14 March 2009

Assignment 1 - second presentations

Made notes this time!

Fiona Meadley
She is curating an exhibition called 'Ghosts in the Attic' in the old house, now a museum, that once belonged to Edward Jenner (famous for the smallpox vaccine). She mentions Freud wrote that the "attic is the subconscious of the mind" and in this previously unseen part of the house, her exhibition as artist-in-residence aims to suggest Jenner's 'ghosts'. These are people who died from smallpox but also perhaps flowing from hallucinations that he experienced as a child. When Jenner was variolated (purposely infected with the smallpox disease in an attempt to protect against future infections) he was isolated in the attic of his house for a month. She mentioned Tacita Dean and the book Immunology by A. David Napier. I was interested in the screenshot of a film by Maya Deren called 'Meshes of the Afternoon' and having watched half of it I can see why it is an inspiration- it is dreamy, mysterious and obscure.

Sue Bovington
Found the artists' work Sue showed very engaging, all relating to maps: Peter Greenaway, 'A Walk Through H' is utilises extraordinary maps; Kathy Prendergast's 'Erased Maps' where she has chosen a section of a map and erased everything except a certain word, ie Lost, I found fascinating. Sue also mentioned a work called 'City Drawings' look and sound interesting but I cannot find an image large to study in any depth. I also liked the idea of Clare Bryan's 'Cut Out Maps' and the photos looked brilliant. Lastly she talked about David Nash whom I love after his work being suggested to me during 2nd year of my BA and then catching an exhibition of his work at the Tate St. Ives it captivated me. I saw his 'Pyramid, Sphere & Cube' (left). His unicorn horn and boulder that moved down a stream were good too.

Jo Russell

Graphic Design MA student who works for Wiltshire College. Also David Mckean. Mentions Egon Schiele/Svankmajer/Quay Bros. What interested me most was Takashi Murakami's work- I had admired Kanya West's album cover but didn't know who it was, and had found a Murakami piece (featuring a character called 'Mr Dob', so Jo told me) in Dazed&Confused magazine but didn't realise how massive he is.
She also mentioned Andrea Canalito and in particular a piece which features plastic deer heads coming out of saccharine-looking plastic cupcakes. It's obvious that humour and colour are central to Jo's interests, and also texture- she seems to like plastic. I think it was Jo who also talked about Saul Bass- I was aware of the style in
which he created the Hitchcock film posters but never knew his name. I really liked the bold styles and Matisse-style cut-outs he used. I also mean to investigate his animation work.




Hakima al Siad
She showed first tattoos by the American tattoo artist and star of TV shows, Kat von D. Having watched Miami Ink I was aware of her work but never really considered her an artist before- now I don't see why she should not be considered an artist. Her work is executed with amazing attention to detail and whereas other artists can work when or how they please, the limits of tattooing a person's skin places creative constraints. Kat von D is known for portraits. I recently discovered another tattooist/artist called Angelique Houtkamp who has a distinctive Sailor Jerry/50s style.

Hakima talked about David LaChapelle, a photographer famous particularly for celebrity images. He created the eponymous image of the rap star Lil' Kim covered in Louis Viutton logos to present her as an expensive item. He also set up a photograph of Courtney Love holding a model (LaChapelle's boyfriend) posed as Kurt Cobain- an amazing piece that is so ludicrously detailed it looks like a painting.

She showed some work by a Muslim artist with whom she identifies, and spoke about caligraphy & Arabic, combined with Muslim culture and feminism.



John Cummings
None of John's artists were visual artists- he first talked about Bill Bryson's book, A Short History of Nearly Everything (one of the most brilliant books I have ever read; however I couldn't quite make it to the end- I still plan to). John seems particularly interested in Bryson's presentation of heavy and complex science in a simple and accessible manner. He also talked about, and showed some of, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth lecture. John appreciates Gore's representation in graphs of something that is otherwise difficult to fully comprehend and is attracted to something called action research- where the researcher takes part in, and influences, the subject area they are researching. He would like to start a charity to educate people about their relationship with the environment, to encourage people to be aspirational about it, rather than imposing penalties, by giving away seeds and information, for example. Fiona commented that by being tied down with all the detritus that running a charity entails he may find it more frustrating that productive.

Maia Conran
Talked about Mark Leckey's Turner Prize entry, which I happened to see but not really understand (good article at the Guardian Online). She is interested in the evolution of Leckey's lecture, and that of her own (although the fact that the entry for the Turner Prize is recorded means it is set and cannot change). She spoke about Edward Rucsha, a photographer who is famous for photographing 26 gas stations and the same stretch of Venice Beach for years. I really liked his gas station photographs- very architectural, detached and calm, and apparently free of human emotion.












She also experimented during her presentation with showing her artist statement instead of her artwork- investigating the validity of presenting a piece of art instead of a dissertation.

Assignment 1 - first presentations

Didn't write notes for this one so here goes what I remember...

Nusha Amini
Graphic novels- David Mckean (below) and a Japanese manga by female illustrator- beautiful stuff, both distorting usual ideas of how to set out graphic novels. I liked the challenges on the conventions of graphic novels and appreciate how difficult it can be to break from conventions that are deeply ingrained in your artistic practise.


Me
Jan Svankmaker, Shinto Tsukamoto, Floris Kaayk. It is embedded below or to see it full screen click here. It is visually rubbish because my version of OpenOffice has some bug or something and won't publish presentations as PowerPoint if it contains any background images. The notes I read from are published online here.

