check out my other blog......you'll like it...you'll laugh....i swear
http://sosecureithurts.blogspot.com/
5/1/07
why "under the rug"
“under the rug” is about the challenges of living a “controversial” life. It’s about the willingness for families, no matter how well meaning, to choose denial over truth, idealized visions over reality, comfort zones over places of value that must be worked toward to be earned. It’s about our willingness to censor ourselves and each other for the sake of ease or status quo.
If I don’t discuss my transgendered body with my family, then it doesn’t have to exist if they don’t want it to. I choose not to discuss it with them because the alternative seems too challenging, too painful. They choose not to discuss it because they don’t want other people to know and don’t understand or support my decisions. The result is limited contact, limited conversation, limited time and energy, and limits on our understanding and love for each other. Things left unsaid become a huge lump under a family rug that can’t be walked over. But it certainly gets walked around.
If I don’t discuss my transgendered body with my family, then it doesn’t have to exist if they don’t want it to. I choose not to discuss it with them because the alternative seems too challenging, too painful. They choose not to discuss it because they don’t want other people to know and don’t understand or support my decisions. The result is limited contact, limited conversation, limited time and energy, and limits on our understanding and love for each other. Things left unsaid become a huge lump under a family rug that can’t be walked over. But it certainly gets walked around.
bader video
i LOVED this video! i thought it was profound and smart and beautiful. i'm suprised that this actually functions in 4 separate parts because the first three portions are so lovely together. the last part felt so different that it seems very right that it's separate.
i loved the way that this video goes between footage of the artist in the gallery to footage she took in palastine to footage of her mother and then to the dance. so much about this video was about levels of remove. like the artist from her home in scottland and how she became a refugee of sorts when her parents wanted to move back to the middle east and how that separates her. there's the movement of her parents from their homes to become refugees in scottland. there's the distance created by her inability to speak arabic and the communication barrier that that creates with other members of her family.
and all of this gets played with in the structure of the video. i just kept thinking about the movement between where we see her sitting in the gallery (and how that cube has its own level of remove) to seeing the person she's interviewing but not her...everybody is separtated by the physicallity of the way the thing is shot and the way that the video is constructed. their stories are so interconnected with similar experience but the cultural differences within this family are caused by circumstances they couldn't control....if she wanted us to get how walls and travel and language and time separates people, she definitely captured it.
i really feel like i could ramble on and on about why i thought the structure was so amazing....but i'll just end by saying that i'd really like to watch it again
i loved the way that this video goes between footage of the artist in the gallery to footage she took in palastine to footage of her mother and then to the dance. so much about this video was about levels of remove. like the artist from her home in scottland and how she became a refugee of sorts when her parents wanted to move back to the middle east and how that separates her. there's the movement of her parents from their homes to become refugees in scottland. there's the distance created by her inability to speak arabic and the communication barrier that that creates with other members of her family.
and all of this gets played with in the structure of the video. i just kept thinking about the movement between where we see her sitting in the gallery (and how that cube has its own level of remove) to seeing the person she's interviewing but not her...everybody is separtated by the physicallity of the way the thing is shot and the way that the video is constructed. their stories are so interconnected with similar experience but the cultural differences within this family are caused by circumstances they couldn't control....if she wanted us to get how walls and travel and language and time separates people, she definitely captured it.
i really feel like i could ramble on and on about why i thought the structure was so amazing....but i'll just end by saying that i'd really like to watch it again
new media?
Jack Burnham wrote, "conceptual art's ideal medium is telepathy."
I LOVE THIS! totally amazing and potentially totally true
i really like the angle from which this article approaches new media. we struggle to define ourselves in the time in which we live...and i think this author's attitude about looking at both the semantics and slippery territory of new media through the lens of history is a good approach.
i'd never heard the term opositional media before. i'm glad we've moved away from that term. funny how we always seem to put new categories and thing that we don't have good words for into a more negative space. time based and performative art were of course radical ideas in the 70s, and they also seem to me to be sensible reactions to the high modernism that folks like greenberg put in place. with all this essence of painting and flatness and purity and relegation of what media should do best, it's really little wonder that people either rejected this by doing with those media exactly what "they shouldn't" or that they should embrace new technology altogether.
i really like the discussion of video here and what it potentially was. this section reminds me of the things that people say about digital photography and even photography's early history when people were (and i suppose in some ways still are) trying to figure out if it had a place in art at all.
i also found the discussion about where the terms come from and where they might be heading to be really interesting. there are days that i think of myself as either a multimedia or potentially new media artist....and it's funny when these things just boil down to semantics or "place holders"....
