Tag Archives: cor noltee, design thinking, art, education, curiosity, creativity

Everything is connected Part 6

16 okt

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The last days I was searching for a new bloggoal. Writing in English is something completely different and sometimes feels as work instead of a flow experience. I started writing in the early morning as a kind of active replacement for meditation inspired by the ‘Morning paper exercise’ by Julia Cameron from het book The Inner Artist. The exercise is simple, every morning the first thing I did was write one page by hand in a book without lines. What I wrote? Just what came to mind and if nothing came I wrote just that. I kept writing till the page was full. Then I teared the page out and burned it. It is an excellent exercise to clear your head of ’to do’ lists or ‘did not do’ lists. I wrote nearly 3 years and never read what I wrote. That changed when I started to blog on January 26 2013, the beginning of my blog experiment. Every day I shared a story about Design Thinging. About empathy, creativity and prototyping. Every day I got out of bed at 6.00 and published before 7.00 Those were the rules of my voluntary attempt to overcome these unnecessary obstacles. Yesterday my new bloggoal became clear. An art journey in 365 days in which I will try to connect the posts based on ‘Ways of Looking’ by Tate Modern.

My last post was about Bruce Nauman’s ‘Untitled’365art_connections-007

Via the object ‘Stairs’ I will connect it with the mysterious 17th century artist Hercules Segers. Here the video for an exhibition in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. Narrated by John Malkovich, projected on a 9 meter wide stairs.


<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/187151269″>Hercules Segers, an introduction / Video Installation Rijksmuseum</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/christianborstlap”>Part of a Bigger Plan</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Thanks Daniel Doornhein for the tip.

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Everything is connected Part 5

15 okt

I’ve tried to connect to last 4 posts with each other. It started with the new course Art Histories we developed at the University of the Arts in Utrecht, the University I recently got my master degree in art education. The following post I wrote with a pencil because I didn’t have my computer to type. Then I connected that post with the pencil from ‘I, Pencil: the movie’ which connected me with John Baldesari’s pencil and via Baldesari’s dots with the ‘I’m sold’ red dots at Cees de Vries’ exhibition.

So here I am at gallery Arte Damiate on the Kuipershaven in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. I look around and see Cees’ paintings with textcards with red dots. To make the next step one criteria narrows down the connections; it has to be an art connection and I have to use Tate Modern’s ‘Ways of Looking’ to make the connection. This means I can connect via:

  • the object
  • the subject
  • the context

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I could connect one of the works via the proces of Cees’ work by showing you the “art in progress’ video I made of one of his last paintings:

The above video shows the step (a week) by step ‘making of’ the painting.

My goal of today was to connect with Bruce Nauman’s work and especially his Oliver Ranch Installation “Untitled”, 1998-99 (Cast concrete staircase).

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I connected the ‘step by step’ proces I showed in the video with the different sized steps of Nauman’s cast concrete staircase. Why? Because yesterday I shared this work with my three Nature Capital co-workshop designers. I shared it because I think it is an brilliant (stair)case of how to make use of the natural surrounding resulting in an absolute mindful walk in nature. Or like Nauman says:

“You’re very aware as you walk up or down that your body has to make an adjustment at each step. And so, you have to figure when you can change your weight, and where your foot is going to be placed, and how high you step, or how far down you step. And nothing is so great that you have to struggle with it, but everything is a little bit of an adjustment. So, you’re kept a little off-balance all the time, adjusting yourself.”

Asking Nauman what makes this stairway a work of art and not just a bunch of stairs, Nauman replies:

“I guess it’s the intention that changes it from a stairway to a stairway as a work of art—because I said so! (LAUGHS).”

You can read the whole interview here and the connections I’ve made so far here:

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Everything is connected Part 4

13 okt

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I had to find a connection with my last post and found it. I actually realized the connection on Saturday when I sticked a red sticker on the textcards that were hanging next to Cees de Vries’ paintings in gallery Arte Damiate in Dordrecht. At the end of the opening all painting got a red sticker saying “I am sold” because I knew Cees did not want to sell any of his paintings…..although “everything has its price”, Cees said. On the second day of the exhibition visitors were surprised (and disappointed?) all paintings were ‘sold’ leaving Cees and me with a big smile on our face.

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Everything is connected Part 3

8 okt

The last still image I shared on this blog was a still I took of the world of graphite. Graphite from a pencil from the movie ‘I, Pencil: the movie’.

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The first shot from the movie that my good friend Daniel showed me later that day was a pencil.

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I did’t see it at first. I saw it when I, later that evening showed the movie to another good friend Walter. Walter was just about to watch The Godfather but he didn’t because I intervened with the movie Daniel showed me earlier. Of course there was a shot about the Godfather in it. Walter and I looked at each other in awwwww.

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Everything is connected for those who are connected.

John Baldesari is also connecting the dots:

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And not making boring art anymore.

Boring? This reminds me of the slide by Souwie de Wijn in her kick off (Ass) Art Histories lecture last Tuesday.

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It’s time for a Do-Nut.

Do or Do Not.

There is no try.

Have a great weekend.

Which reminds me of……..

 

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Everything is connected Part 2

6 okt

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Yesterday I wrote my post with an old fashion pencil first and published it here 2 hours later. It was about the connections in the art world. Another 2 hours later my partner in  crime and education Souwie de Wijn showed us the movie ‘I Pencil’ about how everything is connected.

Coincidence?

ofCOR’s not. We are connected.

Now lay down your pencil and watch ‘I Pencil’. It takes less than smoking a cigaret.

 

 

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Everything is connected.

