Object of surveillance
The fictional art movement called MAIA which is an acronym of Making Anti Intellectual Art. It is contemporary art movement which started in 2018, which follows Postmodernism which draws on the anti art movement Dada. Where it is both a critique yet it also a contradiction as it uses the postmodernist art movement’s characteristics such as the digital collaging and various digital means. Postmodernism is characterised by a “Questioning of the supposed universality of structural knowledge”. It is “skeptical about the modern belief in the universality of progress”(Sturken &Cartwright 2009:312).
It is more than just a cultural style, it is a periodising concept” based on the totalising view of history. Postmodernism is a culture of pastiche(a culture marked by the “complacent play of historical allusion”(Jameson cited in Storey 2015:203).
Postmodernism is also a culture: “of flatness and depthlessness, a new kind of superficiality in the most literal sense.”(Jameson cited in Storey 2015:203).
MAIA could also be a parody of other art movements or questions the very nature of new art movements in our culture of non originality and constantly referencing.
The acronym MAIA is a play on the words “May I “ or “Can I” as if the viewers are forced to ask permission, it is a rhetorical question which is also a contradiction as in the postmodern world anything can be considered art, as long as it has a meaning or explanation. Another interpretation is “Me and I” Discussing the themes of I as our world has become very personal and self centred with social media and other platforms. The movement questions the role of the archive and is seen to reference new images in a new way. It questions the idea of who owns ideas, the originality of ideas. It involves bland parody(pastiche). Thereby continuing with the Postmodernist questioning of the meaning of the original text.
The terms which are relevant in MAIA are parody, which is a literary device used deliberately for exaggeration of a specific concept or reference, with multiple meanings and interpretations of something. Intertextuality refers to the way in which we make meaning of a particular text by referring to similar or related texts. Intertextuality, a term derived from literature, literally means the insertion of one part of one text, with its meaning into another”(Sturken& Cartwright 2009:320).
The artwork is referencing Man Ray’s work titled Indestructible object or(Object to be destroyed) which was originally created in 1962(replica of the original in 1923). It consisted of a metronome with a photograph of an eye attached to it’s swinging arm. The artwork was meant to be self destructive, as the ticking sound will drive a person mad and destroy the machine. It was destroyed in 1957 but it was remade multiple times and renamed Indestructible Object- a ‘readymade’ inspired by Duchamp, who used ordinary manufactured objects and used them as art sculptures within the gallery setting. Man Ray wrote instructions on how to recreate the artwork as everyone can make the artworks. The idea is more important than the artwork or materials.
The term was coined by Marcel Duchamp from his ‘unassisted readymade’ in his 1917 Urinal titled Fountain. Which he put in a gallery and called it Art. Anti Art rejected traditional art materials and was anti conventional society, it is a disagreement with the supposed separation between art and life.
I decided to make a digital collage uses the metronome and replacing with either a surveillance camera eye or the digital clock cut out in the form of an eye. It is meant to comment on contemporary art. My piece is also a comment on traditional art materials and digital art will become traditional in the same way that a ‘readymade’ was non traditional.The title is Objects Of Surveillance, it is a series of multiple digital collages, as it is a play or a contemporary version of the ’readymade object’ and the idea of having surveillance for safety reasons and government control. The other artworks incorporate various elements of the MAIA movement where it questions the need for permission in our contemporary world, where anything could be considered art. A different language from different times.
The image derives from the internet which is a public space so it a found object. Combining both old and new technologies into a new timeless space. The other influences are the Rayograph as there are big contrasts between the light and dark. Man Ray named the invention of printing without a camera after himself. He experimented with new technologies of the time by inventing photographic prints being made by laying everyday objects such as coils of wire on top of photographic paper and exposing it to light The rayograph revealed a new way of looking that interested the Dadaist poets as well as the surrealist writers and painters(https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/265487). In a similar way Objects Of Surveillance take on a poetic nature. The artwork is easily reproduced as multiples either by print or digital reproductions, questioning the idea of the original. This continues another Postmodernist idea.
There is also a slight influence of Japanese Neo pop as MAIA combines different elements from Postmodernist movements. Looking up the other meanings of the word, it is similar to the word mai which means a slow Japanese folk or theatre dance featuring hand gestures which is an interesting coincidence.
The Dada artist Hanna Hoch as she pioneered photomontage, the technique was the original remixing in the early 20th century, intersecting or splicing together images found in popular media, magazines or newspapers. DADA has no official definition, which leaves it open to interpretation.
Digital collage
2019