Don Judd- Specific Objects

In 1965, sculptor and art critic Donald Judd coined the term "specific objects" to describe artwork that challenged the traditional categories of painting and sculpture by exploring the ideas of structure, seriality, and material.

Here is a link to the essay Specific Objects,(1965)

http://cepa.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/judd-so.pdf



During the first half of the 1980s, Judd drew the plans for the Chinati Foundation, Marfa; the renovated compound of buildings opened in 1986 as a showcase for his sculptures, as well as for the work of other contemporary artists.

Ya wen public reading

Ya wen will be performing a public reading of the thesis in the Commons and providing people with drawing materials so they can draw in response to Kalnin's proposals, or invent their own proposals for what Elam could be as a place.

It'll run from 10am to 2pm this Friday and people are free to come and go as they wish.


Hi all

Please come along! You don't have to stay for the whole duration of the reading, just come and go as you want, and I will take breaks to answer questions and talk and stuff.

Your support will be hugely appreciated!

Thanks
Ya-wen

Book Works Artist books

15 Lombard St.
by Janice Kerbel (2000)

15 Lombard St. is a rigorously researched masterplan of how to rob a particular bank in the City of London. By observing the daily routine in and around the bank, Kerbel reveals the most detailed security measures such as: the exact route and time of money transportation; the location of CCTV cameras in and around the bank along with precise floor plans that mark the building's blind spots.

Kerbel's meticulous plans include every possible detail required to commit the perfect crime. The ubiquitous fantasy of a bank robbery functions as a backdrop for Kerbel's 'play of subversion'. By surveying surveillance Kerbel shows how different systems are interrelated, forming a web of control. Kerbel's aim is not simply to subvert but to emphasise the fact that the idea of absolute control and the fantasy of robbing a bank are interconnected and mutually sustaining.

ISBN 978 1 870699 45 7




Below is a link to an interesting organisation which publishes artists books come of the descriptions of past titles give an idea of the range of the projects they take on.

http://www.bookworks.org.uk/asp/home.asp

Vincente Guallart -How To Make A Mountain

Something I came across I thought was an interesting example of analysis.
See the full set of images at:
http://www.guallart.com/05howToMakeAMountain/default.htm

Its comes from an architecture practice:
http://www.guallart.com/
I thought their dictionary was interesting, (find it on their homepage, above)

J.M.W Turner

I thought the description of J.M Turner painting environment was great, in particular the application of paint one colour at a time.



Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), one of the best known scientists of his day,met J.M.W. Turner in August 1845.

He tells how, on a very bright August day, Broderip and he walked together to Turner’s residence, which was slightly dingy in outward appearance. When they arrived at the door, they awaited some time before their ring at the bell was answered. At last an elderly person opened the door a few inches, and asked them suspiciously what they wanted. They replied that they wished to see Mr Turner. The door was immediately shut in their faces ; but after a time the person came back to say that they might enter. When they got into the hall she showed them into a room, and forthwith shut the door upon them. They then discovered with some dismay that this apartment was in total darkness, with the blinds down and the shutters up. After a prolonged interval, they were told they might go upstairs. Upon arriving at the topmost storey they perceived Turner standing before several easels, and taking his colours from a circular table, which he swung round to get at the paints required. He was painting several pictures as once, passing on from one to the other, and applying to each in its turn the particular colour he was using, till it was exhausted.
'

This account can be found in The Life of Richard Owen by his Grandson The Rev. Richard Owen. Murray, London 1894. p.263-4

Tate Britain has virtually reconstructed J.M.W. Turner's Gallery which he built in his house so that he could control how his paintings were shown.

Yang Fudong

Yang Fudong
Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest, Part I, 2003
35mm black and white film
29 minutes



This five screen film by Yang Fudong (Shanghai) was interspersed throughout the Arsenale exhibition at Venice last year. It was one of my favourite things from the Biennale and I think is a great exampe of a productively confounding narritive. Hopefully It or other work by the artist will make its way here at some point.

Each part was screened inside its own viewing room meaning that the viewer could enter and exit at any point. Time seemed stretched and nothing is rushed. The activities of the characters are soundless which compounds the sense of a sense of waiting. The series of black-and-white films were originally shot on 35mm film, but projected from DVD.

Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest comes from a traditional theme in Chinese art about a group of seven Taoist sages taking respite in the forest as they pursue anti-Confucian ideals such as individualism and personal liberty. Yang substitutes the word 'intellectuals' for the traditional terms 'sages' and 'worthies,' perhaps a comment on the evolution of the idea of wisdom in China in the 20th century.