5 okt

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Yesterday we (HKU) had a fantastic start of a new course called Art Histories. In 10 weeks all second year Art & Economics students read the great book ‘What are you looking at? 150 years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye’ by Will Gompertz. At the end they will write a research report in which they connect themselves in five steps with ‘Father of all’ Cézanne. These connections can be pieces of art or makers from the book or pieces of art or makers the students choose themselves. They connect themselves via a contemporary maker in five steps with Cézanne, each making a unique history art journey. Every week students read two chapters from the book and select 6 works of art/makers and print them on A5 cards. Before they start playing with the cards they will get a lecture in which an example personal art journey from one of our teachers will be given. Connecting Cézanne with a contemporary maker and themselve. In making the connecting every connection has to be validated by at least one source. We gave them Tate’s Ways of Looking to help them what kind of connection their is between the maker-maker/maker-piece of art/pieces of art. The connection can be based on:

  • the object
  • the subject
  • the context

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You can download the cards here.

In the 45 minutes workshop after the lecture we discussed the cards of the students. Then the had to make a 5 steps network starting with Cézanne. One of the students made a card with The Joker (Heath Ledger) and another one had Piet Mondrian. Do you know how they connected the two? Isolation. Then another student replaced Piet by Vincent van Gogh and called the connection “Insanity”.

It was an instructive and fun way to learn more about each other and art history. The students that did not make their homework were disappointed. They could not connect, could not play.

Game Over. New game next Tuesday.

 

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Ready, throw, go!

4 okt

In 1998 I developed my own piece of great technology; a radio controlled car with a wireless color video camera connected with a head mounted display (video glasses).

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You can read the story in Dutch here and here.

Yesterday I shared another piece of amazing technology. Garmin records your bike race and transforms it into a Google maps video with all the racestatistics. When I showed it to my son in law he asked me “Do you know Lily?” I said no and he showed me the ready, throw, go camera.

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It’s the camcar combined with and google maps. Just add garmin for the stats.

Am I being followed?

ofCOR’s not. Don’t be silly.

It’s Lily.

 

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Amazing technology.

3 okt

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Last time I was amazed by technology was by Google Translate but last Saturday tech hit me again. For the first time in two years I got on my racebike again. After the Mortirolo in August 2014 (killing my knee) and starting my Master in September 2014 (killing time) I decided to stop biking. Last Saturday was my first ride as a Master. 39 kilometers behind my racepal Jacco. They  say the first time is always the worst time. I hope so.

But enjoying one of Jacco’s famous recovery spinach shakes I felt like Popey and seeing our  ride on Strava gave me wings for the rest of the day. All you need is a Garmin and Strava and a friend like Jacco in front of you.

Amazing what technology can do. Thanks Jacco.

https://www.relive.cc/view/730596398

 

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Everything we don’t have to do.

30 sep

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In his great lecture Brian Eno defined art as ‘everything we don’t have to do’;

“Now what I mean by that is that, there are certain things you do have to do to stay alive. You have to eat, for example. But you don’t have to invent Baked Alaskas or sausage rolls or Heston Blumenthal. So you have this basic activity that we and all other animals do, which is called eating, but then unlike all other animals, we do a lot of embroidery and embellishment on top of it. We make eating into a complicated, stylised activity of some kind. You have to wear clothes. But you don’t have to come up with Dior dresses or Doc Marten boots or Chanel little black frock, whatever it’s called. You can tell I haven’t got one. So, once again we have an essential need – clothing ourselves – which we then do with intense sort of interest. We stylise and embellish and ornament and decorate.”

And some people have to listen to music to stay alive, really. This week I showed ‘Waste land’. IMDB: On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro is Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, where men and women sift through garbage for a living. Artist Vik Muniz produces portraits of the workers and learns about their lives.

After the documentary I asked the students if they had tips for the next movie. One student came with ‘Alive inside’;

‘ALIVE INSIDE is a joyous cinematic exploration of music’s capacity to reawaken our souls and uncover the deepest parts of our humanity. Filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett chronicles the astonishing experiences of individuals around the country who have been revitalized through the simple experience of listening to music. His camera reveals the uniquely human connection we find in music and how its healing power can triumph where prescription medication falls short.

This stirring documentary follows numerous visionaries in healthcare including social worker Dan Cohen, founder of the nonprofit organization Music & Memory, as he fights against a broken healthcare system to demonstrate music’s ability to combat memory loss and restore a deep sense of self to those suffering from it. Rossato-Bennett visits family members who have witnessed the miraculous effects of personalized music on their loved ones, and offers illuminating interviews with experts including renowned neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain), healthcare visionaries Dr. Bill Thomas, Dr. Al Powers, Naomi Fiel, and musician Bobby McFerrin (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”).

An uplifting cinematic exploration of music and the mind, ALIVE INSIDE’s inspirational and emotional story left audiences humming, clapping and cheering at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.’

Some people have to listen to music if medication falls short.

In some situations art can triumph over medicine.

 

 

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Coming soon naked.

29 sep

Yesterday I got an email from an photographers agency if I wanted to do a casting for a famous brand. I worked together with them twice. Once biking, the second time running and the last time we joked that the third time had to be swimming. From suit, to training suit to bathing suit. But why not skip the bathing suit part and go naked? Or ‘semi-naked’ like they called it. I could wear my underpants which they would photoshop away like I was naked. In a day I could make as much as I do at the University of the Arts in a month.

I thanked for the honour  so you won’t see me naked on a poster with something like ‘coming soon’ in a shop near you. But maybe you want to see Mark Ruffalo naked. Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor (The Hulk), director, humanitarian, social activist and film producer. Mark unites with Robert Downey Jnr, Scarlett Johansson, James Franco, Julianne Moore and Don Cheadle to urge Americans to register to vote before the election on 8 November, if they do, Mark Ruffalo will appear naked in his next film.

So you wanna see some nudity?

 

 

 

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