Alicia D'Amicis

Studio Gateway UNSW Art & Design - Semester 1 & 2 2018

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ADADgroupassessment

ADAD1002 Concept Statement  - Cindy, Karla, Coco and Alicia 

Desire is ingrained in our human condition and it controls most if not all of our thoughts and actions. It mobilises, changes and adds to daily life. We wanted to explore the pervasiveness of desire and how it influences our daily activities, through the creation of a collection of video diary entries. These clips are based on the clinical trial of products that are designed to eliminate our ability to process emotion. The company producing these products believes that emotion distracts people from completing tasks and being productive. Through the use of these products we are no longer distracted by our human tendencies and ultimately are stripped of our emotive capabilities.

Inspired by Black Mirror, our video questions the effects of our dependence on technology and our consumerist inclinations. These impacts are not far from what artificial intelligence and smart assistance technologies could be doing to humans in the near future.

The documentary ‘Human’ (2015) by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, reflects aspects that we seek to question in our video, particularly exploring what it means to be human.  The clip with José Mujica highlights his perspectives on consumerism and why we have the need to collect material items.

In our video, desire is both being eradicated and brought to fruition. By letting these products remove our desire, are we not falling victim to the company’s desire for perfection?

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HUMAN Extended version VOL.1

Turn on the Closed Captions (CC) to know the countries where the images were filmed and the first name of the interviewees. What is it that makes us human? I...

Found this interesting documentary on what it means to be human. It explores life’s big questions from the perspectives of a diverse range of people. 

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Inspiration Cont.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/20/humans-machines-technology-digital-age 

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Inspiration

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2017/06/26/for-millennials-thinking-and-emotions-are-equals-more-or-less/#5d2b2b7a76f2 

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[group assessment]

initial concepts

Event ideas?

- Advertisement?

- Video-based

- Annihilation film - as in desire, beauty and dystopia

- Playtest - Black Mirror (Netflix) - Stimulation

- “Have you ever desired something so bad?”

- Framing desire as an addiction

- Wanting something that we can’t have

- Incorporating an advertisement

- Recovery groups

→ Start with a rolling TV of advertisement

→ Everyone tell their stories

Weekly Concepts

- Affect and body politics

- Context and time

- Value

- Static, noise, interference, glitch

- Desire

- Reflection

- Desirous objects??? → Objects that we desire, list.

- Beauty, money, attention

Definition of Desire:

In other words, desire makes things happen. We can think of desire as the movement towards something (an object, idea, image) that it brings that something into being. Art and design often explore this productive potential of desire, playing with the idea of desire as something that mobilises, changes, and adds to daily life.

- Desire can allow a person to forget the ‘real world’ [hyperreality - inability to distinguish simulation from reality, particularly in technologically advanced postmodern societies]

Inspiration *to watch*

Annihilation

Black Mirror Season Three “Playtest”, “San Junipero”

Gucci x Frieze ‘Second Summer of Love’ Video Series (Aesthetics, Creative Direction)

Maniac - desire to find happiness [Hyperreality]

- ‘Ad buddy’

- Desire to find a pattern, get away from chaos

- “The only thing that matters is what’s real”

Description of miniseries

Annie Landsberg and Owen Milgrim are two strangers who are drawn to the late stages of a mysterious pharmaceutical trial. Each has a different reason for participating in the experiment – she is disaffected and aimless, fixated on broken relationships with her mother and sister, while he has struggled throughout his life with a disputed diagnosis of schizophrenia. The radical treatment, using pills that the inventor claims can repair anything about the mind, draws Annie, Owen and 10 other subjects into a three-day drug trial that they’re told will permanently solve all of their problems, with no complications or side effects. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned.

Episode 2 25mins 45secs - video sequence of scientists explaining the pills [introduction of reality turning into a hyperreality]

- Desire for change in oneself

- Scientists desire to ‘fix’ others with the pills, so they can eventually fix themselves

Concepts

Infomercial

- talking about ‘desire’ as a product

- advertising an event to promote this product

- desire within a hyperreal context?

Utopia

- Collection of objects

- Advertisement/spokesperson roleplay? Or play?

