Event 1 - The Hammer Museum

For my first event, I visited the Made in LA exhibition at the Hammer Museum. The exhibits that I found most applicable were the pieces by Devin Kenny and Channing Hansen. Kenny's exhibit featured direct interpretation's of technology's impact on society and the world, while Hansen's was more of a study on how technology can actually direct the shape and form that art approaches.

According to the desk clerks,
a kids stamp adds an extra degree of validation to my experience.

Kenny’s showing featured many objects from technology from over the past few decades. These included a Walkman playing a three-minute looped cassette, an iPad with the Snapchat app loaded, a painted whiteboard/blackboard with the phrase “TL/DR” written on it and an old research paper on Tantalum electronic components among other things. The writing board especially got my mental pistons firing. To me, the phrase “TL/DR” (or “too long/didn’t read” in internet-speak) implies inattentiveness in the audience. Putting on a whiteboard with a blackboard on the back reminded me of being bored in class, and generally being lazy when it came to my education as a youngster.

 I think Kenny was also attempting make a statement on the short attention spans often exhibited by kids of my generation. The fact that the immensely long paper on Tantalum integrated circuits was right behind it seemed intentional to me. Here was old (yet rather rad) technology being presented in a dry and un-colorful manner. The second you turn around, you see the phrase “TL/DR”- that was far too coincidental to me, and I think was meant to invoke a reaction in the audience that actually didn’t take the time to read the Tantalum paper.

Kenny's other pieces on display. The short attention span afforded to me by television, social media and Coca-Cola made me forget to take a photo of the whiteboard. How's that for meta?

Goodies picked up from my excursion. 

Channing Hansen’s exhibit had a more singular idea at heart. He uses a mathematical algorithm to come up with the styles and textures of knitting, which he then applies to a frame. The same algorithm determines his color choices. I found the largest knitting in his showcase particularly wild. For every instance of supposed symmetry that I spotted, I found another dozen completely random elements to the painting. Computers are inherently incapable of true random processes, so to see a total mish-mash of a painting seemingly dictated by a computer truly blew me away. In my eyes, Hansen was attempting to make a statement that computers can ultimately be as smart and as resourceful as humans are willing to make it. If we allow it the power, we can make a computer capable of producing genuinely whimsical and random processes and artwork.

It was bigger than it looks in the photo.  I'm pretty sure that whatever algorithm Hansen used could act as a great modeler for a small child on a sugar-high.