Embracing the Centennial in Balboa Park: Trolley Dances and the Digital Art Guild

The San Diego Union Tribune featured 100 stories about Balboa Park to illustrate the 100 years (and memories) of the Park. 

I'm not sure whether other media have chimed in on what makes this Centennial special. Not to mention that we have three months left in the year. There are many other worthy events that add to the Centennial celebration. 

I mention only two. I invite you to add your own nominees to this bouquet of provocative and imaginative displays.

At this time of year in San Diego, we are inspired by the San Diego Dance Theater's Trolley Dances. And this year, nearly all of the dances are in Balboa Park -- from the Zoo Centennial Walkway and Spanish Village to the famous Moreton Bay Fig Tree and the Mingei Museum.

Jill Rowe / Immigrants / featured in the Digital Art Guild's exhibit at Gallery 21

Trolley Dances at Spanish Village / Balboa Park / Back to Front / Choreographer: Mark Haim

The Trolley Dances appearance in Balboa Park certainly qualifies it as the 101st memory - spontaneity, creative use of park space both in open areas as well as in the Mingei Museum, performance in favorite places, and surprise.

The Trolley Dances performed for two weekends - at the end of September and the beginning of October - beginning at the San Diego County Waterfront Park and ending at the Mingei Museum in Balboa Park.

Trolley Dances

The Trolley Dances, performed by the San Diego Dance Theater, has been part of San Diego's cultural landscape now in its 17th annual season.  The concept embraces the urban environment: "Bring dance to the people using public transportation and introduce audiences to new neighborhoods and experiences." 
 

Trolley Dances at San Diego Zoo Centennial Walkway / Balboa Park /  Become Ocean / Choreographer: Jean Isaacs

Trolley Dance at Moreton Bay Fig Tree / Balboa Park /  Roots, Soul, and Love! / Choreographer: Suzanne Forbes-Vierling

Trolley Dances at the Mingei Museum / Balboa Park /  Giving Way / Choreographer: Anne Gehman

And more:  The Trolley Dances at the Waterfront

The dances take the audience to different locations to experience the dances in a variety of urban contexts. This year the starting point was the San Diego County's Waterfront Park (which was formerly two large parking lots on either side of the County Administration building).

Trolley Dances at San Diego County Water Front Park, North Fountain Reflecting Pool / Play(as):  Choreographer: Stephan Koplowitz

Trolley Dances at County Waterfront Park / Blue Stillness / Choreographer: Liv Isaacs-Nollet

If one digs back into the history of Balboa Park, back to 1915-16, one can see the spirit of fanciful design already at work. A.J. Roberts' painted a gondola-filled lagoon with the Park's memorable bridge and California Tower in the background. The painting is now on exhibition at the San Diego History Center. 

That same sense of imagination is reflected in the 102nd memory of the Balboa Park Centennial - the Digital Art Guild's Looking Back, Looking Forward exhibit opening on November 4th at Gallery 21 in Spanish Village.


Digital Art Guild at Gallery 21/Spanish Village

What makes Balboa Park special? Yes, there are the institutional museums, theaters and amazing outdoor organ pavilion.

But there are those smaller niche spaces that invite discovery for the millions that come to the park.

One of those spaces is Spanish Village. Amongst the individual artist studios is Gallery 21. This space hosts a variety of art groups and individual artists - part of an annual juried process.

The Digital Art Guild considered how its exhibit might celebrate Balboa Park's Centennial. There are parks on Alpha Centauri (yes, digital art was borne of varied interests including fantasy and sci-fi, but also ways of reinventing traditional art styles).
  
How best to keep an open mind about the park? The Guild decided on a theme of looking forward, looking back - providing a sense of continuity from the deep past into the unknown future.

Looking Back, Looking Forward provokes the visitor to imagine what the park has been, what it is and what it might be.

The Digital Art Guild exhibit runs from November 4 to November 16, 2015.   

Open daily from 11 am to 4 pm. Artist reception, Saturday, November 7th from noon to 4 pm.

Tony Velez / Games of Emotion (Left) / John Valois / Park Muse (Right)

What comes to mind for a digital artist? Perhaps not that different from what many artists experience - though the tools and style may.

Tony Velez speaks for many of us:   "I am passionate about light, color, nature, music, and love. The artwork that I create is balanced against the hectic pace of my work and reflects my own personal journey of soul recovery and spiritual development. An unusual life creates an unusual artist. I take chances and ask you to feel something inside as you reflect on my pieces. I love what I do.  .  ."

