Friday, December 12, 2008
Love in the Telematic Embrace?
I found the article "Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace" by Roy Ascot to be incredibly philosophical. I am not quite sure how to relate the ideas/aesthetic philosophies to my work yet. I am interested in however the idea of the viewer as an active participant rather than a passive recipient in regard to viewing/experiencing a work of art. Ascot explains his theory of the passive viewer (and artist as creator) on page 336. He states " This is the model that has artist as sender and therefore originator of meaning, and the artist as creator and owner of images and ideas, the artist as controller of context and content. It is a model that requires, for its completion, the viewer as, at best, a skilled decoder or interpreter of the artist's "meaning" or, at worst, simply a passive receptacle of such meaning." As a response to this statement I feel somewhat conflicted. On one hand, the idea of viewer as passive "decoder" is depressing. On the other hand, the idea of artist as sole creator seems legitimate. It seems that interactive art calls for a re-negotiation of "power" in the art making process - a sort of socialist view of creating. I don't have a problem with art being interactive, but I also don't have an issue with the artist taking control of his/her project in order to put forth an autonomous creative voice. The article did prompt me however to think about how I might make my work more interactive. In my studio practice I seem to be concerned about the messages my viewer receives via the clues/hints, whatever, I place within my work. This is somewhat unsatisfying to me and I would like the viewer to experience the work in a more free-form way and not be burdened by the task of "decoding" the messages I feel at times obligated to encode. I feel my video piece accomplished this task primarily because it was more straight-forward and immersive for the viewer. I think scale may contribute to this as well. When something is large and overwhelming, one is enveloped by the sheer massiveness and contends with this by succumbing to the "experience." When something is small and precious, we as viewers have the tendency to "look in" on something with scrutiny, as if it were under a magnifying glass. Obviously one experiences a Vermeer painting far differently than they experience the ethereal color fields of a Rothko. This will be something I feel I will contend with, in a positive way, for the duration of my career as an artist.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
On Steve McQueen
I was first introduced to the work of artist, Steve McQueen, last spring when I read the article, The Art of Darkness: On Steve McQueen, by author T.J. Demos. I find McQueen's work to be deeply psychological, evocative, enigmatic, and visually quite powerful. I had the rare opportunity to view one of McQueen's films at the Hirshhorn Museum during the first exhibition of Realisms in the spring and was immediately hooked. I say rare because McQueen's work is often very difficult to find online. The piece was called "Bear" and it was so visually beautiful that I couldn't help but stare up at the projected moving image, enthralled, as I sat on the cold museum floor in the darkness. It was the first time that I had ever seriously contemplated working in new media.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Cat and Mouse
The article titled "Responsive Environments" written by and about the digital artist, Myron W. Krueger, examines the evolution, trajectory, and applications of real-time interactive digital environments. I found the work, and more so the aspirations and philosophies of Krueger to be extremely interesting, despite any logical fallacies and conceptual holes in the work. Krueger is desperately seeking a dialogue and philosophical aesthetic for interactive media. He reiterates that the work is neither about the visual or audial characteristics and displays of the work, but rather the interactivity that the work elicits between "artist" and participant. On page 379, he even outlines that the number of participants should be limited so as to control the amount of interaction that may take place between participants, delineating further that the interaction should take place between artist and participant.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
"Changing Space"
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Recombinant Theater, Plato, and DNA