I discovered some interesting things about myself and what I am interested in. I think I have become more of a filmmaker than I realised- my interest is now sparked more often by sequences of images; the way things/characters move, shot set-ups and poses, plus lighting and references. Also as Chris mentioned afterwards, the three filmmakers I spoke about I like for their creepiness. My film seriously lacks that, although I was semi-aware that I do not want my final film to be twee. Something to consider.

Helen Burgess (right name??)
Really interesting, lots of artists. Land art, walking, documenting. Doesn't like Richard Long (nor does Rachel but I do. I like his sculptures). Talked about Cornelia Parker whom I have a particular interest in. New to me was Marlene Creates' 'Sleeping Places' (below). They reminded me of Rachel Whiteread, recording the lives of others by their effect on the domestic objects that comprised their world. Creates' images describe a tiny lifetime, solely the night, and the movements that her body made whilst she was unconscious, but in a language she cannot understand- they're like a coded story. They're like bird's nests and crop circles and are beautiful.
























Maria Bowers

Etching stuff. Her comments on how she needs to proceed were mainly process-inspired, and the topic the countryside. The etchers' work she showed was beautiful and I was really impressed by the artist who goes fishing at sea and takes his acid with him- I hadn't really considered it before, but of course etching cannot usually be done out in the environment, but created post-event in the studio.

Debbie Lewis
Seemed like she thought she was struggling with her work but I liked it. She has been created images with printed boxes, lines, cross-hatchings. She is interested in form rather than subject and I liked her honesty about her work although I thought she should be more self-confident about it.

9 March 2009

First lecture - Lecture on Methods

From notes written at the time:

IAN BRIGGS
Three methods

1. Comparative analysis (compare & contrast)
from Harvard Writing Center
  • Frame of reference --> your context --> external
  • Grounds for comparison --> why these pieces?
  • Thesis --> claim/argument
  • The 'whereas' --> both sides of the argument
  • Organisational scheme
  • Linking A + B etc.
2. Observer participation
Professional discourse - talking about work within your area. Observer participation is stepping outside of your own dicipline and explaining your work to someone not part of your professional practise. Comes from anthropology, from ethnography, used by artists such as Susan Hiller. Necessary to observe own work dispassionately, exercise self-reflexivity and try to remove presuppositions. Academic diciplines and new diciplines start up between existing ones, questioning current conventions.

3. Bricolage
Combining different influences, concepts or media to create something new (see Wikipedia's entry). Example is the punk movement or the cargo cult the 'Prince Philip Movement' (Wikipedia article).

BRET WILSON
Characteristics of research

  • Rigorous & systematic
  • Critical & analytical --> open to question and not dogmatic
  • Reproducible & independent --> same answers on repeats
  • Communicable & novel
  • Testable predictions
Synthesis <--> analysis

To be testable, a prediction or theory must be capable of being proved wrong or else it is a belief.

Perspective is an example of a paradigm: a way of seeing that makes previous theories redundant.

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Thoughts on this lecture

Briggs' section on comparative analysis was familiar ground for me- it was only 2005/6 that I wrote my BA dissertation comparing Rachel Whiteread's monumental pieces House & Embankment using this method and it is still relatively fresh in my mind.

I was initally dubious of the necessity to state the validity of observer participation; however after a while I remembered that at the previous session, gathered in our smaller groups, I had had difficulty in explaining my work when faced with cross-diciplinary students and that this concept was relevant to me. It is easy to forget how to explain your work to someone from another media that is related yet distant to an extent. I realised I have developed a language to explain my work to friends and family who know very little of the visual arts language at all but I cannot use the same style to other arts students. It is patronising at least and perhaps not very informative to students who could easily understand what I want to explain if I find the right language. It was a strange deja vous to hear the MA Printmaking, Fine Art & By Project students using the language I used for three years on my Fine Art BA but have all but forgotten how to use. I find animation a more practical and less wordy dicipline than fine art, and in some ways the better for it: I can explain myself in a much more 'everyman' language whereas fine art requires its own definitions for regular-use words. After being away from it for a few years, fine art language sounds pretentious and hollow.

Bricolage as a concept is also familiar to me from my bachelor's course, from studying outsider art and certain sculptors. Was interested to hear about the cargo cult obsessed by Prince Phillip.

I found Bret Wilson an engaging speaker but I remain somewhat unconvinced the characteristics he listed can be so dirctly applied to reseach within the arts. His giving perspective as an example of a paradigm that changed people's theories helped although I think I need examples on how, for example, to rigorously test an artistic idea.

I felt that Briggs' lecture 'cannot see the wood for the trees'- it concerned itself so energetically with the methods of research that I found myself wondering where the art comes in. I am not sure this focus on research in art is really that helpful. I am reminded of Prof. Jon Dovey's session during our Tuesday evening contextual lectures entitled 'ScreenWork - Media Practise as Research Journal'. I actually became angry during this lecture because I thought Dovey's ScreenWork DVD journal was pointless- the idea that an artist would make a film purely for research purposes only with the intention to further the collective knowledge of the artistic community appears to me to be self-indulgent and irrelevent. Art should be made for its own sake or surely it loses that momentum or energy that inspired its creator in the first place? I cannot imagine putting all that effort into designing a film to try out a new technique and then submitting that for peer review, instead of moving the embryonic concept/technique forward to a finished work of art. Dovey's support of ScreenWork was not aided by the rough, unfinished-looking and ultimately uninspiring pieces he showed us from this project. Or maybe I just don't get it yet.

Starting the journal

Decided to create this journal in the form of a blog for ease and cheapness!