WEEK 2: POSTMODERNISM, WAI WEI AND BANKSY

Here are 8 bullet points about postmodernism:

-'Postmodernism' is not easy to define.


-The term is used in philosophy, literature, social sciences and architecture. (but mainly social sciences)


-It's one of those vague academic terms which are really quite open to interpretation and debating amongst people who specialize in the area of social sciences. "Different postmodern thinkers may have different opinions, and people from different fields might have somewhat different definitions of 'postmodernism'" - A. Saugstad


-If modernism is Batman, then postmodernism is the Joker. Batman wants to ensure that there's peace and order and a proper financial infrastructure in Gotham city, whereas the Joker just wants to do as he feels because he believes that anything goes, and that there is no absolute truth, and therefore no actual rules and ethics.


-The above bullet point is actiually too black and white because the 'postmodern is deliberately vague as a concept' (ALVC Textbook)


-"'Postmodernism' is related to 'relativism'. Relativism is the idea that anything goes." - A. Saugstad
So in some aspects of postmodernism, there is a thought that everythiong is relative to one's own perceptions. That is to say that one cannot say with any actual certainty that the sky is actually blue, because 'blue' could be just a perception in one own's mind. So again, the whole thing is really vague.


-There's constructive and de-constructive postmodernism. De-constructive postmodernism is very nihilistic in the sense that it deems everything to be meaningless because everything is relative to the perceptions of the individual. And constructive postmodernism is looking for some way to restore structure and stability by unifying the systematic and machine-like progressions of a modernist society with pre-modern values of divinely wrought truths and cosmic and spiritual philosophies about nature and harmony and things like that.


-Postmodernism introduces the idea of there being no grand narrative. The idea that people are constantly evolving in their own vaccuums, and are forming their own ideas about reality. i.e. a majority of the population believed in god, but postmodernism encouraged plurasim -"A theory that there is more than one basic substance or principle." (Dictionary.com)




SUMMARY OF THE FEATURES OF POSMODERNITY:
society being shaped by the simulations presented through the media, a dominance of pop culture over high culture, no grand narrative-people delevop their perceptions independently and relative to their own perceptions, there's often a fascination with irony and self awareness, and artist became more interested in exploring with new materials and methods, and the process often became more interesting than the result as a finished piece. Post modernity artists were super interested in making statements whenever they could, social, political, etc




THE POSTMODERN ARTIST:

       

“The post- modernist artist is reflexive in that he/ she is self-aware and consciously involved in a process of thinking about him/ herself and society in a deconstructive manner” (Witcombe, C)


I guess in a way we could say that the postmodern artist is very self-absorbed. That is to say that he/she seems to be very interested in expressing their own perceptions about their own perceptions. In a way they seem to be saying something along the lines of: "Hey chicks! Look at me and look at how deep I am, thinking  about our world and our cultural perceptions and stuff. That's why I painted a soup can  because I am really creative and I understand that everything can be turned into an ironic statement about our culture and the progress of humanity , and the fact that everything is relative in our own minds." 




AI WAIWEI'S HAN DYNASTY URN WITH COCA COLA LOGO:





 During his time studying in New York, Ai Waiwei was heavily influenced by the likes of Dada, Duchamp, and Warhol. I guess in this particular piece, we can see how Waiwei may have been channeling a little Warhol in the sense that Warhol liked to use prominent cultural icons in an irreverent fashion, to create quirky subtexts about society.
So Waiwei is perhaps using that playful postmodernist approach to show how traditional chinese culture both clashes and blends with the bold and colourful contrast of western culture, which is in keeping with the postmodern theme of pop culture over high culture. It's showing that no matter what the cultural background and socio-political parameters will be, society will always be influenced by the prevalent pop culture of the times.
I guess this work is also postmodernist in the sense that it's a personal expression. He's essentially expressing his own perspective, which a lot of postmodern art tends to do. Someone like Monet by comparison, wasn't trying to express himself in some quirky way. He was simply trying to capture the feeling of a particular kind of light hitting a courtyard on a summer afternoon, or something like that. Postmodernist artist by contrast, always seem to be trying to express what they think about society in some deep and meaningful, playfully abstract,  and masterfully poetic way.
A lot of Ai Waiwei's work was in fact a personal reaction to the depressed state of China's art community after Tiananmen square.


