Wednesday, December 10, 2014
In case anyone was in too good of a mood
https://medium.com/the-multilarity/the-play-of-plays-219a6f113282
Something I found online
“I recently wrote an article about photography and art; the essential point being that photography is an art but by and large as it is practiced by most photographers, will be remembered as a minor art because it lacks the essential ingredient of all major arts which is invention. Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man’s face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It’s the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing. I feel the more a photographer intrudes into the photograph, the more he creates. But people expect less from photography than they do from the other arts. They’re quite happy to simply reproduce someone’s face and they assume that that represents the person and if that person looks attractive, so much the better. It’s the most democratic of all the arts in that anyone can take a photograph or has had their picture taken; so accessible that we don’t demand as much and that’s what makes me angry. Even the pace setters and the professionals in the field, the people who define photography themselves never expect more from the medium than that. Szarkowski, it seems to me, feels that the history of photography has already been defined and it’s simply a matter of refining that definition. Photography is not even a hundred and some years old and it’s already this staid, ossified institution. People are still lighting candles under Stieglitz and under Weston’s green pepper, and rightly so, but let’s get on with it! I’ve seen enough of France at the turn of the century! If photography is a viable living art form, it has to change. It should not be threatened by a handful of non-conformists. The real danger to the medium is the photographer still photographing parking lots in California and being heralded a genius.”
Monday, December 8, 2014
Weekly post- anne
official trailer
The Congress
The Congress is a live action/ animated hybrid film by the same dude that did academy award winning animated documentary feature Waltz with Bashir. Its bizarre, like actually the most nonsensical movie ive ever seen. It tells a tail of a world in which actors sell themselves as a character that can forever be reused and created digitally for films. This notion of losing the 'person' aspect of acting was really peculiar to me. The premise and theme of the film is very art to nail but the animated part is like a visual feast.
The Congress is a live action/ animated hybrid film by the same dude that did academy award winning animated documentary feature Waltz with Bashir. Its bizarre, like actually the most nonsensical movie ive ever seen. It tells a tail of a world in which actors sell themselves as a character that can forever be reused and created digitally for films. This notion of losing the 'person' aspect of acting was really peculiar to me. The premise and theme of the film is very art to nail but the animated part is like a visual feast.
Alejandro Guijarro - Momentum
Holy shit I'm in love I think.
http://www.alejandroguijarro.com/ongoing/blackboards/
This is some of the best work I've personally seen in awhile. This guy is travelling the world to visit the laboratories and studies of some of the foremost researchers working on quantum mechanics. He simply photographs the blackboards as he sees them, and presents them as large prints. ITS EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO. I've had an idea for a series recently that involves making large prints of complex graphs with absolutely no context. I like the idea of knowledge and information operating as foreign language; something is there, and you know it, but you can't get anything from it. The art is directly in front of you, the experience is immediate, but the information is years of studying away from you. Holy fuck I love it so much. Seeing his stuff makes me want to start my new series immediately. I need an organic chemistry book, that shit is wildly confusing.
This also makes me think about Cy Twombly, and artist I know nothing about. Perhaps he would be another person to look at for all of this?
http://www.alejandroguijarro.com/ongoing/blackboards/
This is some of the best work I've personally seen in awhile. This guy is travelling the world to visit the laboratories and studies of some of the foremost researchers working on quantum mechanics. He simply photographs the blackboards as he sees them, and presents them as large prints. ITS EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO. I've had an idea for a series recently that involves making large prints of complex graphs with absolutely no context. I like the idea of knowledge and information operating as foreign language; something is there, and you know it, but you can't get anything from it. The art is directly in front of you, the experience is immediate, but the information is years of studying away from you. Holy fuck I love it so much. Seeing his stuff makes me want to start my new series immediately. I need an organic chemistry book, that shit is wildly confusing.
This also makes me think about Cy Twombly, and artist I know nothing about. Perhaps he would be another person to look at for all of this?
Taylor Stevenson: Viviane Sassen
Viviane Sassen implicates Western beliefs and how they have imposed on the African culture. I
feel as if her work defiantly relates and can help me understand my
work better. I remember in a couple of my crits it was said that once
I show a face in my pieces it tends to fall flat. In Sassens work she claimed
that she normally abstracts the identity of her subject, when asked why she claimed
that "the gaze of the viewer
and about my own perspective” as opposed to “some truth about the photographed
subject.”
I think that it is
interesting that Sassen often abstracts her portraits since in art school we
are told if you want to do a portrait you often need to include the face.
