MEDIA TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE CREATIVE ARTS

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In his photo project The Nine Eyes of Google Street View, Canadian artist Jon Rafman collects some of the most bizarre, beautiful and at times disturbing sights captured by the nine lenses on the Google street view camera cars as they photograph scenes around the world. Rafman’s series explores intersections between art and technology, issues surrounding surveillance as well as tension between the automated camera and human meaning. From images of wild horses sprinting through an open plain to a man holding a woman at gunpoint, while his ally waits beside an open trunk, the series presents a universe observed by the detached gaze of an indifferent being. Rafman leaves it up to the viewer to either critique or celebrate our modern world and give meaning to the work.

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Reading Response 5

Jospeh Tate's compelling essay 'Radiohead's Antivideos: Works of Art in the Age of Electronic Reproduction' explores the aesthetics of 'test specimens' in computer animated videos titled 'antivideos', 10-30 second videos released on the internet along with Radiohead's Kid A. The test specimens, wide-eyed bears with murderous grins punctuated the art of Radiohead from CD packaging to website images and promotional stickers. Although reminiscent of character-mascots that establish a product's brand identity the bears are read as protagonists in a self-referential aesthetic that parodies the band's commodification and the operation of capitol at large.

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Reading Response 4

In his essay “Intermedia Stages of Virtual Reality in the Twentieth Century: Art as Inspiration of Evolving Media”, Oliver Grau discusses early developments in the field of virtual reality. He explores attempts to connect and synchronize the universal machine with human beings. Grau provides an extensive history of advances and events in virtual reality and computer engineering along with various central figures and pioneers within the movement, including the stereoscope, the cinerama and Sutherland’s head mounted display or HMD. Each of the innovations Grau outlines portrays the human desire to be ‘within the image’ and stand as precursors to the world of interactively experienced virtual reality. Grau’s writings encourage us to consider the societal, political and economic impacts of access to virtual reality devices and how one's virtual identity may affect their physical sense of self. 

  Sutherland's Head Mounted Display (HMD), 1965 

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Spencer McCall’s documentary The Institute gives viewers a glimpse of the fantastical alternate reality game/art project put on by the imaginary ‘Jejune Institute’ that took place in San Francisco from 2008-2011. Over 10, 000 citizens took part in the games after stumbling across strange flyers around the city advertising science-fiction products. The film interviews various participants who recount their personal experiences with the work. One man details his introduction to the project- after calling the number on the flyer he was directed to a bland corporate office concealing secret rooms, cryptic instructions and a scavenger-like path leading him back out onto the streets that were now full of mysterious signs and symbols. The participants gradually discovered an enthralling fictitious narrative through clues that took form in graffiti symbols around the city, a radio station broadcasting the happenings of the Jejune Institute, secret calls from payphones, packages in the mail and even performance art in which actors took on the roles of characters associated with the tale. The banal financial district of downtown San Francisco had been transformed into an enchanting playground for adults. The creator of the project, Jeff Hull, fuses the Happenings of the 60’s with New York City’s Improv Everywhere antics and Lost-style mythology to bring play and spontaneity into the everyday lives of individuals.

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Reading Response 3

            In ‘Brought to you By Girl Power: Riot Grrrl’s Networked Media Economy’ Mary Celeste Kearney critically analyzes the 1990 feminist punk movement Riot Grrrl as a case studies for the power of youth culture production. Rather than merely focusing on the visually aesthetic style of the movement Kearney explores Riot Grrrl’s networked media economy and cultural production circulated through zines, flyers and their independent music. The movement’s mantra “revolution girl style now!” evokes their main mandate to redefine the stiff limitations of the adultism of feminism to apply to girls and girlhood of the new millennium. They also sought to fracture sexism and misogyny, not only in culture at large but also specifically within the male-dominated hyper-masculine punk scene itself. Kearney also highlights Riot Grrrl’s DIY approach that made media production cheap and accessible while also stressing the class privilege that allows middle-class girls more time, flexibility and access to education necessary for the development of personal style. 

