Josh Connor

Zzzzzzz

[joshcofa1002]

Patricia Piccinini

A contemporary artist that looks at the impact technology has on human and animal relationships is Patricia Piccinini. Piccinini is interested in what defines the natural and the artificial, specifically focussing on genetic engineering and how it has blurred the lines between the two. To her this is a major concern and she uses her works as a forum of discussion for audiences to engage and consider the implications of this technology.

She creates hyper-realistic sculptures that depict often vulgar and repulsive hybrid creatures and does so purposely to make the viewer consider what the near future might hold.  The reactions that her artwork provokes amongst the audience forces the viewer to consider the ethical rights  of  these creatures and their purpose in our society. Will these creatures have rights and a be produced to live for the sake of their own desire or will they purely be designed to benefit humans whether it be for food or to grow human organs inside of? For example, her work titled "Young Family" depicts a pig cross, human hybrid family. 

Within the sculptural piece is a large maternal mother in which feeds her children, this creates a large contrast between the repulsiveness of the creatures appearance and the caring family atmosphere. From this, it emphasises Piccini's concern regarding these animals rights as stated in her artist statement explains how this creature she’s created represents the animals we produce today with the sole purpose of growing human organs inside of. She hopes to showcase the confliction between our moral choice of whether or not we should kill this animal to save a human's life or give it that right to live to raise its own family. Piccini's work is highly relevant to our publication as it discusses similar issues that we are in regards to the implications of genetical engineering and  customizable creatures in the future.

[joshcofa1002]

Human and Animal Relationships of the Future

Our group has decided to also look at the ways in which science and technology may impact the human and animal relationships of the future. In the last few decades, genetic engineering has made some miraculous progress, with scientist successfully being able to modify the genetic makeup of animals and plants to produced new organisms. Genes are defined as the blueprints that determine an organism's traits and therefore through the process of introducing foreign genes from one creature into another we are able to create something that would not naturally occur in nature. Besides ethical concerns and various laws put in place, genetic engineers have no restrictions in what they can create, which is what many people fear because no one really wants a lion to be breed with the height genes of an elephant.

An example of this technology is the glow in the dark rabbits that scientists have created through introducing jellyfish genes into a mother rabbits embryo's. This experiment was done to prove genetic manipulation techniques work and eventually they hope this technique can become a way for produce new medicines in the future. The aim is to create animals that produce beneficial molecules in their milk in which can be extracted and made available for human consumption.

As a group, this made us think of whether this new breed of animal and or plants would end up becoming commercial and available as a common house pet. What if in the future our dogs and cats could be customized by introducing foreign genes from other organisms. For instance, this creature I created called dino, the ultimate guard dog which is a dog crossed with a rhino. It will be interesting to see where these techniques lead in the near future and whether or not they will ever become commercial animals for farms and homes etc.

[joshcofa1002]

STUDIO TASK: Ways Of Teaching

Today in class the topic was Ways of Learning in which we discussed, well, the different ways we can learning. It was interesting discussing how different the high school learning space is compared to COFA, there's definitely a large improvement. In high school most things seemed to be taught textbook style, it is because it is. At COFA, there is no real set textbook we really work from and instead we learn more from  bouncing ideas off one another kind of like a collective brainstorm which is much more enjoyable.

As a class task, we had to get into small groups and teach each other something. In my group we learned new techniques in adobe programs, got educated on the conspiracy of flight paths and was taught how to make a vegan sushi meal while I shared to the others my favourite cocktail recipe.

[joshcofa1002]

Progress and Research

Today our group met up to discuss and finalise the ideas for our publication. With the content, we already have we want to organize it into a company catalogue which advertises various artificial companions we offer. The name of the company we have decided upon is called Pygmalion Relations, inspired by the Greek myth where a man falls in love with a porcelain sculpture that comes to life. We want to focus on different kinds of relationships that may exist between humans and future technologies, considering the idea that these products could literally replace the need for human to human interactions. Here's a list of the products and kinds of relationships we want to look at

 EXCLUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BOTS

· Single Dad-Bot

· Chastity Religious bot

· Mother maternal bot (can carry a child and do the stereotypical “traditional” motherly duties)

