Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages Airwave Media

Neil Harbisson is a contemporary artist who hears colors. He deliberately chose to hear colors and to make that happen, he underwent surgery which has caused him to become the first person ever to be issued a government ID recognizing him as a cyborg.
Harbisson has a condition known as achromatopsia. For him and others with complete achromatopsia, all three types of cones in the retina are nonfunctional. He sees using only his rods meaning there is no color in his vision. It is a relatively rare condition affecting only about one in every 30,000 people. The thing that is even more rare though is Harbisson’s management of the condition. First off, you might expect someone with this condition not to gravitate toward the arts, but while color is one of the elements of art, it is not required. Art is about human expression and creativity. Harbisson found a very creative means of enhancing his senses. Neil Harbisson has an antenna. Basically, there is a camera at the end of the antenna. A digital camera detects light and stores it as electrical signals. Inside the antenna, the colors are translated into sound. Different hues or colors are converted to different sound frequencies. It is actually attuned to even detect light that is invisible in the infrared and ultraviolet spectra.
Related Episodes:

Who ARTed | Wassily Kandinsky

Art Smart | Photography


Check out my other podcasts Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab
Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com
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Michelangelo Merisi, born in 1571 amidst the darkness of the plague, would come to be known not by his christened name but by the name of his birthplace – Caravaggio. Orphaned young, the specter of loss would forever paint itself onto the canvas of his life. Yet, from this darkness, a genius of light and shadow would emerge, revolutionizing the art world with his raw and dramatic style.
While controversial in some circles, this mix of gritty realism and the divine was exactly what the Catholic church needed at the time. The Protestant Reformation was a backlash against what they considered to be a corrupt and greedy church. The Pope and others within the church commissioned art as a form of damage control. In an era of low literacy rates, images of artworks were powerful tools to spread ideas. Caravaggio’s paintings depicted a faith that was humble as he painted from his real-life observations of people on the streets. Though the subjects of the art were saints, the models were lowly people off the streets and Caravaggio painted every detail down to the stains in their clothing or dirt under their fingernails. The message was that the church was a place for the ordinary people. Using real people as models and placing them in settings familiar to the masses made the stories more immediately accessible and relatable.
The Calling of Saint Matthew is one of 250 artworks required for AP Art History. While I have not yet covered all of those artists/works you can find many on my Spotify playlist, AP Art History Cram Session
Check out my other podcasts Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab
Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com
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This is an encore presentation of my episode about how DayGlo colors work and how they were developed by a pair of brothers in the 1930s.

Check out my other podcasts  Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab
Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com
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Steven Seidenberg is an incredible photographer and in this episode, I spoke with Steven Seidenberg and the writer, Carolyn White about a little-known bit of history in Post World War 2 Italy. His latest book The Architecture of Silence: Abandoned Lives of the Italian South documents the ruins of a failed policy that gave impoverished people a bit of land and housing without the infrastructure needed to sustain a community. The companion book Distant Voices: on Steven Seidenberg's Architecture of Silence is a collection of essays that help put it all into perspective with relevant historical context.
Find Steven Seidenberg:
ww.stevenseidenberg.com
Links to buy the books:
https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Silence-Abandoned-Italian-South/dp/8869658902/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1YOGKULHMU1C6&keywords=architecture+of+silence&qid=1687919169&s=books&sprefix=architecture+of+silence%2Cstripbooks%2C217&sr=1-3

https://www.amazon.com/DISTANT-VOICES-Seidenbergs-ARCHITECTURE-SILENCE/dp/8869658961/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32C3234K86US5&keywords=distant+voices+carolyn+white&qid=1687919234&s=books&sprefix=distant+voices+carolyn+whit%2Cstripbooks%2C144&sr=1-1

And a link to a recent piece on his work in Rome, documenting a migrant tent city that was destroyed in 2018.
https://placesjournal.org/article/baobab-tent-city-in-rome/

Check out my other podcast Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab
Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com
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Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022), the Swedish-born American sculptor, wasn't your typical artist. He wasn't interested in grand figures or historical scenes. Instead, he found inspiration in the most unexpected places: the everyday objects that cluttered our lives. His art, a blend of Pop Art and gigantic whimsy, continues to transform cityscapes around the world.
Related Episodes:
Andy Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein
Yayoi Kusama
Check out my other podcasts Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab
Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com
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Jess Phoenix is a designer based out of Seattle, Washington. She is known for making bright, bold floral patterns. She was nice enough to sit down with me to share her history, her influences and her process.
Find Jess Phoenix online:
Website: www.jessphoenix.com
Instagram: @Jessraephoenix

Check out my other podcasts Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab
Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices