Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Art proces art proces art In mid 20th century, the art world completely changed into a new way of expressing ideas. Many artists began to look for different ideas and styles. It started in the 1960s and 1970s, as many artists attempted to free art from the art markets—a system in which works of art become commodities to be bought and sold or held as a financial investment (Lucie-Smith 220). They wanted to create art that would be too short-lived to be sold. To them the beauty of their work is the process of it. This includes the Earthworks artists Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria, and Nancy Holt, not only they were interest in the process of making it, also intrigued by how the forces of nature could be incorporated in a work of art. As the technology become more advance; these artists chose to move their work outdoor. Instead of brushes or pencils, “they used bulldozers and other machinery to move earth into giant sculptural forms”(). They believed that everything on this world is a part of a process. According to philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, every real-life object may be understood as a similarly constructed series of events and processes (Donald, 852). They began to see the importance of forces of nature and the process of their work. Earthworks artists has been developed in many ways, such as the processing idea and social influences, the subject matter, and the style. These artists were influenced by the idea of process, when Whitehead introduces the notion of an actual occasion. According to his view, an actual occasion is not an enduring substance, but a process of becoming (Donald 852). This influenced the thinking of process, and the notion that sometime things falling apart are far more interesting than building it. As we see in Smithson's work Spiral Jetty (1970), which made a giant coil of earth, rock, and salt crystals extending outward from the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. He left it vulnerable to the natural forces of rain, wind, and erosion. To him, time of his work is so important that is one of his most important mediums (Flam XIX). He also mentions the idea of entropy. In nature green plants use light energy from the sun to manufacture carbohydrates for their own needs. Most of this energy is processed and dissipated as heat in respiration. After that it converts the remaining energy to biomass, to both woody and roots. Ultimately, this material, which is stored energy, is transferred to the second level, which will lose energy again. The more steps between producer and final consumer, the less energy remains available. All energy flowing through is dissipated as heat. This process told us “energy is more easily lost than obtained, and that in the ultimate future the whole universe will burn out”(Flam 11). Smithson did not like the idea of making art with unnatural material such as plastic, chrome and electric light. These materials “are not built for the ages, but rather against ages”(Flam 11). He wants the artwork to be representing long space of time, the unnatural material just trying to gain few seconds of time (11). He wants the work to be an entropy system, like the rocks, and salts that create some chemical, which during this process it lose energy. He believed that whole energy crisis is a form of entropy. Everything in this world is being processed and falling apart. To Smithson, everything “is already destroyed. It's a slow process of destruction. The world is slowly destroying itself. The catastrophe comes suddenly, but slowly”(Flam 244). Through the idea of entropy, Smithson is involved with many Environmental issues. The earth is a closed system, there's limited of certain amount of resources. We are trying to save some of these resources by recycling. Smithson believed that this is an attempt to reverse entropy, and thinks it is problematic. He gave an example of “people going around collecting bottles and tin cans and whatnot and placing them in certain compounds like the one over on Greenwich Avenue across from St. Vincent's Hospitals”(302). Recycling waste materials is not really saving entropy. When raw materials progress into products, this creates a large amount of loss energy, therefore, the idea is to produce less refined material, not recycle more. In fact, according to Greenpeace, “More than 80 percent of the world's ancient forests have been destroyed or degraded by logging”(greenpeace). Most of them have ended up as industrial products. Smithson also expressed the problem of waste as due to the enjoyment of our life (304). We want a more pleasure in life, so more production, thus more waste has been created. He used an example of that we want a bigger and better car we are going to have bigger and better waster productions (304). So there's a kind of equation there between the enjoyment of life and waste. Most of industrial product created in ancient rainforests were useless product, such as teddy bears, cigarette filters, cake mix and shoe insoles (greenpeace). The products seem to be more useless, and create large amount of waste. The opposite of waste is luxury, yet still both waste and luxury tend to be useless. The logging of the ancient rainforests lost a large amount of energy and created higher entropy in our world. In fact, trees may be a renewable resource ancient forests are not. The expansion of industrial logging has to stop; otherwise all remaining ancient forest areas will be fragmented or lost within a few short decades. Robert Smithson divided his work into two parts, sites and non-sites. Sites are situations in nature. Non-sites are situations corresponding to a specific open space. For example, one of non-sites is Smithson's "Dead Tree" which was first realized in 1969. A tree, including roots and crown, stretches out in the entrance/exhibition area of the museum. What exactly is his concept of a non-site and a site? In Smithson’s work, he picked a work area where he had often traveled. He began to examine area and interesting point he liked. He often looks “for a denaturalization rather than built up scenic beauty”(242). When we take a trip, we always need some information, such as a map of that place. He was influenced by that. He took the idea of mapping, and used it in his artwork. The first non-site that he did was at the Pine, Barrens in southern New Jersey (244). There was a hexagon airfield, which was similar to a shape of a crystal. The shape led him to mapmaking. At first, he was going over there to set up a system of outdoors pavements but in the process he became interested in the abstract aspects of mapping. He used that area as a piece of paper and drew the shape over the landmass. He applied his idea directly to the disruption of the site (244), so that a non-site was a three-dimensional map of the site. To him a central focus point of a site is the non-site; “the site is the unfocused fringe where your mind loses its boundaries and a sense of the oceanic pervades, as it were”. The site usually throws you out to the fringes so that you are not able to focus on a particular place. The idea is that you might get lost in a site, but the map can take you somewhere. Until you get there you won't really know where you are, but with non-site’s help, it lets you understand more about the site. The non-site is the center of the system, and the site itself is the edge. Just like when you look at a map, it can tell everything about that area, but if you were there you are kind of lost in that space. Smithson used an example of Mono Lake. There, many historical events that changed the landscape a million years ago. Therefore, it created many canyons. You cannot tell the difference of these changes when you look at it, but a stone from there can tell you a lot more, because it show the process. Of course a scientist can tell the changes in a site, but a stones are easier. To us, an abstract way to think about that stone is way deeper than the site. The idea of whole site tends to evaporate. “The closer you think you're getting to it and the more you circumscribe it” (245). The site is a place where that stone should be but isn't, now the stone is elsewhere, where it cannot evaporate as fast. Now the stone brought back into non-site, where it could be a room. Its regular process will “take place outside room. But the room reminds us of the limitations of our condition”(245). So, that we understand what process is all about. Bibliography: Work Cited Donald W. Sherburne, "Whitehead, Alfred North", in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Robert Audi (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Flam, Jack, ed. Robert Smithson: The Collect Writing, University of California Press, 1996. Traver. Ancient forests, 1998 online. Greenpeace USA. Internet. 19 Sept. 2002. Available: http://greenpeaceusa.com/forests. Word Count: 1473
Copyright © 1998-2008 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved. DMCA Notifications and Requests