BANKSY:
This work by by british street artist Banksy is postmodern because it's a statement. It's deep and political and social and stuff.

 “Los Angeles” is also postmodernist because it's also a statement, which is very much in keeping with the postmodernist movement's penchant for making bold statements. There's all sorts of stuff going on here, fast food, consumerism, natural cave man, social critique, etc.

Both the Banksey works pictured above are also postmodern in the sense that they are street art, which means that the process, or in this case the medium, becomes as much a part of the art as the artwork itself. The very placement of it is designed to become part of the statement somehow.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

http://www.banksy.co.uk/

http://www.aiweiwei.com/

http://www.artzinechina.com/display_vol_aid109_en.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/8004485/Ai-Weiwei-and-The-Unilever-Series.html

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov06/Chinese.artist.dea.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htm

WEEK 1: NATHALIE DJURBERK'S CLAYMATION

1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?
'Claymation' is a method of animation. It's the same thing as stop-motion capture with animatronic puppets, except that the puppets are usually sculpted out of clay or plasticine, and are left in a malleable state so that their poses and positions can be changed between each frame. Claymation is preferred by some film makers because clay figures can be more easily animated than animatronic puppets, because their movements and expressions are virtually limitless. i.e one can shape or contort a clay object into almost any form.

2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?
Djuberk's Biennale exhibit portrays a nightmarish version of the Garden of Eden. It's surrealistic in the sense that it's not realistic. It's depicting a vision of what the garden of Eden might look like if one found themselves trapped in it within a nightmare. And it's sculped and assembled in a way which evokes the surrealist paintings of people like Salvador Dali and M.c.Escher ( except for the forced perspectives ) i.e. Everything is crafted in painstaking detail, almost realistically in the sense that individual parts can be recognized for what they are, but completely unrealistic in its entirety, and in terms of the moods it evokes.

And in this Garden of Eden 'all that is natural goes awry' . What this means (probably) is that everything in this garden that looks natural turns into something nightmarish and surrealistic. For example, there are a lot of sculptures of flowers and plants in this exhibit which look natural enough at first glance, but upon closer inspection, turn out to be somehow macabre and nightmarish..... 

..like this grotesque bleeding flower, or whatever it is.

Also, the two naked young women in the video installation, look like they are about to get into a perfectly 'natural' situation of sexual exploration, but things go 'awry' when one of them decides to tear strips of flesh off the other and go into some weird cannibalistic fetish rage-mode.

But then again, the term is somehow inept here, because almost nothing in Djuberg's exhibition actually looks very 'natural' to begin with. Perhaps what is meant is that 'all that is already awry goes even more awry'

3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?
I guess we are confronted with a 'complexity of emotions' in the sense that her work here tends to evoke certain emotions in us which are then overriden almost immedialtely by other kinds of emotions. djurberg's video installations for example, might evoke an initial feeling of wonderment and curiosity in the viewer, which is then closely followed by a sudden revulsion mixed with a bit of shock and awe, like in the above mentioned example of the two naked young ladies.."Oh this looks interesting. I wonder how these innocent looking young girls are going to explore - Oh wait a minute, that's disgusting!!"... This might be a very basic level, but I think there's an underlying sense of conflict permeating this entire exhibition. One is never quite sure what to feel. There's a macabre sense of beauty about the entire display ( I don't actually think that, but I suspect that the artist might claim this) which is mixed with an underlying sense of dread and violence. So one might find themselves conflicted in their emotions regarding this piece. On the one hand hand there's a sense of wonderment and curiosity about this fantastical 'wonderland garden' and on the other there's a palpable sense of impending doom. The sense that everything is about to turn very very hellish.
And also the perversely sexual nature of the narratives in her videos creates conflicting emotions within the viewer. As in :"Aw man, that girl just got severly physically maimed during some weird and brutal sexual torture thing - what the hell am I supposed to think about that.."
It is probably designed to evoke conflicting emotions in the viewer, because he/she does not know how they are supposed to react to it emotionally.
'Through these minutely composed sequences of stop-motion animations, Djurberg toys with society's perceptions of right and wrong, exposing our own innate fears of what we do not understand and illustrating the complexity that arises when we are confronted with these emotions.' (Venice Biennale: Nathalie Djurberg, 2009).