· Your ideal lover (a robot that conforms to beauty expectations)

· The aged bot (One that’s elderly and forms intimate relationships with those who have lost their partner at an old age)

SEXBOTS

· Bondage bots

· Partner bots (spice up love life for couples i.e threesomes without having to introduce another human)

· Teacher bot (teaches people with sexual struggles how to overcome them)

· Sexual fantasy bots

· Prison sex bots (Reduce rape in Prisons)

FRIEND BOTS AND PETS

· Genetically engineered pets

· Companion Bot (Friend bot that can help people with socially crippling mental health problems)

· carer bot (age care working bots etc. watch movies and read to people)

 As a group, we also began to discuss the ways in which these products may negatively impact gender stereotypes and how we see the body. If these creations were to come about there is an extremely likely chance that they will portray the "ideal" body image along with exercising "traditional gender duties". After all these robots would be made to pleasure and benefit a human, so you can only assume they would want a companion that conforms to ideal beauty standards. To attack this issue, we thought it would be a good idea to use satire in the publication. We want the catalogue to conform to gender stereotypes and ideal beauty standards so much so that it becomes ridiculous. For example, we might advertise a female robot built for a man that cooks, cleans and resembles a supermodel. In our group, we discussed how these form of advertisement is around us everywhere despite many arguing we have escaped the 1950's gender stereotypes. For example, it is rare you will see a male in a cleaning commercial just as much as it is for a female to be in a lawnmower commercial.

We also discussed how the commercial advertisement world is quite a white dominated domain with it being quite disgracefully how hard it is to come across a model of colour. Because of this we are thinking  of using mainly white models in our project. If these products were to be created, which there is a fair chance they will, It's going to be extremely interesting to see whether or not it worsens the way the world views gender, beauty and race.

[joshcofa1002]

Research-Robot  as Friends

As a collaborative group, we have discussed the possibility of their being robots in the future that are produced for non-sexually intimate relationships and are fully customizable to be the ideal candidate for ones best friend. If this was possible in the future it could have both positive and negative impacts on us. The positive being, this technology would be extremely beneficial for people who struggle with illnesses that cause social isolation and ultimately assist in their human development as having a friend could create a positive atmosphere that may assist them overcoming/maintain certain disorders etc. Successful friendships have been shown to have extremely positive impacts on our physical and mental health with some studies showing:

Having a group of close friends can reduce stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression

Having a large group of friends has been linked to living longer than those who do not

Women diagnosed with breast cancer who participate in social support groups are shown to survive for  twice as long as those who do not.

Amongst children, attributes  such as social competence, selflessness, self-esteem and self-confidence  have been shown to be positively correlated to having a healthy social  life.

Therefore, an artificial customizable friend could improve our quality of life and assist people who struggle or have been put in a position where it's become difficult to make friends such as working long hours or moving houses. This technology may even be a necessity for the future as a study has shown that a number of friends people have in America is on the decline.

The negative implication for this technology is that it could literally make humans intolerable of each other. If we have perfectly compatible robotic friends there is a chance people may find them more preferable than their human friends which often can involve conflict in interests and beliefs.

Despite this, I believe it could be a great tool for psychiatric wards to assist people rehabilitate back into society.

[joshcofa1002]

RESEARCH: ARTIFICIAL WOMBS

I was brainstorming some ideas in regards to relationships of the future and started wondering if you could design a robot that not only one could marry but could also be a mother and carry your child. I know we can already fertilise an egg outside of the body through IVF, but this then requires a surrogate to carry and develop the embryo. However, I wanted to find out if there's a possibility one could create an artificial womb that could be placed into a robot and successfully grow a human foetus.  After doing some research, I've realised it is scarily quite possible. Some futurists are even estimating that within 30 years babies will regularly be born in artificial wombs outside of the human body through a technology called Ectogenesis. These artificial wombs require a uterus and a placenta machine to supply nutrients and oxygen along  with a custom built Amniotic fluid sac to remove wastes. There're some benefits in artificially growing babies  like this as it would allow the baby to be constantly monitored and thus reducing the amounts of stillbirths. Cables could be attached to document everything from the babies weight to heart rate and development. Also, drugs could much more easily be supplied to a foetus if it happened to fall ill. It's also beneficial for the gay community and for women with damaged uterus's who are unable to carry a baby as they would no longer require a surrogate mother. Much of this technology already exists, however, legal and ethical concerns have resulted in human trials to be delayed. In fact, it has been successfully attempted until the project had to be terminated due to IVF regulations. Many feminists are deeply concerned about this invention, saying its handing over their sacred birthing abilities to science and wonders about its potential impact on the views of women in the future. If eventually they master this technology I don't see what would stop them from placing the artificial uterus in someone robot companion (Besides some ethical concerns for the child). I think this would be an interesting idea to explore in the collaborative publication and I think this could be a quite plausible human-robot relationship of the future.