"it is a place holder, but not because we lack better terms. Lunenfeld is not admitting the accuracy of "new media" to indicate a certain location between experimentation and art, where once oppositional and marginal practices lapse into organized, dominant ones. When better terms are devised by curators and specialists, the term new media may indeed be dropped; it might also reappear in reference to other unorganized, experimental practices just appearing on the art world's radar screen."....i think the idea that new media might exist between experimentation and art captures the whole attitude about new technology....we have to label it in order to talk about it....new things mean new words and a period of akwardness until we have them (if ever)...so it seems that this article is saying that what's new about new media is exactly what derrida suggests (ps he's my hero)....that we can't see it, can't label it...and so it's new only until we are able to put words to what we see. is it really artistic experimentation or just a further confounding of what we understand to be art at this moment?
I LOVE THIS! totally amazing and potentially totally true
i really like the angle from which this article approaches new media. we struggle to define ourselves in the time in which we live...and i think this author's attitude about looking at both the semantics and slippery territory of new media through the lens of history is a good approach.
i'd never heard the term opositional media before. i'm glad we've moved away from that term. funny how we always seem to put new categories and thing that we don't have good words for into a more negative space. time based and performative art were of course radical ideas in the 70s, and they also seem to me to be sensible reactions to the high modernism that folks like greenberg put in place. with all this essence of painting and flatness and purity and relegation of what media should do best, it's really little wonder that people either rejected this by doing with those media exactly what "they shouldn't" or that they should embrace new technology altogether.
i really like the discussion of video here and what it potentially was. this section reminds me of the things that people say about digital photography and even photography's early history when people were (and i suppose in some ways still are) trying to figure out if it had a place in art at all.
i also found the discussion about where the terms come from and where they might be heading to be really interesting. there are days that i think of myself as either a multimedia or potentially new media artist....and it's funny when these things just boil down to semantics or "place holders"....
"it is a place holder, but not because we lack better terms. Lunenfeld is not admitting the accuracy of "new media" to indicate a certain location between experimentation and art, where once oppositional and marginal practices lapse into organized, dominant ones. When better terms are devised by curators and specialists, the term new media may indeed be dropped; it might also reappear in reference to other unorganized, experimental practices just appearing on the art world's radar screen."....i think the idea that new media might exist between experimentation and art captures the whole attitude about new technology....we have to label it in order to talk about it....new things mean new words and a period of akwardness until we have them (if ever)...so it seems that this article is saying that what's new about new media is exactly what derrida suggests (ps he's my hero)....that we can't see it, can't label it...and so it's new only until we are able to put words to what we see. is it really artistic experimentation or just a further confounding of what we understand to be art at this moment?
copy right
so i can honestly say that i believe the principles behind the notion of anti copyright...it makes total sense to me that privatizing language and images could conceivably hinder new ideas and creativity and that it could manufacture places of privilege around those things. language already is problematic and privilege based in the first place. things that are not white, straight, male are outside the normative base of language and are often outside of description. that which is outside of language is often shameful and difficult. why add to the problems that already exist by putting limits on who owns certain language?
i like the recognition that as artists we are all participating in recontextualizing and recombining ideas to create something new. it seems that thinking this through is easier in a more abstract way. i think most of us as artists are more interested in having our work seen and our message or skill to be out in the world, but the necessity of paying bills and in wanting to stake a claim on intellectual property may keep us participating in the market of it all.
i think it's a difficult call. there's a lot to be said for not being worried about reproductions. but i also think that becomes about how you see your work functioning in the world. if you want to be an institutional artist and work with curators and galleries, you can't. There are tons of issues over editioning work and not make lots of copies and knowing where all the editions are that play into the "market" value of person's work.
i mostly don't' worry about it for myself. i want my message out, but i also want control over what part of my work is constructed in that way. i hesitated about posting my video to youtube. i think that youtube is entertainment for the most part and that people don't take what's on there seriously. and i didn't want a video that i intend to remake into something better floating around for people to just grab.
but maybe that doesn't' really matter if it's about audience. i want people to understand what i'm talking about. i don't' want to be limited to a gallery setting or a queer space to be able to get my thoughts across. so maybe a more public venue like the web makes sense (though we should all acknowledge that there is a certain amount of privilege of access surrounding the internet).
this was a good article to look at because i think as long as we are a part of a capitalist system and the art object can be bought and sold like a commodity, this will be an issue.
i like the recognition that as artists we are all participating in recontextualizing and recombining ideas to create something new. it seems that thinking this through is easier in a more abstract way. i think most of us as artists are more interested in having our work seen and our message or skill to be out in the world, but the necessity of paying bills and in wanting to stake a claim on intellectual property may keep us participating in the market of it all.
