Social Architectures

Joshua Segura

Page history last edited by Joshua Segura 2 yrs ago

Hi there, I'm 21 years old, am a third year Art History student and am from National City, CA, where I've lived all my life. I guess my primary fascination with this course is twofold. One is that rarely are classes offered in the visual department that contain a primary architectural component. The other is that having recently finsished a course with Teddy Cruz, I've become profoundly interested in this idea of relational aesthetics and art alongside architecture as a social service. My background in art history as of late has caused me to feel a bit disillusioned with the traditonal, didactic, metaphoric methods of western art. I don't want to learn about oil on canvas anymore, or marble, or ancient ruins, what I want from art isn't what I'm getting from my art history classes. It took me up until now to figure that out through Cruz. I'm tired of self-indulgent art and really want it to engage the public sphere of reality, rather than the bubble of the museum. Theorhetically this is what I'm interested in, and would further like to explore through this course. Lately, I've been looking at the work of Rem Koolhas, Thomas Hirschhorn, Tijuana based Torolab and the Dutch architect group MVRDV for their ingenuity at exploring space and architecture as well as for inspiration.

Aside from my theorethical and critical interests in art. I'm also pretty adept at drawing which is a primary hobby of mine, along with digital artmaking through which I use several programs including Photoshop and Corell and my trusty Wacom Tablet. I'm also an avid buyer of weekly comic books, as well as interested in creating my own someday. Ironically, I'm also an intern at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park, where I'm assisting the curator of Contemporary Art, Betti-Sue Hertz, with her exhibiton titled "Animated Painting" scheduled for the fall of this year.