Links:
http://www.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Essay.Yang-Fudong-5-Films.10.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_42/ai_108691799
http://www.themoorespace.org/oldmoorespace/YangFudong/Texts.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2006/apr/25/1

Artur Żmijewski

Singing Lesson 2

Singing Lesson 2, (2003) plays on a medium sized flat screen monitor very nearly at the entrance to the gallery. On the monitor a choir of young people appear to be singing in church. As one seats oneself and pulls a set of headphones over one's ears, strains of remotely familiar music, specifically Bach's Cantata, Heart and Lips and Deed and Life are awash in haunting noises emanating from the choir which is composed of hearing impaired children. The piece is mesmerizing. Though the choir seems locked in a visual embrace with the conductor, his gestures evince only atonal sighing, growling and sobbing - sounds far more gutteral and far less self conscious than anyone in the hearing world would commonly ascribe to a hymn sing. The result is a very peculiar, dreadful yet beautiful noise.





Them
Documenta 12



“Though we often ostensibly apply actual labels to fictive things, we
can hardly apply fictive labels; for a label used exists.”
-Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art

‘I’m starting’ says an old lady in her modest but excited voice. Nobody
anticipates the beginning of a battle. She draws a black line, then
another, and more.
Four different teams illustrate their four diverse views in simple
drawings. A catholic church, a word ‘’ in Hebrew framed in the
contour of , Chrobry’s Sword, and the word ‘Freedom’ (in Polish)
again framed in the contour of .Each team’s members come from a different ideological background. As groups supposed to appear representative of the ideology they become
stereotypical in themselves. Moreover – they use stereotypes to express
their beliefs.

Their illustrations serve as emblems, also in a literal meaning, as
they are printed on t-shirts that each group will wear. During the
second meeting, dressed in their new outfits they become easily
identifiable. Simple rules are set – there are no rules. Teams begin to correct each other’s expressions, removing or adding elements until the message is in compliance with their own views. They each represent some type of an extreme, not one being a so-called typical Pole. However, it is the very use of stereotypes in which lays
the strength of Them.

Their actions are a battle of representations, a war of images, symbols
and gestures, which gain their intensity from being simple, direct and
most importantly – not always adequate. The extremity escalates as the
exchange of fire takes place.None of the participants are artists; it is only for the sake of the video that they agreed to use visuals. The conflict is spectacular,
almost thrilling as the actions develop.

If one ever asks the question whether art can be harmful, this video
provides a particularly interesting answer. Only the elderly catholic
ladies notice that the tumult is not leading the discussion anywhere.
They decide to leave the room. The remaining three groups consisting of
much younger people seem too excited to notice that their actions are
destructive. The reason for that is as simple as it is peculiar. They
have to invent ways of expression that are new to them and that will
prove what they consider to be the strength of their argument.

There is no single attempt to explain any belief or the reason behind
it. Nobody tries to reach an agreement. Nonetheless, members of each
group seem to be satisfied with their doings. Perhaps it is because
they are stubborn. But it may also be due to the fact, that they are
engaged in a creative process, the most fulfilling act any human can
undertake. The godly act of creating easily becomes opium for the
brain.




An Eye For An Eye

An Eye For An Eye the able lend limbs to the disabled. An able man supports a one-legged man. They walk together, ascend and descend stairs, do a little dance. Then a woman takes a shower with a legless man who has lost his fingers through frostbite. Placing her fingers under what remains of his hands, she lets him use her fingers to wash himself. How do we understand this? As the disabled and the able co-operating, symbiotic, creating a new dual human being? Or are the able simply appropriated as slaves to the greater needs of the disabled?

Links:
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gif
http://www.cca.edu/about/press/2005/zmijewski
http://www.briansholis.com/WRITING/CONTENT/ZMIJEWSKI/
http://www.archive.org/details/Artur_Zmijewski_at_Radical_Thinking_Series_5th_March_20
08_Stockholm
http://www.metropolism.org/magazine/2007-no5/beeldenstorm/english

Nonknowledge

Lee Welch The Quest for Hugo Vernier, 2008





Artur Żmijewski is also in an interesting looking show with these people -
Matthew Buckingham (US), Joachim Koester (DK), Benoît Maire (FR), Tine Melzer (NL/DE), Maaike Schoorel (NL), Lee Welch (IE) at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin. The show is called Nonknowledge and there I have copied a description written by the show's curator Tessa Giblin ( ex Artspace Auckland)-

“…(N)onknowledge: that which results from every proposition when we are looking to go to the fundamental depths of its content, and which makes us uneasy.” Georges Bataille

Many of the artistic practices brought together in Nonknowledge remind us of Wittgenstein’s fundamental explanation of human perception and comprehension: that we can not conceive of something we do not have the language to describe – “the limits of your language are the limits of your world”. By attuning to a language outside of common communication, artists can present an avenue for perception which both reflects on the conditions of knowing, and places the spectator on the opposite side of illumination – in the vast possibilities of nonknowledge.

