Analysis based on Gilda Williams book, Research questions
Artwork 1
Name: Urban Nature
Year: 2009
Artist: Naoko Ito
Material: Glass jars, tree branches
Medium: Sculpture
Size: 50" h × 70" w × 35" d
What is it?
In this work, segmented tree branches are preserved in glass jars, forming a sculpture which is placed within the white cube. The work retains the original form of the branches in a manner where the whole is made of smaller parts. Even though grey concrete floor can be seen through glass jars; the dramatic lighting directed strictly to the sculpture emphasizes the dark background.
This dramatic light enhances the sculpture: the background is in slight shadow, a dark ochre colour which embraces the entire sculpture, drawing the observer’s eye. The source of light is placed directly above the art piece, which can be seen by the glints on the glass surface. Thus, the form of an original branch was reconstructed while the remaining space is filled with empty jars.
What does it mean?
It seems that the branches are growing through the glass, yet at the same time they are captured within. Dark concrete background visible through the sculpture resembles a concrete jungle, where the branch is everything left from nature. The artwork shows how we try to tame nature in the twenty-first century. Prehistoric times have gone, the need to manually conquer nature has disappeared as such, but why do we still posses the primordial instincts to defend and conquer?
Naoko Ito was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Japanese treat nature in a very different way.
As an island nation with few natural resources, Japan can't afford to be profligate. That means it has something to teach other nations. The country is one of the most energy-efficient industrial countries in the world, and some of Japan's leading companies, such as Toyota and Sharp, are known for technologies that foster greener lifestyles. A conservation mindset is ingrained into Japanese people from birth, and is apparent in little ways throughout society. (TIME, 2008)
Despite industrial development, Japan still keeps its forests safe. There is even a notion of forest bathing which is a Japanese practice for lowering heart rate and blood pressure and to reduce stress, increase hormone production and boost the immune system.
Her move to NYC caused her to stress out over her very different cultural background, the stress which then erupted into this artwork. Naoko: 'New York has a lot of parks but I feel like the park is fake nature. I started thinking about how, especially in the New York area, in urban areas, how people get along with nature. How they contain it.'
What significance does it have to the world at large?
The artist brings attention to our relationship with nature.
Topics:
Natural World
Industrial World
Tame Nature
Decartes (rule nature)...conquer
Contain Nature
Subduing Nature
Urban Nature
Natural System and Processes
Questions:
How do we treat nature?
How different cultures treat the nature?
Which role nature plays in a modern society/art?
What is the relationship between Natural and Industrial worlds?
How nature influences our physical and mental health?
Why do people have an urge to interact with nature?
What is the best way art could be an interpretation of life?
Artwork 2
Name: One hundred and eight
Year: 2010
Artist: Nils Völker
Material: Cooling fans, plastic bags, MDF, custom electronics
Medium: Interactive installation
Size: 2.40 x 1.80 m
What is it?
The Installation is a rectangular structure, where the main component is a rubbish bag. 108 plastic bags are put in rows, the bags inflated and deflated selectively in turn by two cooling fans which are controlled by microcontrollers. As soon as the system detects the viewer, it reacts dynamically by deflating the bags. The background is black. The light is dramatic, directed to the structure.
What does it mean?
The black background combined with the specific lighting and white plastic bags brings all attention to the structure. Although the body of the installation is motionless, it creates an impression that it isn’t just a cold metal system, but an alive creature with its own life. Each bag resembles a cell of the organism, which subsequently deflates in case of interaction, thus causing gray shapes to appear upon the structure. The installation doesn't require any additional sound support as the plastic bags fill the environment with rustling.
The material choice of trash bags ‘personifies’ the current ‘cultural nature’. Nils Völker turned an ordinary everyday-life object into a piece of art giving it a completely new meaning, breaking the cliche and forcing the audience to observe it from a different perspective.
A rubbish bag structure became an embodiment of consumerist culture. One may call the garbage bag something like ‘alpha packaging’, as it wraps up everything which we have already acquired. The fact, that there are just a few things in the modern world which cannot be wrapped in a garbage bag, endows the bag with an unusual connotation and makes it in a way a ‘shadow’ of consumption.
What significance does it have to the world at large?
Artist brings up a topic of consumerism.
Topics:
New Media
Electronics
System
Cold metal system
Behaviour
Habits
React
External Stimuli
Everyday Object
Observe from different perspective
Consumption
Consumerist Culture
Personify surroundings - олицетворять окружение
Alpha Packaging
Shadow Consumption
Questions:
Why do we, humans, have the interest in animating the ‘artificial’? Are we trying to play Gods? Or is this an attempt to tame a newly emerged technological world with its nature and creatures?
Is consumerist culture represented in new media art?
Why are we (the ones living in urban jungle) influenced/inspired by natural elements as plants, animals, forces of nature, etc?
What is the role of new media in art?
Do artists in the twenty-first century create art based on viewer experience? Is there a tendency? Does this become a form of consumerist culture?
How does cultural background influence artist’s interest?
Artwork 3
Name: Apani
Year: 2011
Artist: James Turrell
Material: LED
Medium: Installation
Size: 16 x 12 x 6m
What is it?
The installation is a white room of proportions16 x 12 x 6m, filled entirely with projection which creates an illusion, this making us perceive a flat projection, rather than a three dimensional space.
What does it mean?
Installation activates the sensory perception, which contributes to the discovery: what once seemed before to be a flat projection, is now in reality a light-filled room. Turrell’s work created an illusion, which at first made visitors perceive a flat projection, only to discover that the colourful wall was a light-filled room they could enter. The projection was not stable, programmed to shift from hue to hue bringing to them a sense of motion, and creating an experience of swimming in a sea of light.
The artwork provides a complete loss of depth perception, which builds a connection with the so-called ‘Ganzfeld effect’ discovered by a German psychologist in the 1930s.
* Ganzfeld effect is a phenomenon of perception caused by a person being in a homogeneous and structureless visual and auditory environment. The effect occurs when the brain uses white noise to supplement the visual picture of sensations when there is a lack of visual information.
The artist mimics the effect with the help of lights indicating a discrepancy between knowledge and perception. What Turrell shows to the audience is not an illusion or deception, it is an incredible reality of pure experience.
What significance does it have to the world at large?
The artist himself constantly points out that his work is best described as ‘Perceptual Art’. Turrell made a huge step away from the expression of the artist's consciousness (Abstract Expressionism), towards the viewer's experience of the artwork, without predetermining (conceiving) the outcome. Thereby, his artwork became a part of a broader shift in art and made its contribution to contemporary art development.
Topics:
Motion
Swimming in a sea of light
Ganzfield effect
Knowledge and Perception
Reality of pure experience
Perceptual art
Questions:
What is perceptual art?
How does knowledge influence our perception?
Which role plays viewer’s experience in the artwork?
Why does viewer’s experience become predominant in the artwork?
Is it necessary to predetermine the outcome of the artwork?
Summarizing all the questions and topics mentioned above, I came up with following questions which, in my opinion, are relevant to my artistic practice:
Can art be perceived as a pure experience?
Is aesthetic experience a necessary ingredient in an installation?
What is the best way art could be interpreted from life and vice versa?
Is consumerist culture represented in new media art?
What role does viewer experience play in art?
Why does viewer’s experience become predominant in the artwork?
Is it necessary to predetermine the outcome of the artwork?