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Special thanks to our guest this week, Georgiana Uhlyarik from the AGO. I believe we had a very stimulating discussion about cultural appropriation. Think about the nuances of the issues we discussed. There are no easy answers. Remember to bring in an example of cultural appropriation to discuss in class next week. I’ll post my example here, now, so that you might think about it. It is a logo for an American baseball team. You may have seen it before.
What do you make of this image? How does it appropriate culture (or people), or does it? Why do so many sport teams’ names refer to First Nations people (or American Indians)?
Next week we will return to questions of authorship and our guest, Profesor Jean Bridge, will talk about dialogic art and authorship. We have one reading: Grant H. Kester, “Duration, Performativity and Critique,” Chapter 5 in Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, pp. 50-81. The first part of the chapter is largely theoretical and the second part refers to examples of art. Be sure to read the entire chapter, take notes and come to class prepared and ready to discuss.
I gave you an extension on your next blog entries. They are now due Wednesday November 7 at 5pm. Your last entries were very good and I expect this second round to be even better. I hope my comments have been useful. Please speak to me if you have questions. Also, I encourage you to comment on each others’ posts. Let’s keep the dialog open!
Finally, I’m giving a paper on Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelly’s work, Heidi, 1992, at a conference, and realized that it too uses appropriation, both of Spyri’s Heidi story and of an essay by modernist architect Adolf Loos. In fact, it uses both visual and textual appropriation. You can read the abstract here if you are interested. This leads me to think of one of the pervading questions in this course: is anything new in art in the 20th and 21st century? To that question I want to add another: does it even matter? Something to think about…..
The assigned readings will be posted here by end of day tomorrow.
Remember that the files are password protected. If you have trouble, please email me.
[Image: Gregory Maxwell. The Spoils of a Book Burner. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BurningBooks-gmaxwell.jpg#file (accessed September 4, 2006). For information on copyright and use of this image, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License]
…about next week’s class.
This is what you need to do for next week’s class:
Read and take notes on the following readings (we are combining the readings from weeks 6 & 7):
• “Definitions,” Internationale Situationniste 1 (1958), online at nothingess.org
• “Manifesto,” Internationale Situationniste 4 (1960), online here.
• Guy Debord, “Methods of Détournement,” Les levres nus 8 (May 1956), available online here.
• “Détournement as Negation and Prelude,” Internationale Situationniste 3 (1959), available online here.
• William S. Burroughs, “Les Voleurs,” in The Adding Machine: Selected Essays (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1985), 19-21. Photocopy on reserve in the library.
Please be prepared to discuss these readings in class. This means that you must first understand the material. To do this, you will have to take some time to write down definitions, terms and the authors’ main ideas. In the first four, focus on the notion of détournement in relation to the themes of this course. In the last one, try to sort out Burroughs’ argument and think about the implications of it. Bring your notes and copies of the readings themselves to class.
We will read a selection of William S Burroughs, Naked Lunch, in class. There are no selections on reserve.
Finally, look at Jenny Holzer’s truisms: http://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html and http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_lg_65_1s.html and http://twitter.com/jennyholzer
** if you have not yet looked at the updated reading schedule / class schedule, please do so. It is located on this page, in the right-hand navigation area, under the heading “About the Course.”
Comment on Untitled by S.B. Raney
As a non-visual art major, or rather, never having studied visual arts before, I know very little on the subject. I do, however, know when I am intrigued.
When we visited the Grimsby Public Art Gallery, I was overwhelmed by the work, especially by the cityscape created by S.B. Raney. The work, as I was told, was a combination between lithography and silkscreen. The prints were set up to show the different colours that were used to create the work. For instance, one print had no colour; it was only the outline of the images that were visible.
I am not sure what type of art this is considered, if it would be appropriation as the only “original” is the etched image on the limestone. However, without regards to the type of art, I would say that the artist is definitely successful. The work inspired me, it made me think about my own work, my writing and how I can look at my current canvas and assess what I have done.
On the field trip we also visited The Power Plant. In this gallery the work of Paul P. Dusks was shown. His work makes a person think. The images in his work encompassed both the male and female in one person. This seems to be a message about the beauty in all forms, how man and woman can be one and the qualities in the two can be shared.
– Julianna
The body as art:
Film is not the art of an actor
or a set of actors,
it is not the art of the crew or designers,
Benjamin, “the art is lost as it is guided
by cameramen, angles, cuts, and
other factors.
