We are....Technology of the 1970's

The theme of our project was the influence of technology of the past on today's world.  Technology is constantly evolving and becoming a newer product of improvement, efficiency, and practicality.  Technology never emerges at random.  It always reveals underlying correlations to inventions from history's past.  In this project, we studied the roots of today's technology.  When looking at modern computers, cell phones, and CD players, we see direct correspondence to bulky and inconvenient products from our past.  The US have reached such a milestone in technological advancements, and I believe its a key feature of our nation.  We set the bar for the rest of the world and I believe its something admirable and worth dedicating our project to.  In addition, the most drastic improvement has been in communication.  Now our world is constantly interconnected through use of cell phones, computers, online chats (skype, aim), facebook, twitter, email, etc.  Technology has opened up a whole new world of communication for our country.  Now we can consistently keep in touch with family and friends all across our entire world.  It's really quite conspicuous how united our nation has become.  Technology of the past has become the roots for all we've become today, and is an indispensable aspect of our daily life. 

When choosing our items we kept two important things in mind.  First, we wanted to make sure we chose items that had a large influence on technology today.  Secondly, we wanted to select items representing communication.  Some examples of the items we chose were floppy disks.  They illustrated both how CDs were based off these floppy disks and how they helped open up communication.  Another item we chose was a vinyl disk.  It had discernible effects on today's CD players and ipods.  In addition, it opened up communication during that era with the growing disillusionment of government and advances in civil rights.  Through music, artists were able to express their opinions with the general public.  Some other items we chose included tapes, a computer mouse, a pager, and an old cell phone.  

To obtain these items, we each looked to older members of our family for assistance.  For example, I contacted my grandfather in Connecticut and talked to him about technology of the 1970's and what being apart of that era was like.  He was able to give me personal knowledge that I would not be able to find in a textbook.  He also sent me some of the items we used.  In addition, Ms. Sanderson helped our group by providing a pager from that period.  Some of the other members talked to parents and were able to obtain things found around the house.  Lastly, I attended a garage sale where I found the vinyl disk we used.  Through various tactics, we were able to come together and pull items from various sources.

If I were to do this project again, there are definitely things I would do differently.  I feel like we came to class more than prepared.  However, I wish we had been more creative with putting together our box.  Everything seemed too organized, almost too perfect.  I loved how some groups made there projects big and showed artistic creativity.  Although our box was organized, neat, and colorful, I felt like it was lacking in originality. 

My advice to next year's classes would be to create the box before hand.  It's far too difficult to wait until the last minute to put that product together.  It only puts your group in a stressful situation that could have easily been prevented.  

In conclusion, I feel this project really helped bring history to life.  It also gave us the chance to work as a collegial effort.  It gave us the freedom to choose a topic of our interest and work hard towards producing creative final project.

-Madeleine Traver

We are...Technology of the Past

My group chose the theme: technology of the 1970’s to 1990’s. We decided to find objects and people that helped promote the growth of technology throughout this time period.
Some of the items my group and I came up with include: color slides, a photo lamp, and cassette player. These items are very important because they helped promote technological growth. These items are also commonly used, and it is fun to see how technology has advanced since the time they first were invented.
To find my items for our project, I was able to borrow some items from Ms. Sanderson during class when she would pass out technological items from the 70’s to 90’s, like the photo lamp and the floppy disk. My parents helped me very much in obtaining some items because they lived during this time period and had many things having to do with technology that they held on too. I would definitely make sure my group, I gathered all our items, and ahead of time and prepared our boxes for our project earlier so we would not have had to spend an extra hour at lunch finishing our project.
Although my group and I took longer to finish, we were able to polish off everything to make our project look great and stand out. My advice to next years class would be, make sure your boxes are covered ahead of time because they take a long time to cover during your preparation period. It can make you take longer than the hour in class to finish your project.

Found Art- TV shows and Media

We are... influenced by the media

Our Found Art theme was the influence by the media. We made our display out of four construction boxes to resemble a television set. This is appropriate because media was mainly influencing people through television shows. The way we set up the boxes is like the show “The Brady Bunch” with the different windows. “The Brady Bunch” was a very influential show during the 1970s-1990s because there was a moral or lesson for the viewers to learn at the end of each episode. In each window, we placed different items such as a clock to represent the show "60 minutes", an Elmo and ScoobyDoo stuffed animals, VHS, an old remote control, a wheel of fortune toy, etc.

The show "60 minutes" was a very popular show for families to get their daily news during primetime. The Elmo and Scooby Doo stuffed animals represent the kid shows shown in this time period. Each episode would have a "lesson" at the end, making these shows educational. The wheel of fortune was an extremely popular show shown during the afternoon. Game shows like these caused people to change their leisure time activities from going outside to staying in and watching the show.