 It's a fairly crazy topic so for anyone who's interested, here some links to articles about artificially growing babies outside of the human body

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/feb/10/medicalscience.research

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2724823/Would-YOU-grow-child-artificial-womb-OUTSIDE-human-body-Ectogenesis-widely-used-30-years.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/making-babies-outside-of-the-womb-has-never-been-so-easy/380282/

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/artificial-wombs-are-coming-and-the-controversys-already-here

[joshcofa1002]

ROBOT RELATIONSHIPS RESEARCH

The article "Robot's, Love & Sex: The Ethics of Building A Love Machine" written by John P. Sullins explores the ethical impacts of producing technologies that mimic and manipulate human emotions with the aim to evoke feelings of love and companionship upon human users. This article explores the psychological and philosophical components that are held within the emotion of love in which must be considered before continuing to develop these items further. Sullins also makes note of the fact that human-robot relationships are nothing new, making reference to the Tamagotchi, a 90's toy that  emulated a digital pet which required constant care and affection in order to stay alive. If we continue to try and make technologies that form more realistic and "natural" relationships we must, as the article states, develop new software  that allows machines to detect signals related to human emotion in which allows it to synthesize a realistic emotional reaction itself. Because, we currently can create machines that can exert an extreme human likeness and provoke sexual attractions to many.  But without this software we can't really create realistic relationships just yet.

However before developing such technology there's a lot of ethics we must analyse in regards to human psychological tendencies. This is largely because love is such an important and strong human emotion and toying with it can be dangerous, thus it is important to proceed cautiously in this field of study. One argument, however, disregards this, claiming if these creations are almost unrecognisably different to an actual human no problems should occur as it has no distinctive differences compared to a normal healthy relationship. In fact, it may even be beneficial to one's happiness as they can have a companion that shares similar interests and is designed to make them feel good about themselves. However, a major psychological concern is the fact that robotic relationships could lead to people becoming much more isolated from human contact and could be disastrous to our mental health. This is extremely plausible as these robots would be designed to benefit us so could result in people to become less tolerable of human relationships both sexually and socially. It's also said that these robots will have a negative effect on our body image through the exaggeration of body shapes in their design. This negative effect of body image also creates an objectification of the human body whether it be the male or female form, these products may unintentionally teach people that the body is simply just an object serving for our sexual desire. Already there are two companies that make male and female sex dolls that contain physical interactivity through mechatronics and as you can probably guess, both companies attempt to replicate an "ideal" body type.

Despite these concerns, this article brings up some strong positives to the introduction of sex dolls into our lives, even saying that they could bring so much happiness "it's almost a moral imperative that we work to make these theoretical robotic companions a reality." Sullins discusses how it could potential reduce the spread of STD's, accompany people who have physical or emotional deficiencies that make finding a human partner near impossible and even help those who are either not interested or don't have the time to develop a fully loving relationship but still desires some form of consistent sexual encounter.

This article brought up some extremely interesting points about human-robot relationships and emphasised the need to be educated about the various ethical concerns around them as it is a strong possibility this technology will be available in the not so distant future.