4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?
I'm not sure. Perhaps the medium itself evokes a child-like spirit simply due to the fact that claymation is usually asociated with animated movies for children. And also stylistically her work mimics the aesthetics of a child's imagination in the sense that her figures and characters are designed and sculpted in a very childlike and clumsy manner compared to her more finely crafted plant sculptures. So Djurberg may be playing with the idea of children's stories and the idea of 'innocence' by subconsciously evoking the aesthetics of a children's story type of world, and then putting a perverse twist on it through her macabre narrative and grotesque subject matter.

5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?

I think that most artist are trying to achieve maximum emotional or socio-political impact through their work, and the idea of turning something harmless and innocent into something dark and disturbing can be a very effective tool in shocking audiences, or at least polarizing them, which is probably quite fashionable in the contemporary art world. Also, I think there are a lot of strong aesthetic benefits to this concept, just from a design point of view. There is a general rule of thumb in modern design that the opposite to what is expected is often the correct aesthetic choice, i.e, in horror movies for example the antagonist is often a lot scarier when they are aesthetically 'unscary' or 'innocent'. The little girl in the movie 'The Ring' for example was a lot scarier than an elaborate CGI demon with fangs and horns out of some B-grade creature horror movie, simply because it is somehow unexpected, but at the same time more feasible as well - it has more of a 'what if' factor.

6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?

I think Djurberg's work was chosen for a number of reasons. For one thing, it has a very distinct visual style which makes her work distinctly recognizable as 'Djurberg', which in turn lends itself well to being marketed and promoted under the banner of 'an upcoming new artist', so to speak.

Also, I think her work is very confrontational, which again, lends itself to promotion because it polarizes audiences, thus opening itself up to interesting discussions and debates in the media of the contemporary art community. Basically, the subject matter of her work, and her distinctly unique visual style is perfectly suited for exposure in the art community. And the fact that Djurberg herself is a very attractive young woman would make her a very viable brand name in the art world.

Oh, and I am absolutely not being fascetious here. The fact that her particular style of work is probably very marketable in the contemporary art world is in no way a slight on the artistic merits of her work itself. If anything, it's a confirmation of her talents. I mean, personally I'm not a fan, I'd pick a James Bond movie over a Djurberg exhibit anyday, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate how her work brilliantly ticks all the boxes required to stand out in the highly competitive field of contemporary arts.

7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.
Uhm, I would really rather not. I don't have any expertise in the field of modern art. I mean, I can appreciate a Monet landscape, or an Edward Hopper painting, but this weird esoteric abstract stuff like Djurberg often just strikes me as being 'arty' for the sake of being 'arty', with not too much of an actual concept or idea in there. Real art to me is the design of the metal suit in 'Iron Man' or the trailer for the upcoming 'Assassins Creed-Revelations' game, or the soundtrack for 'Master and Commander'. I look at that kind of stuff and think: "Wow, that is really brilliant and creative." And I look at Djurberg's videos and I think: "Aw geez, I have to write a blog about this?."
In other words, I am, regretfully, just far too ignorant, juvenile and narrow minded to really open myself up to the many brilliant and multi-layered aspects of this type of abstract work, and therefore it is difficult for me to analyze it in any great detail. But I will say that I think Djurberg's work, however grotesque and repulsive, does strike a very deep primal chord within my phsyqe (actually it doesn't) and therefore I deem it to be very succesful and effective in creating a kind of subconscious impact. (Actually I don't, I will have forgotten about Djurberg the minute I finish this blog)

REFERENCES:

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/10/nathalie-djurberg-who-won-the.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Djurberg

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg-experiment-at-venice-art-biennale-09.html
http://www.wexarts.org/ex/?eventid=5289

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WojgB4PL4M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWrPZGgudMM

WEEK 9: MODERNISM AND POST-MODERNISM

1. Outline the intentions of each artist.

I will try to speculate as accurately as I can. Chuck Close has been working exclusively with portraiture for 30 years, and given the interesting style of 'Maggie' I would guess that his intention is to experiment with various visual styles in order to explore some kind of transcendental aesthetic where hyper realism and abstract experimentation come together and party. As for Monet, I think his intentions are much easier to decipher, because Monet liked to paint in 'series' during the more established portion of his career. Within these series Monet would paint the same subject many times over, but at different times of the day, because he wanted to explore how different lighting conditions affected the mood and the colour of a scene. 'Water lillies' is probably his most well known series, and a perfect example of his fascination with lighting and colour. And like most impressionists, Monet was more interested in creating depth and atmosphere through the use of colour and tone, rather than creating depth through accurate rendering of volume and perspective, and fine detail.

