12/25/2009 • 4:24 pm 0
Well here it is… the voiceover may differ slightly from the one in the presentation, but this is because I was partially being spontaneous in each case and not sticking 100% to a text. I’m going to have a go at trying to embed it in this page although it is hosted on my own web space.
Oh well embedding does not work – wordpress replaces my HTML with some weird stuff of its own. Here’s the link instead:
Filed under: tp0910
12/19/2009 • 10:25 pm 0
I appologize for the tardiness in this post. Work has consumed my life recently, and I have discovered the hard way I am allergic to that which makes Blue Stilton cheese, blue.
http://www.mediafire.com/?zj1ygimyz4j
In the mean time, here is the video version of my pecha kucha, and I will be uploading the slides with script shortly after wards. Please just click the above link and download the video if you care to watch it. We don’t have the ability to upload the proper file type, so I’ve done it this way.
Once again, I focused my pecha kucha on my life thus far and how it has shaped me as not only an individual but also how it has affected my art and methods.
I hope you all enjoy this, and I look forward to re-watching everyone elses. Thanks!
Filed under: tp0910 , pecha kucha
• 10:24 pm 0
Today I would like to briefly examine how I became the fun loving crazy person I am today. How did I become a zombie movie obsessed individual that finds art in the spray of fake blood and the careful tearing of a shirt? Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
This is me at the age of six with my mom. When I was five my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer; no one really explained anything to me past, “Mom is sick, don’t bother her.” This is the farthest point I can trace back to for when I became high-anxiety since I almost gave myself an ulcer at the age of five.
Over the coming years my dad’s antics loosened me up to where I wasn’t rigid and taking everything seriously. School and extra-curricular activities were still really stressed upon by my mom, and my dad kept me busy with soccer and reffing over the years. Both of my parents just kept pushing me forward.
When I was thirteen my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer again, and this time they only gave her a year tops. I threw myself into extra activities like coaching soccer in order to keep a smile on mine and my mom’s face in order to distract both of us from what we though was going to happen. Like any mom she was more concerned with keeping my life as normal as possible over any pain she was in.
By eighteen, I had graduated high school and my mom thanks to a miracle was in remission again. These experiences with cancer had taught me that everyday was to be cherished and to go out and live life. This was because honestly, you don’t know what’s in store for yourself in the future.
So in college I began to express myself through my interests in anime, or Japanese animation, by going to conventions, and cosplaying, or dressing up as characters, despite my mom thinking it was silly. My digital media work also was an outlet. It was not, however, until I began to travel for my art practice that I truly began to find myself.
I began to experience new things and different cultures, and began to slowly grow out of my small town, socially awkward self, and began to get a taste of what the world had to offer.
However, during my study abroad to this school two years ago, my Aunt Brenda died of cancer of all things. I flashed internally back to my own experiences with my mom. I had no real support system here since unfortunately, I had once again thrown myself back into my schoolwork and put aside most of my social life.
My assignments stayed bright and positive, as I didn’t really let many people know about what I was going through. Those that did know didn’t know how badly I was hurting since I had fallen back on smiling for the camera, so to speak.
My personal photography, however, began to show my internal conflict in my opinion. It began to lean to more somber tones, portraying how I internally felt. It wasn’t until I got home and could morn with my parents that I felt better.
Once again, my mom was my rock and my dad the comedic relief. Other than a few close friends they were my constants during the month and a half before my next trip. During this time I tried to figure out how to better release everything I held inside of myself.
My dad encouraged me to get back into the physical activities such as soccer that I had been avoiding over the last two years because of some old soccer injuries. So I became an adrenaline junkie in Australia. I began white water rafting, playing soccer again, and even scuba diving. Suddenly my work got brighter and happier in my eyes.
Diving really helped me bounce back emotionally. When you’re underwater and alone with your thoughts, you realize there’s more out there in the world and by holding onto sadness and loss instead of learning from it, I was letting life pass me by.
That was something I had promised myself years ago during my mom’s experience with cancer to never do. My family had made to many sacrifices for me over the years for me to not take advantage of the world around me that they had provided for me.
So I graduated with my BA early and had to come up with an idea for this MA project. My family had always been a big influence in my life, and their encouragement lead me to my passion of sharks and education.
Diving’s influence on my outlook on my overall life had me wanting to share that passion. Getting my little cousins interested in diving while living with them before coming here cemented my desire to do something educational within their age group with a focus on sharks and or diving in general.
I must have done something right because I found myself back in Harrow after two years. Finally, I was going to culminate my experiences with travel and my family into a project of my own inspiration, combining my two passions, my family and diving.
I would not be the person I am today, let alone the artist without my family’s sacrifices and support. No matter the situation they have been there for me in one shape or form.
Their struggles and my high-anxiety reaction to them consisting of anxiety attacks, weight gain, and almost having an ulcer at the age of five, has taught me to take time in my life for the simple pleasures, such as delicious cake, or tea, and by taking the time to enjoy myself. By doing this I’ll be making not only myself happy, but my art as well.
This is how I discovered the wonderful artistic release one can get by dressing up as a zombie for Halloween. Ripping clothes and having a blood fight in order to semi-realistically gore oneself is just one of the ways I’ve learned to express myself not only as an individual, but as an artist. Thank you.
Filed under: tp0910 , pecha kucha
12/09/2009 • 6:12 pm 3
I did not time or automate this presentation so have failed that part of the task. I did enjoy making it very much and found it a powerful learning and self teaching experience. I include below the script to accompany the slides.
Auto-ethnography: a visual essay
Charlie Weinberg 7th December 09 London
SLIDE 1 EYES. I am intrigued by the development of this practice as both a research tool and a method or practice in its own right.
. For me this is about looking at myself and asking what I ask of myself in public:
SLIDE 2 ADDRESS
Editorial: Autoethnography and Arts-Based Research
Deborah Smith-Shank & Karen Keifer-Boyd
First generation autoethnography involved personal history and situating oneself in the text. One noted first generation autoethnographer, H.L. Goodall Jr. prefers to use the term “personal narrative” rather than autoethnography to describe this type of research.
SLIDE 3. WINDOW Others (Denzin, 2007 at QI; Pelius, 2007 at QI) distinguish autoethnography from personal narrative in that it is a political project that uncovers and makes present what has not previously been overt in research methodology.
SLIDE 4 For me, this was about looking at myself and presenting myself or parts of myself. I am becoming aware of the secrets in my art and the fact that my high levels of integrity are increasingly compromised by own artistic practice.
SLIDE 5 EYES I mean, there are some things I do in art that I do not share with some of the people I love. This is a big question and realisation for me. Why is that and what does that mean about me, them, our relationship? And why am I only really understanding or paying attention to this now?
SLIDE 6 BUDDHA I am aware of my own feelings about and complicated relationship with beauty. I find it repellent that we should be judged on something so indefinable and open to abuse and classification by powers and structures out of our own control.
SLIDE 7 I find beauty in many ways. I am committed to the practice of creating value and of finding and expressing beauty as much as possible.
SLIDE 8 And I am aware of my own feelings about myself and my own reflection…both of which change so much. This work is partly a reflection upon my own reflection
SLIDE 9 My identity is multiple and various. I keep bits of it and reminders of all the me’s I have been, am and may be again in different contexts because I find it funny that one person can be so multiple without having a psychiatric label or diagnosis. Depending on who ordains the identity, we may be multiple personalities
SLIDE 10. According to Smith as quoted earlier, “First generation autoethnographer, Carolyn Ellis (2007 at QI), warns that the typical process of starting with meaning construction should begin by exploring how meanings fall apart”.
I want to use my art work to look at meaning, meaning making and what happens if that is altered…This is challenging and means pushing myself to take new and bigger challenges.
SLIDE 11 I dress to face the world. I think about what I wear, not only for reasons of fashion or appearance.
SLIDE 12 Sometimes the outside world can be as beautiful as it is ugly. I am very aware of that tension and my relation to nature, my built environment and social structures.
SLIDE 13 I step out and walk through the world. I love the world and I love being in it. I love my shoes and I love walking. I love being comfortable. For a woman, that should not be my priority but it is.
