Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Response: Understanding Media : The Extension of Man || Marshall McLuhan
Introduction + Challenge and Collapse
The passages seem to predominantly center on one specific idea - how is it possible to be able to distinguish local and global implications simultaneously. McLuhan gives several examples (and at times draws a little too heavily from the metaphors) such as the doctor diagnosing the patient, the man exerting tremendous energy for water from a well, the increase in production from slave labor, cars, etc... McLuhan makes a convincing argument, namely the soley the artist is able to remove themselves from the effects of new forms and stimuli and look at the global picture, but at the same time he implies that non-artists are incapable of being drawn in the newness of a innovation. This problem, according to the introduction, is particularly imposing due the recent explosion of digital meda and technologies that have attained another level of interaction past the electrical-mechanical and what can now only be referred to as the Dark Ages. Interactions are becoming increasingly rapid causing the interval between execution and evaluation to become ephemeral. With this falls the introspection of one's actions culiminating into what it elegantly portrayed as the equivalent of a mindless zombie.
On some levels I agree. Yes, techonology is advancing at an incredibly rapid pace and only recently are we beginning to study the implications of these technologies to the public. Yes, I agree that the artist is usually more prone to identify this evil doing and bring it to the attention of others. But no, I do not agree that the artist is the sole individual that is able to bring this to attention. This is a bit of a contradiction, partly due to the fact the word artist as defined by McLuhan is:
The artist is the man in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his action and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness.
My main counterargument against this view is this implication that the artist must do something (write a book, produce a theatrical production, or embed images on the street walls) to further their acknowledgements of the unforeseen implications of technological advance. Rather, in the act of producing a work, are they not contributing another technology to the world. Is their idea not novel, represented uniquely, ubiquitous? What stops an artist work from adding to the converging circle? Does an artist look at the implications of another artist's works?
I believe this question is left unanswered in these passages, leaving the artist as a being able to "sense ratios of the psychic and social outlook" but unable to move past that. McLuhan touches softly on the subject, mentioning that artist write " the history of the future for the present." Oddly, I feel that translates that all an artist can do is stay connected to the past (in this sense, the time past the immediate present) to gear for the future. It makes me hesitant to say that art should expose more people and create more artists (robot production imagery runs through my head), but then what are the implications of such an idea???
Monday, February 7, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
5 Artist with Interdisciplinary Works
Camille Utterback
Unititled 5
mixture of interactive art and painting media
mixture of semantic meaning and interactive sculpture
Scott Snibbe
Tripolar
representation of chaotic mental states visualized using magnet pendulums.
Central Mosaic
used fractal (mathematical) patterns with computer vieion derived video loops
Daniel Rozin
Wooden mirror
Taken from an OU course on Computers and Processors
Mirror #6
Demonstration of how visual angle and mirror effects present reflections.
Maria Sester
Moved settlement-
Works with Xrays and worked with security professionals to research.
Access
Light social sculpture dealing with security concepts
Leonel Moura
Lbot works
Autonomous painting robot, AI and art'
Ant algorithm (biological processes) sculpture
Friday, January 28, 2011
Reflection on “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
I attempted to read the first paragraph of this essay and found it to be a word-cruncher. Each sentence described such a complex thought that I wondered if it would be possible for the author to deliver in what was to follow. I decided, before continuing to read the rest of the paper to research this “Althusserian visual ideology”, but more importantly this reference to “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”
I completely agree with Althusser notion that “we are always subjects…constantly [practicing] the ritual of ideological recognition.” I find that art history has indeed shown this notion true, especially the transition into modern art. This reminds me of the Picasso portraits, where the notion of who was being portrayed on canvas was not necessarily the perceptively equivalent individual, but the artist themselves. Going into texts such as Relation Aesthetics, there has been a continuous trend to incorporate more of this ideological recognition in art pieces and installations.
Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” on first glance makes mention of blackbirds in seemingly unrelated stanzas. Upon closer inspection, the poet’s intention can be seen as looking at the same blackbird from a series of perspectives. Upon further inspection of the Art & Discontent article, the author is going along this same route, arguing that aesthetics can be interpreted in a variety of different viewpoints and the role of the artist is to allow these viewpoints to become evident to the observer.
Examining my own artwork, I find that it leans more heavily towards Viewpoint #10: Content arising from participation in a specific iconographic tradition. Most of my artwork comes from heavily saturated warm colors – a color palette that is common in most parts of the border. In fact, as I examine the typography and visual organization of graphic design work I have done, I realize that often times that work bares similarity to the typographic norms of Mexican business advertisements.
This paper reminds me of a psychological condition known as grapheme synesthesia that makes individuals perceive letters as having color. The color associated with the letter can ironically be traced back to the color of the refrigerator magnets that they had from their childhood. In the same manner, when the author talks about “unacknowledged parts of the visual ideology of the cultural mode” is draws me to the same notion of the effects of grapheme synesthesia. Often times, the best way to bring into recognition this effect is by going in contradiction of it, similar to what Dadaist movements achieved in the early twentieth century.
There is one point made about the disparity between artists and critics and the supposed mutual exclusivity of “aesthetics, cognitive, and practical [faculties].” I honestly believe it depends on the artists to acknowledge whether a work is intended for display. Much like Louise Bourgeois explained in her interview, if the piece does not speak to you, it does not speak to you. The intrusion of the artist in the form of written or verbal supplements adds to the complexity of the ‘visual supplement’ presented. Juxtaposing these two elements divides the amount of cognitive insight that can be achieved. I believe this to be a psychological solution. Why make a person experience dual task (of incorporating a visual supplement and written supplement) as opposed to them developing their own observation and afterwards comparing and analyzing it to that of another.
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