The continued search

I have continued my search for artist blogs based around personal cultural interests and ones that might lead to inspiration of my own work, based on Situationism, and like socialist art movements. My previous search turned up the interesting art practice of the mysterious ‘Decapitator’, passing his or her comments (obviously those of rejection and dissent) on mass cultural products such as movies and advertising by ‘vandalising’ billboard posters around East London. I enjoyed this practice as it related to processes of detournment conceived and carried out by the Situationist. My latest search was again equally as unsuccessful in turning up ‘actual artist blogs’ but has once again led to some interesting sites and relevant to my own working interests and research.

Keyword search: Artist blogs Society of the Spectacle

his searched aimed to find likes and comments on Guy Debord’s text the society of the spectacle – the key work of Situationist rhetoric. It turned up little but a few blogging sites with minor references to the work but nothing in depth enough for my search. I wanted to find artists blogs whose work is all about Situationism, not just in the referential sense.

Keyword Seach: Situationist Blogging

Brilliant I have found a hive of Situationist discussion and on our very own wordpress no doubt. Coolios. This site is exactly what I’ve been looking for a forum of Situationism in the contemporary context with grounding in the movements contextual past.

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/

After skimming and scanning through thesituationist.wordpress I was led to this artist Marc Scheff

This artist’s work and personal interest in both art and science show a union of rationality and creativity that is perfect for for comparison to Situationism. This along with his professional roots in computer programming evokes ideas of computer virtuality. An area with theoretical crossovers to Situationism (in it’s concepts of constructed realities, that are detached from actual real exsistance hence virtual).

Notions of virtuality, and the questions these ideas raise about the perspectives of reality and the immense possibilities that virtual worlds can offer to the cultural sphere. Essentially virtual work exemplifies and embodies a new form of creative expression and possibility which Situationism wanted to encourage. Virtual space is a blank canvass a void waiting for a world. A world waiting for input and manipulation of creative thought by infinite users.

I found these crossovers and ideas in the book Virtual Worlds by Benjamin Wooley. Which I was reading for such inspiration. Although essentially a very dry book on the history of virtual reality and computer software it does offer a few nuggets of poetic, philosophic inspiration in quotes such as

Computers are mostly used against people instead of for people. Used to control people instead of free them. Time to change all that, we need a peoples computer company.

Ted Nelson Compter Lib
(the communist manifesto of computer culture)

The computer technology that would allow this virtual creative forum also embodies Situationism’s desire to harness all technological means in the active creation of culture and situations.

It is worth considering however that there are some underlying contradictions in this idea. For example Situationism believes society has essentially become a virtual existence created by a complex semiology of comsurmeristic means and ends. Is a new virtual world for creativity an viable answer and application of Situationist theory. Or does it descend into further artificial and unlived existences of the masses tied into a cooperate machine.

This point could be debated forever, but at the very least it creates an environment of relatively pure creation, that would enable a talented programmer to create a world the way they saw fit. (but how affected by the spectacle would this world be – how engrained in our psyches is the spectacle – will we ever escape it)

from this site I then looked at the artists works and his methodologies

none of these however were actual blogs but then I found a like to his myspace page.

however no blogs are posted.

After searching around for a blog specific enough for me to comment on the artists work and processes I have found nothing useful. However it has lead me to innumerable discussion boards of Situationism which may rovide useful contacts for the future of my project. Hence I am posting all links in this blog to file them for both my use and the uses of others.

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, joe , Add new tag

Artist Blog

I really like this blog:http://digitaldouble.blogspot.com/

the artist posts his 3D works which song and artistry blends to form a thoughtful, evocative mood.It’s quite exciting to see someone explore an artistic interpretation in this way.Just like one of the comments said:

*How this shows the potential for artistic collaboration across time and mediums.
*How the video has it’s own “the making of” meta data exposed.
*How you down sampled the video in places to a more abstract look.

Filed under: Qian Liu, e-tivity02-0708

artist blog

http://mtblog.typepad.com/arts_ecology/

Filed under: anna, e-tivity02-0708

Artists blogs -first finds

Here is my ashamedly late entry for E-tivity 2, firstly I’d like to apologise to everyone who made an entry at the relevant and appropriate time. Hopefully I can still make some useful contribution to the group and our continued discussion.