[joshcofa1002]

COLLABORATIVE PUBLIFICATION: RELATIONSHIPS OF THE FUTURE

For  assessment three's collaborative publication, my group has decided to focus on the future of relationships looking at what might be different and considered normal in 50 years or so time. In particular, we are focusing on the relationships between humans and A.I technologies and speculating the possibility that  one day It could be considered normal and legal to marry a robot. As odd as it may sound, this is actually quite likely to be thing considering how far marriage rights have come in the last 50 years with it only becoming legal in the late 1960's for interracial couples to marry and only recently has same-sex marriage become accepted in many countries. So it is quite possibly especially due to  the increasing reliance on technology and their forever increasing involvement in our everyday lives. Some academics such as David Levy even say, it's not a matter of if it will happen but rather when it will.

After doing some research into this possibility, I stumbled upon a thing called Objectophilia Which is a word used to categorise people who are physically and mentally attracted to inanimate objects such as bridges, buildings and cars etc. This made me think whether or not these people in the futures might get marital rights too in the years to become and if they don't, it would be quite discriminative towards this group of people.

From researching the possibility of human-robot relationships, I've come across a few interesting implications they could have on our society. One which I didn’t quite think of was to create  sex bots for prison inmates in order to reduce rape within such institutions. There's also the possibilities to use these robots to help people with mental health issues that impact their sex lives and possibly overcome these problems, such as rape victims and abused children. They can also be used as companion bots to help people through a hard time such as a widow who has just lost their partner and isn't ready to start dating again yet still wants a close relationship.

However, with these implications there's come a lot of ethical concerns towards the issue. In fact, there is already a group of activists who have created the website https://campaignagainstsexrobots.wordpress.com/ which is protesting against the possibility of human-robot relationships, concerned about the psychological and social damage it might do. There's also the question, will the AI bots have rights themselves? Are they allowed to choose the partner they desire or are they just slaves? Can they decline a relationship? Also there's the problematic argument that I'm sure will come up a lot amongst couples of the future is, can sex with a robot be classified as cheating? Will they be so life like that they are actually considered human?

There's still a lot more research I need to do on the issue, but overall it's been an extremely interesting topic to look at and I am actually quite interested to see what the future holds for these possible human-robot relationships.

[joshcofa1002]

STUDIO TASK: DISRUPTING A SIGNAL

This week's lesson was on "Static, Noise, Interference and Glitch" and with this topic we observed how a distorted/disrupted message could be viewed as the potential for a creative work. As a studio task for this week, we were told to find a signal and then disrupt it. When walking around the courtyard I saw some people playing ping pong which is fundamentally a game that revolves around sending and receiving. I decided to disrupt this signal by being a dick and going up and whacking the ball of the table with my hand. Unfortunately, I was unable to get footage of the incident as it was a pretty spontaneous action.

[joshcofa1002]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barndt, D 2006, Wild Fire: Art as Activism, Sumach Press, Toronto, Canada.

 Boros, D 2012, Creative Rebellion for the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Public and Interactive Art to Political Life in America, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

 Cohen Cruz, J 2001, "An introduction to Community Art and Activism", Community Arts, viewed 12 September 2015, <http://www.scribd.com/doc/58878941/An-Introduction-to-Community-Art-and-Activism#scribd>.

Danneman, N & Ritter EH 2014, “Contagious Rebellion and Preemptive Repression", Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 58, no. 2, pp. 254-279.

 Downing, JD 2001, Radical Media: Rebellious Communications and Social Movements, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA.

 Enigbokan, A 2015, “Delai Sam: social activism as contemporary art in the emerging discourse of DIY urbanism in Russia”, Journal of Urbanism International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, pp. 1-16.

 Fabrica Communication Research Center 2013, "Los Intocables: The right to Childhood should be untouchable", Fabrica.it, viewed 9 August 2015, <http://www.fabrica.it/projects/los-intocables/>.

 Huffington Post 2012, "Pretty Ugly: Visual Rebellion in Design (photos), Huffington Post, 24 May, viewed 5 September 2015, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/pretty-ugly-visual-rebellion-in-design_n_1537331.html?ir=Australia>.

 Jaramillo, NE 2015, “The Art of youth rebellion”, Curriculum Inquiry, vol.45, no.1, pp 93-108.

 Johnson, P 2014, "Richard Prince Sucks", Artnet News, 21 October, viewed 4 September 2015 <https://news.artnet.com/art-world/richard-prince-sucks-136358>.