i think it's a difficult call. there's a lot to be said for not being worried about reproductions. but i also think that becomes about how you see your work functioning in the world. if you want to be an institutional artist and work with curators and galleries, you can't. There are tons of issues over editioning work and not make lots of copies and knowing where all the editions are that play into the "market" value of person's work.
i mostly don't' worry about it for myself. i want my message out, but i also want control over what part of my work is constructed in that way. i hesitated about posting my video to youtube. i think that youtube is entertainment for the most part and that people don't take what's on there seriously. and i didn't want a video that i intend to remake into something better floating around for people to just grab.
but maybe that doesn't' really matter if it's about audience. i want people to understand what i'm talking about. i don't' want to be limited to a gallery setting or a queer space to be able to get my thoughts across. so maybe a more public venue like the web makes sense (though we should all acknowledge that there is a certain amount of privilege of access surrounding the internet).
this was a good article to look at because i think as long as we are a part of a capitalist system and the art object can be bought and sold like a commodity, this will be an issue.
i'm reading simone de beauvoir
so there were things i really liked about this video and some things that i really disliked
i really liked her inspiration for this piece and her use of the beauvoir readings. i thought her intertwining of her life and beauvoir's was well done and a really solid way to discuss her understanding of what she was reading. i think it creates an believable entrypoint into the work and a solid dialog through filters she creates in the work: beauvoir's words to beauvoir's life to her words and life. this of course opens a third set of dialogs with what the viewer may bring and understand.
the end where she is making that huge drawing really stands out, especially after the time that has passed. i really liked that part a lot. i liked the idea of her drawing herself in that huge space and that we get to watch her draw and redraw that image. i remember thinking at the time that that segment was the part i wanted to watch again, and wanted to think about in terms of what she was saying and reading.
the problems for me come in some of the images she used and some of the framing. i seem to remember her putting roses in a vase at one point...and it seemed really cheesy...and not in a good way....the domestic scenery seemed a little much and i also remember strongly disliking the way that we transistioned into where she is making the huge drawing. i remember it as passing through a mirror or a picture frame...either way i didn't like it...i thought it was too easy and a bit cliche....honestly i though she had such strong footage that was brought down by the sentimetalized way that she framed a lot of it....the domestic stuff was just overkill in a lot of places.
i really liked her inspiration for this piece and her use of the beauvoir readings. i thought her intertwining of her life and beauvoir's was well done and a really solid way to discuss her understanding of what she was reading. i think it creates an believable entrypoint into the work and a solid dialog through filters she creates in the work: beauvoir's words to beauvoir's life to her words and life. this of course opens a third set of dialogs with what the viewer may bring and understand.
the end where she is making that huge drawing really stands out, especially after the time that has passed. i really liked that part a lot. i liked the idea of her drawing herself in that huge space and that we get to watch her draw and redraw that image. i remember thinking at the time that that segment was the part i wanted to watch again, and wanted to think about in terms of what she was saying and reading.
the problems for me come in some of the images she used and some of the framing. i seem to remember her putting roses in a vase at one point...and it seemed really cheesy...and not in a good way....the domestic scenery seemed a little much and i also remember strongly disliking the way that we transistioned into where she is making the huge drawing. i remember it as passing through a mirror or a picture frame...either way i didn't like it...i thought it was too easy and a bit cliche....honestly i though she had such strong footage that was brought down by the sentimetalized way that she framed a lot of it....the domestic stuff was just overkill in a lot of places.
3/28/07
video proposal
so i'm starting over and trying to do something much simplier that i had originally thought about for this class...so i'm working on this idea of communication breakdown by our overwillingness to just live in denial....the idea is to take the notion of sweeping things under the rug and have that play out....i'm currently shooting video of myself sweeping objects under rugs in different rooms of my house...and i'm also working on photographs and video of someone sweeping me under a rug...a lot of which will be from the point of view of the objects as they are being swept under the rug....i feel that the still imagery will come from the video itself and will function as stops or breaks in motion or as a way to slow the motion down and place emphasis on the action of broom.....i think it should function like looping video rather than a video with a beginning middle and end...i'm struggling with the sound....presently it is probably just going to be sweeping sounds.
3/5/07
new artist statment
so i just spent the last two hours doing lgbt 101 for a couple of campus English classes with one of my friends from wingspan....and the nice thing about this is that usually when i do something like this, i generally have a lot to think about and write about after it's over. today was no exception to that. i've been struggling to write an artist statement for my work since last semester, and i kept stumbling around it all. i did a very bare bones one at the beginning of the semster, and it has helped to solidify what issues i wanted to bring to the table about my art. so between yesterday and today's panels, i finally found a place to speak from, and i thought i would share it.