1. What is our Utopia about?

2. What are our roles?

3. What are we promoting/advertising?

4. What objects will we create?

→ Expand our understanding of desire

beyond consumerist frameworks to

something that drives cultural and social

formations.

- Trial subjects

- Company trying to build a new utopia, building technology to… suppress desire?

- Desire is a distraction to a human’s purpose in life

- Each of the objects can be examples of ways objects can work in different scenarios

- Objects essentially sedate the subjects not to feel desire

VIDEO PLOT 

 - Subjects are desensitised, robotic, mundane, low energy levels

- As days go on the subjects lose their emotion and become more emotionless we become more reliant on the objects

- Video diary of subjects using the objects [shot over the period of a month] - can edit to only need to show a few days over that timeframe

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Broken Magazine perf.

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Broken Magazine

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Week 10 - Studio Exercise - Interruption

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Final Work

Assessment 2

My final work explores the notion of Rhizome, highlighting the metaphysical workings of humans and their environment. Whether conscious of it or not, everything is connected and has potential impact on each other. This network can be both fragile and strong and in most cases forever changing. I investigated this notion as a response to the research prompt:

“Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the ‘human’ and the environment?”

I have created 3 textile pieces as part of this work. They are each a different appropriation of the rhizome structure, inspired by how other artists have visualised it. The rhizome structure is quite ambiguous, unlike a hierarchical structure that can be represented by a tree formation; a rhizome does not have a definitive aesthetic. I want to highlight this in my work, by stitching three different forms to make the base of the textile pieces. The first network is inspired by William Rose’s artwork ‘Construction’ (1956), which is reminiscent of an urban location. I liked how this artwork hinted at the underlying connections and relationships in a metropolitan setting and today, this backdrop is where majority of the population lives and works.

The second network is inspired by, Paul Michael Graves ‘Rhizome’ series, particularly ‘Rhizome 8’ (2016). This piece highlighted both the fragile and strong connections that the rhizome structure can have. The organic lines creatively depict the invisibility of these connections. The composition of this artwork also displays the a-centred nature of a rhizome structure.

The final rhizome structure was influenced by an oil panting that I found called ‘Silence 2’ (2018) by Lyudmila Davydenko. This painting reminded me of natural root systems, from which the concept of rhizome originated. I liked how organic and complex the lines in this piece looked, and also how linear they appeared, however on closer inspection it can be seen that all of the lines are connected in some way. My third stitching shapes were done free hand, creating a natural root-like system.

I also incorporated the media into my artwork, as it is part of our everyday lives and connects us all together. I made paper beads out of newspaper text as a comment on how this form of media is being overrun with user-generated content. The rhizome structure has been recently explored in the art world and many of the interpretations hint at the internet and mass media. For example, ‘The revolving internet’ (2011), this artwork attempted to change the way that we interact with the internet and becoming disorientating.

Red is the colour of extremes, for example passionate love, anger, violence, hell and sex. These things form the major cornerstones of human nature and are the basis for relational connections to form.  I have used red thread in the base layout of a rhizome structure, free forming the primary shapes.  

I used natural cotton threads over the top of the red stitching to symbolise the hidden connections and also to hint at an environmental association. I like how unexpected the flow of the threads was when I stitched them on. They lay on the piece both independently and in conjunction with other threads to form an organic structure.

The three textile pieces that I have created have been a divergence from the notion of networks that I explored in my first assessment. They interpret the connection of humans and their environment in an abstract manner.

Bibliography

Artgallery.nsw.gov.au. (2018). Construction, (1956) by William Rose :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW. [online] Available at: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/9665/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Ensemble.va.com.au. (2018). Deleuze and Guattari - The Concept of the Rhizome. [online] Available at: http://ensemble.va.com.au/enslogic/text/smn_lct08.htm [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Faynoart.com. (2018). Artist Lyudmila Davydenko. [online] Available at: http://faynoart.com/Silence_2_painting-2 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

PAUL MICHAEL GRAVES. (2018). rhizome. [online] Available at: http://www.paulmichaelgraves.com/humannature/y6gx0cme2vbn3fzmjo6ishgt9tia51 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Rhizome. (2018). Rhizome. [online] Available at: http://rhizome.org [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Saatchi Art. (2018). Saatchi Art: Rhizome 5 Painting by Paul Michael Graves. [online] Available at: https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Rhizome-5/1051698/4007629/view [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

TextileArtist.org. (2018). Pamela Campagna: From conception to creation - TextileArtist.org. [online] Available at: https://www.textileartist.org/pamela-campagna-from-conception-to-creation [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

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Making of Final Work

Assessment 2

I used the idea of framing the fabric in a circle shape from experiment one. 