The absolute authority that historical artefacts hold – and the web of histories which they both reveal and obliterate, are contested in Matthew Buckingham’s Image of Absalon To Be Projected Until It Vanishes. The quasi-mythical crusader from the Middle Ages who expanded and stabilised Danish control over its territories, Absalon was an Archbishop who embodied both the religious and military heroism of the time. A single 35 mm projected slide of the Copenhagen statue of Absalon burns out over the duration of the exhibition, altering the apparently immutable form, bathing the statue in a slow, consuming twilight of symbolism.

As Joachim Koester writes, “the history of the occult is also a history of the obscure”. In his photographic series The Morning of the Magicians, he revisits the site of an abandoned and hidden belief system – The Abbey of Thélèma, which was initiated and occupied by the occultist Aleister Crowley and his followers from 1920 – 1923 in Cefalù, Sicily. After evicting the cult in 1923, following a storm of public outrage at the methods of occult worship and tantric sex practiced by Crowley, Mussolini ordered the whitewashing of the psychedelically illustrated surfaces of the Abbey. Painstakingly restored by experimental film maker Kenneth Anger in the 1950s for a film which was eventually lost, the frescoes that remain today are a faded yet resilient representation of the belief system evoked within the now dilapidated Abbey.

The practice of Benoît Maire is based in philosophy, from which the artist engages with subject matter – both referential and formal – around him. Interested in the illusory quality that one’s ‘knowing something’ can assert over one’s ‘seeing something’, his simple sculptures are often groupings in which objects are at once reflected and extended through the space of the artwork. In L’objet de singe, négatif (object for monkey, negative), white stones sitting on the floor are reflected in a roughly-hewn Perspex plane, while in Histoire de la géometrie #5 (étude pour l’industrie), pages from books are reconfigured to stage two workers gazing at an image of an icon of industrial progress, and Copernicus’ 16th century revolutionary heliocentric diagram of the planets, including earth, orbiting around the sun.

“The first book of the day was read by the time he finished his coffee, served by his wife. The second book he read sitting right there. The third book accompanied him over to the annex building of the library.” Tine Melzer’s Readingmachine, is a collection of bound novels comprising of the same story in many different languages, and in many different styles. It is like a library of defeated stories which live in the possibility of blank pages, but inevitably succumbs to the failure of its own subject matter: the person who determined to read every book that was ever written.

The paintings of Maaike Schoorel are thick and detailed with layers of colour, texture and gesture, to the extent that any form is barely visible. Pulsing in and out of a recognisable composition, the painted surfaces are full of the all encompassing nature of white light – and confuse the senses like the hum of white noise. In Bed, Schoorel reveals the solitude of an emptied space – even in the dislocated ambiguity with which she paints, there seems to be the remembrance of warmth emanating from the crumpled sheets and exposed duvet. They are strangely liberating paintings, purposefully hovering beyond concrete comprehension, and thus allowing the potential for a multiplicity of intentions in the work – for the painter, but perhaps even more liberally, for the spectator.

Returning to the library as the holder of common history, Lee Welch has embarked on a long archival process to locate and obtain one of the oddest artefacts of the literary cannon – a provocative book by Hugo Vernier which became known through its description in George Perec’s The Winter Journey. Combing through the remains of archives and libraries, partially destroyed in WWII bombing, Perec’s protagonist Vincent Degraël searched for any remaining evidence of the book he had come across by chance, but which he believed to be the ‘blueprint’, of every subsequent achievement in 20th century French literature. At the time of his death in a psychiatric hospital, Degraël’s quest had never reached fruition – the notebook that he left behind to detail his research was 400 pages long, and the last 392 were empty.

Weaving throughout all of the works in the exhibition, at once uniting them and causing a disturbance to them, are recordings from Artur Żmijewski’s Singing Lesson II. Żmijewski brought together a choir of deaf teenagers to sing Bach in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. In Żmijewski’s second piece, William Shakespeare, Sonnets, Huntingdon’s sufferer Wojtek Krolikiewcz performs a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets.



“When he speaks in silence, the audience senses the effort of his will struggling with the disintegration of the body and slowly failing, slowly letting chaos take control”. Żmijewski



Curated by Tessa Giblin

Timetable

General Timetable leading up to examination

September 1st -13th Midsemester break
The workshops will be open in their normal weekly hours.
Any questions, enquiries or to update me, please be in touch via email.