Leonard Cohen once wrote: “The body I chased, it chased me as well.” He was speaking about love when he wrote this , but I find it to be a thought that is easily applicable to my life and my art.
As a transsexual man, I am constantly chasing and reaching this idea of body over and over again. With each step into transition, I reach a new level of body that I am comfortable with and simultaneously reach for the next level of comfort in the space that I occupy.
I am also chased by my choices in persuit of my own understanding and realization of myself. I chase and am chased by a lack of communication with my parents and family. I chase and am chased by the decision to reveal (or not) myself to others. I chase and am chased by intimacy (or a lack thereof). I chase and am chased by responsibility, to the lgbt community, to activism, to family, to me.
And in my artistic life, I chase expression. I want people to get a glimpse at what it means to live a transgendered life in a society where that isn’t embraced. I want people to begin to understand how gender, sex, and difference function in my life and maybe then in their own. I want to be voice in the chorus of voices that have always been and are now beginning to break through to the mainstream. I don’t want my work to be about talk show mentality or voyeurism. I want to share my life and share what it means to be human as I understand it.
It can be about paint, or photographs, or performance, or subversive acts. It is all one in the same. The work comes from daily experience and activism. It comes from a need to share and be - in the best and most honest way I know how – a man. It comes from my daily chasing of life.
Leonard Cohen once wrote: “The body I chased, it chased me as well.” He was speaking about love when he wrote this , but I find it to be a thought that is easily applicable to my life and my art.
As a transsexual man, I am constantly chasing and reaching this idea of body over and over again. With each step into transition, I reach a new level of body that I am comfortable with and simultaneously reach for the next level of comfort in the space that I occupy.
I am also chased by my choices in persuit of my own understanding and realization of myself. I chase and am chased by a lack of communication with my parents and family. I chase and am chased by the decision to reveal (or not) myself to others. I chase and am chased by intimacy (or a lack thereof). I chase and am chased by responsibility, to the lgbt community, to activism, to family, to me.
And in my artistic life, I chase expression. I want people to get a glimpse at what it means to live a transgendered life in a society where that isn’t embraced. I want people to begin to understand how gender, sex, and difference function in my life and maybe then in their own. I want to be voice in the chorus of voices that have always been and are now beginning to break through to the mainstream. I don’t want my work to be about talk show mentality or voyeurism. I want to share my life and share what it means to be human as I understand it.
It can be about paint, or photographs, or performance, or subversive acts. It is all one in the same. The work comes from daily experience and activism. It comes from a need to share and be - in the best and most honest way I know how – a man. It comes from my daily chasing of life.
2/21/07
do you do real photography??
So it's fair to say that, at least in my life, the argument of digital over analog photography has not gone away. It is interesting to talk to people who come in and out of the ccp during printviewing. Many people have set notions about what photography is, and digital processing doesn't seem to qualify to a lot of folks. What seems to resonate with most people is that issue of it being too easily manipulated and untrust worthy. And just as often I hear people say they think it's too easy. I got that a lot as a graphic designer. "Well, doesn't the computer just do it?" A lot of people still live under the assumption that a computer does things beyond what a person is capible of rather than just recognizing the computer as a tool. I think this attitude carries over into digital photography.
There is one person in particular in my life whose favorite question to ask me is if i've actually started doing real photography. He blames the University for being too conceptual and for being uninterested in craft as the reason for (at least in his mind) all the grads using digital and turning out junk that we can rationalize as art. I know that's really several issues in one, but a lot of his arguments with me is that i can't call myself a photographer until i know and produce more traditonal photographs. he hates it when i engage him only by saying that i like using digital better and that i feel that he is simply unwilling to concede that digital can be looked at as another facet of photography and that it is on equal footing with traditional processes.
I love his use of the word real. it's exactly the same idea that mitchel pushes in this notion of what is normal photographic perception and practice. i dare say that my real asking friend would agree about this normal notion. So why isn't a photo legitimate if i didn't use chemicals or film? i havent' done a lot of traditional photography, and i didn't love the process or the darkroom. frankly i HATE the idea of film closets and having to do things in small dark rooms. why would i want to do something that makes me claustrophobic? or creeped out? or that i can't do at my house? so maybe those aren't great arguments but i really get a kick out of learning new programs and always have. Doing photography and design in a computer environment feels more natural to me and holds a lot less guesswork in the end. It seems like to me that its easy to have things go terribly and have things i can't fix in a traditional darkroom, where i can just start over and not have lost everything i started with in the digital darkroom. Traditional processes feel as if they have too many varibles and digi doesn't feel that way at all. I don't feel as though i'm less of an artist because i don't do traditional. i did at first to be honest which is what got me in the darkroom in the first place, but now i just realize i was buying the attitude without having figured out how i felt about any of it.