This first link was one of the first finds for my first search of ‘artist blog’ on google. It is not a blog but an article entitled ‘Artist blogs: why every artist needs a blog’. Generally it focuses on the more commercial artistry and self-publicity and the idea of blogging as a promotional tool. I thought it was an appropriate starting link as it defines what blogs are and how they’re useful.

theartrepreneur

This next search relates to my research into the work of Diego Rivera and Mexican muralism. I searched for ‘blog mural artists’ and didn’t find what I was looking for. However it did lead me to Francesca Gavin’s blogged articles on the Guardians ‘theblogart&architecture’. This blog is less the working thoughts of an artist and more the critics of a cultural observer, but it did lead me to a piece on an Artist called the ‘Decapitator’; a guerrilla/vandal artists whose been reworking billboards around London to change their meaning. This relates greatly to the Situationist’s ideas of Detournment. I like this guys style and will look into it further

I’ll post my results as the search continues, I’ll also find some actual artist’s blog relevant and interesting in relation to my work.

Check out the article and the links to a flickr page to see some more work

Gavin’s Decapitator article

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, joe

Interactive artist’s blog networks

Another very interesting site to bear in mind when publishing our blogs  is the Saatchi  on-line gallery, specially the space dedicated to students, offering the opportunity of exhibiting your work, as well as,  networking with the other peers.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/stuart/

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, iceberg

Interactive blog networks

Interactive blog networks allow everybody publishing their work, getting feedback and information about events from the other peers, as well as, socialising and making new contacts.

The most popular and extended one at the moment is Myspace, which offers free space where art practitioners, professionals and amateurs, established and emerging artists, interact publishing their work; everybody seems to have a blog in Myspace, apart from their ‘official websites’, being aware of the advantages of the interactivity and the networking opportunities that it offers.

Browsing the page of an artist whose work you are interested in, it is very likely to be able to find other people you share interests and tastes with, finding new collaborators and new relevant information. By sending a friend request, being accepted and joining the friends list of an artist, you can send and receive, regular mails with information on performances, gigs and sometimes “secret events”, that they are not announced anywhere else.

As my tiip of the iceberg these days is to be adventurous, bearing an outline, a route, in mind but leaving space to spontaneity in order to discover and explore unexpected paths that I wouldn’t find otherwise, for this exercise I have decided to have a little Myspace adventure navigating the network to see what do I find on my way…

To start with, I type the keyword ANIMATION on the searcher. From the list of animators that appears on the screen, I decide to click on the icon of a link of an animator with a cute cartoon character on it, opening the blog of GLOBBLYNNE, that as her page states, is a 24 year old female animator settled in London, to whom I send a friend request.

In her colourful blog she includes her CV, as well as, her portfolio with clips of her work for music videos, in which she combines video footage with 2D Flash animation, and 3-D model stop-motion with live action footage.

Browsing the friends of GLOBBLYNNE, I find 4TALENT, which is the gateway to all Channel 4’s talent initiatives, which leads me to the Myspace blog of FUTURE SHORTS, a network where filmmakers can have their work seen on a largest platform in Europe.

Among the friends of Future Shorts, I find the Myspace Blog of SHOOTING PEOPLE , which is another filmmakers’ network where we can sign up and trade information with each other, find collaborators to work on each others’ films, hear about funding, calls for entries and competitions, debate the latest film/digital technologies.

Link that leads me to the blog of SALLY POTTER with clips of her new stage production of CARMEN for the English National Opera.

And so on. We could carry on and on with this little adventure through the web, endlessly, browsing, discovering, sharing and connecting with other practitioners that are open to new proposals and networking opportunities.

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, iceberg, tiip

Artist Blog: Goto 10

I found this blog during my usual travels though the web. Its about musical, film, film/audio software design, music creators, etc. Its the kind of software I use to make backing tracks for my music, or whole songs, depends what kind of mood I’m in… also I used to be part of groups like this, and I kinda find it fun and interesting to keep up with the scene…

Anyway I shall tell you how I found it. I use random sound sequencing between songs on my musical tracks to keep the the tracks (or should I call them songs?) continuous on cds, or mp3s. I use some free audio software from a website called IXI Software (heres the link – http://www.ixi-software.net).