Week seven
First week back: Crits of new work, each person should provide material that can be considered completed, including consideration of presentation. There should be more than one work to discuss. In addition please bring along a selected item of research,(in what ever format makes sense in relation to your work).

Week eight
The focus will be on research material. Questions for this week are:
How is your research connected to your practice?
What is its format and how is it organised?
In what ways does it demonstrate your consideration of ideas?
Both sessions will be organised into small working groups and each member wil be asked to present their research and respond to the material they see form others in the group.
There will also be an interim course evaluation conducted at the end of the Tuesday session.(4-5pm)


Week nine
Monday session on photographing work. For the purposes of this discussion students will set photographic documentation up temporarily in seminar C room.
Tuesday Gallery visit-(details closer to the time)
Both sessions will allow time for individual conversations at the end of session.


Week ten
Presentations on external subjects that motivate artwork. Students group themselves and develop an introduction to an area of common interest. ( more information to come)
Initial ideas about space selection. This is especially important if you are hoping to present work in an area outside of studio or one likely to be in high demand.

Week eleven
Presentation crits
The group will offer input into final decision making. Students should also have a developed draft of their contextual statement to refer to and develop through conversation.
Student evaluations: students asked to participate in this process.
meetings to discuss personal timetables up until presentation.

Week twelve
Meet as a group both days to begin session followed by individual discussions


Specific examination dates will be available at the beginning of week seven, following the break.

Daria Martin

soft materials, 2004

'I HAVE TO ADMIT that the old-fashioned humanist in me was slightly shocked to realize that the "soft materials" referred to in the title of Daria Martin's 2004 film are, in fact, people'
Barry Schwabsky

The films of American artist Daria Martin (born in 1973) map out newly interpreted images of modernistic ideals and tendencies within the performative arts. A constant interchanging of performer and object challenge the viewer to re-define their perception in a world of artifice, cheap materials and alarmingly real fantasies.
She has an interest in artificial intelligence documents interaction between people and machines in her 2004 film soft materials.

Soft Materials was shot in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Zurich where scientists research 'embodied artificial intelligence'. This cutting edge area of AI produces robots which, rather than being programmed from the head down by a computer brain, instead learn to function through the experience of their physical bodies.

The film introduces the robots to two performers, one man and one woman, trained in body awareness and acutely sensitive to the nuances of movement. These performers shed skins of soft fabric, bearing their joints like the frank structure of a machine, and then, naked, they perform a series of dances with the robots. Creating intimate relationships that are in turn tender, funny and eerie, they bend flexible human fantasy around tough materials.

Soft Materials creates a new image of 'man and machine', thus continuing Martin's aspiration to revisit the questions of the early Modern period. However, Soft Materials also connects with 1960's performance practices, which honed bodily relationships to physical objects; one inspiration for the project is Robert Morris's film, Neoclassical, which depicts an idealised interaction between his sculptures and two viewers. Created during what some call the 'Digital Revolution', the work sees a return to the physical object in an arena of embodied play. Ironically, the objects in question are technological creations, and ones that mimic our own animal physicality. Soft Materials takes to a new level Martin's ongoing concern with tangible fantasy and the power of artifice.

For a discussion of this work go to:
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/daria_martin1/

Her own site:
http://www.dariamartin.com/films_3.htm

and Maureen Paley site has other images and information:
http://www.maureenpaley.com/

Catalogue Edited by Beatrix Ruf. Essay by Catherine Wood.
PUBLISHED BY: JRP/Ringier,2006
ISBN: 9783905701548

Sam Durrant

Sam Durant has used installation, drawing, sculpture and text since the early 1990s to explore language and society, and how individuals and groups articulate their concerns publicly. Durant’s work takes a critical view of social, political and cultural issues, and explores the varying relationships between popular culture and fine art through a variety of materials and processes. His diverse subjects include the civil rights movement, southern rock music and modernist architecture. For the Biennale, the artist has created a series of illuminated signs containing de-contextualised quotes from placards used during protest demonstrations within the Aboriginal civil rights movement in Australia and from African American and Native American civil rights movements in the United States. It is art about the use and meaning of political language in society. - Biennale of Sydney 2008


For an interesting discussion of the relationship between Durant and Robert Smithson regarding Durant's remking of Simthson's partially buried woodshed ( involving, also Tacita Dean), please see the top link below
Further Links
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-10523458_ITM
http://www.artreview.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1474022%3ABlogPost%3A3276
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/sam_durant/
http://www.blumandpoe.com/samdurant/flip.htm?index=39
http://www.blumandpoe.com/samdurant/flip.htm?index=11
http://www.blumandpoe.com/samdurant/flip.htm?index=12
http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.3.SCULPT.SAM%20DURANT.htm

