Hmm...

Ive been struggling with this idea of concept for what seems like months now. I tried looking it up in the dictionary but all I got was 'an abstract idea' which seems very vague to me.

Jack had us read the 'Realtime Art Manifesto' by Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn [link: http://tale-of-tales.com/tales/RAM.html] and while I found the entire manifesto interesting, I was really intrigued by section 8, 'Reject Conceptualism'

Here are a few snippets from the section that I really loved:

Make art for people, not for documentation.
Make art to experience and not to read about.
Put the artistry back in Art.

So much can be said about each one of these lines. Sometimes the concept is so heavily emphasized here that I feel like the aspect of art and craft gets lost. I hear all to often that the concept is the art, but I disagree. I do not think the definition of art is not something that can be pinpointed to one specific type of art. Conceptual art is an art form, and art that lacks concept can still be art. This idea has been driving me crazy for far too long. Make art for people, not for documentation. I want to make art for people!

Honestly, I really do love making and experiencing conceptual art, for the most part. Some I don't like, but hey, thats everything. If I am going to make conceptual art, I would like my concept to be something that I am actually really passionate about.  I am not interested in making conceptual art for the sake of my art having a concept. I completely understand that we are in a Fine Arts college and if it is conceptual art that I need to make to graduate, well then, conceptual art is what I am going to make.  I imagine that it is your hopes that I would want to make conceptual art rather than me making it just because I have to. This is totally true, I do want to make conceptual art, but sometimes for projects I feel like we are just pumping out concept for the sake of saying we can make art with concept. It is more important that it has a concept rather than that concept

I hope you don't think that you have failed me as a student because I think this way. I know I want to make a difference in the world through my art wether it be some huge conceptual piece of mine, or a stupid little drawing, animation, game, or dare I say, commercial, hollywood-style movie and/or game. So I am going to try to start right now and make something that I really care about. I am really interested in making a conceptual piece of art that mocks the entire aspect of concept. I am not sure how I am going to be able to expand upon this for this final project using the arduino and sensors. (And if at all possible, the raspberry pi).

Something along the lines of… oh i don't know, this is literally the first thing I thought of, but what about if I had some sort of random image or LED array of matrix made (on that LoL shield), and then underneath on an LCD screen a randomly generated written out concept shows up for that 'piece of art' and only when someone looks at the 'piece of art' (the randomly generated LED array) using a distance sensor, make someone have to be close up for a significant amount of time. Then it will change and move on to another random array and random generated concept. This was literally the first thing I thought of as an idea for this project and it doesn't have to be anything like this.

Maybe this whole idea is something that I can build upon for my senior project instead of this final project? Not really sure what the requirements of senior project are.  I still need to let this stew for a little bit so I am not really sure if this is suitable for the final project. I would rather really successfully execute this idea rather than rush it and it turn out just meh.

I am interested in hearing what you think about this. I hope that this can be a starting point for a very fun project.

Partners… I am totally down to be in a group, and if anyone thinks they can help out and/or has good ideas that will build onto this thought I would love to work together