SLIDE 14 Public transport is a huge and significant part of my life. What happens on the bus is often a microcosm of the world at large, for good and for bad. My bus takes me to my door and to my work and to most places I need to go. I love the bus and I hate the bus. It is part of my daily life and my community.
SLIDE 15 My bus takes me past my hairdresser, Woo. As my mum says, he has golden hands.
SLIDE 16 My bus takes me past the newsagent, run by this couple since I can remember. These were the first people to say hello to me on a regular basis in the area.
SLIDE 17 I found myself reflected in this puddle beautifully. I love the way the water reflects me and the building and makes us both slightly more vague and ambivalent than we are in reality. My shoes in real time match up with my reflected self and merge the two of us.
SLIDE 18 Reflected in the door of my friend’s house I fit perfectly in the slot between the slats. I have never really fitted perfectly anywhere.
SLIDE 19 And so I am revealing information about myself, as much to others as to myself. What we each see and perceive may well be different. What I am doing and making are points of view, statements and art works about my relationship to the world.
SLIDE 20 Here’s looking at you kid. If I am to investigate others, I believe I must be fair game, at least to my own scrutiny and investigation.
Filed under: tp0910
• 2:14 pm 0
DIY [Do It Yourself] :
a-Time the automatic PowerPoint presentation using the following technique
b- Upload it to the blog, using the following procedure
Filed under: paula roush, tp0910 , paula roush
• 1:41 am 0
Chapter 5 of Graeme Sullivan’s book “Art Practice as Research” is entitled “The artist as theorist”. In this chapter, the author focuses the discussion on sites of practice for artists-theorists.
According to Sullivan, in our post-modern times, the artist-theorist’s task is both creative and critical: it is her/his task to “create forms of representation that have the capacity to reveal, critique, and transform what we know” and to investigate and interpret such forms, “how image makers and meaning makers come to know the things they do”. While the first part is a description we already associate with a (good) artist’s work, the latter is mostly used to refer to the actions and aims of a researcher. Therefore the artist-theorist is a practitioner engaged both in creating and analysing meaning, and such position distinguishes her/him from a (supposedly) detached researcher who is not involved into artmaking.
As a researcher, an artist does not need to be committed to any specific methods of investigation, since research may be seen as a cultural activity whose outcome is evaluated in terms of of exchange and development (Sullivan’s reference to Stephen Wilson, 2002). This discussion on artist’s agency and her/his freedom to exchange knowledge (and, in doing so, expand it) reminded me of artists who are engaged in making change in society.
Swiss artist Claudia Andujar (based in Brazil since the 1950s) is an example of an artist “working in communities” – as one of many artists’ sites of practices -who has a public commitment to her work and her “subject matter”, the Yanomani people. Her photographic work with this indigenous tribe since the 70s has been crucial to the recognition of the Yanomani as a tribe and as a political movement requiring land demarcation on the Amazon basin. Andujar is not a detached researcher, she campaigns for people with whom she has established a relationship through art.
Beatriz Rinaldi
Filed under: tp0910
12/07/2009 • 4:40 pm 0
O’Sullivan concludes that the place of art in the institution is an ongoing query, often answered with a question mark. Art within universities remains a low priority, a little believed or valued poor relation to the scientific, quantitative siblings of academic learning. What could happen for Art to be received and promoted as a cultural and educational essential? We would surely have to arrive at an understanding of ourselves as artists and the earth as one of our creations?
Filed under: tp0910
• 11:54 am 0
Yippee, I made it!! Thanks Paula, somehow we made it through!!
Filed under: tp0910
• 11:23 am 0
Week 3
Pigment to Pixel, Chapter 1- O’Sullivan
O’Sullivan takes us through a historical review of the developments in art practice and teaching from the Enlightenment.
He talks about the tensions and divergences between what practitioners and academics shared in their conceptions of art (the glory of intellect) and what separated them (the importance of skills and canonical learning as opposed to workshop and studio practice over theory.)
The text assumes a Western perspective, which is not negative, necessarily, but should be noted in terms of limiting the discussion to Western traditions and developments.
O’Sullivan quotes Hughes who refers to the ‘crumbling artifice’ of the academy which could not hope to involve or embrace the evolving and ever changing practice of art making. As Young concludes, art exists and responds to a variety of ‘artsworlds’, internal, external, theoretical and practical. Art as an empirical form of inquiry can be seen to become basic to and useful for theory and educational developments.
O’Sullivan includes references to psychological notions such as ‘not knowing’ and the scientific paradigm that Europe adopted during the Enlightenment. He suggests that art was overtaken by the academy because of the need to know, prove and establish rules of art and art practice.
This led to the ‘codification’ of art by the academy, making art an elitist and separatist discipline from the popular or public domain. Ironically, it was the development of the machine age which required the institutionalised teaching of art to train skilled designers, so reigniting the teaching of drawing, for example, as a life skill, transferable to many ‘modern’ techniques and vocational areas.
From my own reading, Sennet, in Craftsmanship, highlights the impact of technological advances such as architectural drawing programmes and the inability of students trained in this technology to understand their products and processes in ways their skilled drawing counterparts could.
O’Sullivan concludes that the place of art in the institution is an ongoing query, often answered with a question mark. Art within universities remains a low priority, a little believed or valued poor relation to the scientific, quantitative siblings of academic learning. What could happen for Art to be received and promoted as a cultural and educational essential? We would surely have to arrive at an understanding of ourselves as artists and the earth as one of our creations?
Filed under: tp0910 , art, development, Institutional learning
12/03/2009 • 1:03 am 0
Chapter five, “Artist as Theorist” delves into the process and influences artists deal with. What I found most interesting about this chapter was the term “transexperience.” The term refers to the artist Chen Zhen’s concept for art practice. He felt that one should leave his or her birth place and travel from place to place in order to gain life experience. What struck me about this concept was how the majority of people on the Art and Media Practice course are international, myself included. Thinking about this chapter and my own experience with “transexperience” with my master’s project led me to question how international exposure to other countries and cultures has affected my course mates research and art since Chen considered “the departure from convention… [to lie] in the way that…considered transexperience as a creative catalyst” (Sulivan, p. 150). Several of my course mates have stated they are basing their works off of the experiences of being in England from their home country and the culture shock that initiated, and others have based projects off of religious and cultural influences from their own countries. So does this mean that in order to be creative one must travel?
I believe the answer to the above question to be no. The English students on this course are taking pieces of culture and experiences from the international students, just as we are from them. While I do believe that the ease of international travel has helped to move the art world forward in areas such as contemporary art, I do not feel that one must get on a plane and travel to experience other cultures. This is where this chapter’s look at art theorists really is compelling. With the internet providing never ending sources both in art and theory (e.g. the website Deviant Art and networked books), when can almost gain first hand experience with other cultures and artists. According to Sullivan, “What is apparent is the reemergence of artist-theorists as important sources of vision and voice within the cultural politics of these times, and the approaches they use that require different ways of thinking about artistic inquiry” (Sullivan, p. 150).
It is almost impossible to not be exposed to other cultures or beliefs when living in the western world, and I feel that this chapter makes strong points concerning international experience and its influence on both art and theory. While this chapter did discuss other matters, it was these points that I felt resonated the strongest to me. Not only am I an international artist by being an American in London studying for a master’s in art and media practice, but there are thousands of other international students around the world doing similar things to what I am doing, but none of them have lived my life and have my experiences to share with others and to influence both mine and others research methods and theory outlook. What I believe I am trying to get at is, that no two places are a like, and in order to well round yourself as both an artist and theorist, one must experience other cultures and people, whether that be online or through travel.
Thank you.
Jessica Dahn
Filed under: tp0910 , art research, international art, media practice, transexperience
• 12:00 am 0
The writer, Marco Deseriis explains the relation between networks and narratives. He claims that success of a network depends on the appeal of the stories it produces. A network is held together by a ‘promise’, readers/members are trying to achieve a certain outcome, they want to reach an ending.
Texts circulating the internet are more malleable than traditional forms like books, plays or films. These texts can change over time and the author loses control over them. A story evolves like the way a storyteller would change a story to suit a particular audience. In a way this brings about the death of the author.
Deseriis lays down three rules of a Networked Narrative, the first being the setup of a conflict, an unresolved situation which he calls the ‘denotative function’. The second, calling the individual to action, to perform a role, this is the ‘performative function’. The third is the laying down of a set of rules/ethics/system of beliefs that must be adhered to (pragmatic function).
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer with references to other text that the reader can immediately access. The reader has to adapt to this new style, they can not skim or skip through passages as they can in traditional forms of text as they have to be aware of what they are reading to ensure they don’t keep meeting the same texts over and over. A solution to this is to become a ‘metareader’, by trying to trace a map of their own reading the reader ‘gains a sense of readership’.
Deseriis goes on to talk about Hackivism and gives some very interesting examples; The Yes Men, TMark, E.toy.com etc. These groups created great projects by hacking into corporate websites and databases and generally causing havoc for the offending companies. The reason they were so successful was because they recruited individuals (drawing them in by using the narrative structure describes above) to carry out tasks en masse.
Filed under: tp0910 , art research, media practice, networked book
12/02/2009 • 11:59 pm 0
This chapter discussed whether visual arts practice can be accepted as a form of research. The author also looked at how knowledge is accumulated in the practice of making art. One of the questions asked is ‘How can practical/intuitive understanding be theorized?’ and ‘How can new concepts be theorized?’ To answer these questions the author looks at a few different types of research methods and how they are applied within the University setting. The argument that is made is mostly in favor of the studio as a ‘place of inquiry and research that has potential to yield knowledge’. The first method is Practice Based Research which is the ‘making’ of art. At University level the art piece is submitted for examination along with a ’substantial contextualisation’ of the work. This is a way of proving originality and judgement is made on whether the artist shows a contribution to knowledge in the field and ability to analyze. But the author claims that research should be seen as a ‘cultural practice rather than a codified form of academic inquiry’.
In the past artists tended to leave the explaining to aestheticians and historians. Some artists don’t talk about they’re work as they feel that nothing can be added to the visual image. Another reason they might not talk is because they feel that the ‘intelligence of creativity has been drastically underestimated by those outside the field of knowledge.’ But this isn’t an option anymore as the nature of artistic practice has changed the responsibility of the artist to cultural theorist and practitioner. Greta Refsum claims that if visual arts wants to have a theoretical framework then it must look at the processes that lead to the finished art. ‘Practice informs theory and theory informs practice.’ The author looks at Reflexive Practices which is research directed by ‘personal interest and creative insight’ but also informed by theory and discipline. The artist must ‘reflect’ on information and ‘question’ content and contexts as problematic situations. Postdiscipline Practices is another method which describes how visual arts research ‘takes place within and beyond the discipline boundaries as dimensions of theory explored and domains of inquiry adapted’. It is hard to define how an artist works as there is always a body of knowledge present before a project is begun. The author concludes by saying that university demands should be satisfied but the artist should keep a degree of integrity about what constitutes visual arts research. He also claims that because the artwork itself is in the public domain then it enters into a set of institutional relations and becomes part of an introspective regime.
Filed under: tp0910 , art and media practice, research
• 6:33 pm 0
Practice as research by Irina Corduban
As an artist I believe the key figure in the creation is the studio experience as a form of imaginative and intellectual inquiry. Why we need research? Because to study methods and meaning about art, to create now knowledge and as a further judgement in process to making art . For Jerome Bruner research is a “complex of question” how move him in to “real” world from a “critical setting”. From a different opinion Scrivener(2000) by research student need to: ” demonstrated” is a problem to be resolved, explain the “solution” of the problem in “improved artefact”, show the “world” want to solved that problem, demonstrated the usefulness of the solution and finally proved that problem been “eradicated” by the solution. The strategy of academically research are equivalence” by traditions associated with scholarship and “benchmarking” in identify practice. University research is an competitive research with professional audience ready in any moment to evaluate the outcome. In the same time, in university, by intersection from different culture ,research can be a cultural practice. Research culture remains “ grounded in theories and practice of visual research.
Research practice is a descriptions of artists in art by individual study , cultural context and approaches to the propose. This active research it can be divide in to: self reflective practice , reflectivity , dialogue and question. Self reflective practice as an opening concept and imaginative options. Reflective in rearrange a new exposition from a different artwork. Dialog between research and researched. And question for identify problem for any change. This “change” for Mats Alvesson and Kaj Skoldeberg is anticipations in artistic , cultural , social , political and educational .