Performance is subjected to a series of optical tests.”
The body is art,
it creates meaning with movements,
it stirs emotions,
it is beauty.
Dance is an expression
of this beauty.
How can we say this beauty is able to be last.
If film
distorts art
or
makes it not an art form at all,
can the presence of a
cameraman
change a live performance
from a work of art
to…
a non-artistic thing?
Movement,
Grace,
Structure,
Passion
are personalities amongst themselves.
Dance and dancers
personify these personalities
and make them real.
Dance and dancers
personify art
and bring art to life.
How can the presence of a cameraman change this?
Benjamin: “The performance is subjected to a series of optical tests.”
Well, I disagree!
Yes, the performance IS subjected to a series of optical tests, BUT neither the performance nor the beauty nor the art is lost in the recording!
–Julianna
“The birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author.” This is the final statement that concludes the Barthes essay on “Death of an Author;” I have some trouble with this.
The author is an artist; both terms are difficult to define but in its simplest form both the author and the artist transform the blandness of the everyday into something new, something seen as for the very first time. The author, which is the term I am going to use for both an author of text and a creator of painting, sculpture, etc., puts their soul into their work and leaves behind a piece of themselves in everything they create.
The reader of the work has never been dead or absent thus a re-birth is unnecessary. The reader cannot exist without the author and since the author is in fact a part of the text itself, the reader acts as a medium to free the author from the page. This is a way for the reader to converse with the author; to create conversation and interact with both the text and the author.
The author of a painting or sculpture does primarily the same thing. They create from the soul; thus the question emerges, does the author of a painting have to be dead or removed completely from their work for the viewer to be able to really see it?
– Julianna
Appropriation is becoming more known to me since I started this class. I knew the word appropriation and have heard it a few times, but until now, never really knew the true meaning. Now that it is clearer to me, I notice myself using appropriation in my own work but also seeing it more around me. It’s interesting how much your eyes open to what’s going on around you when you know what it means. It’s hard not to take others idea’s and use them in your own way, it may not even be on purpose but things that we do daily are in some way shadowed by how someone else did it before.
I found myself laughing when I did a group of photographs with my roommates. Noticing that my work was using appropriation. If you have ever watched the tv show Girls next door, you might have seen an episode when they did a photograph of Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends layed “naked” covered in black sheets. My roommates and I used this photo to make our own versions of us “naked” in black sheets. As we continued to photographs we decided to begin doing our poses but stayed under the black sheets. When I looked back on the photos I started asking myself are all the photos appropriated? Or are the ones that we tried different poses, are they new orignals?
– Aimee
Wednesday October 17th, 7pm in EA 214
Artist Mary Catherine Newcomb, whose show Product of Eden will open at Rodman hall on Friday October 19th at 5:30pm pm, will give a lecture at Brock on Wednesday. Please feel free to attend both the lecture and the opening.
“Her exhibition, Product of Eden, will be installed in the blocked-in rear bay window of Rodman Hall. Beginning in 2006 this location became the site of the Niche Project. Each year an artist is invited to create a work of art specifically for this space.
Product of Eden will take advantage of the large southwestern exposure to grow living works of art, where the artist in effect sculpts living plant material. She does this by introducing fruit and vegetable shoots into hand-crafted molds. As the plant grows, the vegetable takes on the shape of the mold. Eggplants, zucchinis, peppers, squash and other plants will be grown and take shape at Rodman Hall.
Because the different plants will grow at different rates, there may not always be a living plant sculpture to see in full form. For this reason the artist will be intermingling previously grown pickled and bottled sculptures with growing sculptures on the vine.”
– Rodman Hall
For more information, see the Rodman Hall website or the artist’s site. This exhibition operates in conjunction with the Greenscapes Conference.
The trip to Toronto was great as I got to explore many different galleries ranging in themes, ideas and art mediums. Though all of the exhibits had something I enjoyed I must say I was most impressed by Paul P’s Dusk, Lamplights exhibit at the Toronto Power Plant. Paul P’s work had the greatest impact on me as I left the exhibit that day truly impressed by the talent and underlying message of this young Canadian’s work. The exhibit featured drawings, oil paintings, pastels, and watercolors, which displayed dark landscapes and realistic male figures and faces.