and then there's my favorite argument about what's wrong with digital. i have a person in my life who can rant for hours about the horrible look of pixels. She hates the squares! somehow the round film grains and chemical clouds are far superior. And according to her, digital photos always have undesirable noise that film photos don't. um what? why is film grain better? who cares if the dots that make up your image are round or square?
i'm not suprised that people are suspecious of digital and of the technology. we all hate change on a certian level, and i think that this is just a fine example of that. older is better. if it ain't broke don't fix it. etc etc. do i buy that there's backlash against digital? sure. do i think there will always be? no. and do i think digital will totaly destroy traditional processes? no. if anything the backlash will just keep those processes around longer or revitalize a love for the idea and use of those processes. we are in a special place of watching media converge and movements in art be created. i personally am happy to hang on for the ride. but i'll stick with my computer to make photographs while i watch.
There is one person in particular in my life whose favorite question to ask me is if i've actually started doing real photography. He blames the University for being too conceptual and for being uninterested in craft as the reason for (at least in his mind) all the grads using digital and turning out junk that we can rationalize as art. I know that's really several issues in one, but a lot of his arguments with me is that i can't call myself a photographer until i know and produce more traditonal photographs. he hates it when i engage him only by saying that i like using digital better and that i feel that he is simply unwilling to concede that digital can be looked at as another facet of photography and that it is on equal footing with traditional processes.
I love his use of the word real. it's exactly the same idea that mitchel pushes in this notion of what is normal photographic perception and practice. i dare say that my real asking friend would agree about this normal notion. So why isn't a photo legitimate if i didn't use chemicals or film? i havent' done a lot of traditional photography, and i didn't love the process or the darkroom. frankly i HATE the idea of film closets and having to do things in small dark rooms. why would i want to do something that makes me claustrophobic? or creeped out? or that i can't do at my house? so maybe those aren't great arguments but i really get a kick out of learning new programs and always have. Doing photography and design in a computer environment feels more natural to me and holds a lot less guesswork in the end. It seems like to me that its easy to have things go terribly and have things i can't fix in a traditional darkroom, where i can just start over and not have lost everything i started with in the digital darkroom. Traditional processes feel as if they have too many varibles and digi doesn't feel that way at all. I don't feel as though i'm less of an artist because i don't do traditional. i did at first to be honest which is what got me in the darkroom in the first place, but now i just realize i was buying the attitude without having figured out how i felt about any of it.
and then there's my favorite argument about what's wrong with digital. i have a person in my life who can rant for hours about the horrible look of pixels. She hates the squares! somehow the round film grains and chemical clouds are far superior. And according to her, digital photos always have undesirable noise that film photos don't. um what? why is film grain better? who cares if the dots that make up your image are round or square?
i'm not suprised that people are suspecious of digital and of the technology. we all hate change on a certian level, and i think that this is just a fine example of that. older is better. if it ain't broke don't fix it. etc etc. do i buy that there's backlash against digital? sure. do i think there will always be? no. and do i think digital will totaly destroy traditional processes? no. if anything the backlash will just keep those processes around longer or revitalize a love for the idea and use of those processes. we are in a special place of watching media converge and movements in art be created. i personally am happy to hang on for the ride. but i'll stick with my computer to make photographs while i watch.
1/31/07
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
"We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
this is such an interesting way to begin this article, especially if you are evaulating these ideas in terms of digital. digital now is doing exactly what this quote says. there is such a firestorm in the photoworld about which is better, more authentic, more truly art, traditional or digital process. digital is the great innovation that is challenging our notions of what photography is and can be. digital technology is challeging traditional notions of media and medium and how those things relate to the "art" of an object and it's relationship to the process and the concept of an original. we are in this flux right now. personally i think this is a great thing. if we aren't challenging the notions are art and media and all those things then perhaps we are asleep as artists....
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership."
why does this matter according to this article?
• The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.
• The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.