Robert Pendleton / Wish You Were Here  (Upper); Charlie Anne Breese / Spinning Fire (Lower)

Richard ChauDavis with ACE / I See You (Left); Ron Belanger / Bowling at New Balboa Park (Right)

Having been a digital artist for more than a dozen years, I have been thinking about extending 2D flat images - those paintings, prints and photographs - into the ever popular dance video. Over the past six months or so, I've produced two such videos (yes, with much help from others). Both deal with the Genesis story about the first man and first woman. We are quick to say Adam and Eve, but there are myths about another woman before Eve, namely, Lilith. I've played with a conversation between Eve and Lilith - sometimes with Adam and sometimes without. Both videos will be shown at the Looking Back, Looking Forward exhibit. 

You might wonder whether I've taken more poetic license than I should:  Isn't this exhibit about Balboa Park?  Well, for us, that is our own Eden, our own Garden. We can only imagine what happened on these grounds before and the conversations that emerged.

Joe Nalven / What Becomes Eden (premiere) / screen shot of dance video at Gallery 21

 

7 billion Others: The dreams and fears of humanity plus an agenda

The selected stories of thousands of individuals in 7 billion Others illustrate themes such as Being at home, Family, Fears as well as Nature and Climate voices.

These stories from across the world resonate with the class I teach on cultural anthropology. They invite the students, and indeed us all, to listen into the lives, the hopes, and dreams of the human condition.



When you experience this well-designed video installation, keep in mind a caveat:  There is a point of view of the project developer, Yann Arthus-Bertrand - part climate change ideologue and part wealth redistributionist. The latter theme will be the focus of his new movie, Human. The upcoming movie echoes themes voiced by Godfrey Reggio in his trilogy about developed and underdeveloped countries and a world in chaos:  Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi (the Qatsi trilogy).

You may well agree with Bertrand's perspective - or not. But in either case, his perspective ought to be transparent to the visitor.

The Museum of Photographic Arts orients itself, in part, as a center for visual learning. To avoid the problem of subliminal or social-action bias, MOPA could install an informational kiosk that plays short videos explaining the alternative perspective. So, for example, one can be for fighting pollution with or without assumptions about human-caused climate change.  Or, one can be for lifting individuals out of poverty while arguing that any success is due to capitalism or to socialism. From a pedagogical perspective, one should present alternative narratives so that one can judge if the photographic narrative is overly narrow or excessively broad in understanding what affects the human condition. The Museum may state it is only interested in the art of photography; yet this particular exhibit, and others before it (Prix Pictet 2012), espoused agendas for social and environmental change that fit a partial understanding of these phenomena. The issue of a lack of transparency will be explored further in the comments below.

Climate Change Perspectives:  True believers versus Realists

Many scientists and politicians argue that the science is settled: humans affect climate (note that 'affecting pollution' is often confused with 'climate,' but the distinction is an important one). Let's call those who believe that humans affect climate in a significant way the true believers since their minds are made up. Many other scientists and politicians are skeptics (which is the bedrock assumption of science): humans may affect climate, but show us the data as well as the various computer models that massage the data. Let's call this group the realists.

You may find yourself in one group or the other, but the question is one of pedagogy. How should one teach this subject matter, especially with photographs and associated text as narrative? It ought to be a startling and open-minded adventure. The problem is that myth-making and news hype get in the way. Recall the prediction that human caused climate change would cause an increase in seasonal hurricanes? That proved to be unsupported with seasonal hurricanes being far, far less. Recall the prediction that the Himalayas would begin to melt in 35 years? That proved to be a typo.

What then? It's time to explore.

In 7 billion Others, the dominant perspective about nature and climate change is: 1) nature is cuddly (few, if any, talk about hurricanes, volcanoes, pestilence, disease, etc.); 2)  and that those who take issue with the anthropogenic view of climate change either do not care or are from another planet.

As one pages through the remarks of individuals from around the globe, the sense is that nature is wonderful and a sense of joy. I happen to agree with that perspective, but I would likely give voice to the terrible in nature as well. If the idea to be conveyed is that nature is something to be cherished, fine. No problem, but say so. Don't carry over the one-sided dimension into the assumed corollary that whenever nature is damaged it is the result of human activity. Yes, the Gulf Oil spill several years ago was the result of human action, but nature has extensive oil seeps as well. And, even then, scientists were surprised that much of the Gulf Oil spill disappeared in the water due to nature's own cleansing process.