A good catalogue is available in from the Elam Library
Details: Title- Sam Durant, Hatje Cantz Publishers, March 2, 2003)

Mark Wallinger -State Britian

The following is the Wiki description of State Britain. The page itself provides interesting links you may wish to look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Britain

State Britain is a meticulous recreation of a 40 metre long display which had originally been situated around peace campaigner Brian Haw's protest outside the Houses of Parliament against policies towards Iraq. The original display consisted of over 600 items, many donations from the public, including paintings, placards, banners, posters, graffiti, traffic cones, tarpaulins, temporary fencing and toys. These included a poster, "Blair Lies, Kids Die!", a banner, "Baby Killers", photos of babies maimed and burnt in missile attacks, a statement that parliament spent seven hours discussing the war in Iraq and 700 hours discussing fox-hunting, and a white teddy bear holding a sign, "Bears against bombs". In the centre is an image of Haw fixed to a wooden cross and wearing a t-shirt that says, "Bliar".
Haw's original display, apart from a three metre section, was confiscated by the police under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which prohibits unauthorised protests in a specified "exclusion zone" around Parliament.
Mark Wallinger employed 15 people for 6 months and spent £90,000 to recreate it in its entirety. It was installed inside the Duveen Hall of Tate Britain in January 2007. Signs at all the entrances to the hall warn that the exhibit contains images of extreme human suffering.
The Sunday Times saw the show as more indication that the arts establishment had turned against the Labour government. It contrasted Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota's endorsement of Wallinger's show with the private tour of Tate Modern Serota had given to Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2000.[3] At that time Blair's government had courted Young British Artists such as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst to help "modernise" Britain. State Britain was curated in collaboration with Wallinger by Tate curator, Clarrie Wallis. It is part of a series of contemporary sculpture commissions at the gallery. . State Britain was on show until August 27, 2007.

Wallinger was shortlisted for the Turner Prize on 8 May 2007 for State Britain,and announced the winner on 3 December 2007.



Further links
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/14/aprotestoflove
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/dec/05/art.turnerprize2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/16/humanrights.politicsandthearts

For a useful bibliography see the latter part of the following page;
http://www.artnet.com/artist/17468/mark-wallinger.html



Mark Wallinger
Sleeper 2005
New National Gallery, Berlin

Adam Chodzko

Below is a link to a brief description of Adam Chodzko's works in a show at Tate St Ives. I thought it was a good summary of a variable practise.

http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/adam_chodzko2/#When:16:25:00Z

Also at another site:
http://www.ridemedia.co.uk/adam/

Conversational Task: Week5

The following is intended as an aid to conversation. Working in pairs please come to some conclusions regarding the questions below. They are intended to focus your thinking regarding the resolution processes you will be engaging with in order to present work for assessment.

Task
1. Make notes based on your conversation your partner (30 minutes)
2. Group discussion of outcomes,(20minutes)
3. Secondary consideration of issues raised, this will involve converting the notes made with your partner into a short piece of writing (300 words max). Please then send this to the 303 blog, as a comment, attaching it to the relevant post. This needs to be done by the weekend.

Starting Statement

There needs to be a process. A process has parts. These maybe within or outside of the work

Giving an account of the work
1.What did it begin with, eg a related experience, a memory, another artwork, etc

2.How did it end?

3.What can you say about the actions collected within your work?

4.How is it different from other things you’ve done?

5.In what way is it an experiment?

6.In what way is it an extension of things done before?

Editing
7.What criteria are you basing your selection on?

8.Are there criteria you have rejected?

9.What influences you more the idea or the result?

10.Have ideas been sorted through a process of consideration. How have you demonstrated this?

local resources

Here's a link to a page with a good range of locally produced magazines.
http://www.southproject.org/MAF2008ReadingSouth.html

Paolo Canevari

Paolo Canevari and the morality,(or otherwise)of artmaking
Bouncing Skull (2007) in Venice biennale07
Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind

It is suggested that this work might fall into the category of 'propagandistic obscenity' Your thoughts about such a category ?

A work of art that only aims to affect – to scare, disgust, teach a political lesson – is doomed to be a kind of negative kitsch. It prescribes emotion: the observer has to be moved, disturbed. There is very little room for the observer himself in such a staging – everything is determined in advance, it's a predictable play of irritation and reaction. At worst, the observer doesn't respond at all, or yields to indifference. Who cares - the world is already overshadowed, ruined, lost.

reschedule additional class ( week three)

Hi all
As you know there is a glitch with my plan to add an extra conversation into tomorrow afternoon. This is when the 15pt paper is happening. Unfortunately I am teaching in the morning tomorrow so my next available time is Friday afternoon. Could I hear back from those who haven't been seen yet.
I'm hoping that an early start in the afternoon might be possible for you e.g one pm through until three. Please reply to my email address as soon as your able and we can hopefully then confirm this.If this new time isnt possible for the majority of people whose work is still to be seen then we will reconvene on Monday afternoon as per the usual schedule.

Once again I'm hoping that the session might also involve people from the group that have already had their work looked at.


In the meantime feel free to communicate either via commments on the blog or to the my email. I will post out the password for the blog so all can post.

Jim

The Long Tail & 1000 Fans

Chris Anderson and Kevin Kelly

As a counterpoint to the Lyotard I thought this discussion might be of interest. The conversation finds its starting point at Chris Andreson's 2006 book
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More


Wired editor Anderson declares the death of "common culture"—and insists that it's for the best. Why don't we all watch the same TV shows, like we used to? Because not long ago, "we had fewer alternatives to compete for our screen attention," he writes. Smash hits have existed largely because of scarcity: with a finite number of bookstore shelves and theaters and Wal-Mart CD racks, "it's only sensible to fill them with the titles that will sell best." Today, Web sites and online retailers offer seemingly infinite inventory, and the result is the "shattering of the mainstream into a zillion different cultural shards." These "countless niches" are market opportunities for those who cast a wide net and de-emphasize the search for blockbusters.

Kevin Kelly responds applying this idea to creative activity in his article 1000 Fans

Follow the links-

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/07/wagging_the_lon.php
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

and Chris Andreson's own site-
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/

The Postmodern Condition-Lyotard

Week 4 reading.

Please go to the link below to find a copy of the reading provided in week two.

Click on Lyotard in the side bar and the article will come up as the available text.


Link

ttp://www.marxists.ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gifrg/reference/subject/philosophy/

Source: The Postmodern Condition (1979) publ. Manchester University Press, 1984. The First 5 Chapters of main body of work are reproduced here.

The group needs to be familar with the Lyotard and in time for the Tuesday session (12th August)

week three summery

Rory Dunleavy
The conversation focused mainly on one completed sculpture- a small object constructed for a piece of animal bone that is abstracted as a result of being painted. At the end opposite it's joint the object is sawn off in a way that leaves a rim and interior. A drinking straw is attached with blue tack to this interior. It was agreed that because of the changes to its surface and colour the object reads more as a device than as an animal part. Its open so it becomes a vessel, this is of course supported by the presence of the drinking straw. The yellow surface is marked and varies as if it were a poor copy of something that once, in its original state possessed a clearer or perhaps cleaner purpose. The object's potential as something with a variable scale survives the effects of the drinking straw's introduction of a real size- this is interesting and points to the degree that it's form might be producing meaning at a less consciously acknowledged level. An exploration of this simultaneous scale effect seems worthwhile. Further work will benefit from the consideration of contextual structures eg what are the possible environments being considered these could be either continuous or disrupted but should be developed alongside particular objects.

Luke Thompson
Two pieces were discussed; both were introduced as provisional and representative of an idea that is in development. Discussion centred on the extent to which they might act as templates for further work. Their minimal nature shouldn't preclude a consideration of them from a formal point of view. They were a collage made from newsprint that involved the transposition of different city views over a night sky and this same idea of the night sky formed from a piece of coke box card, painted black and pierced to make stars. These were to be considered as objects in a line of ideas started earlier by the small bark and wire sculpture. The way each of these objects has been made needs to treated as important to the development of the idea rather. This offers the potential that imaginative decisions might be developed and improved upon. A larger schema will come from the relationship of ideas, which are actually present and articulated through work

Ellena Wenn
The discussion centred around a range of drawings, made on different paper formats. These generally take the form of proposals or signs that are put to the viewer- an early subject is an inferred sense of Utopia being a problematic idea. The drawings are either glyph like and require some interpretation sometime provided by text or from memory. In both cases the source is internal rather than being based in observation. It was proposed that the work, which utilises the personal pronoun and places the artist in direct communication with the viewer perhaps doesn't leave enough space for a viewer to have a productive response. The suggestion is that in some sense the artist is an over determined presence in the work in these situations. The group discussed the issue of how to more effectively utilize the Ellena's ongoing dialogue which is for her quite personal in its meaning. The process of turning it into some sort of art product could in some ways lessen its value to Ellena because it introduces processes not central to her thinking. Som responses at this point suggest using processes that compile rather than transform the material being worked on. Another suggestion is that while this method continues another process might be introduced, one that reduces the calculated product aspect of the work to a set of consistent formalising presentation devices. The example given was to work in the same improvisional manner onto a larger more substantial paper in a way that didn't slow the action of drawing or involve an addition of extra artistic stages.