 Kirby, S 2009, “Truth No Matter the Power: Controversial Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s only fear is silence, UTNE Reader, viewed 14 August 2015, <http://www.utne.com/arts/ai-weiwei-china-artist-dissident-truth-government-protest.aspx>.

 Lack, J 2008, "Censoring Provocative Art is the worst Advert for 2012", The Guardian, 26 August, viewed 3 September 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/aug/26/art.olympics2012>.

 Lemos, G 2013, “Feeding the Hungry Ghosts”, Index on Censorship, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 98-101.

 O'Keefe, Theresa 2011, "Flaunting Our Way to Freedom? Slut Walks, Gendered Protest and Feminist Futures", thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth, viewed 10 September, <http://eprints.nuim.ie/3569/1/Flaunting_2012-1.pdf>.

 Plaugic, L 2015, "The story of Richard Prince and his 100,000$ Instagram Art", The Verge, 30 May, viewed 3 August 2015, <http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/30/8691257/richard-prince-instagram-photos-copyright-law-fair-use>.

 Porter, C 2013, “Artist Erik Ravelo puts children on The Cross for controversial project”, News.com.au, 11 September, viewed 9 August 2015, <http://www.news.com.au/technology/artist-erik-ravelo-puts-children-on-the-cross-for-controversial-project/story-e6frfro0-1226716863451>.

 Schuessler, J 2012, "Who's the Shockingest of them All?" New York Times, 5 October, viewed 3 September 2015, <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/art-shock.html?_r=1&#/#finale>.

Schmitt, C 2007, Concept of the Political, University of Chicago press, Chicago, IL, USA.

Scott, T 2014, "Drawing Dicks on the Herald Sun", Vice, 21 January, viewed 14 September 2015, <http://www.vice.com/read/drawing-dicks-on-the-herald-sun>.

 Sunderland, L 2010, “The Art of Revolt: Rebellion in the Works of Bertran de Born and Julia Kristeva”, Comparative Literature, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 22-40.

 Veneracion-Rollonza, Lourdes 2014, "Women's Naked Body Protests and the Performance of Resistance: Femen and Meira Paibi Protests Against Rape", Philippine Political Science Journal, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 251-268.

 Wan, M 2013, “Ai Weiwei, Oscar Wilde, and the Art of Posing”, Law, Culture and the Humanities, vol. 9, no.1, pp. 7-12.

 Young, A n.d., "Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary", Khan Academy, viewed 3 September 2015, <https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/identity-body-europe/a/chris-ofili-the-holy-virgin-mary>.

[joshcofa1002]

RESEARCH- “AN INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY ART AND ACTIVISM”

In Jan Cohen Cruz’s paper “An Introduction to Community Art and Activism,” she looks at the importance of communal art projects and how beneficial they are for political movements. Community Art to her is important because it is “rooted in a shared sense of place, tradition or spirit.” Because communities share the same/similar public spaces, they often encounter and have to deal with similar problematic issues. This is why collaborative communal art is so important as it brings the masses together and allows them to collectively discuss and critique these concerns in which plays a burden on their everyday lives. Involving the community within an artwork allows the people to better understand the issues at hand and become active members in the fight for change. Cohen-Cruz discusses how information by itself isn’t enough to create change, it doesn’t lead to any direct action against what it is acknowledging.

“I used to feel optimistic about education as activism. I believed that if people only knew what was going on, they'd do something about it. I thought journalists were so lucky — they could genuinely contribute to a cause by informing people about it, leaving others to move people from knowledge to activism. That's where many of us saw a role for theater, to inform the head and move the heart at the same time. But I realized that people often have the information, in all its emotional glory, yet knowledge alone rarely leads to action.”

This is largely because, people who have information about a certain issue, often are not supplied with nor have access to tome form of organisation to follow through and create a change. This is where community art comes into play, it creates a foundation where people can contribute, protest and rebel to actually make a difference. Claire peeps, an Academic Cohen-Cruz references, defines an activists job as,

"largely the building of social capital — the grassroots networks that enable people to move information and ideas to a broader audience, and ultimately to make change happen."