From views on nature, 7 billion Others leads to views on climate change. Some individual views do show skeptical positions, but the dominant frame of reference is one of those adhering to human-caused global warming. If you don't believe in global warming, one interviewee claims that you must be from another planet. 

Not only is the question about whether one's belief puts one in the category of being from another planet, those who resist the perceived needed change lack empathy.

It is true that many of us are indulgent in our personal desires, but this extends to those who see themselves as the caring. That sounds counter-intuitive and hard to believe - that those who say they care about equality often act in ways that demonstrate the opposite, particularly if it affects their own lifestyle.

A recent news article reports that several states are underwriting the affluent in buying more expensive electric cars at the expense of the poor; the less affluent are taxed to support the affluent's life style. One can argue that this tax policy benefits us all - we all breathe the same air; but one can also argue that the user should pay, especially so when there is an unfair tax on the poor. Question:  Who should paying for the electric car charging station? Those who use it or everyone, including the less well off who cannot afford electric cars. Again, you may or may not agree with either policy, but that policy and its social costs should be transparent. In this instance, those claiming to care about X should explain how their benefit of owning an electric car actually helps X (who can't afford an electric car) rather than hurts X. 

Perhaps the truck owner loves his truck, regardless of how it impacts the physical environment; electric car owners may think similarly, regardless of how it impacts the social environment.

A complement to 7 billion Others: Creating a dialog
Moving beyond a critique of the views embedded in 7 billion Others, a center for visual learning could include the following brief perspective that challenges the underpinnings of the installation. 

What if climate change is something other than those who would have us fear carbon, CO2 and an assumed rate of temperature change that would bring environmental calamity beyond what nature has done for billions of years?

Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace, presents a useful counter-perspective, grounded in science.


What they haven't told you about climate change


http://www.prageruniversity.com/Environmental-Science/What-They-Havent-Told-You-about-Climate-Change.html#.VcYp8LTZXi8





Without a precautionary commentary such as the one by Patrick Moore, the 7 billion Others installation works well as propaganda for its point of view, but not as an informed pedagogical approach encompassing the views of the true believers and the realists. The latter depends on the transparency of the hosting institution.

The producers' description of 7 billion Others
A ground breaking, multimedia exhibition, 7 billion Others brings voices and compelling video portraits from more than 6,000 individual interviews filmed in 84 countries by nearly 20 directors. For its premiere in the United States, the 30-week presentation will allow visitors to identify what separates and unites us by giving direct access to individuals as diverse as a Brazilian fisherman, a Chinese shopkeeper, a German performer and an Afghan farmer. These interviews touch on our most visceral emotions and pose many thought-provoking questions and answers that speak to the human condition.  Created by Yann Arthus-Bertrand 


The Museum of Photographic Arts [MOPA] will continue showing 7 billion Others through mid September 2015.

Commentary on the San Diego Art Institute: When media distort events and history, just re-write the essay

Ben Sutton of Hyperallergic recently penned an essay, Rebirth of Stagnant San Diego Art Institute Riles Some of Its Members.  (I confess to being one of the riled.)

Much of what Sutton says has been distilled from a distance; despite that distance, he shows flashes of accuracy. 

However, his essay might have been more appropriately titled, Rebirth of San Diego Art Institute: It could have been achieved through collaboration instead of slash-and-burn and violating its City lease.

Let's take a closer look at some of the things Sutton said. This revisionist perspective is not intended to be complete, but rather to illuminate the challenges of writing about institutional change.

Revising the Sutton essay

By Sutton: 
These accusations, irrespective of their validity (or lack thereof), speak volumes about an institution that was long run like a members-only club in a city badly in need of a more inclusive and forward-thinking municipal art gallery.

Sutton's sentence should be revised as follows:
The institution was intended by the City Council to be run as a place for San Diego artists to develop, hone their skills and exhibit their work – this is far from a club; instead it is an incubator model that has its place in the City arts scene. Other institutions, like those run for the 1% elites, promote the clubbiness of the insular avant-garde.  .  .  . 

By Sutton:
“I’ve been in town for over 30 years, and during that period the Art Institute was a space with a terrific location in the heart of Balboa Park and a nice facility in terms of the height of the ceilings and quality of light and that sort of thing,” Hugh Davies, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) told Hyperallergic over the phone. 

