Contemporary Art.

Katie. 21. Second year student. Notes on lectures, ideas and research.

[katiemayca]

NEW BLOG.

http://katiemjennings.tumblr.com/   For third year and new project.

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Modern Theories On Present Time.

After researching into more modern theories surrounding the present time, I came across two opposing groups, the Presentists and the Eternalists. The Presentists believe that only the present (objects/experiences) are real and the past and future do not exist. The past and future are only concepts that describe the isolated, changing present. Eternalists believe reality is spread out in time, compromising past, present and future entities. The present time is so hard to define and I think I am going to experiment with different time durations and define it to a specific time frame I feel is best for a representation of the present time. Other aspects of time I researched around were physical, biological and psychological time. Physical time is that clocks are made to measure. Biological time is indicated by an organism's circadian rhythm or body clock, which is normally regulated by a pattern such as sunlight and darkness. Psychological time is time that passes fast if enjoying an activity and slow when feeling anxious etc. By taking each of these elements I can manipulate my work to involve these. For example, I could make some form of machine that draws to the rhythm of a clock. I also looked at a theorist called Craig Callender who said "our impression of subjective present-ness...can manipulated in a variety of ways." This can be through other sights/sounds/textures/smells that are present at nearby times. I could create work that manipulates/distorts the senses in a variety of media.

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Present time and Time perception. Taking influence from the artist Bridget Riley and her optical illusion work I took her circular illusions and created them into abstract installation pieces. From every different angle these pieces look completely different and this draws upon the theory of relativity where an individual can be experiencing the same event as another but each sees the experience differently. So two individuals viewing this piece together would experience something different to each other. I was also influenced by the colour contrast as this is usually a part of how an illusion appears to be distorted as your brain is trying to figure out each colour/shape/line and this is how the image appears to move. I want to experiment and research further into illusions and how this plays with time perception. I will explore using contrasting colours, different thicknesses of lines but I think I will keep the circular shape the same as this represents how the present time is a period of time that has no beginning or end.

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Geometric Optical Illusion.

An illusion is a set of visually perceived images that differ from objective reality and distorts the size, length position and curvature of the image. The illusion allows the brain to see a 3D form even though the image is usually a flat 2D picture. Motion perception is also a suggestion of speed and direction of elements. I now think I am starting to bring in this idea of perception of time. I think this could potentially allow me to bring elements such as the manipulation of the senses and this could include the taking away sight as the perception of time slows down when an individual is placed in the dark as does the decrease in body temperature. Motion perception wold fit in well with the theory of relativity in terms of speed, movement and direction so incorporating both theories I could create interesting pieces of work.

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Bridget Riley. This artist I interested in using optical illusions in her work and these are created by cleverly positioning shapes, lines and contrasting colours to create the illusion of movement within the image. I find illusions interesting as they have a dream like quality and this distorts your sense of time as you get transfixed onto the image as your brain tries to figure out a solution. You only grasp a sense of time when you stop looking into the image. Here this relates to the theory of perception with movement and it would be interesting to see if I could start to create pieces of work that contain some kind of illusion but create it so when two people stand at opposite sides of the room the illusion for each person is different. This would mean the two individuals are seeing the same event but their experiences would differ.

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Nick Savvas. This artist creates interesting, colourful geometric thread installation pieces which I found were similar to previous work I have been experimenting with. This artist is influenced by mathematic formulas and creates them in a optical style. The thread, just like that of Julian Voss-Andreae's work, is positioned and spaced well so that the thread creates some kind of motion. I thought by taking influence from the display of this work and the size it could help me develop my work further. As she takes mathematical formulas and positions the threads relating to these theories maybe I could take influence from Fabian Oefner's work and document sound frequencies and I could then recreate these in an abstract way using string. Again these pieces include circular shapes and this is a recurring theme when I look into motion, time, speed so I think for the moment I should carry on experimenting with the circle.

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Fabian Oefner.    "I love playing with this element of time...it's just when the object hits the paint and you've got this explosion of colours, half a second later it's completely black again." This artist is a photographer who is inspired by science and natural daily phenomena such as sound waves and forces which he produces by applying paint to a drill and capturing the motion of the paint spinning as this is a motion which is barely visible to the human eye. I like the movement within the images and how he captures a frozen moment in time. Again a lot of these pieces create a circular shape which not only enhances this concept of movement, direction and speed but also how it is hard to find the beginning and end. It would be interesting to see if I could capture similar aspects of the present time such as sounds and replay these so I can document the frequencies and work with them like I did with the lines inside the circles which I documented hourly. This could then be represented in an abstract way, like that of the above images.

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Time Perception.

