Christopher Baker and Claire Lieberman

Christopher Baker, a Chicago based artist and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s work “Hello World!  Or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise” is currently on display at the Krannert Art Museum and combines more than 5,000 video diary entries into one display. You can’t understand all the voices individually, and if you step back far enough, you can’t even see clearly who the people are. These days, Baker says, it’s easy to get lost in that shuffle, to be drowned out by the noise. Should we accept that, or rebel against it? For the first half of this hour on Focus, we’ll talk with Baker about his art, his video diary project and a little about the history of YouTube.

Then during the second half of this episode of Focus, host Jim Meadows talks with Illinois State University’s Claire Lieberman. She teaches sculpture and is preparing for an expedition to the North Pole to observe the landscape and most importantly, the ice and what it looks like as its melting. She’ll spend about 2 weeks on a ship with scientists, climatologists and we’ll talk with her about the trip, how she’s preparing for it and what she hopes to discover while she’s there. 

Have you gone to what seems like the ends of the earth seeking inspiration? Where did you go? What did you do? We’d love to hear from you this hour on Focus!