(Delete the sentence in Sutton's essay alleging a lack of quality in SDAI shows as opined by Davies and replace with a more informed observation)

Sutton's sentence should be revised as follows:
If Davies ever really took in the new shows at SDAI, he would have seen a new type of shoddiness with poor wall tags, poor use of lighting, and a taste for the bizarre.

Here are two exhibited images from the new Porcella regime. If you consider misogyny, religious intolerance and anti-Americanism the highpoints of artistic endeavor, well, there is much to applaud. However, if one is willing to tamp down the thrills of shock-art for actual professional competence, one comes away a bit disappointed at what the elites consider to be ‘good’ art.
    

By Sutton:
The organization of solo exhibitions was not up to a curator, but rather determined by a point system: members who received enough prizes in the juried shows were eventually rewarded with solo shows. “It’s almost like you get miles for flying on American and then you get a first-class seat,” said Davies. [Delete the following sentence] “It’s the most bizarre and primitive way to run an arts organization.” The point system, like much of the SDAI operations pre-2008, seems to have been a vestige of the institute’s early years — it was founded in 1941 as the San Diego Business Men’s Art Club to showcase members’ landscape paintings.

Sutton's sentence should be revised as follows:
Davies, whose salary is about $440,000, looks down upon an organization that continued its development after 1996 in the style of a grass roots organization – unlike its beginnings as a place for San Diego businessmen in the 1940s and 50s.

Sutton's summary of views he heard:
Most people Hyperallergic spoke to about the institute and its place in the San Diego art scene agree that the shift away from a “members first” approach is very welcome.

Sutton's sentence should be revised as follows:
Most people that Hyperallergic spoke to about the Institute were not lawyers (Nalven was a former litigator) and most failed to understand lease requirements. Apparently, if the City cannot enforce this lease with its clear requirements, how can the City be expected to enforce any of its leases whether in the Park or throughout the City?

Sutton's embracing of Porcella's opinion is one of those say-anythings:
“We’re not in violation of our bylaws or charter; we’ve even met with the city of San Diego, their lawyers, our lawyers, we’ve looked into it, we’re not doing anything untoward,” Porcella said.

A more informed perspective would have stated:
Porcella, who is not an attorney, apparently has failed to understand the provisions of the City’s lease. A close reading of the lease suggests that she, and SDAI, can do what they want, but just not in Balboa Park.

Perhaps, MCASD and Hugh Davies can offer SDAI a space in its downtown location. That would resolve the issue for the City as a win-win result.

Here is the BIG picture
Sutton fails to capture the sense that this crisis could easily have been avoided had the director, Ginger Shulick Porcella, and the Board of Directors invited collaboration with its artist members. Instead, many of the artist members were shunned and a top down management change was put in place.

As a former Chair of the Institute's Board of Directors, and as a former litigator, I realized that such a path could be followed, regardless of its organizational merits -- except for one sticking point. In order to follow that path, Porcella and the Board would have to leave its premises in Balboa Park as a result of violating its lease with the City of San Diego.  (See key lease provision below - 1.2 a)

Rebranding SDAI as running up to Los Angeles, as Porcella and the Board intend, was not part of the City's deal with this artist organization. It was intended for San Diego artists. 

This is where Sutton ought to have started his essay and, after many words, ended it on this point as well.

Comments (either from email or submitted to blog)

Jane FletcherGreat job, Joe! Unfortunately, the lack of opportunity at the San Diego Art Institute has left the art of many San Diego artists homeless. Sadly, the admired goal of many of today's "sophisticated" art elite is shock and baseness instead of beauty and upliftment, almost as if they are encouraging and applauding social decay. One wonders if they are just competing to see who can reach the lowest.

Approaching the new semester: Teaching style, the cost of books and online resources

The semester begins in several weeks.

 

Several questions top instructors concerns:  the cost of textbooks; engaging students; being fair to different viewpoints.

Here is my approach in a highly diverse student population at a community college. 

The cost of textbooks

The new edition costs about $240. It is a paperback, 384 pages. The pictures are good ones, but there are 50 pages less than before. Missing are interesting maps and gone are the test questions at the end of each chapter for students to test themselves.

Buy it in digital format for $192. Rent it for the semester, $80. Used? It is fairly recent and used copies are available. If I allowed the students to use the previous edition, a used copy would cost about $25 and renting it, $16.

I could change textbooks or perhaps make my own compilation. I could also email students copies of articles (without infringing copyright) and use YouTube videos.