Communal Art creates a progression towards change and allows people to share their thought and become physically engaged active members of their society and political system

One of the examples of this aspect of collaborative communal artworks is Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed in which changes the position of the audience from a spectator to a spect-actor. The audience in these theatre productions are as Cohen-Cruz puts it, “able to take action, they become subjects who act rather than objects who is acted upon.” One way in which they achieve this is by encouraging the spectator to help the actors think through various social problems regarding sexism, racism etc. by physically acting out possible solutions to a certain situation in which it was manifested.

[joshcofa1002]

INTERACTIVE EXPERIMENT

Here's a quick experiment I did after brainstorming some ways that art could encourage people to rebel and disrupt public spaces. After reading “Concept of The Political” by Carl Schmitt (and also previous Cofa1002 classes), I became aware of how our movements and choices in life are often restricted and influenced by our societies politics. There’s not much in our contemporary society that isn’t in some way or another influenced by politics, especially when looking at politics as Schmitt describes it which is it being every cultural practice that is exercised within a state from religion, economic and social activities.

I decided to challenge this by creating a work that encourages people to escape these constraints and to do something that disrupts and ruptures them instead of falling victim to them. To do this I created a flyer which contained a set of instructions  in which asked people to write their number down in exchange for someone else's. Later with that person's number they were to anonymously text a random task for them to complete.

I did this because I feel as if the way we act is quite contextualised and dependent on where we are and who we are with, for example, the idea that one must remain silent when in a library. So I thought that if someone who had no idea where you were or who you were with sent you a random task, this task would most likely be out of context and not abide to the way one would normally act in that situation. For example, if someone was in a library and they were sent a message that told them to beatbox it would disrupt the usual social order. So the aim was to make people challenge the ways in which they are “Required” to act in a certain situation. 

I left the flyer out for a small amount of time and was pleased to see some people actually participated. However, one issue is I don’t have a clue if they followed through with the whole task.

I’m going to expand on this experiment more for my final body of work, I just need to fix up some minor issues such as text and tag size. Something I'm also considering is instead of having individuals exchange number between one another I was thinking of collecting all of the numbers myself and creating a group message that consisted of one task for everyone to do at once.But, I’m not too sure yet as I still quite like the idea of having various different acts going on and having each individual choosing what they want to be disrupted.

[joshcofa1002]

RESEARCH-DRAWING DICKS ON THE HERALD SUN

A work many of us can relate to and probably one in which many of us have participated in is the Facebook page and art series "Drawing Dicks on the Herald Sun," A page that literally does as the name suggests. The whole thing started off as a workplace joke and grew to become an extremely popular social media page. Funnily enough the series has more Facebook likes than the official Sun Herald page does.

The series has actually become quite a fine art with some extremely talented Artists such as Sir Jonathan Edward Guthmann joining in and almost turning the series into some form of ridiculous Art movement (theirs even a feature documentary about the Facebook page).

What's rebellious about the work Is how it demeans public figures and in many cases, demeans those that hold a higher stance of authority than us such as politicians. The series quite regularly runs into problems with the general public, receiving social media bans on numerous occasions.

Personally, I think the series is rather funny and gives us a chance to all laugh at some real childish things.

[joshcofa1002]

PROGRESS AND RESEARCH

Recently I've been able to begin the actual creating process for my assessment two body of work. For it I browsed through  the governments and other organisational websites to find various bills, laws, amendments, constitutions and conducts in which we are bound by in our everyday lives. With these documents, I've printed random pages and used them as foundations to form an A2 size canvas. I have already completed one and halfway through the second. I found it rather ridiculous how many bills etc. our government have enforced and I don't even believe there is any part of our life that doesn't hold any form of political and or social restraint.

 On the canvas's I am going to create a contrast by painting a male nude on one and a female nude on the other. The naked body reflects freedom, ownership and self-liberation which juxtaposes with the various legal documents that are restricting, and sometimes a burden on our lives. I really want the figures to look loose and free as if they are dancing to emphasise this contrast between freedom and restrictions. Originally, I was going to print various laws onto a mirror and place them in the middle of the two canvases so audiences could express how they felt about them by putting their rude finger up at them, giving them the thumbs up or mooning them depending on how they feel. However, I've decided to go with something different and am beginning to think of ways I could encourage the audience to rebel outside of the gallery space and away from the safety of the classroom.

