members of the Communication department but she was absolutely ________! The conversation managed to be interesting nonetheless.

Fairey started off by sharing his story of how his Obey campaign began. He said that it started off as something silly – an inside joke, but developed into something much more. He printed thousands of stickers of the Obey giant and put them everywhere because he was fascinated with repetition and was obsessed with building something out of nothing and making people question it. He said “People are used to seeing advertising, but when they see something else, they want to get to the bottom of it.”

The most interesting part of the conversation was Fairey’s discussion of intellectual property (and his Obama poster), but since someone else already posted about it (and hit the nail on the head), I’m just going to skip right over it.

The second most interesting part the conversation to me, was Fairey’s discussion on capitalism. As most of you probably know, Shepard Fairey owns a clothing line called Obey, and receives a lot of criticism for it from the art community, street art community, etc. Fairey argues that he uses his Obey stickers and messages to comment on capitalism, while other corporations (ie. clothes companies) use it to fuel capitalism and to sell more product. He admits however, that his clothing line also helps to spread his messages and allows him to make a living doing what he wants to do. As a business major, and possibly an art minor, I think it’s kind of cool that he owns a business and gets to design and do whatever he wants to do too. Maybe I’ll be able to do what he does one day too.

Someone from the audience asked Fairey how he felt about hipsters who wear his brand. Fairey said that he knows that hipsters wear his brand and that “80% of the people who buy (his) shit, buy It because it looks nice or as a status symbol” but that also leaves 20% of the people who buy his clothing that do understand the message. “Everyone wants to be cool, but once it rubs off, hopefully the message will settle.” – Shepard Fairey, what a down to earth guy.

I actually own some of his clothing. I don’t really see his clothing as high end or political though, I just buy his clothing because they’re well designed, fit well, and are actually much more comfortable than your typical tee.

Anyway, another interesting topic of discussion was Fairey’s stance on public space. He argued that since we’re all tax payers, we all own a part of public property. Why should people who have money, be the only ones able to use this space to advertise and generate even more money? He sees public space as one of the few platforms left that people can use to inspire reaction publicly. At the same time, Fairey says he respects private property (though I don’t know how much I actually believe this).

Finally, Fairey brought up one of his ex-interns named Phil Lumbang who stencils “happy bears” around LA in broad daylight. I’ve actually been following this dude for a while now and snapped this picture of one of his “happy bears” while driving by: