#theory lecture

[samsartvomit-blog]

THEORY LECTURE: VISUAL PLEASURE & NARRATIVE CINEMA – LAURA MULVEY 1975

1970’s – gender in more fixed terms AKA physical bodies & binaries

“psychoanalytic theory is…appropriated…as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious and patriarchal…”

Visual pleasure: exploded using Hitchcock’s films (Rear Window) 1954

-Scopophilia, more commonly known as voyeurism

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split b/w active/male and passive/female.  Women connote to-be-looked-at-ness.  Men = bearer of the gaze/look.

Narcissism: we want to see things that we desire, things that we identify with to complete our desires.

Women who control the “gaze” and take on the “active” role are often punished for doing so.

Acid House:  deals with issues of male gazes and cameras in terms of nudity.

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT POWER.

There are 3 looks associated with cinema (moving image):

-       Analog: that of the camera – reality before the intervention of the camera

-       Look of Audience as it watches the final product

-       The looks of the characters towards each other

Laura Mulvey in her essay genders these looks, puts it into this binary and tries to destroy this visual pleasure and power struggle.

℞: Free the look of the camera into its materiality in the and space.  There needs to be acknowledgement that the camera IS THERE instead of this invisible entity. You have to free the look of the audience into passionate detachment.

ARTISTS:

Hannah Wilke: Looks at ‘posing’ in a way as taking objectification and turning into the subject. A form of self-exploitation.

Pipilotti Rist: Video Artist.

[samsartvomit-blog]

THEORY LECTURE: SUBJECTIVISING CONCEPTUALISM: feminist approaches to ART

This lecture was centered around Mary Kelly’s ‘Post-Partum Document’ & ‘Interim’.

How does feminism fit into modernism & post-modernism & also today?

While I understand that this lecture was given within the context of contemporary art, and not as feminism in general, I still think it was so so SOOOOO depressing and disappointing that such a dynamic, bold, bright topic with such a rich history of anger, violence but also love and compassion and dignity was completely squandered into the dullest, most boring lecture anyone has ever given.  I did however stay awake for the whole thing, which is an anomaly in itself.

THE PARADOX OF CONCEPTUALISM

There is an emphasis on the artistic idea that entails drawing on “extra aesthetic info”

Extra-aesthetic info: expansion of art into politics, society, science etc.

Conceptualism also strives for objectivity, which is a process, not a condition of things. It strives to remove the body of the artist and have the work be completed by the viewer. The very basis of conceptualism was antithetical to feminist approaches which emphasize body politics. Conceptual art has made us accustomed to “reading” art (reading blurbs, press releases, artist statements, etc) instead of “viewing” it.

BEGINNING HERE WITH FEMINISM

Adrian Piper, a Black-American artist was a feminist, but she didn’t want define herself as such and avoided the label because she simply wanted to be seen as an ‘artist’ and not ‘female, black artist.’

The USA and UK’s contexts for this were slightly different.  Judy Chicago was the main influence in the US and Mary Kelly, who was born in the UK and eventually moved to the US was the main influence for the UK.  These 2 feminist artists seem to epitomize one of the main historical antagonisms in feminist art: essentialism vvs anti-essentialism

ESSENTIALISM

The idea of an ‘essential’ femininity is one that is linked to the anatomical female body.  It is usually identified with Judy Chicago and art critic/curator Lucy Lippard.  The idea stressed importance on all women exhibitions, but was historically negatively viewed because it roots feminism and ideas of femininity to the female body & disregards our views around that as being influenced by social constructs as well as confining the destiny of women around their anatomy.  Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, 1974-79, was considered “vaginal” art and focused around changing the paradigm of history to “her” story. This was viewed as problematic because of the way it celebrated “crafts” such as sewing, embroidery, textiles and marrying to the history of women, as if that was all there was.  She also used many other women to hel with the making of this piece without explicitly crediting them properly.

ANTI-ESSENTIALISM

The idea that “femininity” is constructed and contingent.  It is the domninant discourse that continues on today.  Associated with Griselda Pollock, Mary Kelly and other artist in NYC.  

Both anti-essentialism and essentialism prioritize gender.  Both sides operate from positions hat attempt to critique patriarchal power as mascuine and dominant which structures women as objects instead of subjects.  Where they disagree is what they think a female subject should be.