• Essentially object autority rests on the existence of a varifiable original
The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition, ie the object’s “aura”
this is a fundimental consideration of conceptual art in the first place. where does the authentic experience that an artist is trying to convey exist? is it in the object? is it the object just a middle man? is it about process? and this writer's idea seems to link the value of an object as a reproduction ininstricably to it's original. digital technology makes the endless reproduction possible. and those reproductions aren't just "reproductions" but exact duplicates of the thing itself. so does the value of any of these things shift when we cannot see or could possibly even confuse a digital copy of a photo from its digitally created original? it begs the question of both aura and authenticity. do either of these things exist or matter in terms of consumption by a viewer? or is it about my initial photo because my experienctial link to it makes that first digital file greater somehow? more authentic? i have no idea. my general thought on this is that it doesn't matter at all where video art or digital images are concerned. of course a hand painted reproduction of a painting is different, just as a photo of a painting just isn't the same. offset printed versions of traditional b&w photos are different from the originals. to me that's not about the artist's experience but rather about changing media and about how the audience gets to view the material especially if that viewing is outside of the artist's intent in the first place.
" In the same way today, by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental. This
much is certain: today photography and the film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function.
In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance. It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the
cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face."
so photos must have people in them to contain an aura and therefore be high art? facinating. it's about the object represented or i guess in this case the link to "tradition" ie humanity by direct reference? again, facinating. I'm way too much into the intent of the artist and the concept behind any art object to buy this argument. but it is interesting to think about.
"What matters is that the part is acted not for an audience but for a mechanical contrivance = no aura = no authentic experience because of disconnect between artist/object and audience"
how do you determine whe this disconnect occurs? as an artist am i supposed to evaluate this and somehow figure out how to overcome this problem? or maybe this has nothing to do with the potential fault of new media and is rather about the artist's inablity to choose the best media for his/her idea to come across. did that duplicate of my digital photo that looks exactly the same not resonate with my audience because they are getting a minupulated copy rather than my original raw file? or is it really about the disconnect is individual to audience members and individual to my ability to express what i needed to express in that image? hmmmm
“letters to the editor.” = Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer."
i totally love this comment. it's such an early thought on some of the problems we have with convergence culture. where does it end? if you have an audience for your videos or photos or writings online are you in fact an artist in that realm? are you just a hack because of the format? are you just looking at media as utilitarian and somehow deminishing it? it's sorta like the argument that everybody thinks they are a photographer if they pick up a point and shoot and suddenly have photos that look okay......
"Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance
from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art."
so he's married to the idea of photograph as truth. why is that picture more "true" to reality than painting? the photographer framed the photo and had some sort of intent for his viewers. tricks of light and happy accidents in the darkroom can also change the way that cut into reality is represented to us.
there are huge arguments in philosophy about the nature of reality and if it is even possible for us to ever be sure that what we percieve is anythign like reality. There is scenario that (Kant?) posits that comments on this idea. He says suppose an elephant is killed and divided among groups of people who have never seen an elephant. would they look at the foot and somehow manage to guess the entire beast based on this single view or would they guess about it based on what they already know. Kant's arguement of course is that with no way of seeing an elephant whole that the people would inevidably have different interpretations of what the whole thing was and looked like. it would be their reality based on what they saw but it wouldnt' be the real thing. it's arguable that photos are exactly like this. if you've ever tried to figure out how to photograph something to convey just the idea of a place or thing for someone who has never seen it, you feel like you could never take enough photos to get the idea across. i've certianly felt that way. so i ramble about whether i buy the idea of photo as truth. it's arguably the artist's truth..but what does that mean for me as a viewer?
"Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art."
so why is this a bad thing? why do we always want to assume that somehow greater audience means less meaningful, less thoughtful art? kitsch or avant-garde? ivory tower or mass consumption? why does artistic merritt have to be degraded by its ability to be digested when we often want to communicate well as well as uniquely? we talk often about the democritization of art as a good thing. why do we have to go through all these contortions over the media and it's accessiblity and what that means for a piece of work? and its interesting to watch digital media be processed through these concerns and through a traditional lens. we wind up assessing, resisiting, then reassessing with each new technology. maybe art is just the ultimate example of our resistance to change.
this is such an interesting way to begin this article, especially if you are evaulating these ideas in terms of digital. digital now is doing exactly what this quote says. there is such a firestorm in the photoworld about which is better, more authentic, more truly art, traditional or digital process. digital is the great innovation that is challenging our notions of what photography is and can be. digital technology is challeging traditional notions of media and medium and how those things relate to the "art" of an object and it's relationship to the process and the concept of an original. we are in this flux right now. personally i think this is a great thing. if we aren't challenging the notions are art and media and all those things then perhaps we are asleep as artists....
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership."
why does this matter according to this article?
• The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.
• The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.