IXI Software had a link to this blog – Goto 10 (http://www.goto10.org) which is for international film, musical or sound artist who put together meetings, websites, or musical outfits, etc. Its more of an ideas factory for a global network of these computer geeks, who make strange and abstract sounds mixed with film and other mediums.

Its like the blog we are doing, but what makes it really interesting is that the prime interest is in software which is FREE for all. It all comes under what they call Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) and digital art.

Just have a browse. See if anything inspires you… Here’s the web page again – http://www.goto10.org

(http://goto10.org/back-from-piksel07/#more-114)

 

Oh! And if you think this stuff is interesting… This guy makes music this way – http://www.jimmytamborello.com/
Look at all the links to his projects,and other music artists. Its all made this way…

 

 

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, fergie, tiip

art academic uses of blogs

Whilst i’ve been reading about your blogs’ selections and enjoying your findings, I thought of bringing together in this post, e-tivity 02 and topic 2> working with place and space.

The blog I recommend is

http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/

Critical Spatial Practice is one of the Reading Groups at the IPRH (The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities ), based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,  formed by Nicholas Brown and Sharon Irish, with Kevin Hamilton and Sarah Kanouse, a group of practitioners who combine interdisciplinary approaches to their research, artistic and academic work.

You can read about their aims here: http://www.walkinginplace.org/iprh/

Project Description: We propose to investigate critical theories of space and place and what the architectural historian Jane Rendell has termed “critical spatial practice,” the relationship between spatial theory and critical practice. The group’s focus will shift accordingly between consideration of key theoretical texts and in-depth research and discussion about contemporary practices and their historical antecedents that mobilize(d) spatial theory and employ(ed) a range of experimental interpretative strategies.

Given the scope of our inquiry we expect to draw from a range of disciplines, both in terms of participants and readings. Of particular relevance are the fields of anthropology, architecture, art & art history, cultural geography, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, and performance studies

In recent years a number of organizations and projects have emerged that aim to cultivate a “progressive sense of place” (Doreen Massey). The reformulation of place as an open set of relations is accomplished by interrogating inherited notions of place and community; confronting both conflicting and normative dimensions of landscape; situating the particulars of place within structural systems of organization and occupied space; and exposing means of production and articulations of power.

This critical approach is consistent with W.J.T. Mitchell’s straightforward assertion that “[a]n account of landscape has to trace the process by which landscape effaces its own readability and naturalizes itself.”

Many of the organizations and projects mentioned draw extensively from the intellectual thread that analyzes modes of production – beginning with the production of capital (Marx, David Harvey), and extending to the production of space (Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja), the production of scale (Neil Smith, Don Mitchell, Andrew Herod), the production of mobility (Tim Cresswell, Jane Rendell), and also theories of practice and the everyday (Michel de Certeau, Pierre Bourdieu).

Two projects that exemplify and model strategic and accessible applications in real space are

Platform’s “Loot! Reckoning with the East India Company,” and

Trevor Paglen’s “expeditions” to secret military bases of the American West.

Political theorist Margaret Kohn has noted that “[t]he political power of place comes from its ability to link the social, symbolic, and experiential dimensions of space.” This reading group proposes to separate, juxtapose, and recombine some of these spatial dimensions.

Building on previous conceptual work, we propose both to research practice and practice research. This would entail developing a theoretical framework for “critical spatial practice,” and then using these various methodologies rather than simply analyzing them from afar. What happens when these theories and practices are applied to the specific histories, landscapes, and politics of our neck of the woods in east-central Illinois?