The stitching is appropriated from other artist’s interpretations of the rhizome structure. I liked how many different ways there were to visualise an invisible theory. 

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Inspiration

Assessment 2

This is an oil painting depicting the structure of a rhizome network. This piece highlights both the fragile and strong connections that the rhizome structure can have. The organic lines creatively depict the invisibility of these connections. I also like how the composition of this artwork also displays the a-centred nature of a rhizome structure.

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Inspiration

Assessment 2

Silence 2 (2018) Lyudmila Davydenko

I stumbled upon this oil painting that reflects the idea of a decentralised network of connections. I like how it looks like 3D interwoven fibres that have been created by the inventive use of paint. The colours used in this painting hint at a natural connection and make it look like a system of roots that have been pulled from the ground.

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Inspiration

Assessment 2

Construction (1956) William Rose

On a recent trip to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, an artwork by William Rose caught my attention when it came to the notion of Rhizome. The abstract representation of an urban setting reminded me of a web of connections both in the physical situation and metaphysical notion of interaction that take place in cities.

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Inspiration

Assessment 2

Rhizomes (2016) Pamela Campagna

- Pamela would like that her artworks act like open questions about our way of being related to life and to human relations, bringing up the possibility to visualise invisible connections and inner revelations.

- She uses fibres as a medium because of the possibility to build fragile and complex architectures.

“The threads are single lines which can be extended to infinite, defining and dividing a space by itself but having also the possibility of creating meaningful interferences when they interact with other threads and with the environment. This makes me think about the interdependence that we have with the others and that we weave in being alive.”

- This artwork uses the intertwining of threads to demonstrate a non-hierarchical structure that can be seen in human relationships. I like how abstract the arrangement of threads looks, but also clearly represents the shapes of human features.

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Experimentation #3

Assessment 2

Adding to experiment one I wanted to explore the use of thread. I like the negative space in the first experiment but found it hard to weave the fine threads.

So in this experiment I used a dissolvable fabric, on which I built my pattern on and then washed away the fabric to leave the thread behind. I tried to build up the thread a bit more to make sure that it held together and the shapes were discernible. I liked how the machine stitching created chaotic lines and gave the pattern organic texture.

This was a partially unsuccessful experiment as when I washed away the fabric, the threads were not thick and intertwined enough to hold their shape. And so I ended up with a quite abstract structure, not as geometric and formal as what I started with. 

However, I do like the unexpected nature of this material and I think that it reflects the way that connections are formed in a Rhizome structure. 

Although it was unsuccessful in what I intended, I think this could be useful in my final work. 

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Experimentation #2

Assessment 2

When thinking about rhizomes, I thought about the internet and the many connections within it. This lead me to think about media in general and how it has morphed in recent years from a hierarchical system found in the production of traditional media to an a-centred system that we operate in today. Although many mass media companies have great influence in what is circulated in the media, increasingly media content is audience influenced with the emergence of user-generated content.

In light of this I created paper beads from newspaper text as a way of representing the change in the media system, by using a traditional and almost outdated form. 

I thought of these beads as the nodes in a network and would like to use them in my final work. 

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Experimentation #1

Assessment 2

Furthering the idea of nodes and networks, I thought about the textile material as a way of representing connectivity through threads. 

I tried to link the threads together as well as separate them to visualise the idea of a web of connections. I also put knots in the threads to symbolise the nodes and places for new connections to form. 

I like how delicate this material appears as it explores the potential fragility of connections and also potential strength when multiple threads or connections are placed together. 

I used an embroidery hoop to hold all of the threads together, but I also like how the circle frame adds to this concept. In terms of the rhizome notion, the circle is never-ending, having no beginning or end.