Shannon Teo
Two objects are presented. Both involve processes that recall decorative arts, (ceramics and glazing) as well as the domestic and abject (in the sense of being either over ordinary or involving excessive human presence -human hair, or in their broken states. They are everyday mementos and could be held in the hand or more likely live on the mantle piece. These objects were discussed in terms of the contribution made by their various materials, where these materials seemed excessive was this productive- case in point being the brown packing tape- Does this work against the glued accumulation in a formal sense and does it somehow over valorise the 'art- outside of taste' function of the work by bring this to the fore in a manner that takes something away from the autonomous life of the object- eg the sense that this object might exist without my viewing it.(losing this possibility might, on the other hand be productive)The unglazed work was considered in terms of how its form related to its supporting surface - the bust format might have resulted in a loss of formal potentiality, Thinking about this leads back to considering the formal role of the breaks in the other work- how they set up a kind of sense of something being under way. How the work lives in an installation sense need to be thought about form this point forward because they will be instrumental in setting up the context for reading.
Alongside discussion about how ideas might be bought forward in a way that involves a variety of provisional answers to any one question this issue of the work's final landscape is developed can be applied across the group as a whole.

David Hallet
Issues raised in previous work are providing a conceptual basis for the present project. This results in a concern to explore the limitations placed around thinking considered as coming from the perspective of cultural identity when that identity is identified as being Maori. My sense is that this involves the questioning of how mutable these signs might be. If they aren’t mutable in an art context why is this the case and what form of control does this demonstrate. The proposed taking on of another 'other identity' could explore the role of externalised markers of culture, how they are communicated and also what sort relationship they might have or how they might affect lived experience. In pursuing this type of question it seems significant to relate the effect of the work to the specific actions it involves as well as they conceptual propositions that motivate it.

Yo Na Lee
Mainly the group discussed the eroded table. This is a second hand table that’s undergone severe destruction. It’s surfaces, legs and top are all eaten away by a reductive carving process that revels both the internal material and conversely the function of the surfaces, which are noticed in their absence as well as where they remain. So there what is left is small islands of the original connected by the stuff that’s usually hidden. The overall structure has been seriously weakened and this gives the object a comic instability. In the way it bends it could also relate to the form of a table made from its material cousin- paper. During the conversation turning it over into its more common position altered the work. The reason given for the table being on the side is however important, you aim for an object that combines a two and three-dimensional presence. Richard Artswarger has worked this idea on extensively.
This kind of rearrangement needs to be experimented with alongside other examples of similar erosive actions on similar furniture –so that comparisons might be made. The process of carving could play a greater role perhaps while working on other examples would allow the process to be advanced to the point where the original form is lost. At this point accidental possibilities become available. These can work alongside the effects that are the result of intentional actions. Breaking the object up also allows its parts to become available for other purposes. Allowing a greater range of outcomes at this point would make it more likely that the work isn’t restricted to the intentions established at the beginning of the process.

Ryan Munro
The project is concerned with the use of the body in religious symbolism. The initial interest in piercing could interestingly point toward either legend e.g stigmata or its imagined real source as an interruption to the body, (violence). Initial research has focused on the body's sense of being over determined in this context. Its symbolic effect burnt out through the likely over use in the minds of viewers. An obvious case in point is the heart. So this is interesting because this sense of overuse could either be a problem for the work or a real point of interest and something that the work deals with. The photographic record made of the medical library indicates a potential to bring the real up against the symbol in a productive way, The photo's frame isolates aspects of the body, descaling and reorientating features that would if presented in their entirety be perhaps predictable - Could this be possible through physical making processes in a way that introduces fresh metaphor. Material treatment of cast objects in terms of surface is also something to be thought about.

Bella Pachter
Model house looked at. The conversation considered the surface treatment and its effect on how the work read as a sculpture. What the next step might be -eg to make more similar objects, that deal with the same process of construction and finish or whether there might be logical sideways steps such as taking the material processes to another scale of object and surface. Discussed in this context was the presently preferred method that involves the bringing together of non-similar objects so that they might generate readings through their relationships. This discussion was repeated in other conversations. The suggestion is that this strategy might be retained but a more linear development of ideas might also be followed. This second method would involve an experimental approach in relation to materials and form that allows for comparisons to be made.

Julia Chiesea
Work looked at was the second stage of video project. This consisted of short clips that provide a contemplative space and are in some instances dissonant to each other. The nature of time and the different possibilities of registering its passing provides the starting point for the work.
Feedback and conversation considered the effect of camera shake- could shake be replaced by flicker perhaps- the contingent effect of movement was understood- we are aware of the camera, as opposed to having a sense that the image presents a window. Stan Brakkage has been looked at. Julia will be meeting with technical staff and considering the potential of film as a future line of material investigation.

Sophia Ong
The project is figurative and concerns itself with the horror genre, but in way that deals with its what might be described as its ordinariness, or lack of effect. What are present at the moment are small models made of blue tack that morph body parts and combining them with hair and introduced objects that have their own non-model scale. There are plans to also start of the base provided by a store bought mannequin- part of the project will involve the selection of this readymade. A point to consider involves identifying flexible aims for the project that might not be tied to the type of large outcome described however the individual aspects of this proposal should be followed up. This includes an involvement of the studio architecture.

Ana Corbett
The starting point concerns itself with issues of replication and appropriation using images of Aboriginal painting as a source. The group looked at works on paper of two types. The first example was a set of transfer prints onto newsprint that had been degenerated through repeat transfer until there was only the faint trace of the original image. The second example had retained an image that was legible to the degree that the creased wear of the original was quite a present feature of the work. In both cases the image size has a significant relation to the paper size. It was suggested that this made the viewer imagine the images associated with text absent text. Eg National Geographic, in this way the anthropological reading is extended. In this vein it was suggested that an inference of how the text might wrap around the image could provide a formal structure of the edge of the image and how it is situated on the paper. Also suggested was the possibility that the images might be placed into some sort of drawn architectural space. This would talk to the kinds of secondary social life possibly led by the replicated image. A third category of drawing, on a smaller scale involved drawing over and resizing patterned imagery. The choice of tools used to make graphic marks could be considered alongside how new marks integrate or relate to the pre-existent image.

Ya Wen
The work looked at consisted of three drawings involving the copying of found images on to a ground created from slip cast material poured onto lightweight paper. This ground means the pieces are temporary and their form changes according to the degree of surface loss. The drawings sink into the slip material and this seems appropriate given their organs as a discarded proposal and lost institutional critique. That these drawings are architectural means that they involve shorthand, even in the way nature is for example depicted. The inclusion of this image against the Debord image is interesting in degree that both become submerged and second hand in their signifying effect. It was suggested that the project might usefully take on another divergent aspect, a third metaphor against those already present; the type of surface and the organ of the image. This could perhaps be sculptural for instance. This is suggested a way to untether the idea in a manner that might move the project into a more active physical process of experimentation. The conversation excluded other projects. Its imagined that these other activities have a role in broadening the process.

General notes:
1. Comparative methods could be strengthened in all cases
2. Work should ideally be presented for conversation in a way that gives the audience some sense of its presentation ideal. So this means clear space perhaps but definitely the identification of what is to be considered by the group.
3. In each case there could be movement to other developmental media such as drawing,
(In an expanded sense this means- Notes, sketches, material samples, for example).
In other words any thinking by-product, which, should ideally be treated as if it could be artwork

People to be looked at on Thursday the 7th of August. 2-4.30pm

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David Pickett
Louise Morris
Kate Davidson
Neeve Woodward

As this is an additional session I am hoping that as many people who are able can attend but I understand if you are scheduled for other things at this time.

J. Morgan Puett

>A description from zine.artcal


Most refrigerators are dumps. Leftovers from a midnight binge spoil in the back. That overpriced entrée you didn't really enjoy but couldn't bear to throw away because you squandered so much on it lingers. Isn't it ironic how most fridges end up collecting old food that we would rather not eat?


Then, there is cleaning out the refrigerator…. Few tasks could be more Sisyphean.

J. Morgan Puett claims the refrigerator as a site of subtle beauty from within these decadent, first-world horrors of the the 21st century. She honed her ability to find the art within a refrigerator during her stint as the ringleader of the Mildred's Lane art colony in rural Pennsylvania. That colony's output is the subject of Alexander Gray's summer group show, where one can find one of Morgan's fascinating fridges on view.

http://zine.artcal.net

working group

Rory Dunleavy
Luke Thompson
Ya Wen
Elenna Wenn
David Pickett
Shannon Teao
David Hallett
Yo Na Lee
Ryan Monroe
Isebella Pachter
Julia Chiesea
Sophia Ong
Ana Corbett
Louise Morris
Kate Davison
Neeve Woodward