• Essentially object autority rests on the existence of a varifiable original
The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition, ie the object’s “aura”
this is a fundimental consideration of conceptual art in the first place. where does the authentic experience that an artist is trying to convey exist? is it in the object? is it the object just a middle man? is it about process? and this writer's idea seems to link the value of an object as a reproduction ininstricably to it's original. digital technology makes the endless reproduction possible. and those reproductions aren't just "reproductions" but exact duplicates of the thing itself. so does the value of any of these things shift when we cannot see or could possibly even confuse a digital copy of a photo from its digitally created original? it begs the question of both aura and authenticity. do either of these things exist or matter in terms of consumption by a viewer? or is it about my initial photo because my experienctial link to it makes that first digital file greater somehow? more authentic? i have no idea. my general thought on this is that it doesn't matter at all where video art or digital images are concerned. of course a hand painted reproduction of a painting is different, just as a photo of a painting just isn't the same. offset printed versions of traditional b&w photos are different from the originals. to me that's not about the artist's experience but rather about changing media and about how the audience gets to view the material especially if that viewing is outside of the artist's intent in the first place.
" In the same way today, by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental. This
much is certain: today photography and the film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function.
In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance. It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the
cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face."
so photos must have people in them to contain an aura and therefore be high art? facinating. it's about the object represented or i guess in this case the link to "tradition" ie humanity by direct reference? again, facinating. I'm way too much into the intent of the artist and the concept behind any art object to buy this argument. but it is interesting to think about.
"What matters is that the part is acted not for an audience but for a mechanical contrivance = no aura = no authentic experience because of disconnect between artist/object and audience"
how do you determine whe this disconnect occurs? as an artist am i supposed to evaluate this and somehow figure out how to overcome this problem? or maybe this has nothing to do with the potential fault of new media and is rather about the artist's inablity to choose the best media for his/her idea to come across. did that duplicate of my digital photo that looks exactly the same not resonate with my audience because they are getting a minupulated copy rather than my original raw file? or is it really about the disconnect is individual to audience members and individual to my ability to express what i needed to express in that image? hmmmm
“letters to the editor.” = Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer."
i totally love this comment. it's such an early thought on some of the problems we have with convergence culture. where does it end? if you have an audience for your videos or photos or writings online are you in fact an artist in that realm? are you just a hack because of the format? are you just looking at media as utilitarian and somehow deminishing it? it's sorta like the argument that everybody thinks they are a photographer if they pick up a point and shoot and suddenly have photos that look okay......
"Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance
from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art."
so he's married to the idea of photograph as truth. why is that picture more "true" to reality than painting? the photographer framed the photo and had some sort of intent for his viewers. tricks of light and happy accidents in the darkroom can also change the way that cut into reality is represented to us.
there are huge arguments in philosophy about the nature of reality and if it is even possible for us to ever be sure that what we percieve is anythign like reality. There is scenario that (Kant?) posits that comments on this idea. He says suppose an elephant is killed and divided among groups of people who have never seen an elephant. would they look at the foot and somehow manage to guess the entire beast based on this single view or would they guess about it based on what they already know. Kant's arguement of course is that with no way of seeing an elephant whole that the people would inevidably have different interpretations of what the whole thing was and looked like. it would be their reality based on what they saw but it wouldnt' be the real thing. it's arguable that photos are exactly like this. if you've ever tried to figure out how to photograph something to convey just the idea of a place or thing for someone who has never seen it, you feel like you could never take enough photos to get the idea across. i've certianly felt that way. so i ramble about whether i buy the idea of photo as truth. it's arguably the artist's truth..but what does that mean for me as a viewer?
"Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art."
so why is this a bad thing? why do we always want to assume that somehow greater audience means less meaningful, less thoughtful art? kitsch or avant-garde? ivory tower or mass consumption? why does artistic merritt have to be degraded by its ability to be digested when we often want to communicate well as well as uniquely? we talk often about the democritization of art as a good thing. why do we have to go through all these contortions over the media and it's accessiblity and what that means for a piece of work? and its interesting to watch digital media be processed through these concerns and through a traditional lens. we wind up assessing, resisiting, then reassessing with each new technology. maybe art is just the ultimate example of our resistance to change.
1/24/07
chris justus: "a thousand words"
i was pretty impressed with this work. especially knowing that he poured this out in about three weeks. the amount of cutting in photoshop alone was tons of work. and of course the subject matter is close to my heart so i had to applaud his willingness to put himself out there in a noncoded i'm going to show you pictures of my family and myself, plus tell you this intense thing way. go chris!
so i felt like the video got stronger as it went. i'm not totally sure that i needed to know the impotus for the project. and also "transgendered man named rita"? chances are if she's going by rita, she wanted to be labled as a transgendered woman. no small thing in transland.
i liked seeing his history build. i felt the images were more cohesive as they built up and worked better in sequences where there was some sort of background rather than there just being cut outs leaping from the black space.
