Week 8 - Industrialisation

Industrialisation and Cao Fei's RMB City

Dynamism of a dog on a Leash (1912) Giacomo Balla

Industrialisation in the late 1800s, and today.

RMB City (2007-9)  Cao Fei

The artists of the late 1800's and early 1900's, in Europe, were influenced by the Industrial revolution.

1. What and when was the Industrial Revolution?

Both paintings featured on this blog, that are from the early 1900s were painted by Modernist painters from the group called 'Futurists'. The Futurists celebrated the machine, and objects in motion. Their primary objective was to depict movement, which they saw as symbolic of their commitment to the dynamic forward thrust of the 20th century.

 

The Industrial Revolution was a period in which fundamental changes occurred in agriculture, textile and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies and the social structure in England. This period is appropriately labeled revolution, for it thoroughly destroyed the old manner of doing things; yet the term is simultaneously inappropriate, for it connotes abrupt change. The changes that occurred during this period (1760-1850), in fact, occurred gradually. The year 1760 is generally accepted as the eve of the Industrial Revolution. In reality, this eve began more than two centuries before this date.

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html

2. Research both Modernist paintings in order to comment on the subject matter, form and style used to celebrate the machine and motion in each painting. Answer the question in 2 parts for each painting.

Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9) refers to China's recent rapid industialisation and urbanization.
(www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/cafeintopia.asp)

RMB City is constantly nourished by new and innovative projects, and supported by leading international art institutions and networks. As a model of avant-garde urban planning, it traverses the boundaries between past and future, real and virtual to link China and the cosmopolitan contemporary world.

In Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending A Staircase from 1912, the person is painted as if there were multiple depictions of the same person going down the stairs; the viewer can see each step being taken. In Giacomo Balla's Dynamism Of A Dog On Leash, also from 1912, one can almost feel the frantic energy of the little dog, it's feet shuffling quickly, it's tail wagging excitedly, and the hurried footsteps of the person trying to keep up.

 http://www.artsology.com/motion_in_art.php

 

3. Research Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9)  in order to comment on this work in more depth.
i.e describe the images that has she used in her digital collage that refer to China's present and history, and explain why has she used these images.

RMB City is a condensed incarnation of contemporary Chinese cities and accordingly displays most of their characteristics; that is to say, a series of new Chinese fantasy realms that are highly self-contradictory, full of irony and suspicion.These imagined scenes occupy the boundaries between past and future, real and virtual and link China to the cosmopolitan contemporary world. In this environment, Cao Fei, or China Tracy as she is known in Second Life, has cultivated different spectators and participants of RMB City. She organizes events in this city, such as interviews, mayor’s speeches, and Naked Idol – a nude avatar contest. Within this context, she invites other artists to produce and show their work. As a result, avatars both participate in the events in RMB City, and visit as an audience, while other avatars become spectators by coincidence. 

http://interventionsjournal.net/2012/01/26/rmb-city-spectatorship-on-the-boundaries-of-the-virtual-and-the-real/

4. RMB City is described as a utopia/dystopia. Comment on what these terms mean, and how they can be applied to the work. 

RMB City is not a real exist city. It has been created by Cao fei's avatar China Tracy as an experimental utopian world for the 3D online virtual community of Second Life. Institutions and investors have been invited to buy buildings in RMB City and program events and activities within them where other Second Life users can participate. Thousands of young people in Asia and around the world are embracing Second Life as a “parallel universe” on the Internet.

 

RMB City will be the condensed incarnation of contemporary Chinese cities with most of their characteristics; a series of new Chinese fantasy realms that are highly self-contradictory, inter-permeative, laden with irony and suspicion, and extremely entertaining and pan-political. China’s current obsession with land development in all its intensity will be extended to Second Life. A rough hybrid of communism, socialism and capitalism, RMB City will be realized in a globalized digital sphere combining overabundant symbols of Chinese reality with cursory imaginings of the country’s future.

 

 

 

5. Although the Modernist paintings and the contemporary digital work have emerged from different contexts, there are also many similarities. Comment on the similarities that you can see in the work. Look at the moving digital image at vimeo.com/4272260, if you have not already researched it.

 

There are many similarities that I can see in Cao fei's work.  Apparently the Modernist paintings and the contemporary digital work have emerged from contexts and both of them linked the culture significances are revealed deeply. Also expressing own in center feeling with different materials, pursuit new ideas and display mechanical beauty.    