And also, according to the New York Museum of Modern Arts' online gallery, Monet 's specific intention in terms of 'meaning' for the 'Water Lillies' was, in his own words, to create " the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank." 

Perhaps Chuck Close shares Monet's aesthetic intentions of creating realism through colour and impression of detail rather than detail itself, because there are certain visual similarities between their works:

                                                  'Woman With a Parasol'  oil on canvas, by
                                                   Claude Monet

                                                   
                                                    'Clinton'  oil on canvas, by Chuck Close

...Okay so these two pictures don't exactly look identical, but in terms of technique and aesthetic, I think that a sharp lawyer could argue that they're in fact, not that far removed from each other in the realms of the fine arts spectrum. Let's look at their individual techniques for example; Monet does not render his objects accurately, i.e. he doesn't recreate realistic details and he doesnt use outlines and fully realized shapes and volumes. Instead he creates the impression of a fully rendered object or scene by covering the canvas in little individual daubs and dabs of colour, arranging them in such a way as to create light, tone, depth, mood, and even shape. So if one were to stick one's face right up to the canvas, Monet's work would look like a non-sensical mess of dabs and splotches. Yet when viewed in its entirety, 'Woman with a Parasol' becomes a beautifully realized scene, with the colours and the lighting giving it, in a way, a level of realism almost beyond photographic, because the impression becomes so vivid, that we can actually feel like we're there, smelling the air, or feeling the sunlight on our skins etc.
And I think that maybe the same can be said of Chuck Close's work as well. Just like Monet, Chuck Close doesn't bother with the accurate illustration of his subject's facial features. Instead he likes to divide his portrait into a grid-like pattern and render them as such. That is to say that he likes to create a realistic impresson of the face by using methods other than straight forward rendering.

"In the 80's he composed faces with coloured and black and white spots, in the 90's he made them of circles of various colours"   -Taken from the State Hermitage Museum's exhibition archive: Chuck Close: Seven Portraits

And these days Close creates works like 'Clinton' by breaking a photograph of the subject down into grid like sections of colour which look strangely mosaic-like and almost digital in a pixelated sort of way. But just like Monet's work, when viewed as a whole his portraits become almost hyper-realistic in the sense that they somehow manage to convey shape, form and lighting almost more convincingly than an immaculately painted Dutch still-life could. In a way then, both Monet and Close deliberately distort reality in order to present reality more vividly.
So to recap their similarities then: Both artists, although capable, are not very interested in faithfully reproducing the details of their subjects, i.e. realistic illustration in a verbatim sort of way. Both artists break their work down into individual units of colour, and both of them also have a very keen interest in creating the 'impression' of form and lighting, as well as the subliminal mood and tone which results from such an approach. And both their works, as a result of this 'pixilated' method of composition, probably have an 'optimal distance' from which to view their work in order to get the full effect.
In fact Close actually places markers in his exhibits to indicate the best viewing distance to the gallery guests viewing his works.

But of course there are also some arbitrary differences in their works. Close for example, likes to paint his portraits on gigantic canvases,often around 4 meters high, probably in part due to the impact generated by such a bombastic canvas, and partly due to the unique style of his 'pixels', which would be very tedious to recreate on an average size canvas. Monet on the other hand, tends to prefer a more reasonable sized canvas, even though he did also create the occasional 4 meter behemoth, one his 'Water Lillies' being one of those.

I guess the main difference betwen the two artists though, is that despite their very stylistic techniques, they tend to deal in very different subject matter. Close deals solely in portraiture. His entire career is comprised of applying his unique aesthetic approach to the exploration of faces - the impact and emotion generated by the presence of his extra large portraits, and whatever mood or feeling a viewer may experience upon seeing his work is a subject which Close is obviously very passionate about.
"I don't think the work was ever as coldly calculated or mechanical as people thought."  -Chuck Close, in 'Chuck Close', an independent video documentary about the artists life and work.