I would describe his work as raw, striking portraits with an almost eerie glow or aura surrounding them. They were beautiful images. The close up faces were extremely realistic capturing emotions of love and sadness perhaps illustrating romance. These drawings definitely carried a presence with them. It was not until after examining the many images that I learned the artist based his pieces on gay pornographic magazine photographs from the ’70s and ’80s. The artist chose this time period because these images were taken before the AIDS epidemic broke out, “before the massive shift in how gay porn looked, before magazine models buffed up to achieve a plasticized, super-healthy look to distance themselves from the disease …It’s a different way of looking at young men that wasn’t complicated by AIDS. It could simply be erotic.” (Toronto Star, Feb 2, 2006)
Porn is usually associated with negative feelings and images yet Paul’s works was beautiful and serene. I would have never known these were portraits of pornographic images if no one had told me so. Paul P. appropriated these images from porn, something that society looks down on. It is seen as shameful, dirty, cheap, and exploiting. With these same images Paul creates a new identity for them with a completely new almost opposite meaning. Beauty, love, and integrity are all words, which can be used to describe Paul’s work. I think his pieces make a strong statement. They take advantage of one’s perspective, allowing the viewer to see these images in a different light. He does this without exposing the viewer to the negative stereotypes, which are associated with porn.
Paul P. appropriated these images of young men from pornographic magazines. Later another type of appropriation was incorporated with Paul P’s work. Dior Homme designer Heidi Slimane collaborated with Paul on a spring ad campaign. The campaign combines Paul P.’s drawings and Slimane’s photography. It was inspired by Paul P’s work. You can see the campaign on the Dior website: www.dior.com.
Also you can view many of Paul P’s work on the websites listed below:
http://www.thepowerplant.org/exhibitions/fall_07/paulp/artists_card.html
http://www.artnet.com/artist/423911397/paul-p.html
Toronto Star Article:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/979829751.html?dids=979829751:979829751&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Feb+2%2C+2006&author=David+Graham&pub=Toronto+Star&edition=&startpage=E.01&desc=Dior%27s+new+look
- Allison
Copyright laws, production and distribution have distorted the boundaries between art, news, and media. What is art? What is appropriation? What can someone use and what is considered stealing? These are some of the many questions video artist Dara Birnbaum had to deal with when trying to develop her own form of art.
Dara Birnbaum was a fan of Andy Warhol and his use of utilizing aspects of the mass media and it’s modes of production. Unlike Andy Warhol, Birnbaum turns the medium of video and television on itself rather then turning it into a different medium to create new meaning. She renders the television clips making them her own. Birnbaum claims this is her way of talking back to the media and manipulating a medium, which is already known for being highly manipulative.
Here I will list three example of Birnbaum’s work in which she appropriates images from television shows:
(most can be seen on this youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2wi2ow6wAY)
Technology/Transformation, 1978
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/technology-transformation/video/1/
Birnbaum took imagery from the television series Wonder Woman to create a 7 minute video sequence. She uses a stutter-step progression of extended moments, which shows wonder woman as she transforms from a woman into a superhero.
PM Magazine/Acid Rock, 1982
http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?PMMAGAZINE
PM Magazine/Acid Rock is a 4 minute collage of appropriated television imagery and psychedelic pop music. Birbaum uses and a clip from a computer commercial along with the introduction to a television show and the Doors’ song L.A. Woman to create this work.
Artbreak, MTV Networks, Inc., 1987
(could not find clip on Internet)
This piece was commissioned by MTV as an “art break” rather than a traditional commercial. Birnbaum appropriates early Max Fleischer cell animation from the Koko the Clown television show. She uses the MTV logo to knock Koko out of the frame. The piece also includes many women from various MTV commercial clips.
As I watched Burnham’s video art I had some trouble understanding it at first. Technology/Transformation especially confused me because the entire video sequence is taken from a television show. Birnbaum had only altered the speed and repeated and reversed the image. Then I began to look at it as a type of technological readymade. As these clips are already made pieces of a televised narrative which Birnbaum takes, dissects and adds already made music. Could this not be compared to Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel? For Duchamp did just the same when he dissected a bicycle and mounted it onto a stool. Looking at Birnbaum’s art this way makes it easier to understand and look for deeper meaning. Unlike Duchamp, Birnbaum was trying to comment on media and was not creating something for the sole purpose of self enjoyment. Birnbaum’s work like so many other artists is a way for her to question structure, culture and society. In making these video clips she is trying to create an alternative perspective allowing the viewer to also begin questioning and hopefully look at everyday life and everyday objects in new ways. After all that is the job of the artist isn’t it?