The chapter title "Recombinant Theater and Digital Resistance" seemed to comprise far too many topics to achieve true comprehension on behalf of the reader. I find that the analog vs. digital dialog however to be quite interesting. The author describes the "analog" as order produced by chaos and the "digital" as order produced by order. The author strives to relate the digital back to the human body by analyzing the visual structure of DNA. Information for the creation and replication of cells in the body is stored in genes that operate using a genetic code. Cells are created via genetic transcription in which the transferring of information (or code) takes place. The parallels to computer technology (mainly code) are unquestionable. DNA would of course correlate with the author's idea of the digital, or order from order. I question the notion of order from order and argue that DNA as well as computer code operates using simply a different kind of "order" and that order and chaos are actually synonymous and indiscernible. The states of order and chaos are dependent on one another for existence in the physical, or even metaphysical world. It is a highly philosophical topic not dissimilar to the idea of "good" and "evil" which also exist in a co-dependent relationship. The author makes an argument for the digital and creates (in my opinion) a hierarchy between the analog and the digital. The analog is relatable to the "hand" or the artist, while the digital is posited as the manifestation of perfection, not unlike the work of a metaphysical grand creator. The digital is mechanical, and repetitious while the analog is unique and prone to flaw. However, the author pointedly examines the correlative relationship the analog and the digital have with class identifications in society.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Intermedia
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Project Proposals
"Balance"
For this film I would like to manipulate time. "Balance" will concern primarily the everyday balance and juggling act I find myself and other women participating in and often time the absence of grace in the process. Women supposedly possess better balance than men though I am not sure whether this trait is inherent. I hope to film this piece in a gymnastics studio. The focus of the film will be on the gymnast's two feet as they curl and bend around the balance beam to hang on during a routine. The piece will be in black and white and will be slowed down to capture every possible nuance of motion and every curl of a toe. I would like the film to be completely silent and grainy in appearance. The final product should be slow, silent and visually beautiful.
I was influenced by Steve McQueen's piece, "Bear" here.
"Reaching"
This film will manipulate reality (the audience may have difficulty discerning whether the actions taking place were staged). The film will be conceptually quite simple. A solitary female figure will sit blindfolded in a chair with her hands tied behind her back. There will be dramatic lighting overhead. This film will also be rendered in black and white to heighten the dramatic effect. The room will be fairly dark save for an overhead light.The woman will stretch her neck to receive the empty offerings of a spoon that is placed near her face. The figure feeding her will never be seen in his entirety. The spoon will grace her face but she will never get the satisfaction of grasping it with her mouth.
I think this may speak to the sadistic undertones of human nature and the yearning for the "ideal"
Project 3
This film will manipulate sound and the idea of storytelling.T he film will be in color. I loved the technique of blacking out the background that was used in "Mother's and Fathers." I would like to have a woman (removed from any background) telling a very private and even painful story to the camera. The woman will get visibly upset throughout the short film, crying and shouting about something very painful that happened to her. However, the audience will hear no sound coming from her mouth. Instead, there will be either a song playing or an alternate dialogue that can either serve as a substitution or a metaphor for what the woman is trying very desperately to tell the audience.
Project 4
This piece will again employ the use of a solitary woman and will also be shot in color. A young woman will sit in a chair and comfortably talk about a childhood story or pleasant memory she holds very dear. The camera will never grace her face. Instead it will pan over her figure slowly, stopping in places for the audience to observe. She will appear as a specimen. The audience should feel uncomfortable at times at the length of the pauses the camera takes. This piece will attempt to employ the viewer as voyeur and will provide commentary on the materialization and compartmentalizing young women are often subject to in the media.
This project coheres nicely with the ideas I am working with in regard to our culture's materialization of the female form (Playboy and the media).
How to make the bridge?
For the past year my work has concerned the female form and feminist theory. The American feminist philosopher, Judith Butler, whose writings on gender performativity, monogamy, and the construct of heterosexuality have greatly influenced the development of my work. (Her book, Gender Trouble, analyzes these issues in depth). I began to examine what roles I perform in my everyday life and what aspects of myself, as a woman, may in fact be inherent. During the same time I was researching Judith Butler, I was exposed to the work of the artist Mary Coble. Coble's work combines performance and video documentation. Her performance piece, "Binding Ritual" inspired me to make "Squeeze," which was part of a portrait series I was working on at the time.