 

 

6. Comment on other student's blogs.

www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/cafeintopia.asp
www.artchive.com/artchive/B/boccioni/boccioni_city.jpg.html
www.artchive.com/artchive/B/balla.html 
vimeo.com/4272260
 

 

 

Week 7- Science and reason-Video art by Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist's video art- how can we link this to science and reason?

 

Still from 'Ever is Over All' (1997)

 

1. Define the 17th century 'Scientific Revolution', and say how it changed European thought and world view. 

 Of all the changes that swept over Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the most widely influential was an epistemological transformation that we call the "scientific revolution." In the popular mind, we associate this revolution with natural science and technological change, but the scientific revolution was, in reality, a series of changes in the structure of European thought itself: systematic doubt, empirical and sensory verification, the abstraction of human knowledge into separate sciences, and the view that the world functions like a machine. These changes greatly changed the human experience of every other aspect of life, from individual life to the life of the group. This modification in world view can also be charted in painting, sculpture and architecture; you can see that people of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are looking at the world very differently.

http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/gilbert/23.html

2. Give examples of how we can we still see evidence of the 'Scientific Revolution' in the world today. 

The Scientific Revolution: The Medieval World View 

 
A world-view is a composite of several interpretive models through which the individual establishes his or her identity relative to everything else in the universe. In the broadest of terms, any world-view is made up of four component elements.

In the first of these components, which can be designated the Theological element, man tries to define himself in relation to the transcendent. In general, a person's transcendent presuppositions have a determinative impact upon all other aspects of their world-view.

The second component is Psychological in nature, and asks such questions as Who am I, and what is my significance in the greater scheme of things.

Third would be the Sociological aspect.

Fourth, What is the nature of the universe? How did it begin and how will it end? What is the nature of my relationship with the material world? In the broadest sense, this may be designated the Cosmological aspect of a world view. 

http://u15259039.onlinehome-server.com/essay.php?t=27772

Research Pipilotti Rist's video installations to answer the following;

3. From your research, do you think that the contemporary art world values art work

that uses new media/technology over traditional media?

World Views:

• Modernity and post-modernity are reductionist in their approaches to complexity
• “Old science” and its modernist and simplistic models
• Humanities with its simplistic reduction to ‘randomness’ and relativism

I do think that the contemporary art world values art work that uses new media/technology over traditional media. On the contrary, a work of art – whether based on technology or not – is usually classed as New Media Art when it is produced, exhibited and discussed in a specific “art world,” the world of New Media Art. This art world came into being as a cultural niche in the Sixties and Seventies, and became a bona fide art world in the Eighties and Nineties, developing its own means of production and distribution, and cultivating an idea of “art” that is completely different from that entertained by the contemporary art world.

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qY0iS336ZR0J:medianewmediapostmedia.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/the-postmedia-perspective/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz&client=firefox-a

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

Pipilotti Rist is internationally known for her rich vocabulary of sensual images, often focusing on the body, that articulates an open-ended vision of truth and identity. She is engaged in a deep dialogue with disrupted harmony, exposing the darker underbelly of her utopias and manipulating video to reveal her agenda. With her project for the Public Art Fund, Rist continues this direction in her work, realizing snapshots that glorify the ordinary, the hidden, the longed for, the ugly and the awkward as expressions of urgency and desire.

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

Rist positively describes the negative aspects of femininity, which have been rejected by women themselves. She articulates her ideas with weightless images of love, death, everyday life, and fiction. Her unique style is a product of the pliant, sensual relationship between music and video art. Rist is also a band member and has designed the stage sets. Her video installation inspires body awareness in the audience as a totally new experience, different from large video clips shown on a huge screen. 

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

I think the rational and irrational practices of women from different angles to define. In today's rule of law, smashing the windows for a woman of such acts is completely unrecognized.  But we also need to make clear that this behavior is a woman out of what state of mind, and spirit, or a woman would like to express to us what. 

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

Ever is Over All (1997) shows in slow-motion a young woman (Rist) walks along a city street, smashing the windows of parked cars with a large hammer in the shape of a tropical flower. At one point a police officer greets her. The clip was purchased by Museum of Modern Art, New York City. For me I think Every different technique can practical application nowaday Through the realizable gimmic to the audience resonance. She used special way to express her work without word.