The majority of our items belong to our group members. However, for the rabbit ears/antannae for our "TV" we had to ask our parent's coworker.

If I were to do this project again, I would start out by asking more people in advance for items. I found that as one of our biggest problems. We all expected to have the items somewhere in our household, but when we searched last minute we were not able to find as many items as we wanted/expected to.

The advice I would give next year's class is make sure you really have everything planned before you do the setting up in class. Also, I would highly advise them to do plenty of research.

Found Art- The Gay Rights Movement, 1970 through 1990

We are ... Coming out of our closet and proud of it.

The partial purpose of our project was to throw light upon the coming out of the gay community to be true to their feelings. We symbolized this action of the gay community by building a closet like structure with cardboard and showing the gay community walking out into a world they were initially not accepted in.

In our project we portrayed the two adversary worlds with the use of two cardboard boxes, one of which was painted black and red to show hatred towards and opposition to the community coming out of the second box that was painted in rainbow colors. To portray pro-gay ideas, we pasted a 2D figurine of Harvey Milk, a key leader in the struggle for gay rights, and an album produced in 1976 by Elton John a famous pianist who declared his homosexuality in an interview in 1976. Through the use of the outside cover of the movie, “The Longtime Companion" (1990) which deals with a gay couple and the issue of AIDS, we intended to illustrate the extent to which the idea of homosexuality had crept into the society. Since homosexuality was often related to AIDS, we included AIDS quilts that my group member came across in a thrift store. To display the element of opposition of the gay-rights movement, we included pictures of the prominent anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, delivering a speech to an assembly of anti-gay fanatics who were affiliated to the "Save Our Children" campaign. Anti-gay rally pictures captured the element of violence and level of opposition against the gay community. We obtained our found art from teachers, neighbors, thrift stores and our own garage.

This project enriched me with experience. I learnt so much more about the gay right movement than I did initially. I experienced the highs and lows of working with, and depending on, other people to meet a project deadline. This project involved thinking outside the box while communicating an idea to an audience that may generally not be aware of the topic. After glancing at the finished project it occurred to me that it must have taken tremendous courage for the gay people of that time to declare their sexual orientation to the world despite of known opposition.

The advice I offer to next year’s class is effectively delegating tasks after looking at skill sets of the group members. There will never be enough time to complete a project to ones liking. Therefore, one needs to be creative, use everyday artifacts to symbolize and represent a theme relating to ones topic.

Found Art Project

The theme of our found art project was the awareness of Gay rights. We were on a mission to collect 10 items which dealt with people’s opposition of or approval for gay and lesbian people. These items were required to be from between 1970 and 1990 and needed to represent key events, people, places, concepts, and organizations.

On our set up of the project we had two boxes, one for the items supporting gays, and the other box with items opposing gays. For both supporting and opposition items we acquired a couple of posters from either Harvey Milk (a major supporter of gays) or posters from riots of people trying to get rid of gays. We used the internet to find quotes said by major influences from the US in this time period. We got a couple squares of quilt examples from the Aids Quilt, an Elton John record (he was a supporter of gays), a move dealing with gays, and a sticker about accepting gay people. We got these items from teachers, neighbors, libraries, and flea markets.

If I were to do this project again I would plan much better and use my time more efficiently. I would try to find more found art objects to cover the boxes and I would assemble the boxes and objects to look a little less rushed. I would have liked to have found a shirt or pins dealing with my topic.

Some advice for people doing this project in the future is, do not wait until the last minute to find your ten found art items. This may seem like an easy task but it is not. You may have items in mind that you want to use for your project that has been thrown away or an item might not fit the requirements. Another piece of advice is that if your boxes require painting or decorating before the quotes and items go on, you should do it on your own time. There will not be enough time in class to paint and assemble the items.

We are...influenced by the media

The theme of our project was how television impacted daily life and society in general. The objects that we put on our box, as well as the arrangement of the boxes itself, symbolized the different aspects of impact that television had on society.

The least apparent symbol on our project was the arrangement of boxes itself. We arranged our 4 boxes into the shape of a television, and each box contained a different aspect of television and society. The arrangement of the four boxes is similar to that of the infamous show The Brady Bunch. In the show The Brady Bunch, the opening theme show depicted an arrangement of 9 squares, each with a different member of the family.

We also put the characters of Sesame Street in order to symbolize the importance of educational television for children. Shows that were also educational included Scooby-Doo, which was another stuffed animal that we put on our box. These two shows, among many others, including Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, were considered to be educational. While watching the many adventures that occured in these shows, a "lesson" was presented in each episode that would emphasize the importance of a certain topic. For example, Sesame Street decided to promote health, so they made Cookie Monster go on a diet. These shows were important in shaping the ideals of children in the 1970's-1990's.