-Allison
Has any one seen Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic Vertigo? If you haven’t you may not want to read this post, as I will spoil the movie for you.
On the Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/
It’s a twisted tale of a retired San Francisco police detective named Scottie who suffers from Vertigo. He is hired by an old friend to watch over his wife Madeleine as she has been acting rather peculiar and he suspects she is up to no good. Scottie discovers that Madeline believes that she is possessed by a dead ancestor as she makes frequent attempts to end her life. Scottie and Madeline begin to fall in love yet her obsession with her ancestor takes over. Scottie’s Vertigo fails him at the most crucial time and Madeline plunges to her death from the top of an old church tower. A year later Scottie meets a woman named Judy who reminds him of his beloved Madeline. He starts a relationship with this woman and forces her to dye her hair blonde and dress just as Madeline used to.
I came across a band called The Long Blondes in my research. They have a song entitled “Appropriation” These are the lyrics to the song:
Eighty percent of lovers never forget their first
That significant other whose departure makes things worse
Well, this is you down to a tee
I can see you won’t forget her
Yet she met untimely death a year ago
Technically
This is
Appropriation by any other name
You can’t have me and make me act the same
The way you treat me is inappropriate
But you don’t stop to think about that
A mutual acquaintance claims you’re wise beyond your years
With a love of conversation most unrivalled by your peers
Still, the lingering malaise of British rail and whether foxes should be killed or not is her concern, not mine
What would you do if I didn’t come back to you tonight?
Well, I’m not always at your beck and call you know
I know how your mind works now:
You just want a nearly new replacement
When I met you, I never wore dresses like that
But I’ve been sitting here now for thirty minutes and you haven’t said a word
But I don’t have the guts to get on the bus
So I end up getting a lift back to yours
And the cycle starts over again
The cycle starts all over again
Stop this man…
The music video is available on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-NdjBr9rYA
As you can see and hear this song is clearly an appropriation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo as the lyrics focus on Scotties relationship with Judy. The song also focuses on appropriation as a theme, as it acknowledges that it is an appropriation itself. The band’s album cover uses images of the characters Madeline and Judy from the film. In a twisted way Scottie was trying to appropriate Madeline when picking out Judy’s new clothes and hair colour. I think this is a very clever piece of music as it is a self-reflexive appropriation. It made me consider the different types of appropriation that are being used today. Some which are more evident than others. Some which are proud to be appropriations like this song for example, and other’s which do not purposely make the appropriation known to the viewer. Is appropriation something to be proud of? Is it making a statement? Is it paying homage? Or is it simply using someone’s work only to create a bigger and better picture?
This song gives homage to Alfred Hitchcock and is sending a message to the band’s fan base. Fans of the band who have never seen a Hitchcock film will hopefully be inspired to do so after hearing this track.
The Band’s website:
http://www.thelongblondes.co.uk/
-Allison
Appropriation showed up a several times on the field trip. The exhibit that took my interest the most was Francesco Vessoli, his work made reference to the film Marlene Redux, the work related to the plot of the film. He made his own version of E true Hollywood story. The film featured fictional characters that who were interviewed and talked about Vezzoli, and fictional facts about him. Everything leads up to Vezzoli’s death at the end of the film. Without knowing that in fact he is alive, the film could have been very believable. So when do you know what to believe in his work? I found myself wondering how much of his work is his own. His other work took reference from Josef Albers’ series Homage to the square. Vezzoli’s work appropriated Josef Albers’ work. He embroidered his own squares of colourful thread. I asked myself when does the original artists work end and Francescoes begin? The reason I was interested in this exhibit was because it brought up so many questions. His work is interesting how so much of it is taken from others, but yet he is still famous for it.
The exibit left me wondering about what I had seen. Not knowing much about, if not anything about Vezzoli before entering the Power Plant. I think I would go see his work again, and try harder to get more answers.
Aimee
The trip we took to Toronto was defined by what we were subjected to at the Power Plant. The show by Francesco Vezzoli was by far, the most complex and needlessly excessive show that we saw while we were there. It totally took appropriation to a whole new level.
