Arts Students Are Weird

[Corona688]

And we ought to thank them for it. Someone's got to do it.

Wandering around the campus on the U of R, every once in a while I find myself jolted out of autopilot by something unusual.

One of the most noticeable is the "rolling composter". It's a large(4ft diameter) stainless steel geodesic ball on a chain on a post full of compost, covered with little plaques about the carbon cycle. This one is one of the few that has an official name, it says 'rolling composter' right on it.

They've also built these concrete things in the outer region of the courtyard that look sort of like bases for memorial plaques, except instead of a plaque, they're inlaid with broken pieces of mirror. Quite pretty actually. It's weird to see them half-covered in snow now.

Another thing they did was convert the circular snow-buried central region in the courtyard, which nobody's dared tread through since November, into a giant snowcircle. Like a crop-circle, but... snow. Sort of a spirograph pattern of abutting rings.

Another one I noticed just yesterday was the Big Giant Head. They made a 5'x5'x5' cube of snow in a prominent place outside, and carved from it a bald head with mustache. Very realistic, too, they even dusted the mustache grey somehow. Imagine running across that thing out of the blue at 7:45AM heading to class... "zzzz... *walks by* ...what the hell was that!?" I see they've got a crate-thing about the same size nearby, so I can only guess they're building another.

Anyone else encountered random acts of art lately?

[edit] Ack! Wrong forum! Could this be moved to arts please?

[Ymir's blood]

Well there was this on Fark (http://www.10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2934574) but it isn't that original. Someone made one while I was in college as well.

Then for the pirates amongst us, there is a ice sculpture pirate ship. (http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005021101110&sheadline=pirate%20ship&sauthor=&stext=) :pirate2: :pirate: :xbones: :parrot: :workgold:

[livius drusus]

Then for the pirates amongst us, there is a ice sculpture pirate ship. (http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005021101110&sheadline=pirate%20ship&sauthor=&stext=)

Damn, that is gorgeous. I'm amazed Dartmouth students have the time to make something so intricate what with all the 6 months of winter partying they have to do.

[Corona688]

Found a pic of the Rolling Composter (http://www.uregina.ca/news/featured/img/large/wendy02_large.jpg)

[livius drusus]

That's cool, Corona. It looks like a giant tea ball infuser. :)

[lisarea]

I used to take this kind of shortcut home from work that took me through an older residential neighborhood--the type where you can tell the houses used to be pretty fancy, but they had fallen into sort of graceful disrepair. There was one house, at the top of a small hill, that was really only barely visible from the street, because of the trees and other vegetation. There was a low stone wall surrounding the property, and directly behind it, fully visible, was a HUGE plywood cutout of a sort of 19th century looking man's head, with a monocle and a handlebar moustache, and a revolving cartoon talk bubble or whatever you call them, with totally random shit on it. Like, sometimes he was saying something political, sometimes he'd just say something like "Dogs really are better than cats, you know," or "French wine is pretty overrated, if you ask me." Anyway, I miss that. The house is still there, but commentary man is gone. We need WAY more stuff like that in the world.

Oh, and this is a good one, too: Several years back, the city of Denver gave a grant to an artist to do this installation project where she put little air grates in the sidewalk all along this one street (they may have been there already, but I really don't think so), and had these random recordings that'd play at different times. Like, sometimes you'd walk by and it would sound like there were subways under there, sometimes, it was kids playing, sometimes it was cows mooing, stuff like that. Of course, when the project came to light, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth complaining that it wasn't art and what a travesty it was that public monies were going to pay for it and blah blah blah. But it went in anyway. And, lo and behold, when the time came to remove the installation, public sentiment had turned, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over them taking it out because it just made people so happy. So it stayed. Not sure if it's still there, but it was a couple of years ago last time I was down that street, anyway.

[John Carter]

Of course, when the project came to light, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth complaining that it wasn't art and what a travesty it was that public monies were going to pay for it and blah blah blah. But it went in anyway. And, lo and behold, when the time came to remove the installation, public sentiment had turned, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over them taking it out because it just made people so happy. So it stayed. Not sure if it's still there, but it was a couple of years ago last time I was down that street, anyway.

It would be interesting to find out how much of both instances of wailing was being done by the same people.