8.1: Introduction
Introduction
With the advent of the twenty-first century, communication, transportation, and supply chain integration created a truly global world. No one country is isolated from events happening throughout the world. One of the major issues confronting the global population is climate change and its effects on the environment and how people and animals survive. Global warming has changed the climate on the planet as desert areas are hotter and uninhabitable for both humans and animals, arctic regions are melting, and extreme weather events are common. Land and air are polluted by the toxic waste of modern mining, manufacturing, and other industries. Some industries contribute to deforestation as forests in the Amazon or Indonesia are cleared for commercial agriculture. No other civilization had interfered with nature and the environment as current civilizations. These issues have also changed how many artists work who now use modern waste materials for their art, recycling the waste they found.
The new millennium brought multiple inventions into our lives, changing how we live. Nanotechnology and miniaturization allowed the computer industry to create smaller devices and technology into everything, including our refrigerators. The iPhone brought worldwide communications to everyone. Some countries did not have any phone systems, especially in rural areas. The portable, satellite-based phone gave everyone the potential to talk and search the world's information. Space exploration expanded with the International Space Station, missions landing on Mars, or personal rockets carrying ordinary citizens into space. Thousands of satellites roam through space, delivering the internet and social media, tracking weather, or mapping the changes to the earth. The discovery of human genomes led to transformational innovation in genetics and medicine. These inventions brought changes worldwide.
At the beginning of the year 2000, significant social changes occurred. Women gained more rights in different countries, and over the last twenty years, the number of female leaders in the world has doubled. Many countries have given women far more rights and equality, including the ability to earn equal wages. Unfortunately, women still have few rights in some places, live in poverty, and suffer physical and mental abuse. The fight for equality also helped the rise of female artists throughout the world and their breakthrough into the art markets. Same-sex marriage also became a legal concept in a growing number of countries. Terrorism continues to be a problem throughout the world, either individual terrorists' actions or country-on-country incursions.
Contemporary Architectural Materials
Contemporary architecture embraced natural light, open interiors, natural features, and eco-friendly materials. Designs might be asymmetric, have cantilevered sections, or large planes of glass and aluminum. These requirements lead to creative inventiveness for materials to support the new designs. Cement is an essential part of the materials for buildings, and the unusual shapes and need for support brought new types of fast-drying and self-healing cement. If water enters a crack in the cement, bacteria is reactivated, mixes with the cement, and excretes material to heal the crack. Bamboo is a renewable resource, a strong and resilient material used in many buildings. Aluminum is made with new technology and appears as glass yet maintains the strength of steel. Some companies are making bricks that absorb air pollution and are strong. Other materials are made from recycled wood or steel materials, reducing the impact on the environment.
Contemporary African Art Medium
Contemporary African Art is, by its very nature, fluid, self-motivated, and resists classification. [1] Art in Africa is not based on a singular concept, as art is created from local circumstantial parameters throughout the continent. Some artists have never left their country, while others have traveled and been educated in different methods. Each artist's journey into and through the art world is different, and the medium they use is as varied as the artists themselves. As different countries became independent from their colonial masters, artists were also released from traditional European painting styles. They also had to adjust to the effects of globalization on their environments. In many African countries, recycled materials became a significant art medium, allowing artists to create unique concepts based on the pollution of the twenty-first century. They produced a unique art form.
Contemporary Figurative Art Concepts
Photography captured the figure in its perfect form, rendering the exactness of the eye of the camera. The new contemporary figures now used the body in exaggeration, creating some parts overextended, extra-large, or disjointed yet portraying the body in a realistic setting. They used the body set in the form of what it might feel like in a situation instead of what it looked like. The figure may not exist in the painted image; however, the artist is depicting a narrative of what might happen the emotions the figure brings to the artwork. The works might be contradictory, depicting different expressions for experimentation. The contemporary figurative artists create a sense of existence itself, the feelings of identity, and the political events around the world.
[1] Retrieved from https://www.contemporary-african-art...rican-art.html