   This is a field of study within psychology and neuroscience and tries to measure an individuals perception of time and the duration of continuous, unfolding events. People tend to divide up time and isolate events in terms of second, day, year etc but experiences tent to be of a plurality of overlapping changes.     As humans we seem to not ne able to live without the concept of time. Immanuel Kant believed that time is not appreciated as a physical thing but a form of sensible intuition. This raises the question of whether time is physical or psychological. Studies have shown emotional states, aging, drugs, meditation, body temperature, clinical disorders can all effect time perception. Maybe my work could start to include elements that could change body temperature or create work that has psychedelic and illusion like qualities to distort the viewers sense of time. For example if my work was to be cold to touch or the room as cold usually an individuals time perception decreases. By manipulation certain elements, time periods, events and experiences would all differ for the individual and again this would start to relate to the theory of relativity.

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Taking the line drawings I created over the period of a day I started to experiment overlaying them using different colours. However the top images appeared to create a rather busy piece and was hard to view the lines further down the line. So I looked back at my artists and took inspiration from Noemi Schipfer's work and cut a circle out of the middle of each circle. This now allowed the viewer to see down the middle of each circle and see the different coloured lines hit the centre circle. Again these 'event rings' show emotions/experiences throughout the period of a day but does each ring represent a frozen moment of time in that particular hour or does the whole line of circles overall represent the present time in the space of a day?

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When creating pieces for this project this was originally scraps that started to build up at the side of me. As they were all circular shapes I decided to experiment with 2D and 3D forms. They reminded me of the works by Noemi Schipfer and the Normad Office Architects in terms of using 'slices' to displaying them together as the plastic on these pieces are transparent. On the 3D forms the plastic captured and reflected the light but also created small shadows. I felt this was an abstract form of the light cone diagram and seeing how each 'ring event' tangled up with other peoples experiences and it overall represents how we are all experiencing something different but at the same time.

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Aine Belton. This artist creates performance art and the above images show her working on a piece of work which included drawing circular shapes until her graphite ran out and then she would proceed to erase these circles until that eraser ran out too. This piece was created over a few hours and allowed the public to view the new position in the progress and see how the piece changed as they returned later. This performance was to show time and duration and show the public how much can change over such a short period time. I felt this piece also raised the question of whether as the piece changed did this mean the progression pushes earlier movements into the past? or is this performance classed as a present piece of work and the few hours it took to produce are all classed as in the present time? I think within my work I will include this contrast between the past, present and future to raise questions of when each period of time starts and ends.

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Julian Voss-Andreae. This artist is a German sculpture who is inspired by physics, maths and philosophy. I found this work interesting as Einstein described movement and speed within his theory of relativity and the direction of the threads to the centre of the circle gives the appearance of motion and that time never stands still. From this work I will take influence from the layout of the work to give a motion like appearance and again I have found within art that represents time circular shapes are mostly used. The representation of this is to show time has no beginning or end, making it hard to show a clear time structure of the past, present and future.

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Nomad Office Architecture. This piece of work is a public installation built purposely to raise the questions of what is time? is time dividable? is space time composed of multiple frozen moments? is time physical or psychological? The piece would also act as some kind of sun dial which would engage light, shadow and reflections. Again this piece is made up of 'slices' of time which not only involves interaction with the public but also natural phenomenon. I will take influence from the questions asked and maybe try answer these within my work.

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Noemi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto This artist creates audiovisual installation art and explores space distortions with the relationship between space and time. The contrasts within this work involves contractions, shifts and metamorphosis. I felt this work in terms of layout and circular shapes related well to the light cone diagram created by Einstein as I pictured each ring either contrasting or expanding represented an event in time. Also as I see this work as an abstract way of representing the light cone diagram I can see this idea of a conflict between the past and future and the circles representing this concept of the present time and having no definitive beginning or end. From this work I will take influence from the using 'slices' of glass/transparent material and layering up time/events/experiences and raise the question of whether the present time can be defined by a certain length/period of time.

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How Long Is A Piece Of String?

Growing up I would always question of how much time something would take and My Dad would always reply with 'How long is a piece of string?'. This gave me an idea of how to represent the present. As present time has no definitive time length, I felt the question 'How long is a piece of string' worked quite well here. The next pieces of work I will make using string whether this be an installation or sculpture and use earlier research to construct the shape.  

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Further Thread Experimentation. The mix of colours I think creates a more complex and abstract piece of work. Again, if viewers were to look down the circles at opposite ends their experience would differ even though they are viewing the same piece of art work. It would be interesting to see if on a larger scale these were to be suspended and swung like a pendulum but each circle at a different speed. For different people the time between each swing may be different for the individual again showing how the flow of time is different for everyone.

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Photoshop. Taking some of the previous images I put them into Photoshop and decided to play around with different colours and layering. I like the appearance of these pieces as they are very abstract and I find myself drawn to this style of art. I could imagine these as large scale paintings. I want to make these as a piece too which will include different coloured threads to see if this adds anything more and changes the perspective or it could simply be too much as there could be a lot to take in and then this could draw away from the theme of present time.