I still, to this day, after reading the information given to me, have not completely understood what the show is about. Vezzoli has somehow tied himself into the lives of Marlene Dietrich and Anni Albers and a rumoured love affair between the two women. What I understand, on a completely different note, is that Vezzoli is known for remaking movies, however not completely, but appropriating what he found as important elements of the movie, and creating a sort of trailer for this make-believe remake. For example, there was his spoof trailer for Caligula. I remember seeing the trailer on the internet quite a while ago, and cringing at the thought they they would ever think of recreating such a movie. What I didn’t realize was that it was done by an artist, and not so much a director. After seeing his spoof of A True Hollywood Story, I realized what the deal was.
I wasn’t too impressed with the show, it was humourous but I really don’t have much to say in regards to it. It was excessive, and overwhelming, to the point where I’m not even sure what I saw. It was crude, and absurd, something that I wouldn’t really go see again.
++sammi._
http://www.mindspring.com/~heidiw/Punk.Gothic.jpeg
Aspects of appropriation appear in nearly all areas of visual art history if one considers the basic act of making art as the borrowing of images or concepts from the surrounding world and re-interpreting them into artwork. For example, some might classify Leonardo da Vinci as an appropriation artist, because he used recombinant methods of appropriation, borrowing from sources as diverse as biology, mathematics, engineering and art, and then synthesizing them into inventions and artworks.
Some art historians regard Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque as the first to appropriate items from a non-art context into their work. In 1912, Picasso pasted a piece of oil cloth onto the canvas. Subsequent compositions, like Guitar, Newspaper, Glass and Bottle (1913) in which Picasso used newspaper clippings to create forms, became categorized as synthetic cubism. The two artists incorporated aspects of the “real world” into their canvases, opening up discussion of signification and artistic representation.
Five years later, in 1917, Marcel Duchamp introduced the idea of the readymade. That year he entered Fountain into the American Society of Independent Artists exhibition. The work consisted of a urinal, lying on its side atop a pedestal with the signature “R. Mutt”. The urinal appeared neither original nor rare, Duchamp’s “creativity” as an artist lies in the gesture of selecting the urinal as an art piece and displaying it in an artistic context. Duchamp also went so far as to use existing art in his work, appropriating an apparent copy of the Mona Lisa into his piece, L.H.O.O.Q. Recent speculation regarding Duchamp’s appropriated urinal claimed that the urinal was “non-standard” and “non-functional,” and that Duchamp “allegedly custom-designed it along with his other supposed readymades,”[citation needed] however, this has never been substantiated.
This blog was appropriated from Wikipedia. Some might say, liberated. But as Wikipedia should not be considered an academic source, -and truth be told, at the last moment I lacked the required courage to actually go through with my plan to appropriate my third blog- I will include some additional text that has yet to be published on Wikipedia. I wonder if Duchamp went through this emotional turmoil before declaring the fountain to be his newest gift to the world. I doubt if he did, that’s what makes him the champ, after all. In conclusion, this blog has ignited my insight of the sheer courage needed by artist like Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Sherrie Levin and Christian Marclay to release into the wild something that only recently came into their possession. Looks like I’m doomed to the original. I’m going to have enough aura to last me a life time. -Candace
“Francesco Vezzoli: A True Hollywood Story!”,
An Art Students Lament of a Dismal Exhibition.
Perhaps that is a harsh way to start this post, but perhaps not. This exhibition was a conceptual and esthetic disaster. To all who are familier with Italian artist Vezzoli, one would expect a show with a certin amount of excess, however this ‘excess’ would be presumed to lay more on the nudity and sexuality side and not, as it turns out, on the end of painfully and unintentionally sad. The premise of the exhibition surrounded a film installation called Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story!, 2006.