Monet's subject matter on the other hand, is much more varied. Monet seems more interested in the properties of light, colour, and atmosphere as a whole, and the actual subject matter seems somewhat secondary to that - i.e. Monet seems to choose his landscapes because they lend themselves well to his impressionistic explorations of light and colour, and not because just because 'they look picturesque', and would make for a pleasing composition. The same probably goes for whatever he chose to paint on any given day, because the first thing that strikes me when I look at a Monet painting is the way his use of colour and lighting always creates a very vivid atmosphere, one that, like I said before, allows the viewer to kind of experience the actual smell and warmth of the scene. And there is a lot of warmth in Monet's paintings, which is unfortunately very rare in most modern art these days.

Another key difference between their respective works is probably tightness. Despite Close's claims to the contrary, his portraits are clearly very tightly mapped out and calsulated, and the coulour pixels are very carefully arranged to create the desired effect, which is confirmed by his friends and colleagues who all attest to the fact that he puts 'literally hundreds of hours' into his works. Monet's work by comparison, is not so tight, given that extreme tightness is probably not really required to create the effect of sunlight and warmth, whereas it is definetly required to create an accurate portrait of someone using a pattern of 'paint-pixels'.

Personally I really like the work of both these artists. They're both obviously super awesome at what they do, but I would have to say that Monet is probably my favourite, because his landscapes (not to sound like Pearl Harbour-Josh Hartnett) make me feel like the sunlight in his paintings is actually warming my skin, evoking fond memories of warm afternoons spent during my childhood summers in Wyoming, when my best friend Pete and I used to run down to the creek behind old man Jackson's ranch, and we would spend all day looking for the lost pirate gold which we knew was there, even though the O'Hara twins would laugh at us, and tell us that it wasn't. But we knew that they was lyin' 'cause we still had the old treasure map that Pete's dad had drawn for us on my birthday, and Pete's dad used to be a captain on his very own moonshine barge, so he ought to know where there was treausre and where it wasn't. So we dug along that ole creek every day, and we always finished before old man Jackson got back from his fields, 'cause he would get mighty upset if he saw us diggin' around on his property. Sometimes the O'Hara twins would try and con us into stayin' longer, tellin' us that ole Jackson had done broke his leg in the fields, and he that he wouldn't make it back before sundown, but we always knew them girls were lyin'. I sometimes wondered why they did that, tryin' to keep us there longer for no reason other than gettin' us in trouble, and why they would giggle in that awfully peculiar way of theirs, all playful-like.
So one day Pete and I decided to play a little trick on them girls. We hitched a ride into town on the back of Farmer Joe's old pick-up,

WEEK 7: INDUSTRIALISATION AND CAO FEI'S RMB CITY

1. What and when was the Industrial Revolution?


The industrial revolution was an era in which fundamental innovations and technological advancements brought about drastic changes in society, during the late 1700s and most of the 1800s. Social and financial infrastructures were 'revolutionized' because everything was done differently from the way it was being done before because new technologies were now available. As far as I could gather, most of these changes were brought on by agricultural advancements which enabled a greater amount of produce and lifestock to be maintained, enabling a larger workforce to be fed, and thus creating a more productive society, which in turn, led to bigger cities and more advancements in all areas of the human spectrum-technology, society, politics, arts etc. The industrial revolution started in england and soon spread across the globe from there.


UMBERTO BOCCIONI'S 'The City Rises'

The subject matter of this painting is pretty busy, there's a lot of stuff in there. Overall I guess its sort of expressing the tumultous and vibrant nature of man made technology and the animal beast coming together to create dynamic figures on canvas, amongst other things. The people and the beast-like animals (looks like horses i think) are painted in a very dynamic manner, very passionate and colourful and full of movement, all over the page. But the buildings and man made structures are arranged slightly more orderly, and structurely, with proper perspective and stuff, but despite their orderly man made arrangement, they don't seem to detract from the dynamic liveliness of the scene, so I guess Boccioni is showing that the two come together to create something magnificent.

As for the celebration of movement and machines, yeah that's definetly in there. I think the festive colours alone would suggest that. But also the way the figures are just writhing with exuberant motion, and the way the man made structures, or 'the machine' so to speak, is kind of towering over these figures in a fatherly sort of way as if to say "I am a big industrial city full of machines and people made me and i am fond of people and animals and now they can all run around and play within my walls, so we all get along really well around here."