SOCIAL HISTORY OF FEMINISM

*IMPORTANT*

Even though we talk about the history of Feminism as coming in “waves” it is important to note that just because one wave has passed does not mean that we aren’t still dealing with those issues today; that they’re done, over with and taken care of.  It just means that the wave coming after it its not longer centered around that central issue.

1st WAVE FEMINISM: issues of equal rights, within the context of voting, suffragette movemnt, 1860-1930′s

2nd WAVE FEMINISM: Women’s Liberation movement, equal rights within the context of work and education, but also discourse of separatism in the 1960′s-70′s - art historical discourse around issues of representation and visibility can be located here.

3rd WAVE FEMINISM: More global perspective, shift from gender per se to plural socialities.

4th WAVE FEMINISM (???): Currently possibly in it??? Hard to define, but as a rule of thumb and as a consistent trend, it seems to be a revisit to the issues around 2nd wave feminism, but within the context of women today, as well as issues of intersectionality and pro-sex feminism.

*ALL OF THIS IS WITHIN AN ANGLO-AMERICAN CONTEXT*

3 phases =/= stages of feminism

equality

separation

New signifying spaces - key to how we might think about women’s art practices.

“To use the body of the woman, her image or person, is not impossible but problematic for feminism.” - Mary Kelly

- I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH THIS STATEMENT.  I use the female body all the time as an image and vehicle for art and I admit to my own hyper-sexualization of the body and and often self-exploitation but I also see it as within the context of my own experiences and I am extremely pro-sex and pro-choice. I believe everyone has a right to their own bodies and as a result, they can choose what to do with it.  I am fully aware of how my work functions outside of me in a feminist context and I use that ambiguity to my advantage but the point I’m trying to make is that CHOOSING to use the body as a short-cut vehicle for WOW! factor and aesthetic purposes as well as the extension of using one’s own body for self-exploitation and profit is EMPOWERING not DEGRADING or PROBLEMATIC so STEP THE FUCK ASIDE MARY FUCKING KELLY.

SCRIPTO-VISUAL ART PRACTICE: incorporation of text onto images

Mary Kelly felt the ‘feminist textualist’ stand of Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger was too severe & too closely mirrored the forms of advertising & slogans that it borrowed from.  It is criticized for being too propaganda-like with too much reference to advertising.  But 10 years prior, Mary Kelly made “post-partum document” in which she married minimalism, conceptualism, feminism, motherhood and psychoanalysis.  If you ask me, her work is boring as fuck.

CURRENT WORK

Pipilotti Rist, Open My Glade, 2000: people saw it as derogatory because of the focus on the body. She was interested in using her body in a TRANSFORMATIVE way.

Strategic Essentialism

OR

Adoption of mainstream hyper-sexuality as a form of empowerment

OR

Amelia Jones’ “PARAFEMINISM” - gender as a question rather than an answer

[samsartvomit-blog]

WORKSHOPS & INDUCTIONS: THE DIFFERENCE A CAMERA MAKES

This is just an amalgamation of my notes from this workshop. We explored different cameras and lenses, their uses, pros and cons through a hierarchy of image quality.

CAMERA PHONE: Quick, convenient, can take screenshots.

Acts like a visual sketchbook of sorts: a collection of images and springboard ideas, but rarely are any of these pictures ever printed.

low quality and low resolution, after all, it’s not a proper camera.

COMPACT CAMERA: Higher resolution than a camera phone but HIGHER RESOLUTION =/= BETTER PICTURE

Some film type compact cameras allow for their lens to be changed.

small = convenient!

film camera types : high, superb print quality.

DSLR: Can interchange lenses, wide angle, macro, 30mm, etc

50mm = standard lens, similar to how the eye naturally perceives things.

Telephoto/long lens = image appears zoomed in

Wide Angle Lens = image appears stretched out

Macro Lens = can take pictures of tiny things and captures detail

Aperture/f-stops can be controlled= control over depth of field f4 = bigger hole = smaller depth of field f22  = smaller hole = big depth of field.

EXPOSURE: composed of different elements:

Light

type of light (incandescent, daylight, coloured light, etc)

ISO speed

shutter speed

aperture

Adjusting the settings on the camera and capturing as perfect an image as possible on the camera itself is better than going through hours of post production on photoshop.