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708

artist blog

there snot much that sgood out there…

Filed under: anna, e-tivity02-0708

My stars

Artist and Art movement

Adad Hannah – Video Artist

Banksy – Well-known pseudo-anonymous graffiti artist

Fluxus - Art movement

Prasol Unit - Foundation for contemporary art London 

Film, video and music

Shooting People - The US and UK indie film community

4Docs - Short documentary blog

iFilm - Online archive of short films, movie trailers, and other video clips of interest

YouTube - Massive video blog  

Pitchfork Media - Chicago based daily internet publication devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews 

Art theory and academic reading  

Modernity and Algorithm  

Postmodernmism  

From Postmodernism to Postmodernity 

Others

iniva – creates exhibitions, publications, multimedia, education and research projects, designed to bring the work of artists  

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, exhibition, zi

More Blogs Revealed

Our e-tivity 03 was a continuation of 02 and so once more I have endeavoured to find individual artist’s blogs that satisfy my artistic appetite. Sadly I seem to have failed on the individual blogs despite a number of different type of searches including installation artists, new artist, uk artists and individual artist blogs.

However I have found blogs that I thought were very stimulating and might provide sumptious seeds of regeneration for our tired brains. There are three I would like to mention, the first of which New Art – notes on installation art, performance, theatre, cinema, painting, sculpture, digital art and more…….

http://www.new-art.blogspot.com

This blog has a phenomenal mix of still imagery as in photography and video pieces and features work as diverse as Bruce Nauman’s illuminated Human/Need/Desire (at MOMA) through to Banksy. The critique of Banksy’s work in Art World says that the power of his work lies in the way it interacts with its environment and that obviously gets lost when you put it in any kind of gallery setting. Although I didn’t see the show referred to I am inclined to agree – it is his remarkable imagination and ascerbic subversive humour beautifully executed that make him one of my favourite living artists. Besides I get to see his work in archway and only just 2 weeks ago saw a new piece of his in bethnal green. I just loved the way he continued the double yellow line across the pavement to the blank wall to paint a huge flower. It really made me chuckle. Oh and I also was intrigued by the piece of video referring to visions of female beauty throughout the ages. It is a video montage of faces many of which are famous images from art history and are morphed into one another. In my opinion it really is a successful piece.

In the Digital art section there is a selection of animation from students and professionals alike and the fragile doll piece created by Andy Huang although not entirely original in conception is nevertheless delicate and rich. The blog also refers to software that is currently available and features posts from lesser known artists and illustrators as in the fairytale imagery. I really enjoyed the photograph of the tree wind turbine – isn’t it about time that wind turbines became functional sculpture ? As you may have surmised there is a lot of content with many exciting categories and blog entries for each, including responses

The second blog is http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com

Modern Art Notes – Tyler Green’s modern and contemporary art blog . Once again an interesting blog offered by one person, an art critic (?) It features a critique of Liegaste con la Bora 1.5 the venezuelan film director. Two robot arms dip into soapy water and emerge with huge bubbles, exquisitely fine surfaces onto which are projected babies, people and animals. I liked the contrast between mechanical and organic, strong and delicate and the type of projection. Also featured was the AR Magic System, an augmented reality system which allows the viewer to swap their heads with that of the person standing next to them in front of the screen. The heads are shown gesturing in real-time on top of another body and remind me of some of the wierdness of Consequences. As ever the blog is presented with a white background and plenty of space between entries. It uses a relaxing, legible font in different sizes and modes to give structure and order to the information displayed. The mix of media is of course very appealing to the likes of you and me as fine art mixed media students.

The third blog is http://www.frontier-cincinati.com/blogs/art

Sarah Pearce file notes, comments and observations on art and architecture. Yes yet again I apologise I didn’t seem very able in picking home grown talent. However I liked the unusual selection of items she chose to comment upon and feature. In particular I really enjoyed the variety of paper sculpture presented in the form of paper pop up books, ranging from the spectacular work of Ron Van Der Meer to that of pop up books designed for children by David A Carter. Another thought provoking blog.

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, esther

e-tiivity 2 artists blogs- Glenda

hi guys, Glenda

Here is my hopefully successful attempt at an artist blog . I found this on the V an A site and have also created a link on the del-icio-us site.