In 1970s -1980s in UK one of the questions it was: what is” status of arts programs in higher education’s “? This it was opportunity visual art and design become connected to cultural production. The are there factors on debates: two causes and one theory. The causes facts are: legislations how change the international structure and the second cause funding support .The theory and practice of visual art as an academic discipline it been a way of form of research. Practice and theorize created a very strong relationship because inform “how art is made and how it can be study”.From some opinions in art will be a difference between academic research and visual art research. Other consider visual art theorising can be articulate visual and verbal forms. ( Candlin, 2000).
The dialog between artist, artwork and context all the time it will play a very critique coalition.
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• 3:38 am 0
Chapter 1 Pigment to Pixel
Sullivan, G., 2005. Art practice as research: inquiry in the visual arts. Thousand Oaks Calif.: Sage Publications.
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/11014_chapter1.pdf
In this chapter, Sullivan discusses the changes is art education, research in visual arts, role of an artist, and relationship of art to other disciplines, from Enlightenment era to the present.
Enlightenment brought the understanding that world is governed by rules that can be discovered, and started the rise of empirical inquiry. Art, rational philosophy, and science had a common goal of finding out how the nature worked and what was the place of humans in it. Art itself was considered to have set rules that could be taught in academies, which were the places to develop a universal knowledge about art. That meant that art education was formalised and art knowledge codified. Artist was a producer of new knowledge but also, due to the industrial development, a technologist, analyst, illustrator and so on.
With modernism came the doubts about whether the rational reasoning was capable of finding the truth. Influential art critic and social thinker John Ruskin argued that art has a moral function and artist needs to take a moral stance. He also spoke of the need to integrate innovative thinking into art institutions. Art critics as directors of trends rather than just reviewers was a new phenomena and art world struggled to find its identity in the face of all the new art that emerged in late 19th century. As Sullivan says, “a critic, when confronting an unusual image or object, could only ever see it for its lack of skill rather than consider it, perhaps, in terms of innovation.”
Art was taught on the borders of art history and other humanities like classical studies. There was no clear understanding what form the art education should take, which was partly due to the prevalent attitude that artists cannot be made, they are found. There was a schism between the mainstream institutions who saw art studies as learning art history, and artists who were looking for new, radically new art which they did not see in any relation to the past or existing practices.
New developments in the field of physiology of vision and psychology of perception in later decades of 20th century provided art teachers with a concept of “training the eye” and “language of vision”. The pervious idea of seeing as grasping the whole, as “gestalt” was invalidated as the new evidence showed how different aspects of vision are processed in different parts of brain. Also, perception was proved to be an active, cognitive process, and “therefore, the world we see is given meaning by the world we know”. The meaning is not given by the outside objects but is created, according to previous knowledge and experience. This postmodernist notion “differs markedly from a more modernist perspective that sees interpretation as an explanatory process that assumes meaning is inherent to a text or artifact and can be revealed if the reader or viewer has the requisite knowledge and perceptive skill”. Context that creates the meaning is not static either but is constantly changing, being connected to other contexts which are, in turn connected to others and so on. This is, of course, related to digital technology.
Filed under: tp0910 , art institutions, enlightment, modernism, postmodernism, psychology of perception, Sullivan, tp0910
• 2:53 am 0
The first chapter or Sullivan’s ‘Context for visual arts research’ study, ‘Pigment to Pixel’ attempts to discuss how the role of arts, and the artist’s role has changed and developed in society. Sullivan gives an overview how science and arts joined in collaboration for different reasons supplied by the particular periods of time. The chapter also offers an interesting read about how arts have found and continuously trying to redifine their place in education haunted by the debate between theory and practice.
Art practice is undeniably providing vast contribution to research and therefore deserves more credit for bringing innovative approach into science, education, social studies, information technology amongst others. There are some great examples, which we encounter in our daily life without noticing them. For instance, the roots of the development of medical imaging lie in the early trials of 3 dimension animation, the common child of artists and computer scientists. How could visual arts finally get widely recognised for their obvious relevance today?