                                http://colquitt.k12.ga.us/wjwpg2/sciencerev/science.htm   

                              http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/gilbert/23.html 

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=81191 

http://www.pipilottirist.net/moss.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJgiSyCr6BY

 

Week 6-Landscape and the Sublime

'Wanderer in the mists' (1818) Caspar David Friedric

h

'Untitled #2" (2002) Richard Misrach

 'Untitled # 394-03' (2003) Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach's photography reflects the concept of the Sublime, from the Enlightenment.

Research Misrach's work by reading about his intentions, and also by looking at the work. Then answer the following questions;

1. Define the Enlightenment, including its context (time and place).

The Enlightenment is generally described as taking place during the 18th century and is centred in France, Like the Renaissance, the values and ideas that developed during the period of the Enlightenment are described as having a major influence on current ways of thinking in the West and therefore the production of contemporary Western visual culture.

According to Hamilton(1992), the new ideas were accompanied by and influence in their turn many cultural innovations in writing, printing, painting, music, sculpture, architecture and gardening, as well as the other arts. Technological innovations in agriculture and manufactures, as well as in ways of making war, also frame the social theories of the Enlightenment.(p.23)

 Hamilton, P.(1992). The Enlightenment and the birth of social science, in Hall, S.& Gieben B. (eds.), Formations of Modernity. Cambridge: Open University Press (p.23)    

2. Define the concept of the Sublime. 

The sublime is  the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. The development of the concept of the sublime as an aesthetic quality in nature distinct from beauty was first brought into prominence in the 18th century 


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






3. Explain how the concept of the Sublime came out of Enlightenment thought.

 Enlightenment thought suggests that oppression and domination are residues of the feudal past and will eventually fade away. ... distinction between terror (linked to the sublime) and horror.The concept of the sublime came out of the enlightenment when it was in the 18th century when people began to think more of they way world was ruled through the rules of the government, rather then the rules of their religion.





4. Discuss the subject matter, and aesthetic (look) of Misrach's work to identify the Sublime in his work. Include some quotes from art critics and other writers who have written about his work.  
 

His picture of a lone couple on a beach can be vaguely unsettling: their isolation underscores their vulnerability, and the photographer's long-range viewpoint is clearly that of someone watching.

The photographs are, in a word, stunning: the largest measure 6 by 10 feet and are so detailed you can read the headlines on a beachgoer's newspaper. To create the pictures, Misrach used a view camera that holds 8-by-10-inch negatives, which, he says, "give you a level of definition that you'd never get with a 35-millimeter camera." He scanned the negatives into a computer, and sometimes digitally removed people, heightening the feeling of isolation. When he was satisfied with an image, it was burned with lasers onto photographic paper that then went through a chemical developing process.

Misrach says the new work is of a piece with his focus on people and the environment. But, he says, "it is much more about our relationship to the bigger sublime picture of things."

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-beach.html

5. Add 2 new images of his work to your blog.

On the Beach Series, 2002

 Richard Misrach

 

 Pyramid Lake,1988

Richard Misrach

6. Describe how does Misrach's photography makes you feel. How does it appeal to your imagination?

 

I love photography as art, I find it very relaxing to be able to look at photographs Pictures of places we have been stirs up memories and makes me want to go again. Being moved or inspired by the things around you and enjoying them through photographs makes things real, like a place I have always wanted to visit but not had the chance yet. It appeal to my imagination because Misrach's photography is much more about our relationship to the bigger sublime picture involves in the nature. 

7. Identify some other artists or designers that work with ideas around the Sublime, from the Enlightenment era as well as contemporary artists.

 

James Turrell (California, 1943) is an internationally acclaimed light and space artist whose work can be found in collections worldwide. Over more than four decades, he has created striking works that play with perception and the effect of light within a created space. His fascination with the phenomena of light is related to his personal, inward search for mankind’s place in the universe. Influenced by his Quaker upbringing, which he characterizes as having a ‘straightforward, strict presentation of the sublime’, Turrell’s art prompts greater self- awareness though a similar discipline of silent contemplation, patience, and meditation.

http://www.bodegacolome.com/museo/biografia-de-james-turrell.php?lang=en

8. Add a Sublime image of your choice to your blog, which can be Art or just a Sublime photograph.

 9. Reference your sources (books and websites).

 

 

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/friedrich/
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/misrach_richard.html 
www.nga.gov/exhibitions/misrachinfo.shtm

National Gallery of Art - Richard Misrach: On the Beach

 

Week 5 - The Social Status of the artist - The Renaissance and now.