 I've also done some research on the power of the body in protests, especially in regards to nudity and have come across some interesting information that helps contextualise the use of nude figures in my work. One extremely useful text is the article entitled "Women's Naked Body Protests and Performance of Resistance" by Lourdes Veneracion-Reallonza which brings up some interesting points regarding nude protests while exploring previous statements that have been made by notable theorists. This article looks at the power of nudity and how it can be used as a performance to explain or expose various political and social issues. These public performative nude protests allow for the general public's unrecorded voices to become visible and allows for individual or group to declare their position and value and democratic position as Veneracion-Rallonza quotes "The use of naked bodies in protest implies the individuals' capacity to take control of their bodies and deploy themselves as a tool to publicly declare what they think is right." One statement I find interesting from the article is the idea that within naked protests there is an "Absence of bodies despite their presence." What this means, is that the bare bodies in the context of protest are not about selling anything or exposing one's self instead the body becomes the embodiment of an issue and a symbol for change. Ones nudeness is not seen in a sexual manner but instead as a weapon for revolt, As the theorist Theresa O'Keefe would put it "Bodies that resist simultaneously serve as a medium for change and also realise it." The body in the context of a protest as Judith Butler claims becomes a "Theatricalization of political rage." The body is a powerful resource in helping advertise various injustices around the world and has historically been successful. 

For example the Meira Paibi activist group in India who directed nude protests at Indian authorities in reaction to the rapes and murders of women at the hands of the Indian Army. The activists stripped bare whilst running around with a banner reading "Indian Army Rape Us" whilst also yelling slurs such as "Play on our bodies." They literally invites the army to come rape them in order to shame the acts that were going on, they turned an issue that was denied and repressed and then publicised it in possibly one of the bluntest hard hitting ways possible. Even though the women were completely naked and provided an invitation to be raped they did not objectify or sexualise themselves and certainly were not portrayed in a way that suggested sexual gratification. Instead, their bodies become a part of a performance, a confrontational performance that perfectly captures the patriarchal violence against women in India. One of the quotes from the Meira Paibi members explained the reasoning of their act as such 

"we were always insecure, forever at risk of molestation by the security forces. Why then should we not walk in the streets naked, what clearer protest could we make to teach a lesson not just to the security forces here but to the whole world?...It (the protest) was the culmination of the rage and agony we had harboured for years. We challenged them to come out and rape us before everyone. We demanded they tell us what they were stationed here for: to protect our people or to rape our women."

 The protest was an extremely successful one as it clearly publicised a major issue for Indian women that was once ignored and turned it into one that is now acknowledged globally. Due to this they were able to achieve a great amount of support for their cause and make their inhumane treatment acknowledged. Their success is clearly exhibited through the amount of press they got for what they had done, with it becoming worldwide news. I'm not sure how much better their living qualities are right now and how much it has improved since their performance, but that is something I might have to look into further.

 One quote that I really took away from the article "Women's Naked Body Protests and Performance of Resistance" was the quote "Protests need to be performed in order to clearly show discontent." This statement along with discussions with my tutor made me want to change my idea of placing a mirror in the middle of the work to something else. Because I want my piece to create an engagement that encourages people to perform rebellion outside of the gallery space. I want people to express their desire for change in the public eye and not in the safety of a classroom where there is no real risk and minimal judgement. 

[joshcofa1002]

EXPERIMENT/PROGRESS-Assessment two

After brainstorming some ideas for Assessment two, I've finally begun to create a few experiments/concept sketches for the task. In these works, I’ve decided to paint naked bodies over the Australian constitution. I wanted to create a form of contrast between the two subjects, with the naked body symbolising freedom and self-liberation in juxtaposition with the constitution which controls and restricts us. I Also believe naked bodies are extremely appropriate for a work that reflects upon rebellion as historically they’ve been used as an instrument for protestors to voice their rights. By drawing naked bodies over legal documents, I feel as if it creates an awareness towards how although we own our own bodies we are still controlled and surveilled by various laws. These laws are imposed on us every day despite being often created long before we were born which to me means many would be outdated. For example, the Australian Marriage Laws which allows for people to marry their cousins yet still denies same-sex couples the right. I’m hoping to expand on these ideas quite a bit more for my final work.