I am interested in this blog about the ‘World Beach project’ and i am going to take part in the activity. It is very reminiscent of the site specific work of Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long and is tenuously connected to my site- specific research for project 2. I have a favorite beach in France (see insert) and when I go over at Christmas I am going to produce an artwork and add to the blog. I like this blog site because it is interactive and activity based and about sharing creativity. most blog sites are purely ego trips and only about the artist and their work. This is one I can keep returning to as the work gets added to. I also think it is fairly innovative for the V & A.

the link is http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1395_lawty/wordpress/?p=90

My Beach is

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, glenda, tiip

e-tivity 02 – artist blogs

Well – finally I have managed to locate some artist blogs that I actually think show the spirit of blogging at its best. Those that I have selected so far offer not only an insight into the process of individual creation – its highs and lows with reference to the execution of the artists’s ideas, but as a resourceful reflection of where their process of life is directing them. Thus they share influences, tastes, seeds of other people’s creative experiences and expressions of life, inviting us on a journey of connection….The blog is the narrative – an interesting way of telling stories with pictures, words and moving images.

Jafabrit’s Art

http://jafabrit.blogspot.com

“Welcome to my blog, a cyber sketchbook and playground for the creative meanderings of an artist’s mind. “

This blog I think is a good combination of writing, image and musings. I like the mix of her paintings, photographs, spontaneous sculpture and book making. She is presenting a multi-media journey of a very personal nature.

Also included were fun things like ‘Blogs I Visit’, ‘Links’ and ‘Recent Reads with Photos’ and the whole layout of the blog was in my opinion really well balanced and was easy on the eye – there was a sense of order and space ~ ~ ~ ~ s o that I could receive the information. It reminds me that to present one’s own work on a small screen – a lightbox with sound and movement potential, I must consider design – giving space to my work – allowing it to breathe. And yet conveying enough interesting in – formation to keep a visitor on my screen to sample more reflections of life. There is an art to

Another Company – Joachim Baan

http://anothercompany.blogspot.com/

Notes on Art, Design, Fashion and Technology “The illusion that next time it might be perfect keeps us going.”

I know it’s strictly not an ‘artist’s blog ‘ because of the commercial art arrow to his bow but to my mind this blog is certainly full of artistry. It has a great collection of visuals of other artists’ work from photography to sculpture and Joachim shares video clips, interesting pieces of technology, musical offerings – a complete art and media multi-blend. I am beginning to get a really nourishing taste of how creative blogs can get and that they are a complete and utter art form in themselves. They could get very addictive like their social network cousins – a shower of seeds and potential voyaging ~ spending hours composing blogs, a tailing off and bringing it into balance until the next wave of expression ….

I also really enjoyed the random books I could select from the library feature on his page. Again I felt relaxed accessing the information on his site. His sense of spacious style and simple commentary was refreshing. I have to say I just loved seeing the advert for Guiness, ” ” Tipping Point ” ” What a phenomenal piece of creative expression and ingenuity – it was beautiful! !and I had never seen it before.

I look forward to finding some new blogs to post later.

Blessings esther

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, esther, tiip

e-tivity 02 (repost)

PLEASE NOTE: since you are busy and concerned with your presentations for project 1, instead of e-tivity 03 you have 2 extra weeks to finish e-tivity 02. remember: there is no session on the 14th, so we will be meeting on the 21st november. hope it all goes well!

Purpose: to search the Internet for art practice and theory blogs, to find those that may interest you. To find interesting and inspiring examples of the way art practitioners and thinkers are using blogging.

Task: search for art blogs by trying varied search strategies, for example using keywords as “artist blog” in google. Make a post in tiip’s blog and tell us about the blogs you found. It’s not enough to just post the link! You need to explain your search strategy, what interests you about the blog and the features used in the blog, and why you recommend it. At the end of your post add some reflections about the features used in art-related blogs.

Respond: come back to the tiip’s blog, read your classmates posts and choose one to visit their recommendations. Then come back and leave a comment with your feedback.

Timeline
Task: Friday, November 16th
Respond: Tuesday, November 20th

Thank you and have fun blog-searching!
paula

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, paula

E-tivity 2. A brief critique of other artist’s blogs.

I have found a number of artist blogs online, and can’t say I’ve been too impressed with many of them. I began searching on google with the term ‘artist blogs,’ and found there seemed to be a number of mediocre blogs that lacked real interest and professionalism and instead seemed like an extention of someone’s myspace social page.