the leaf sequences were just beautiful! the segments with his parents at the table and his sister cutting his hair were funny and also poinant in a way that i really appreciated. and the humor was about the type of image and their placement which was really nice.
i'm still thinking about the narration. i'm not sure how i feel about its delivery. i wonder if maybe it would have worked equally well or better if some of it was intermingled as text. or puntuated at points as both spoken and text. i kept flip flopping about wanting him to say more and wanting him to say a lot less.
so i felt like the video got stronger as it went. i'm not totally sure that i needed to know the impotus for the project. and also "transgendered man named rita"? chances are if she's going by rita, she wanted to be labled as a transgendered woman. no small thing in transland.
i liked seeing his history build. i felt the images were more cohesive as they built up and worked better in sequences where there was some sort of background rather than there just being cut outs leaping from the black space.
the leaf sequences were just beautiful! the segments with his parents at the table and his sister cutting his hair were funny and also poinant in a way that i really appreciated. and the humor was about the type of image and their placement which was really nice.
i'm still thinking about the narration. i'm not sure how i feel about its delivery. i wonder if maybe it would have worked equally well or better if some of it was intermingled as text. or puntuated at points as both spoken and text. i kept flip flopping about wanting him to say more and wanting him to say a lot less.
1/23/07
alshaibi video
i struggled with this one too to a certain extent. the music was GREAT. and the video work was intricate and nothing short of amazing. but to tell you the truth, and maybe this was the size, i had a hard time watching this one too. i just found it to be beautiful but really overwhelming really quickly.
i also admit great ignorance. i kept wondering about the images' connection to both the music and to islam. the title means god is greater than everything, and i'm assuming that the images are created in direct reference to that idea, but i'm not sure how. i kept thinking about prayer labrynths as i was watching it and also wondered if that was a leap. maybe i spent too much time trying to find a stance in something that was familiar to me to get what the film maker wanted me to see. i hope not.
i would like to see it again at a smaller scale. i found alshaibi's website, but there were only stills and no artist statement about this particular piece.
i also admit great ignorance. i kept wondering about the images' connection to both the music and to islam. the title means god is greater than everything, and i'm assuming that the images are created in direct reference to that idea, but i'm not sure how. i kept thinking about prayer labrynths as i was watching it and also wondered if that was a leap. maybe i spent too much time trying to find a stance in something that was familiar to me to get what the film maker wanted me to see. i hope not.
i would like to see it again at a smaller scale. i found alshaibi's website, but there were only stills and no artist statement about this particular piece.
society of spectacle
i found this one difficult. i spent the entire time reading the text and saw few of the images. the text didn't move fast enough, and i would forget from one frame to the next what i'd just read (maybe this says more about my aging brain than this video?). and i would wind up reading the things at least twice to hang on through entire sentances. it had such a specific lingo that the text demanded all my attention. what of the images i saw kept me wondering how they were intended to work with the text.
i thought that maybe the problem was exactly the point. that perhaps we are too busy trying to digest so much in terms of media specific language changes and an endless bombardment of images that we really only get bits and pieces no matter how hard we try. but this conclusion feels like a leap since missing a piece of the text left me flailing until a new thought began, and the images didn't help direct me to a new meaning or to what i had missed.
i thought that maybe the problem was exactly the point. that perhaps we are too busy trying to digest so much in terms of media specific language changes and an endless bombardment of images that we really only get bits and pieces no matter how hard we try. but this conclusion feels like a leap since missing a piece of the text left me flailing until a new thought began, and the images didn't help direct me to a new meaning or to what i had missed.
brett's video
so i was lucky enough to have seen brett's video last semester in its state prior to the edit. i found his work to be some of the most thoughtful and earnest of all of asu's current grads. i liked what he was willing to do and say then, and i think his chosen edits work well.
previously it was too long and seemed to function as two completely different videos that were just pushed together. i recall thinking that the message part of the previous video was the most direct and powerful part. i thought his willingness to video his family was amazing, but that set of video didn't carry the same punch. i think his use of text punctuates both the difficulty of what he heard on his answering machine and also reinforces the rhythm of her speech. the text works like visual confirmation and maybe puntuation of her words.
the images left in the video are careful and well placed and add to rather than take away from his efforts.
good stuff!
previously it was too long and seemed to function as two completely different videos that were just pushed together. i recall thinking that the message part of the previous video was the most direct and powerful part. i thought his willingness to video his family was amazing, but that set of video didn't carry the same punch. i think his use of text punctuates both the difficulty of what he heard on his answering machine and also reinforces the rhythm of her speech. the text works like visual confirmation and maybe puntuation of her words.
the images left in the video are careful and well placed and add to rather than take away from his efforts.
good stuff!
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