Week 7 — Art Idea Essay — The Art of Place
The sense of place somewhere gives you is a determining factor in every aspect of life. We’ve heard of nature versus nurture, and a part of nurture is the enviroment you grow up in. Every culture on Earth in the earliest days of humanity have only known one place that they reside, and thus their cultures are centered around that particular region, from available food to flora and fauna, to mythology and physical limitations. In the modern era, the sense of place gives societies not just limitations, but the imagination to shape it into something else. From building tall instead of wide in Manhattan, to shifting towards a technological enterprise instead of agriculture in the East. The entire concept of place in the world has shaped humanity into what it is today.
Many artists create art and express their idea of place in many ways. A place has a feeling to it, and Trevor Henderson likes to take the places you know everyday and turn them into something unsettling. Taking regular, everyday photos of a backyard, an office, or parking garage, and adding just one monster, or some eyes in the most unsettling of places. This redefines how you think of that space, although you may have had no thoughts about it at all before hand. Maybe not everything is as simple or as safe as it seems. On the flip side, you have Banksy, who makes the physical place of his artwork just as important as the artwork itself. While there may not be any artwork at all depicting place, the physical location of where he does he work speaks volumes. Government commentary on the side of a parliment building, art depicting children in residential or school zones, the place he does his work gives more impact to the work itself. Now let’s talk about someone who literally talked about space. Scientist Edwin Hubble. Now not just talking about “space” as in what lies beyond the surface of the Earth and cosmos, but talking about position in “space” and where we as all of humanity lies. Edwin Hubble is contributed as being the lead scientist who found out that our universe is expanding. With this finding, not only did he change the entire scientific worlds understanding, but all of humanity. He found that the space we call Earth is becoming an ever smaller spec in the entirity of the known universe. With his findings, he reevaluated the entire human races thought process and perception of humanity’s mortality and our place in the universe.
The idea of place you get when you think about school or work is usually one that is more associated with feeling and not the actual place. As a kid, you dreaded school and thus when you think about the actual place of a shcool building, you feel dread. Same goes for work — but you don’t dread the building itself, it’s what you’ve associated with it. By the same token, staring at a board in a single room with fluorescent lights surrounded by offwhite walls is too exciting either. We’ve seen how people “love” digital classes, so maybe a sense of place regardless of how it makes you feel is better than diluting another that is seperate. As such, while the current school building may be flawed in some aspects, it’s solidified place in society as a, well, place, of learning is a hard one to redefine. As for differences generations may have regarding place, their views range from drastically different, to one in the same. Take example the place of “home.” Many agree that it is a place of rest and leisure, and where you feel most comfortable in your own privacy. However, some may say that home is not a home without family, or maybe that an apartment is not a home. I know by firsthand experience that some older folks won’t accept a “home” as a real place of stay until it’s occupied by your family and is owned by you. To many younger generations, a 1 bedroom apartment with shared laundry room is to be considered a home.
The idea of place in the recent years past and the ones yet to come has changed drastically, and will continue to do so. Many will substitute physical for digital, while the reverse also happens. In a few short years, old time businesses will have closed and new ones will have opened. In the long run, a single town will look drastically different, yet will still keep the same shape and feel. As for the place I’ll associate most within the coming years is digital. In these uncertain times, I might not have a place to call home or even a house to have a bed — I might be in a dorm, I might end up on a street. But digital classes continue and so does digital spaces that I still visit everyday. Jobs will continue to be made specifically online or through sheer necessity, and all will require some form of computer and technology to keep up.