[joshcofa1002]

Visual Rebellion in Design

As Clement Greenburg so astutely put it, "All profoundly original art looks ugly at first." Like Picasso's The Young Ladies of Avignon, great works of art have often initially been considere

This article published by Huffington Post looks into the content found in the recent art book "Pretty Ugly." The book highlights how within the last several years, Artists and Designers have begun to rebel against all general appeal, and instead have invented new innovative styles that are somewhat displeasing. So according to the book, Rebellion in contemporary Art and Design could be seen as something that rebels against the traditional notion that works of art must be aesthetically pleasing. Of course there has  been a long history of works that some may deem ugly, however, its only really been now that it has become a major Artistic trends in fashion, furniture design, architecture etc. For me, however, this brings up an interesting point, if this has become the popular trend to create displeasing objects, can it still be seen as rebellion or would it now be an act of conformity?

Contemporary artists now have a strong desire to become pioneers of new styles that embark on an "Aesthetic rampage" through working with "Startling figures, colours and perspectives."

"Pretty ugly" explores how we have escaped the functional modernist production in  design and replaced it with pieces that instead serve a minimal purpose and hold a "Unique visual identity."

The article I've linked shows some of the interesting examples of art and design work found in the book.

[joshcofa1002]

Rebellion Studies and Rant

The book "Radical Media- Rebellious Communications and Social Movements" explores the importance of rebellious forms of media in cultural production. The author John D H Downing discusses how radical alternative medias allow audiences to become active members in their society through expressing oppositional views to popular culture.

Theodor Adorno describes popular culture as an authentic expression of the masses beliefs and ambitions and holds strong potential for an oppositional minority view. Through Art and Design, we can create works that engage with views from the minority, which can ideally create an awareness and increase support. If successful, this view can overthrow the popular belief and become the new popular ideology. For example, various cultures historically have displayed a hierarchy with whiteness, maleness, and one's mother tongue often being given the higher stance of authority. Through Radical alternative media's in Art and Design we can highlight the ridiculousness of this and help society escape this sad reality.

Creative practitioners need to provide a foundation that allow people to see new realities which potentially could be beneficial. Audiences as consumers of mass cultural products will often observe what's being showcased and imagine scenarios from it, which in some cases can create a resonance with liberating potential. What we see around us impacts how we think and feel about various issues and helps us see differently about the world. This is both good and bad, in some cases it can liberate us to see alternatives against popular culture, but it can also be used for propaganda to reinforce views that may be immoral, dangerous and destructive. For example, the propaganda found throughout the Nazi Germany regime.

In "Radical Media- Rebellious Communications and Social Movements" Downing believes audiences should be redefined as media users instead of as consumers, claiming audiences must be "active rather the uncritical, and as various (audiences) rather than homogenous." Radical media art helps redefine this role of the audience as it encourages viewers to form a critical engagement with that work and consider what it is trying to say about cultural, political, environmental and social issues.

Through rebellious Art and Design practices, new cultures can emerge which can act as an opposition to popular beliefs. However, this radical media as the book states, comes with risks, "Radical media activists have very often experienced state repression- execution, jailing, torture fascist assaults…. The story of radical media is often one of survival and tension in the face of vehemently, sometimes murderously hostile authority." Ultimately what Downing Is trying to say is, the act of rebellion is an expression for freedom and a desire for justice and  doing anything humanly possible to achieve it. It's about shaking off the patriarchal restraints that we have been subjected to by popular culture, something we don't ask for nor have any control over.

From this reading and various others, I've found rebellion to be simply about constructing a new reality. It's an act that is reactionary to certain events and issues and something that encourages people to rethink about the world they live in. Rebellious artworks in our world is a necessity as it stops the masses from being passive to popular beliefs and misconceptions.