It was apparent that as the decades passed, the image of "woman" and what construes the Playboy Bunny, became more plastic, more cold, and more sexually explicit. As the appearce of flesh diminished along with tan lines, cellulite and freckles, the women became more like hollow statues, not so different than those created by the Greeks centuries ago. So where have we arrived at as a culture? How have we transformed aesthetic ideals into products? The materialization of flesh and the commericalization of the female form ignited my interest in cultural appropriation and how we as a culture find ourselves attracted to and manipulating cultures and ideologies we know nothing about. I have just recently begun comining images of appropriated cultures (embodied by landscapes) and images of women from Playboy publications.
I'm not exactly sure how I will marry my ideas and source material for my work in the studio with the work I am doing in multimedia. I hope to create a correlation between the two, or at least work that supports each other.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
A Season in Hell
Thursday, September 4, 2008
"The Art of Noises"
Monday, September 1, 2008
Runa Islam: "Tuin"
Runa Islam's film titled "Tuin" (1998) recreates an intimate moment between two strangers from Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 film, "Martha." Islam's recreation is captivating and an incredibly effective piece from Realisms at the Hirshhorn Museum. It's easy to stand in the middle of the dark room, hypnotized, watching the footage of the camera dance around the two actors. The strangers approach each other while crossing what appears to be a college campus. As they near their eyes meet and lock while the camera swoops in, spinning around the two actors who exchange a silent intimate moment. It is unclear what the two individuals are thinking as they look intensely at one another. The "movie" footage appears on the screen in color while the actual documenting of the scene appears in black and white, as if to make it appear more factual - like a headline in a newspaper.
Candice Breitz' "Mothers and Fathers"
The piece "Mothers and Fathers," included in the Hirshhorn Museum show, The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image, confronts the pervasive stereotypes that help shape the American "family portrait" you can purchase at Sears for $29.95. What is the identity of "Mother" in modern day culture anyway? Isn't it just a compilation of stimuli you've been choking down since the day you were born and received your first baby doll? The "Mothers" room resonated with me far more than the "Fathers", but perhaps this is because "mother" is a role society eventually expects me to fulfill. The "mothers" of the piece seemed desperate and lonely, whereas the "fathers" seemed insecure and selfish. One "father" repeatedly shouts "what about me?" while another longs for the affirmation that he is indeed a good father to his children. Both rooms buckle at the seems with absurdity, hilarity and frightening discourse.
The effect if achieved via de-contextualizing the dialogue of well known American films such as "Postcards from the Edge," "Mommy Dearest," and "Father of the Bride." Most of the films borrowed from I have seen several times or even own. Breitz extracts various segments, gestures, and exacerbations from the films and removes any background from the scenes to further distance the dialogue from its original context. The actors seem to engage in a disconnected conversation with each other. Some of the most heartfelt and emotional scenes are transformed into a circus of ticks, huffs, and crying spells. What remains are not genuine people we can empathize with, but hollow wooden puppets dangling on a string. Who however, holds the metaphorical string? Who is the grand puppeteer? Is it the artist or the media? Who illuminates whom? The piece obviously exaggerates the stereotypes the media enforces on the public by compiling them all together in an all over assault. However, the artist could be construed as another pawn on the game board, simply re-enforcing what the media has already achieved, albeit much more insidiously.
It is clear that the piece "Mothers and Fathers" renders the actor's emotions and words disingenuous, thus removing any validity to the stereotypes. I walked away from the piece feeling quite negatively about both motherhood and fatherhood. Then again, I feel the same after I watch yet another mind numbing commercial featuring a stressed out parent and their need for stronger paper towels in an increasingly chaotic life (because children are obviously the root of insanity). I suppose my question is, is this piece just as, if not more absurd than the stereotypes perpetuated by the media that we, the American public, encounter on a regular basis? Is it at all enlightening in regard to the role of the media? Or is it simply about deconstructing the modern day myth of "Mother" and "Father?"