[panteechrist]

Mouchette

The web based piece, Mouchette is, according to wikipedia, partially based on a book about a french teen who kills herself after her rape. The piece is interactive, in a variety of ways. It initially appears as a personal web page for a 13 year old who managed to learn HTML and java (in 1997). There is a dropdown menu that leads to different pages that completely contradict this idea.

I personally thought this piece was very interesting. As far as conceptually, it is morbid, uncomfortable, and mysterious. The website is dated visually and the character being 13 makes it feel like the piece is suspended in time. So being able to interact with this character that feels very much a part of your computer is surreal and kind of scary, like talking to the ghost of a murder victim. It takes on a novel like quality in the website itself.

The various spaces where you can respond to questions or add your email are particularly strange--there's one where the viewer is asked the best way for somebody under 13 to kill themselves and there is a section where you can see the latest comments. They vary from unserious rude and harsh responses to attempts to avoid the subject or shift the focus of it from ways to commit suicide to ways to live. The wide spectrum of audience that the piece is able to get even after 17 years is probably the most interesting thing to me. 

[panteechrist]

Cinematic Essay assignment--a discussion of the commodification of human bodies even now through the use of poetry, narration, and appropriated clips

[cornellajoan]

[panteechrist]

Wafaa Bilal -- Artist Review

Nancy Hicks

Media 1 Fall 2014

November 12, 2014

Daniel Dean 

Wafaa Bilal

            Wafaa Bilal is an Iraqi American artist who was initially enrolled in geography at the college level—rather than art--due to having allegedly committing disloyal acts to a family member. He was arrested for making art that questioned Saddam Hussein and eventually had to flee Iraq after organizing opposition groups against the invasion of Kuwait. He lived in Saudi Arabia for years, teaching art. In the early nineties, he moved to the United States to study in New Mexico—after receiving a BFA, he moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for his MFA, where he taught afterwards.

            He gives political lectures based around his experiences in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, his brother’s death in a U.S. missile strike, and the Iraqi war. He believes that peaceful conflict resolution is the only way to protest for change; most of his art centers on these ideas and issues. His piece, Iraq/Iran is a large fluorescent green light spelling out “Iraq”, every second or so the “q” changes to an “n” to spell “Iran”. The piece discusses problematic American merging of the countries; his website describes the common fusion of these countries into one ambiguous “orient” country by many Americans disturbing. The countries have incredibly different cultures and people within them, but much of America wont acknowledge or even think about those issues—this piece tries to bring it up in a playful, more peaceful nudging sort of way.

            Another set of pieces—called The Ashes Series—reveals something close to him, war. The images are of discordant, ashy, rubble filled settings with an isolated object centered. The isolated object tends to be in better condition than its surroundings; this pulls up the idea of human connection. A piano, a bed, a chair—each implies a delicate human touch amongst the rubble of destruction, an insinuation of the destruction of war and the ghosts left behind only in former objects.

            More recently, he has made work that provokes the question of the virtual against the real through more interactive art. One of his pieces, Domestic Tension, allowed anybody to go onto the Internet and shoot at him with a paintball gun. He attempts to raise the idea of the “lack of privacy” in the digital age as he confined himself in a gallery space with a camera allowing people 24 hour access to watching or shooting at him. It was an attempt to raise awareness about the confinement of the Iraqi people—he tried to approach the idea in a way that would allow people who do not usually find themselves politically active to view the “suffering of war” through unconventional tactics. 

            His work is highly personal in that it both reveals his individual political and social ideals and it has a sense of personal experience. His past rooted in having to flee from his home country because war took so much away from him is prevalent in his work. Bilal’s work is highly emotional and provoking through more accessible means simply because it allows him to spread his message to more people through peaceful means.

  SOURCES:

http://wafaabilal.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafaa_Bilal

[cornellajoan]

[rayjohnsonestate]

Andy Warhol as seen by Ray Johnson, 1983.

This and many more great pieces from the Estate archives are included in our exhibition Ray Johnson’s Art World, on view now through January 16. Visit our website here for more information.

[panteechrist]

Wristless

[panteechrist]

New Media Art article

The idea of deconstruction of the web relating to the deconstruction of newspapers by the dadaists to get to the basics of the ideas of the medium is fascinating. The development of varying aesthetic media is also interesting--the idea of anything as art despite the visuals expanding past dada ideals is something I've never thought about.

90s interest in media art to ignoring electronic art and the acception of appropriation as typical.

[panteechrist]

Wolfgang Staehle

Much of Wolfgang Staehle's early work (before 1995) related more visually to early screens--it was paik-esque sculptures and installations that included older screens showing videos or images or framed images with subtitles taken from the tv. 

His later work involves recordings of mundane scenes/places --he accidentally caught 9/11 on tape. It gained him a lot of popularity. he now does works that "focus on the sublime" in that their subject matter tends to be landscapes. 

I find it interesting in it's almost bland nature--art is anything I guess, but some art can be boring. The shift in his work to more contemporary media art is interesting in that it loses something interesting to gain something conceptual. 

[panteechrist]

Yayoi Kusama's work spans across multiple mediums-- she works with painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and light. It all focuses on one aspect--dots. Her whole world has been enveloped by polka dots since a young age. She attempts to share the hallucinations she's viewed the world through with everybody. She worked with the avant garde artists in the the 1960's and has lived willingly in a mental institution. 

Her work strikes me in the simplistic repetition which really does help see through another's eyes. Even her paintings which aren't spaces per say reveal spaces or objects in a completely different way. 

The piece in the picture is titled Infinity, it's a room full of mirrors and lights, creating this space that seems to stretch on for infinity--full of neverending repeating lights. The piece transcends space and perspective and helps reflect on personalized perception of the world around us.

[panteechrist]

I recorded my roommate saying “sauce” and only decided to use it after some thought into what it could possibly mean. I decided I wanted to divide up the sound into various speeds/overlaying in order to make it seem broken, old, used, or like a transmission that’s having trouble. I’ve been thinking about that capsule called voyager that was sent out a lot lately and I thought how funny it would be if this was included, so I decided to title this piece Voyager Record

[thecamhouston]

Robert Hodge, Forever Ever, 2014. Acrylic, found cardboard, and spray paint 61 x 81 inches Courtesy the artist

[panteechrist]

Jenny Holtzer

I've always been interested in Jenny Holtzer's work--she works on a large scale, usually projecting or using some form of large light based installation. The pieces tend to look like ads or another more natural aspect of the city scape--they tend to be more subversive. You don't realize it's a Jenny Holtzer piece or an art piece at all until you read it and have to step back and think about why a large LED sign is saying "protect me from what I want". She has smaller work, but it's still incorporated into day to day visuals--as plaques or posters. 

Quite a bit of her work centers around materialism--at least a lot of the work I know of hers (but she discusses a lot of things in her art, death, violence, distress). One of my favorite things about her work is expressed in this quote from her-"I used language, because I wanted to offer content that people – not necessarily art people – could understand.”

I appreciate this aspect of her work- which almost beats you over the head in size but subversively gives you meaning once you read it-but she makes art that everybody can think about. It's not about postdeconstructualism's affects on the upper classes, it's about people and emotions and while it typically comments on society, it's accessible. 

[panteechrist]

4th Reading-- Janet Cardiff

Janet Cardiff's work is very magical almost--she utilizes the pan so expertly and well, it's hard to imagine you're not experiencing these things firsthand when you close your eyes. The way her work plays with the border of private and public space is interesting as well--because while you may be in a public place when listening or you may be listening to a public space, it's so private because the listener is the only one who can hear. It's a really fascinating idea.

She includes enough sound to inform the location and actions but it's not overwhelming, it's subtle and calming and thought provoking. 

[panteechrist]

Portraits of Kam, 2014, Experimentation with portrait lighting 

[panteechrist]

1/2 Beetle 1/2 who cares - 2D documentation

[panteechrist]

Liver Samples 3D Documentation