fangjDESMA9: Event #1: GLOW

The first event for this class I went with a group of friends is GLOW at Santa Monica Beach on September 28. This is a wonderful all-night experience featuring original commissions by various artists for their thoughtful artworks. I did not know this event before taking this class. It was really great participating in this huge artistic party.

The first artwork we saw was Djoko Walujo’s “Java: Land of Dreams”. A group of students performed Javanese dance with the beautiful gamelan accompaniment. This reminds me of my experience of studying and playing gamelan during high school days. Gamelan is a set of traditional Indonesian instruments and it requires great collaboration of all the performers. In ancient Indonesia, gamelan will only be used for very serious religious rituals or major festival celebrations, and it is a great part of the traditional Indonesian culture.

"photo taken before the performance"

The second artwork piquing my interest was Rebecca Mendez’s Circumsolar Migration. The artist managed to record the whole process of a sea bird flying from Arctic to Antarctic. It experiences two polar summers of 24-hour daylight each year, which makes it the one creature in the world that experiences the most daylight, a reality appropriate to Glow. The artwork is also a video portrait of the artist herself. The artist is a Mexican immigrant. She told us that she had a hard time of adapting to the new environment when first moving to United States.

"With Rebecca Mendez"

Lastly, we got a chance to talk to our Professor Victoria Vesna for her “Octopus Mandala Glow”. Professor Vesna invites people all over the world to “occupy the wheel”. Nowadays, modern technology has been playing an increasingly important role in our daily life. Professor initiated this event to stop people from being controlled and driven by the technology. Ferris wheel has been invented long ago and it is a representative of modern technology in this case. People “occupy the wheels” so as to convey the idea of “humans controlling technology”. People should be aware of the negative effect of heavy reliance on technology. Other than technology, there are definitely things which are more significant in our life.