GIACOMO BALA'S 'Dynamism of Dog on a Leash'

The subject matter of this painting seems to a little black poodle on a leash, being held by a short cartoony fat guy. But the legs of both the dog and the owner are a blur because they seem to be moving back and forth really fast, presumably running or walking. So I guess it's a study in movement,or the expressing thereof, which is probably something quite modern for its time because they didn't really have cartoon strips back in 1912, where that sort of thing was prevalent.

I don't really see much of a celebration going on here, maybe it's more of a playful study or experimentaion on the whole movement and machinery thing. What's interesting about this is that this is ,in a way, the forerunner to the'Tom and Jerry' cartoon strips of today. These paintings of literally trying to convey motion through multiplying limbs and blurring, were said to be inspired by the advent of chronophotography during the very early 20th century. So it's kind of a pioneer painting in the sense that artist up to that point hadn't really attempted to capture actual motion on canvas before, and this painting is an experimentation in how to achieve that.


CAO FEI'S 'RMB City'

RMB city is virtual city built by 'China Tracy' in the virtual reality role-playing game 'Second Life'. It consists of various modern/futuristic looking abstract structures to create a weirdly disconcerting dystopian kind of enviroment, interlaced with playful colourful shapes, as well as eerie references to China's traditional history and culture, such as a half submerged stature of Mao, and a weird floating communist flag above the city. There are also a bunch of chinese icons like the Beijing Olympic stadium and a Panda, all coming together in a chaotic mish mash of sorts. The work is generally believed to be a musing on China's recent urban and cultural explosion, maybe western culture replacing communism in an overly excited ejaculation of pent-up wild colours and shapes.

A Utopia is an imaginary society that has perfect socio-political structure, and is basically a vision of an idealized, perfect place to live. A Dystopia is that imaginary society gone bad, sometime in the future. And it has usually gone bad because of the efforts made to create a Utopia.
RMB City is a good example of this because in a way it looks like it could be either of those, or both at the same time. It looks like it could be some kind of city in the future that was created with the idea of trying to create the perfect socio-political structure by making everything super eclectic and free spirited and letting a team of free love-all star hippies design all the buildings and art galleries. And that society has now become a Dystopia because it is simply too chaotic, and good old fashioned ideas like Hollywood action movies are no longer being made because A: there is no longer a financial infrastructure there to make them with, and B: because the studios have now been overrun by China Tracy and her band of abstract installationists and 7-minute short film makers. Now I'm not having a go at abstract installation art or short films here, not at all, I think it's great that they're there for people to (ahem) enjoy. I'm just saying that RMB City doesn't look like a place that I would be comfortable living in- too much of one thing and not enough balance. Hence, a Dystopia that started out as a Utopia because everyone was happy and free and running around expressing themselves. But no one kept the factories and gas stations running, so now there's no food and no more cinemas in RMB city.


5. Although the Modernist paintings and the contemporary digital work have emerged from
different contexts, there are also many similarities. Comment on the similarities that you can see in the work.

Even though the two paintings and RMB city are completely different mediums and frankly, look nothing alike whatsoever, I guess there are nonetheless, a few key similarities. For one thing, they're both fairly innovative, and actually quite grounbreaking in a way, because both paintings as well as MB City are pushing the envelope of their respective mediums , as well as their respective times. 'The City Rises' for example, is quite groundbreaking in the sense that it took Impressionism, which was probably the most modern style of painting at the time, and went one better by combining the stylization of Impressionist rendering and suggestion with an all new stylization of the actual composition and subject matter. I don't know if that makes any sense-what I'm trying to say is that impressionists stylized rendering by not colouring and shading everything out in painstaking detail, but instead came up with a new style that suggested a lot, and conveyed a lot more with fewer brush strokes. And what Boccioni, as well as his contemporary modernists did, was to invent a new style in terms of what they actually painted, and how they arranged on the canvas, again, conveying a lot more with fewer objects.
And Balla and his 'Poodle on leash' painting is also groundbreaking because he stylized movement. That is to say that it was a revolutionary way of conveying movement, because cartoons and animation and such didn't exist in his day, and he must have looked at motion blur or something in a photograph and came up with a way to capture the essence of movement on canvas.
And RMB City is groundbreaking because it is a whole new medium of art- sculpting something interactive in a virtual reality three dimensional space.
 And what ties all this together is that all three instances of breaking new ground here were brought on by the advancement of technology which we can now neatly tie back to the industrial revolution.
All three also share a distinct sense of curiosity that is almost visible in those works. A palpable sense of experimentation.

