(visual) art i like:

Arno Rafael Minkkinen's Self-portrait, Helsinki, Finland, 1975 -->

I saw this photograph for the first time when I was a senior in high school. It's part of The Photo Book, and for some reason amidst the hundreds of famous works, this one struck me. I love Minkkinen's ability to photograph his body in such a way that contorts it into looking impossible. Notice the positioning of his arms so that the distance between them and the wall are indistinguishable. Also the notion that this is ultimately a self-portrait makes me wonder about Minkkinen's perception of himself. This photo inspired me years ago to try to recreate it, but my version doesn't look nearly as cool.


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The Sultan's Elephant
by Royal de Luxe

This video is astounding. It blew me away when I first watched it, and each time I see it again I am thoroughly impressed with not only the craftsmanship behind creating such a large and beautiful puppet but also the communal aspect of the puppeteers working together to perform this exhibit for a larger audience. The amount of effort put into taking the Little Girl Giant from conception to performance must be unbelievable. The street theater group Royal de Luxe is known for creating such enormous puppets, and their mastery of the craft is apparent. This movie in all of its creative storytelling and psychedelic genius made me want to pack my bags and fly to France to see this show in person. I especially love it when the girl licks the ice cream with her extendable tongue. Is that so weird?

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Unnamed Brilliance by Man in Glasses
http://www.clublaugh.com/es-items/712.swf

This flash object gave me a head trip. It's a discovery out of the amazing Firefox add on Stumble Upon, which i highly recommend to anyone that likes to surf the web searching for bizarre gems. Selma and I did a polaroid photo project involving a process of making a piece of art which was comprised of the polaroid photos that we were taking of it. Did I explain that correctly? If you don't understand we'll show you. Anyway, this web object reminded me of that, but took it to that crazy look-in-a-mirror-with-a-mirror-behind-you-so-that-it-looks-like-you-go-on-forever type of level. I think I stared at it for a good 5-10 minutes just wondering how in the hell this man did it. I still am not quite sure. I love that type of art where it's difficult to understand the entire process behind it. It makes it seem almost impossible to reproduce, and I feel that with art that's a good thing.

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Since I've spent too long on this post already (or so I feel at least), I'm going to try to wrap it up and figure out what's the general trend here...
I must think of art as a visual form of expression. Deep down I know that music, literature, concepts, and other non-visual forms are all art in themselves, but if a psychiatrist for example were to ask me what the first thing to come to mind when the word "art" was mentioned, I would respond that I imagine a painting or photograph. Is this so solely because I am a visual learner? Is that what it means? Do other people think of art differently? What constitutes good vs bad art?

I think in terms of processes, conceptualization, invention, effort, intention...
I've had the hardest time watching movies recently. I look at one scene, one shot even, and analyze it to shreds. I think "where did that photograph in the background come from?", "who played that extra passing by in the background and are they in the credits?", "how many people are crowded outside of the camera's line of sight?" "how many hours, days, takes did this scene last?", "how much did someone pay the actor on screen?", "who logged and captured all of this footage and was it the same person who made the rough cut?" , and some much else that is almost overwhelming to think about and comprehend the amount of effort, attention, detail that goes into making this one shot out of one scene out of one movie out of one medium. Speaking of which, watch the movie MAGNOLIA. It's pretty brilliant, and the script will blow your mind. It's one of those movies I can analyze to shreds but it all leads to a deep fascination and respect for the director (and the script writer, cinematographer, editor, etc, etc, etc) who were behind the making of this film. I want to be on this level of filmmaking.