ISO sensitivity: ISO100 = not as sensitive, = should only be used in well lit conditions = picture quality is fabulous

ISO800 = very sensitive = can be used in low lighting conditions = picture quality is grainy.

DSLR has far more control over the image because of how manual all the different settings are.

JPEG: compressed image file

RAW: uncompressed = higher quality

best to print

must be processed to work with

convert to .tiff to print

never ever save over a RAW file, save separately so you can always have the original

akin to an original negative of film.

FILM CAMERAS

FILM: expensive, costs money to develop, print and buy film.

MEDIUM FORMAT FILM CAMERA: square format (6x6cm), HUGE cameras, not as portable or convenient.

5x4 CAMERA: GIANT 5x4 inch film & camera, must have a tripod, collapsable.  Good for large prints / studio environments when perfect control of the image is needed.

[samsartvomit-blog]

theory lecture: MEDIUM

MEDIUM: The form a piece takes.

This lecture felt like an extension of the Formalism lecture, mostly because you can’t have a discussion about medium outside of a technical context without bringing Clement Greenberg into it.

The lecture was largely focused around the question : what are the limitations of a medium?”

Medium is commonly used as a way to describe say, a drawing done in the medium of pen and ink, or a portrait in oil paint on linen, and so on and so forth.  For the purpose of this lecture, Dan Smith  the lecturer, redefined medium as actively changing processes, materials and references and not just one pure, static “thing” such as ink, paint or clay etc.  It can also be described as an amalgamation of separate elements and references.

Apart from the artists mentioned within the lecture (who will each be expanded upon in their own respective posts), there were also memorable video examples used to illustrate Dan’s point, my favorite being the clip below.

Daffy Duck struggles with the animator with scenery, sound and video effects, effectively examining the limitations of animation as a medium while also being highly entertaining and downright hilarious.  

[samsartvomit-blog]

theory lecture: FORMALISM

“This lecture will look at some of the key ideas of the American art critic,Clement Greenberg, in particular,his 'formalist' analysis of abstract painting and sculpture. Greenberg was extremely influential in America particularly in the 1950'sand 60's and much art in the 60's and the 70's needs to be understood as a response against the influence of Greenberg's ideas around aesthetic autonomy, the critical valueof 'highculture' (avant-garde) overmass culture(kitsch),as well as his emphasis on the purity of perception and his linear model of art as a self-critical progression toward the 'truth' of the medium. “  - From Moodle

Of all the theory lectures I’ve had so far, this one is one of the only one’s I’ve stayed awake for in it’s entirety.  My feelings towards Formalism are very mixed.  Theoretically, I do agree with much it’s manifesto but when put into practice in the real world with REAL material art, it does the opposite of what it sets out.

Clement Greenberg is THE Formalism connoisseur, championing (and funding) it’s most recognizable artists.  (Donald Judd, Jackson Pollock etc).  One of the reasons we remember Greenberg so well is because he inspired a lot of negative reactions from a plethora of artists who found Greenberg’s definitive view of art repelling.  Many of the movements that came after formalism were sparked by this reaction to Greenberg.

Clive Bell, another Formalist art critic talked about the “significant form”.   He was concerned with something he called “aesthetic emotion”, or rather the visceral experience one has when viewing a work.  His theory was that the content of a work was not always parallel with its aesthetic experience.

Formalism IS Form...the form of a work of art IS the content and meaning....not just the vehicle for content and meaning.

Modernism in Visual Arts: two key movements

1) EARLY 20th CENTURY EUROPE

contructivism (Russia)

de Stijl (Holland)

Bauhaus (Germany)

Cubism (France)