Self Portrait in Fur Coat (1500)

Albrecht Durer

Knob (1997) Gavin Turk

Damien Hirst and Maia Norman (1995)

Albrecht Durer's 'Self-Portrait in Fur Coat' (1500) shows a significant change in the way that the artist views and portrays himself. Research the paintings by Albrecht Durer, Gavin Turk and Damien Hirst in order to answer

the following questions;

 

 

1. Identify aspects of Durer's self portrait that show a changing view of the artist's view of himself as an individual.

Duerer was very much an innovator. He is, for example, the first artist who is known to have painted a self-portrait and to have done a landscape painting of a specific scene. He is amazing because he painted himself with incredible colors at the age of twenty-eight years. Also he was the first Northern artist to be directly influenced by first-hand contact with the Italian Renaissance. As an individual, Durer's self portrait displays the arrogance and confidence of an artist at the height of his power. 

http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Durer.html

 

 

2. Explain how the artist's social status increased during the Renaissance period. Briefly explain why this happened.

 

 the Renaissance focus on two periods as an observer to analyze the situation and the social status of visual Artists, the formation of the reasons for focusing on aspects of Art theory from the contribution shows the status of the Artist to change their determination and tireless efforts, and to painting, sculpture artist from the artisan class was a gradual growth process, indicating progress in art history, artists, social status changes that have an important role in the landmark. However, in keeping with its aim of producing thoughtful, classical art, the Europe Renaissance raised the professions of painting and sculpture so the artist's social status increased during that time.

 

http://www.mrdowling.com/704renaissance.html

 

 

 

 

 

3. Comment on Gavin Turk's work in relation to individualism, status of the artist and egotism. 

 

 He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people. Turk pieces often involves his own image disguised as that of a more famous person. Turk made a number of works based on his own signature that comment on the value that the artist’s name can confer onto a work. He has also made a number of photographic and sculptural self-portraits that often involve some degree of disguise. 

 

http://www.thecatstreetgallery.com/artist/GavinTurk/biography/

4. Comment on Damien Hirst's use of his work and the media for self promotion.

 

 Hirst's work is an examination of the processes of life and death: the ironies, falsehoods and desires that we mobilise to negotiate our own alienation and mortality. He used different media and things such as animal: cows, sheep or the shark. Damien Hirst became a media icon and household name. He has since been imitated, parodied, reproached and exalted by the media and public alike.

 

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hirst.html

5. Find 2 images of work by any artist or designer that reflect some of the ideas of individualism, self promotion or egotism that have been discussed on this blog. Upload images to your blog, title and date the work, identify the artist/designer and comment on the work in relation to the question.

 

 

 

Contemporary art is highly individualistic. It is about freedom of expression, the chance to make one's mark and to speak with a distinctive voice - all characteristics of the right, rather than the left. Contemporary artists are entrepreneurs in every sense of the word. 

First Artist is Damian Hirst.

His amazing Skull reflect the ideas of individualism that the thought more open, and the skull so expensive. 

	For the love of God(2007)
The second artist is Charles Rohlfs

 

artistic furniture(2008)

 

Charles Rohlfs was making what he considered "artistic furniture" with a highly individualistic style. He ranked among the most innovative furniture makers at the turn of the twentieth century. Praised by the international press and exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, his beautiful works grew out of an interesting mix of styles that included Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and proto-modernism. This book presents the first major study of this important American designer and craftsman, drawing upon new photographs and fresh sources of information.

 

 

 

 

 

 6. How do you think artists and designers are viewed in Western society today?

 

Most are viewed differently depending on how the media portray them. Like all artists and designers, their work and the acknowledgment of their work all depend on the media and how they portray it. Nowadays artist and designers more different, they think wildly and more interesting that eye-catching up viewers. They developed art into different ways such as music and movie therefore their social status increasing easily than Renaissance artist. That is what I think artists and designers are viewed in Western society today.

 

 

7. Comment on the blogs of other students.

8. Reference the websites and/or books you have used, at the end of your blog.

 

 

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/durer/self/

http://radicalart.info/ego/statements/index.html

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG7733481/Maia-Norman-Damien-Hirsts-Californian-girl.html