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Blog Entry 3 

Default Gender’s ‘On Fraternity’ recontextualizes familiar mantras from bands like Bikini Kill and Heaven to Betsy of the 1990’s feminist punk movement Riot Grrrl. Lyrics like:

“The way your heart speeds up when you notice someone walking behind you” and “In their opinion you were almost kind of asking for it” illuminates the very real issues surrounding rape culture. Not only does the band-turned-art project deconstruct sexism in culture at large, lines like “who cares if it’s right as long as it’s punk” speak volumes of the normalized misogyny apparent within the punk scene itself. In the video the main member of the group James Brooks is viewed sitting in front of a kitsch background set made up fake flowers and stuffed animals (stereotypical connotations of girlhood and feminism), critiquing traditional gender roles. Furthermore, Brooks is viewed on his game console the whole video highlighting intersections between art and new media technology. The viewer watches Brooks and the glowing screen behind him, while Brooks views the screen in front of him raising questions surrounding spectatorship and possibly alienation in the age of Internet. 

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Oneohtrix Point Never’s Boring Angel is a prime of example of contemporary noise-music. The epic track is composed mainly of ambient organ keys and a combination of low and melodic synthesizer tones near the beginning and end and energetic, hyperbolic notes in the middle. The work also features the steady ticking of a clock throughout, as well as a rising chord that resembles the ring of a cellphone as the song’s intensity builds. The video composed for the score, directed by Michael Boling, incorporates the use of a multitude of emoticons to narrate a story of love, loss and life. Through its minimalistic use of everyday new media the work encourages the viewer to consider their relationship with technology and media in a more human way. The smiley and heart emoji that we often send in text messages and on Facebook without giving a second thought, or any real emotion are transformed to give the viewer a much more profound and moving experience.

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Reading Response 2

Italian painter Luigi Russolo’s letter of admiration to composer Balilla Pratella entitled “The Art of Noise” (1913) stands as one of the most revolutionary and important writings on musical aesthetics and Futurist music of the 20th century. Russolo sought to radically break with the past through proposing new methods of sound to express modern life, and in doing so set the template for much of modern music. For Russolo noise or “found sounds”, meaning any sound that was not from a traditional instrument, carried with it endless possibilities for expression. These noises included those made by machines as well as natural non-traditional sounds such as grunts, shrieks, animals, cars, waterfalls, jet engines, trains etc. Although the idea of incorporating every day sound into music compositions may seem relatively straight forward in contemporary culture, at the time it struck audiences as extremely ludicrous. Today, noise and found sound is a central element of most modern music, including electronic, hip-hop and techno, making Russolo one of the most visionary, forward-thinking Futurist artists of his time.  

Luigi Russolo and Ugo Piatti with their Intonarumori (1914) 

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Reading Response 1

In Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Benjamin argues that the development of reproducible artworks has caused art to lose its original ‘ritual’ meaning. Through the withering of what Benjamin calls an artwork’s  ‘aura’ or authenticity, its unique aesthetic value is lost. Once a work’s aura is lost, it is forced to find worth through its exhibition value. Benjamin applies this theory to the mediums of photography and film and explores how they bring with them the ease of reproducing mass media. In turn, Benjamin claims that instead of ritual means, art begins to be based on the practice of politics. 

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The Andy Warhol Museum has recently recovered a set of images, doodles and photos that the pop artist created on a Amiga home computer in the mid 80’s. The works were discovered on a floppy disk 30 years after their creation by Andrew Archangel after his chance viewing of a youtube video showing Warhol at the 1885 Amiga launch event. Among the found images is a 3-eyed doodle of a pre-rendered version of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. The highly pixelated appropriated image exemplifies Warhol’s willingness to embrace new media as it was emerging and his eye for the genre we now classify as “web-art”. He modifies this classic image in Amiga’s paint program in order to transform the traditional gaze of Venus to take on a new meaning. With the advent of new media technology the artist is able to manipulate and rework an image after it is captured or created. The image is no longer meant to be a reproduction of reality or a tribute to the beauty of the gods but now the third eye calls attention to the medium itself and its endless possibilities for the future of new media transformations in art and technology.