Visual arts has no separation from functional form

2.) 1950′s-60′s in America and UK

Formalism 

Greenberg was a left wing socialist but elitist aesthetic  theorist of art & critic. Basically he wanted to create a PURE form of art uncorrupted by other references.  He turns the viewer into purely an eye, separate from all our previous experiences and other senses.  He championed the idea of AUTONOMOUS ART, free any cultural or academic references, so that there was nothing you needed to know about anything else in the world to have that optical experience.  This backfired, obviously, because I THINK what makes art so rich and profound and complex is that we use our individual experiences and past knowledge to understand art in our own way.  References the artist puts in a work and references the viewer sees of their own accord enriches a work and subsequently is what makes in enjoyable.  Greenberg wanted art to become like music, which he saw as the purest form of art because it engaged in nothing but your ears and what you derived from it as a listener was strictly an audio experience. But here is where he’s WRONG WRONG WRONG. Normal, everyday people enjoy music because they can RELATE to it.  Some people love garbage like house music or electronic dance music because THEY CAN DANCE TO IT.  They involve their other senses to enrich that experience.  I love instrumental original soundtracks to movies or video games because hearing that music brings me back to the memory of that scene or moment.  I love R’n’B, jazz and soul because they are so lyrical and tug at my heartstrings and describe so perfectly and eloquently elements of my life. That is why music is so magical - it’s enriched by our individual experiences.  This applies to art too!  Vision is always mixed with other senses, for example depth is understood through our ability to travel and move.  Wassily Kandinsky believed art should be egalitarian - no one needs education to experience it, it should be a universal language.  Greenberg turned art, ironically, very elitist.

NEGATIVES REACTIONS to Greenberg came from him telling people what art SHOULD be.  Despite his dogmatic approach, he was a respected and successful critic of abstraction and painting. 

Greenberg did not like what he called “plastic art” which in his eyes did not put enough distinction between real life and art.  The viewer was required to but zero effort in.  Greenberg upholded art that required heavy thought.  If art is supposed to have a critical function, it will automatically make us think about medium and from in relation to meaning.

MEDIUM SPECIFICITY: Let’s use paint as an example.  The problem according to Formalism was “treating paint as an obstacle”, as if the limitations of the medium were the problem (inhibiting the ability to represent life).  As time went on, paint/whatever medium became what the art was actually about.  We had paintings about paintings instead of paint as merely a vehicle.  Representation was no longer necessary to make a painting valid, and with the introduction of photography, painting’s “purpose” was eradicated.

[sabbakassim]

Theory Lecture 5

-Protest

-Empowerment

-Subversion

-Participation

-Revolution

-Activism

-Rebellion

These words show all type of emotion and expression, this can link to visual communication because when emotion is put into work you can create all types of things. We see this in movies, paintings, posters and all around us.

An Artists for example who use expression and emotions in there art is Jackson Pollock. His paintings are made up of all types of splashes, lines, dots from the movements he makes and from the emotion which he gives out when creating these. For example for someone who was angry you would gain harsher and bigger movements whereas someone who was more gentle and calm would create slower smoother marks. When creating these marks they also become irreversible and permanent.

[sabbakassim]

Theory Lecture 4

Production

Today we looked at how print production expanded from the early 19th century till now. In the 19th century print production was limited to manly just text, this allowed people to print out newspapers, however they all visually had a similar look as no type style was introduced. We then come onto the wooden letter press which opened up new opportunities in printing production where images could then be printed, this was large in the entertainment industry such as circuses and theatres. Also, as these were cheap to produce it started to expand into politics and printing propaganda posters which we looked at last week. In the later 19th century we also start to see how type expands and typography designs being used as different font types were introduced.

Type wasn’t the only thing which became easy to produce as in the early 19th century household goods was also an important thing such as clothes and furniture. These objects were all handmade and you had to go to people to get them produced and delivered. Later in the 19th century Factories were then brought in which robbed people of their jobs because not many skills were needed to work here and production for goods became quick and easy to access.

Till now factories are used for mass production so this shows the expansion from the 19th century.

[sabbakassim]

Theory Lecture 3

New perspectives

During the 20th century new ways of communicating politically, socially and culturally were needed. This is where we will look into visual communication and new perspectives which were introduced.

Firstly we look at the soviet revolution of 1917. As literacy was poor during then people were not able to communicate in masses by showing the viewer’s information so posters were created that were easy to understand with simple messages and bright colours that were put up around towns cities and even the villages so that the peasants could also understand.

Gustav Klutsis is an example of an artists who created a poster during the Soviet Union. He created a propaganda poster during 1920 showing a collage of greyscale hands reaching upwards with the bright red background and a few words which stand out. Huge numbers of these propaganda posters were made as colour printing was cheap.

Jim Fitzpatrick is another example of an artists who created powerful meaningful posters to communicate to people visually. He created the poster of Che Guervara which represented the freedom and political struggle just by the use of 3 colours. We see this style continue to represent politics from the Shapard Fairey campaign ‘Obama’ with words such as ‘Hope’ ‘Change’ and ‘progress’ printed across the bottom.