The real question is whether this textbook will be a good foundation for information and knowledge.  Whatever quibbles I have with the textbook, the students come to an exotic course about cultures in different places in the world and over millennia.

The book demands strong analytic skills. That is important, but can my students succeed?  

This is a community college with a diverse student profile. My students are from 17 to 65, more women than men, Latinos, Blacks, Whites and immigrants from across the world, vets, ex-cons, the variety of genders, some homeless, and all with varying degrees of English literacy. And generally less affluent than students at nearby four year colleges.

So, $240 for a 355 page paperback and an instructor with too many degrees? 

The question about learning certainly is about the textbook and its accessibility, but it also is about the instructors and the personal adventure they set for the student.

Engaging students

So, how do we get the curriculum to speak to the students? What are the recipes for inviting students to immerse themselves in the course’s subject matter?

•        Start the class before the class actually begins with some unusual music. We don’t only learn through reading. For anthropologists, we participate and observe the life of others ─ doing their rituals, eating their foods, dancing their dances. 

Suggestion:  Visit Caridad de la Luz on YouTube and watch For Witch It Stands.

•        No political correctness. Respecting each other is sufficient. 

•        Shocking students. That’s easy enough for anthropologists: Different cultures and different lifestyles are shocking. So, let’s deal with them. Avoid self-censorship based on a fear of committing a micro-aggression. Example: Divide the class into men and women (and for those with other gender identifications, they can choose whichever group they prefer) and have them read a Blackfoot legend about Old Man Coyote and Coyote Woman. Whoa! That has them laughing and blushing. This story contrasts with Genesis’s Adam and Eve creation story and invites discussion of power relationships, gender concepts and cultural notions of sexuality.

•        Balance the author’s liberal or conservative values and perspectives with opposite ones. Why not? Isn’t the university a broad marketplace of ideas? What is important is not to grade students on one’s own point of view, but to draw out competing perspectives. For example, faculty may be accused of bias, such as Islamophobia, racism, being a climate change denier and the like because they present competing perspectives instead of a truncated ideology. 

The textbook I use (Appreciating Cultural Diversity) fails to present competing perspectives on several important topics, particularly on Islamic terrorism and what draws individuals to this ideology as well as a one-sided view of climate change science. 

A dedicated talk-show host, whose interest is in clarity rather than seeking conformity, has taken on the task of creating an online (and free) “university.” Five minute talks by informed discussants challenge the viewer about how one might understand a topic. Rather than shrinking from such an approach, instructors should be able to challenge themselves in front of their students. We might call this the new pedagogy.  I imagine many instructors would dismiss this challenge based on the presumption of ‘I have my degree’; but the world is changing, and a Socratic mindset would challenge every instructor to start from the beginning with the famous dictum: The only thing I know is that I do not know anything. 

Here are several 5 minute courses to wake the students (and the instructor) to a brass tacks discussion:

ChloeValdary:   Don’t Judge Blacks Differently. 

Patrick Moore:  What they haven’t told you about climate change

Haroon Ullah:  Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists?  

•        Have students do original research, formulating hypotheses and testing them. This requires considerable support, but it shows students that classroom studies can be practical and can help them get a job.  

Avoiding bias in grading

An instructor must take affirmative steps to prevent his or her bias from influencing the grading process. Here is what I do; other instructors should state their approach.

In the textbook I use, the author presents one view of global warming/ climate change. The question at the end of the chapter speaks to his perspective. In preparation for the final exam, I present his view in class and ask the students how they would answer the question from the author’s perspective. That is one point for knowing the author’s bias. Then I reframe the question from my perspective (the skeptical scientist rather than the true believer in computer modeling). I ask the students to answer the multiple choice question from my perspective. Score one point for knowing my bias.

The teachable moment is that students get two points – one for the author’s perspective, one for my perspective; AND they get to witness that instructors and book authors can disagree without the student having to adopt one or the other and being penalized for believing in the ‘preferred’ answer. The students should then realize that they have to think for themselves in the continuing pursuit of how to understand the world.

That is a pedagogy that allows for competing biases without penalizing the students. This approach is more difficult to achieve in an essay exam – not impossible, but more difficult. 

Making a pedagogical choice

Some students might prefer a less active teacher. So, this approach doesn’t work for all.  

But, for me, I enjoy teaching in this way and hope that my love for the subject carries over to those students who not only enroll, but come to class to engage with the subject.  

The classroom is a two-way street and involves more than buying a $240 textbook.

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Joe Nalven teaches cultural anthropology at San Diego City College.