The film tracks Vezzoli’s scandalous life and art career, the plot hinging on coverage of a fictional project by Vezzoli, an implausible remake of Maximilian Schell’s 1984 documentary Marlene, 1984, about Marlene Dietrich. All works in the exhibition relate to the film’s plot and span the period from 1995 to the present. In this sense the exhibition can be seen as a survey of Vezzoli, framed within a kitsch entertainment format. (http://www.thepowerplant.org/exhibitions/fall_07/vezzoli/artists_card.html)
Vezzoli appropriates Hollywood culture, movie poster staples, the concept of celebrity as well as Josef Albers’s art. The whole exhibition is a mash-up of kitsch and borrowed aesthetic. The fundamental problem with this exhibition is that is it too much like Hollywood: a lot of visual but no conceptual. The vast leaps that Vezzoli uses to connect his main focuses (being Marlene Dietrich, celebrity, and Josef Albers) are only connectable on a scarcely tangible physical correlation and absent completely on a theoretical plane. Kind of like how, “I have a chair in my room and I’m sure tom cruise has sat down on occasion so I’m going to include his ex-wife N. Kidman in my chair sculpture about independent films” might connect to Vezzoli’s next undertaking. The whole exhibition would have been more successful as a satire on the artist’s (or anyone for that matter) desire for celebrity if it weren’t so painfully clear that that is what Vezzoli so desperately desires. Vezzoli has (since I had first been made aware of his work) always seemed to bumble through the art world to the tune of Damien Hurst, but without all that cleverness and irony that makes Hurst successful. At one point our guide told us that when asked why Vezzoli reproduced specific Josef Albers’s, he shrugged and said that he thought they looked nicer. That’s Hollywood.
-Candace
Today’s class raised lot of questions for me in regards to what is considered art, and artist, or even an original. It fascinates me to know that the initial aim behind the DADA movement was to be considered “anti-art” and to protest against traditional art.
First off, did the founding fathers of DADA realize that they would only end up being considered artists of the avant-garde? Did they realize that in their protest, they would only be categorized amongst the artists they acted out against? Was this all a master plan to poke fun at the art world and not really create the sense of “anti-art”? Would they be happy or outraged to know that they are printed in art texts today amongst traditional art?
I’m not certain how much I can speculate on the answers, seeing as I don’t know too much about the movement. But I feel it may be safe to say, with the minds of such people like Duchamp, there may have been some hidden agenda in regards to shining a different light on the art realm.
Speaking of Duchamp, I also had many thoughts on the idea, in his case, of orginality. His initial readymade of the bicycle wheel and stool – was that hand crafted by him? Did he take these pre-manufactured items and purposefully put them together, using his own manpower? If so, would his creation then be an original? I would vouch for yes – seeing as his idea was to put to completely arbitrary objects together to form a sculpture of some sort – whether it had meaning or not. However, after having others made, and not by his own hand, only signed by him, the idea of originality becomes muddled. Would the gallery behind the reproduction now take credit as artist for these new sculptures? Or would these be considered copies of the original? The factor that I feel complicates the matter is the fact that Duchamp had signed these as his own work. So then, were these copies now work by Duchamp? And even further, would these then be considered originals based on his signature?
I feel that the DADA movement intended to overwhelm us with ideas on what art or originalit in art is. There were not enough questions being posed – and now that they were posing the questions, the idea of answering them is now irrelevant. I’m not even certain if their notion of art for art sake (no meaning behind it, just creating) was a whole hearted effort. I’m sure there were underlying intentions. However now, we can only leave the rest up to speculation; I’m interested to see what others think, comments are welcomed.
++sammi._
NUIT BLANCHE DANS LE MONDE
Oh sleepless night, an ode to disrupted sleeping patterns and caffeine overload.
As the sun sets, the night initiates –loudly- into the second year of Toronto’s version of Nuit Blanche and I find myself once more in the mecca of hotdog stands and tight pants. Red tail lights mark a modern pilgrimage for artists, artisans and the enthusiastically pretentious (of whom I occasionally claim membership). The night is full of video, sculpture, performance, paintings, installations, people, chaos, and millions of signs, least we forget that Soctiabank bled for our sins.
Highlights and lowlights aplenty, I will narrow down the playing field: 1. Zone B, Number 13, Midnight Mirage, 2007, Performance Art, Video Installation, Open Call Project. 2. Zone C, Number 2, City Glow, 2005, Chiho Aoshima, Animation. These are the works that I took the most pleasure in, and would like to talk about, if for nothing more, then to take a short respite from my characteristic flaw-finding nature. So stay hydrated and strap up your laces as I take you for a dander through zone B and C.