For instance webring http://http://r.webring.com/hub?ring=artistsblogswebr was one site, that had some potentially interesting blogs but also some awful ones too such as:

 ”Dark blog that displays the HypnoGoddess as a Controlling and sometimes vampiric hypnomistress”

Can’t say it was much to do with the fine art world and discussion!

 However, I then began searching with the term ‘fine art blogs’ which seemed to act as a bit of a filter. Through this I found this site: http://findingblog.com/browse-fine_art-109-1.html which had a range of interesting blogs to look at.

My particular favourite was http://www.oilyfilms.com/blog/ which the site advertised with a 5 star rating. The blog itself contains alot of information and is very well presented. It is put together by an experimental film and video group called ‘Oilyfilm.’ From the blog there are numerous links including one to their website  http://www.oilyfilms.com/ which explains that:

“Oilyfilm is a film and video production company based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Led by producer/director Scott Amos, oilyfilms has created many short films and video pieces, which have screened at dozens of events in North & South America, Europe and Australia.

Oilyfilms was founded in 2003 by Scott Amos, Vincent Lombardi, Colin Hender, Michael Lee Macdonald and Mike Wolske. Since then, countless contributors, both creative and technical, have helped to create each and every piece in the growing oilyfilms library.”

The actual blog works as a working diary concerning the groups experiments with various forms of film and video. Each blog contains a crisp image and usually an link to a relevant site with similar information involved. What is more, there are also links in a side bar that take you to more specific examples of the groups work with the various technologies i.e. 16mm, 35mm, digital video….

There are also blogs and links to film and video festivals, which seem to be updated regularly and which also allow you to find out about other people’s work. They have also of course allowed any viewer of the site to leave comments on their blog for critical debate.

I feel this is more how I would want my own to blog to work. To be discursive, yet slightly academic and technically inclined. I get the feeling that this is an extention of their practice, rather than an excuse to put pictures of themselves and their work on line for people to look at and comment upon and to talk about unimportant nonsense about vampires! 

Filed under: blogging, e-tivity02-0708, jim

e-tivity 02

PLEASE NOTE: since you are busy and concerned with your presentations for project 1, instead of e-tivity 03 you have 2 extra weeks to finish e-tivity 02. remember: there is no session on the 14th , so we will be meeting on the 21st november. hope it all goes well!

Hi, as you may have noticed, I have now linked everyone’s name in the editors list to their own pages, so you can start using them to upload notes, links and images related to your research topic.

There is an intro page, with the topic (as in 1 The shifting roles of artist and audience) and two subtopic pages (as in 1.1 installation art beyond the object and 1.2 relational aesthetics the role of dialogue in art). That means that the main topic page is to be used to a common intro to the topic prepared by both students involved in the topic (as esther and isabella for topic 1) and the subtopic page is for the student responsible for that presentation (as in 1.1. page for esther and 1.2. page for isabella). Hope this is clear but we can always clarify it in class!

I had mentioned I would like to introduce the topic of social bookmarking at del.icio.us for e.tivity 02 but I am aware some of you may need more support with that task, so for e-tivity 02 we will focus on another aspect of doing online research: looking at other artists blogs!

Purpose: to search the Internet for art practice and theory blogs, to find those that may interest you. To find interesting and inspiring examples of the way art practitioners and thinkers are using blogging.

Task: search for art blogs by trying varied search strategies, for example using keywords as “artist blog” in google. Make a post in tiip’s blog and tell us about the blogs you found. It’s not enough to just post the link! You need to explain your search strategy, what interests you about the blog and the features used in the blog, and why you recommend it. At the end of your post add some reflections about the features used in art-related blogs.

Respond: come back to the tiip’s blog, read your classmates posts and choose one to visit their recommendations. Then come back and leave a comment with your feedback.

Timeline
Task: Friday, November 2nd
Respond: Tuesday, November 6th

Thank you and have fun blog-searching!
paula

ps. hey check out the gallery page with photos from esther’s presentation!

Filed under: e-tivity02-0708, paula