PIPILOTTI RIST

4. How has Pipilotti Rist used new media/technology to enhance the audience's experience of her work.

She uses all sorts of thigns to create an immersive, and almost interactive experience for the viewer. She uses things like large video screen projections on several walls surrounding the viewer so that he/she has to constantly turn around to try and catch it all, and as a result the viewer sort of gets a different experience every time. And she also uses digital sound effects to create an immersive ambience to with the visceral experience. She basically uses these new technoglogies to create a vivid assault on the senses which a two dimensional painting on canvas for example, cannot really achieve in the same way.

5. Comment on how the installation, sound and scale of 'Ever is Over All' (1997) could impact on the audience's experience of the work.

The whole thing is kind of a sensual bombardment. First of all, it's large, so that the vivid colours and tranquility of the videos is kinda hypnotizing and in your face, and the sound is kind of 'trippy' in a Yoko Ono sort of way, which I think adds to the whole trance like hypnotic experience for the viewer. And the installation itself is very interesting in general, because two moving images are projected simultaneously, perpendicular to each other, and overlapping somewhat. On one side is the weird trance video of the woman walking slo-mo down the street smashing windows and such, and on the other side, sort of butting in, is a tranquil moving image of flowers and fields, so I guess the viewer is kind of watching the narrative of the woman character in the street and her story, but at the same time experiencing a sort of trance-like state of tranquility, floating in a field of flowers and sunlight and timelesness, which I think is actually supposed to reflect the state of mind of the woman in the video. So the viewer is kinda experiencing her actual state of mind or something.

6. Comment on the notion of 'reason' within the content of the video. Is the woman's behaviour reasonable or unreasonable?

Well I for one think that the woman's behaviour is completely unreasonable, and totally unacceptable. In fact, I would have some very strong words for her regarding her conduct. She has absolutely no right to go around destroying other people's property just because she wants to 'express' some feminist free thinking notion about life or materialism or something. If I had a BMW, and she vandalized its windows, and then tried to explain her reasons to me with some liberal Euro-hippie crap, I would be very short with her, that's for sure.

As for the notion of reason within the video, I'm not sure. I don't think there's a clear stance on it in there. I think maybe the video's just saying that there is a certain state of mind within all of us, or at least all women, where reason doesn't really matter. I think the video's narrative is more of 'what if' kind of scenario. What if the outside world actually felt like we feel when we are feeling peaceful and tranquil and flowery inside, and are maybe a little tired of the mundane, and just want to go out there and float or something. I don't know, it's pretty vague, and I think it's meant to be that way. It's meant to be more of a visceral experience rather than an intellectual one. But I'm not sure. I'm a little wary of that woman's character anyway...I'm sure she's lovely, I just think she might key someone's car or something.

7. Comment on your 'reading' (understanding) of the work by discussion the aesthetic (look), experience and the ideologies (ideas, theories) of the work.

I'm not really sure I understand the idealogies of the piece. I think the overall theme here is a kind of feeling one gets. Actually I think from a feel based point of view, it's probably aimed more at women than men. That is to say that it's probably a lot more effective for women than it is for men. I for one would tend to look at this piece and think "Ok, some woman walking around being all arty and rebel-like, yawn, so what?' whereas a woman would probably look at it and go "Oh my god, I have so totally felt like that one time, like, she totally gets me." or something along those lines. I'm not really poking fun here. Well I am, sort of. But only a little bit. I guess what I'm saying here is that I think the work is designed specifically to evoke a certain kind of feeling in women. A feeling that is very free, maybe almost zen-like in the sense that it's a state of mind where nothing petty and materialistic and socialistic matters, because even though one is walking down a bleak and grey street, one is free because one has only sunshine and tranquility on the inside.

So it's kind of a statement about how maybe people have to be more aware that the daily constrictions and stresses of life don't have to get to one as much as they do, because one can have a core of tranquility on the inside. This is conveyed very effectively through the vivid, yet tranquil colours of the flowers and scenery running alongside the street scene, as well as the soothing ( or un-nerving ) soundtrack enveloping the viewer from all sides.