1. Zone B, Number 13, Midnight Mirage, 2007, Performance Art, Video Installation, Open Call Project: This last supper-esque performance called for participants to partake in robes, beans and Jesus allegory. As written: “For the duration of the event the artist will be serving a humble Serbian “bread & bean” dish to a circulating 12-member audience in an effort to stimulate cultural and social exchange. An all-night ritual of food consumption and conversation.” – Nuit Blanche
As experienced: I can’t actually find out who was responsible for this work, artist as unacknowledged director is fairly rare in this industry. I suppose that makes this work more intriguing to me. I think that if this works purpose was indeed to “stimulate cultural and social exchange” as was written, then perhaps the biblical appropriation of the last supper was a bit too potent. So I am going to ignore what I just read and republished on the work and go with how I originally reacted to it, I would encourage you to do the same, but, who am I?
While liberating themes from the bible is hardly unheard of, it still evokes a sudden and fail-safe reaction. Its one of the one things you can count on in life, next to maybe an abacus. The rotating cast at the table spoke of superficial omnipotence and the inclusion of men women and children of all creeds and races acted as a deconstruction of hegemonic constructs. The mush dinner suggested a more humble and inglorious biblical precedent then that which was recorded, furthering the satire.
2. Zone C, Number 2, City Glow, 2005, Chiho Aoshima, Animation: This five screen video piece hails from across the pond (Japan) and was displayed in Massey Harris Park. As written: “Chiho Aoshima’s imagination spreads like moss. Traveling playfully and unstoppably through seductive and sinister settings, it gives an account that traverses geographical and temporal confines. Scenes constantly unfold and emerge at the periphery of the frame.
We travel backwards through a field with no certainty of where each step will lead us, propelled by a vivid soundtrack of chirps and gurgles, howls and scurrying feet. Day and night cycle around us, revealing an extraordinary life that takes place amongst buildings and between gravestones.” – Nuit Blanche
As experienced: Aoshima’s animation was quite titillating, and I use the word deliberately. This work combined innocence, desire and the sensation of forced movement that it left me feeling both nauseated and provoked (in a good way). As you move through Aoshima’s animated jungle you are confronted by breathing nature, androgynous fairies, a tiny city made of phallic-like buildings and apocalypse doom. It reminds me of Karen Finley’s juxtapositions of innocents and darkness; her whinny the poo chronic psychological disorders and her transsexual cabarets.
The fact that Aoshima used cartoon-like animation left a contrived taste to the piece that really worked in it favour, manufactured and artifice being the name of the game. Final thoughts: Chiho Aoshima’s City Glow is a fantastic cyclical ride through a world that rivals Christianity in its foreboding and ominous counsel. It also contains enough phallic imagery to take Judy Chicago to battle, and that makes it great.
by Candace
Please stay tuned for a message from Scotiabank.
How many of you played Nintendo as a kid? Do you remember blowing the dust out of the game cartridge when it wouldn’t load properly? What happened to that old system once it went out of style and you moved on to, oh, I don’t know, Playstation or something?
Multimedia artist Cory Archangel has found a way to use discarded Nintendo game cartridges to create installation art with the outdated technology. Examples of projects he has completed include a hack of Super Mario Brothers to remove everything but the sky and clouds, a Formula One racing game hack that removes everything except the road with it’s pavement markings, and my personal favourite, a ‘remix’ of Hogan’s Alley shooting game that replaces ‘bad guy’ shooting targets with 8-bit images of Andy Warhol, Colonial Sanders, Flava Flav, and the Pope. Typically, Arcangel displays these works by projecting them on gallery walls on a digital projector connected to the original gaming system.
Image Source: Cory Arcangel – Formula 1 Driving Game Hack, 2003. http://www.blog.ni9e.com/archives/f1racer.gif
Arcangel’s skills as an artist do not lie in traditional media like oil, pencil, sculpture, etc, but in computer programming and technology manipulator. In order to create his work he must go through a complex process of removing one of the games microchips and replacing it with a ‘hacked’ chip of his own. After he hacks the games and begins to display the finished artwork, he posts the code he has rewritten to his blog along with instructions about how he did it.