Filed under: tp0910
• 1:52 am 0
Just like other individuals, artists living in our society and are the carrier and subject to the influence and constraints of social life. We can feel the existence of a number of social factors that are embodied in the work created by artists. The trend of development of a nation, a country, or even the whole world will inevitably affect the artist’s creative and innovative works.
There is a saying that “Art comes from life, but is higher than life”, this sentence is for works of art, but also beautify the artist, which helps to create a bias clichés (Stereotype), that is, artists do not other-worldly air, or completely self-contained. Perhaps the narcissistic artists are existent, but they cannot be divorced from the real world. They are in the era of asymmetric information, is one of the representatives of a typical myth or a monster, like the phenomenon in other areas, such as the profiling of political figures.
It is completely different among contemporary Art and the classical or traditional art. But people have accepted the traditional aesthetic experience for quite a long period and it is difficult to accept the expression of contemporary art, or the use of materials. Therefore, the level of understanding has been said that the current contemporary art is only the art of a small minority. Many people even think that contemporary art is only the artist’s own game. But I do not think the public needn’t to understand contemporary art because contemporary art has not set aside the public foundation.
Compared to classical art and traditional art, contemporary art act even more social. It involves a lot of the traditional areas not covered, disclose the relationship between human and the natural environment, culture and environment.
More classical and traditional art use the beauteousness as the main body to give people a sense of joy. So beauteousness here just used as the purpose of making. In contemporary art, there are no boundaries of beauty and ugliness; both of them are just a means of expression. The challenge of contemporary art is not aesthetic limitations, but the limitations of thought. Contemporary art is a kind of interactive art, the artist presented the phenomenon to the public, whose power of shock or confusion arising from uncertainty inspired a number of people. In this process, the general public learns to think, sum up and get inspiration.
Filed under: tp0910 , Artist As Theorist, chapter 5, christie
• 12:20 am 0
Chapter 3 Explanation, Understanding and Beyond puts forward the idea that both researching art, and the practice of art, are both extremely important in developing intellectual growth in a social and historical context. The writer tries to convey how making art can be a genuine form of research and therefore should be used as an important platform to raise theoretical questions and debates. The chapter goes on to explore a range of different research methods.
What I found interesting about this chapter was the idea that visual arts play a huge role in educational development and human understanding. The chapter also argues that visual arts helps to develop a foundation for research to ‘extend the important role of art in institutional, political, and cultural settings’ (page 5). I also agree with the view set out in the chapter that people research for the purpose of expanding their knowledge to help inform new ideas. I found this an extremely interesting essay which touched on some very good points. I think many people forget how history and culture have always been reflected in art and how the evolution of art has always provided new platforms of new research.
By Rose Casey
Filed under: tp0910
12/01/2009 • 12:10 pm 3
This essay is about extensive artistic practices, which focuses on the artist-as-theorist. That means there’s potential pathways which can link artistic practices and theory. Ideas and actions can be linked in new ways. It examines the changing patterns and sites of visual arts inquiry. “Visual art” is not only a descriptive or representational form, but also a means of making images which can reveal new knowledge.
The author explain the relationship between theories and practices in three aspects: Making in Systems, Making in Communities, and Making in Cultures.
What I found interesting is the art practices of traveling in culture. The artists work as a ethnographer, use the form of visual art to real the new knowledge of humanites. Firstly, that means artists open up new system for art making. There are new visual forms and structures as new possibilities for the field of other knowledge. It also relates to both making in communities and making in cultures. On one hand, artists change their research sites form studios into the community. On the other hand, because of the globalization and technological advances, more and more artists work in different sites across the world. They move between and among cultures, leaving native place and going from one place to another in their life. Here artists do self-reflective through “otherness”—surroundings and objects. They show how they think about who they are in that way—the experience of “self-fashioning.
Here is a example for making in culture. Ah Xian, a Chinese artist now living in Australia exhibits his work inter- nationally. He struggles to explore the cultural values of his homeland and the adopted country. And use the art form of porcelain as a vehicle to think the culture knowledge of the old and the new, the east and the west.
I found the chapter is really related to my project. I also work with the local community, and travel in culture. The reading is very helpful.
From Lynn
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