Also, there are a lot of publications out there saying they detect a feminist undertone in the piece, cars being a male symbol and the cop being female and such, but I'm not really sure. I mean yea, there probably is some kind of undertone in there about men being part of the reason she wants to float down the street there and bash windows, and exchange a little Hi five with the femi-nazi cop etc..  I'm guessing most of those cars are owned by men, right? But overall, I think its a visceral experience. (I don't exaclty know what 'visceral' means, I assume it means something like 'not intellect-based' )

PIPILOTTI RIST

DO YOU THINK THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORL VALUES ART WORK THAT USES NEW MEDIA/TECHNOLOGIES OVER TRADITIONAL MEDIA?

Gee I don't know, that's quite a broad question. I guess both have their place. But I would have to say that when it comes to the practical contemporary art world such as the movies, TV, video games, mucis etc, then definetly yes. In those sort of fields, new medias and technologies have become pretty much the staple, and things almost can't be done without them anymore. And it's not just special effects in movies, or sound mixing on albums and soundtracks and stuff like that. Concept art for example, which is pretty much the foundation of any media enterprise these days, almost has to be done digitally these days in order to meet deadlines. I mean concept designs for characters, costumes, etc, can be and are still being done with pen and paper, but proper production paintings which set mood, tone and lighting, pretty much have to be painted digitally these days, because to paint them by hand would take at least ten times longer, and they have to be churned out a dozen a day almost. And the music industry these days relies almost entirely on computers, even if the music itself is recorded tradionally with instruments. And video games , which I would argue is also definetly art, is pretty much a new technology/media in iotself.

But I guess the question above is probably directed more at the world of contemporary fine arts, which is basically a minefield of grey areas.  I think that as it stands, new medias and technologies, which is really only used in installation kind of art, is despite its popularity, still more of an outside niche in the art world. I mean sure we see a lot of it, but after doing seventeen hours of thorough research on the matter, I'm getting the impression that tradionally crafted paintings and sculptures are still the popular majority in the fine arts world.
In fact, in a recent segment about Manhattan fine art in New York business journal, the numbers would suggest that traditional painters and sculptors are about ten million times more popular than installation artists using new media. Now obviously this is an unfair statistic in terms of artistic 'value' amongst the fine arts community because it springs from the notion that a famous painter in Manhattan can develop a following, and turn his paintings into profitable commodities, selling them for several million dollars apiece, whereas an installation artist can't. That is to say that he can develop a following just the same, and snag fairly decent commissions for an installation or two, but he cannot turn the installation itself into a commodity and sell it (at least not in most cases.).

So the study showed that tradional media is definetly more profitable in the contemporary fine arts world, and according to studies, also more popular and more heavily patronized. So I would have to go out on a limb here and guess that at this stage, traditional painting and sculpture is probably still the king of the fine arts world. And Im basing it on the fact that people simply hear about famous contemporary painters more often than they do about famous installation artists. But that can of course all change, because the whole new media/technology/ installation art thing is still a relatively new category in the fine arts field.

(unfortunately I cannot quote the exact title of that New York Business article because I was reading it in a takeaway shop a few years back, pretty sure it was 'The New Yorker' though.)

WEEK 5: Scientific revolution

According to Wikipedia, the scientific revolution was a time around the 17th century when big new ideas about Physics, biology, human anatomy, astronomy, and other sciences were being latched onto by the general population. This of course changed the way people viewed the world a great deal, because it replaced a lot of previous doctrines and superstitions, particularly the governing religious ones of the medieval era. The scientific revolution started in Europe near the end of the Rennaisance era, and continued through to the late 18th century, paving the way for modern science.

The scientific revolution was one of the most important developments in our history because it overthrew the previous itellectual beliefs and philophies of the western world, which were built around the minds of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Galen, and brought in a whole new age of intellectual and spiritual thought. And basically it brought in science and maths, because that's what this whole new area of enlightenment revolved around. It wasn't really a 'let's get rid of the church and put our faith in science' kind of thing- it was more the realization that wether one believes in god or not, the world functions around scientific systems and principles which can be explored and developed.

So we can still see the effectc of the scientific revolution all around us today because without maths and science we wouldn't have television. Or computers and stuff like that.