Image Source: Cory Arcangel – I Shot Andy Warhol. (2003) http://www.movingimage.us/alt/andy_screen.gif
I would argue that Arcangel uses digital decoupage to create his installation works. He removes everything except for one single detail (the passing clouds in Super Mario, the lines on the road in the F1 driving game) which he puts the focus on. The finished product is just as much about the process of the complex computer hack as it is about watching the projected images on the wall. In games that were, even for their time, very complex, the idea of a person being able to physically open up the gaming cartridge and modify it’s content, without destroying all of the data originally contained on it is something I find strangely thrilling. People were really not meant to tamper with these games, and if they did, I’m sure it would be almost impossible to re-write the code to make it not only still playable, but to be considered something more than the original game was intended to be.
http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/ – Cory Arcangel’s Blog. Try the “Stuff I Made in _____” menu on the right to see some more works, he worked on a hacked Super Mario game in 2003.
-Matt Finn.
Here’s a ten dollar word for you: Plunderphonics. Now, I had no idea what this word meant until recently, but it seems to fit nicely into some of the themes of this course. The word was invented by John Oswald to describe made by taking several preexisting audio recordings and combining them to create a new audio recording. I heard the word in the context of a record review for Girl Talk’s Night Ripper, which was released last year. Girl Talk is not your standard band. It’s one guy, Gregg Gillis, and his Dell laptop, who cuts up top 40 records and remixes them. For example, the first track of the album contains samples from the following artists: Ciara, Boston, Ludacris, Fabolous, Ying Yang Twins, The Verve, Outkast, Webbie, Oasis, Slim Thug, Arrested Development, Young Jeezie, Genesis, Boredoms, Positive K, The Five Stairsteps, and Eminem. And that track is only 2 minutes and 40 seconds long. The whole record continues like this, and while I can’t confirm it myself, it apparently contains over 150 uncleared samples.
Girl Talk advertisement for Night Ripper
Image Source: http://illegalart.net/girltalk/Night_Ripper_web.jpg
Night Ripper might sound like a genre stretching or rule breaking record, but I think it exists in a genre that has no rules to begin with. The scope may be larger than any artist has attempting in the past, with most mash-up artists limited themselves to pairing two disparate songs together, but as an art form, I’m surprised no one has attempted a project like this before. There are artists like Christian Marclay who uses found records to create sound collages, but those have been not been considered as popular music, but as sound art collage projects. Gillis has used others music to communicate not only the state of popular music in 2007, but the nature of popular culture, all through the musical works of other artists. He reduces pop songs to their simplest schizophrenic elements: the hook and the beat. In combining these elements I think he has the potential to appeal to everyone. Because of the huge number of music that is unlicensed from record companies, Night Ripper is practically begging for a lawsuit, which as of now, hasn’t been filed. If and when this happens, Girl Talk’s label (ironically called Illegal Art Records) plans on using the defense that the sampled songs can be used under a Fair Use agreement that allows artists to liberally sample songs in the creation of new works.
I am wondering what some of you think about this. If Girl Talk or the label are sued by record companies, do you think this album constitutes “fair use” of the samples?
Some links:
http://www.myspace.com/girltalkmusic – Hear snippets of Girl Talk’s music
http://illegalart.net/girltalk/ – Girl Talk’s website, order the album and hear more samples
-Matt Finn.
Blog #3
What is Art and an Artist?
When we looked at the self portrait of van Gogh, I did not see what was intended. I didn’t see a tormented artist. I don’t think you have to know the artist in order to understand his/her painting and I don’t think it is important to understand the artist because I feel the work, although representative of the artists most inner thoughts and feelings, is brought to the public so that they can take what they will from it. Looking at van Gogh’s self portrait knowing he was the type of artist that he was does not affect how I view him in the painting. Even though he sees himself as tortured, I don’t feel that comes across in the picture. Perhaps I take a separate meaning from it, perhaps to me its only a man with orange hair, but either way his idea of tortured proves to be different from mine.
As far as Barthes article is concerned, I can see his point of view in regards to the idea that the author must die for the reader to be born because I think it is important for the reader to take whatever he or she can from what they are reading or in the case of an artist, viewing in the painting. It is important to recognize that it is coming from someone, who may be labeled as the author, but I think everyone will understand and take something different from it, therefore in a sense the authors story dies and the readers own personal story begins.
Reading Foucault’s article not only made me question what an author is but also what an artist is. It made me think of the Visual Arts Field Trip, which made me ask the question “ what is considered art?” There are different forms of art, but is there a term or definition that is seen as universal? I find it hard to recognize what an artist is because often I don’t understand the artist’s interpretation of art. I think this is an ongoing question for artists, critics, and the general public and I don’t think the question can ever truly be answered.
– Laura