We put a clock in one of the boxes in order to symbolize 60 Minutes, which was an influential and important news program. Television was one of the primary sources of news for people as society began to move at a quicker pace and people wanted information fast. 60 Minutes was origninally showed during prime time, beginning at 7 o'clock, which is when most families were home and watching TV. Another popular prime time show was Wheel of Fortune, which was a game show that families watched and participated in together. On our box we put a mini Wheel of Fortune game consule to represent the popularity of this show.

Other items on the box included an old TV remote, and old VHS tape, as well as a pair of antennae. These two items were used to symbolize our society's progress in technology. The difference between the remote from the 1970's and the ones that we see today is very prominent. Also, we rarely see television sets that have antennae anymore. Now we have plasma screen TV sets with satellite technology in order to recieve television channels. The level of sophistication is astounding, and it really makes you think and feel greatful for the technology and level of intelligence that we have today in society.

In addition to the items mentioned, we put clothing as the backdrop of our box in order to represent the influence of TV on fashion as well. People were influenced by what the TV celebreties were wearing and as TV fashion evolved, so did the fashion in society. The placement of the clothings, in the back of the box, also symbolizes how the influence and change was noticible, but it wasn't very prominent. Fashion slowly evolved in order to fit in with the trends that television portrayed, thus we placed the clothing in the backdrop of the box.

We also placed two quotes on our box that symbolized the media's influence on society. The 1970's was a time for change. People's traditional ideals about religion, race, gender issues, and family were evolving, and television was no exception to the trend. The famous black comedian Bill Cosby was a prominent entertainer during the time, and his fame showed society's change in attitude towards race issues. Mr. Cosby said "It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful. " This showed that people were becoming more open and accepting of new ideas, and Mr. Cosby's case in specific, they were becoming more accepting of racial differences. Our second quote was a quote from the Sesame Street Workshop, which showed the influence of educational TV on the ideals of society. The quote explained their decision to promote health, thus leading to Cookie Monster's decision to go on a diet. These two quotes show the great change that TV brought upon society.

In order to find our found art, we had to search in the old dusty boxes that are stacked deep within our houses. Many of the items that we found were came upon by pure chance. We talked to our parents and went to our parent's work places to find the objects. For example, the TV antennae/rabbit ears were lent to us by one of our parent's co-workers.

For next year's class, I strongly recomment doing an abundant amount of research about a variety of themes before choosing a topic. Finding the items is not an easy task, and inquiring about borrowing items takes a long time. My advice would be to find your items in advance so you can find items that are meaningful and important to your topic.

We are... influenced by the media

Our Theme was: the influence of TV and the media on society. There was truly a rise of TV shows and different cultural aspects that influenced how people lived out their lives. We wanted to use our boxes to show that different people were influenced by different shows and aspects of TV.

Finding items was difficult--many people did not have many items that they had kept from the 1970s-90 so we decided to use different items symbolically.

1. You might have noticed that the boxes themselves were an item for us. We got out the middle of each of our 4 boxes and stacked them 2x2. This represented TVs as well as the Brady Bunch because in the beginning of the show, the 9 people came on the screen all in separate TVs. The Brady Bunch portrayed issues such as divorce and remarriage that were not usually discussed on TV. It had an impact in making divorce more "acceptable" to society and such.

2. We also had inside of our boxes an elmo, grover, scooby-doo and zoe doll. These dolls represented popular TV shows such as Scooby-Doo and Seasame Street, which were not only entertainment but in the case of Seasame Street, educational as well.

3. The Mickey Mouse Clock represented 60 minutes (the TV show) because it was an influential news program that was very popular during this time period. Many people watched it to get their daily news.

4. The remote we used was from the 70s, and we used it to contrast how different the TV remotes use to be.

5. The mini wheel of fortune was used to represent the popular game show "Wheel of Fortune."

6. We used the TV antennae because that's how people got different show on their TV.

In addition to these items, we also had clothes to represent how TV influenced society. We used them as the backdrop because clothes were an important aspect of the media and people were influenced by what the stars were wearing, but this influence wasn't "in your face" or too obvious. We also had 2 quotes. The quote from Bill Cosby represented how much change was sparked from TV. People talked about more issues such as race, gender, and etc. more openly, and TV rose to new heights, ignoring all previous limits.

For next year's class, I highly recommend doing LOTS of research about different themes and then settling for what you want to do. Items are hard to find, and if you pick a topic/theme that you can't find many items in, it might be better to do something else. I would also advise them NOT to wait until the last minute to get the items because it takes a lot of effort and time to find something meaningful to put on the box.

By Alee