However Sassen feels as if including portraits that give identity
one will begin to "prove a single
truth" about the subject. Since the work she is
making isn't focused on one particular person or of
an individual story this abstraction for the face generalizes the
subject matter and allows the viewer to focus on the body and how
it contours with the light and space around it.
After
reading and understanding the factors that Viviane uses in her work i understand
what Shane meant in regards to the fear of black bodies.
The interest in how black bodies interact with
light fascinated me last year however it was just touching the
surface and wasn't as complex. I hadn't understood the
language that I had been implementing, I was just interested in seeing
how african american bodies would register in nude studies.
I need
to dive into my topic and simply just start doing it.
Taking elements such that have been successful I'm previous
images and using them to help guide my future work.
Kim Keever
Kim Keever is someone I saw on "but does it float". Again, I'm writing about this work because of how off put I was when I saw it. I mean it's more fucking color abstractions of inky stuff in water. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Do better Kim. But for the sake of the conversation Shane and I had last week I'm going to try to seriously talk about this stuff and find something I can learn from it.
This is the only work I know of Kim Keever because, like I said, I only just saw her on BDIF. The most striking thing about this stuff is obviously the fluid compositions women out of various colored inks. The color is so unpleasant to me it hurts. There are a few of the images that I can almost start diving into, and it's no coincidence that those are the same images with simpler color palettes, but even those look like uninspired, as if the artist discovered Adobe Kuler and was in awe. I can tell that the artist is trying to create a certain atmosphere with the images. I think of weather when I see these, like certain storms and temperatures. The colors have a great effect on the scenes, but there just doesn't seem a lot inspired about the work overall.
The artist sees these as a response to landscape photography, and I'll totally give her that. She also describes them as a method for her to engage in pure exploration and the "random" events that occur when paint and water mix. I don't find it interesting really. I think the images can be interesting to look at for a little, but I'm left wondering where I should after the initial viewing and then I'm lost.
What do you think about the work/what do you think I'm looking at incorrectly?
This is the only work I know of Kim Keever because, like I said, I only just saw her on BDIF. The most striking thing about this stuff is obviously the fluid compositions women out of various colored inks. The color is so unpleasant to me it hurts. There are a few of the images that I can almost start diving into, and it's no coincidence that those are the same images with simpler color palettes, but even those look like uninspired, as if the artist discovered Adobe Kuler and was in awe. I can tell that the artist is trying to create a certain atmosphere with the images. I think of weather when I see these, like certain storms and temperatures. The colors have a great effect on the scenes, but there just doesn't seem a lot inspired about the work overall.
The artist sees these as a response to landscape photography, and I'll totally give her that. She also describes them as a method for her to engage in pure exploration and the "random" events that occur when paint and water mix. I don't find it interesting really. I think the images can be interesting to look at for a little, but I'm left wondering where I should after the initial viewing and then I'm lost.
What do you think about the work/what do you think I'm looking at incorrectly?
Omer Fast - The Casting
http://vimeo.com/70885581
"The Casting" is a short film and novel by video artist Omer Fast that presents one or two narratives seemingly seamlessly woven into one another. Fast interviews a soldier who tells a story about a German girl he goes on a date with, and about his vehicle running over an IED. The entire story is fabricated, then edited together using sound bites to create a new story, apparently ungrounded entirely from reality. The book form of the work contains the story that's being told along with photographs of the interview and of these scenes. Every picture is a still from a short video that was taken of that scene. A picture of two soldiers standing along side their vehicle is taken from a short clip of them awkwardly standing in a position that mimics running, and the wind and dust of the Middle East (California) ensures that no one can stand still for long. Even the shots of the interview are fake. Omer is seen in the book talking to the subject, mid word when the photo was taken, but the video shows Omer quietly sitting with his mouth half open, saying nothing, giving the illusion that he was engaged in conversation.
The two narratives blend together to create a third, more fluid story line that seems to jump around the world and back with no regard to the reader. Fast edited the interview extensively to create this story, and the audience isn't sure what is true and what isn't, even though they were fully engaged. This is interesting considered one short bit of the story in which fast asks the viewer how he knew he wasn't dreaming. The subject pauses for a moment is admits he can't really know. I suppose that this is the foundation of the work as a whole. Fast ends the film by saying that he is interested in how memory turns into narrative that is ungrounded from reality by means of time. He also says he isn't sure if this story (the story he is being told in the interview) will work, because it has taken up nearly 30 minutes, which contradicts the films 15 minute run time. This quick remark by Fast informs the audience that there is much they weren't told, even though the story seemed complete and believable.
"The Casting" is a short film and novel by video artist Omer Fast that presents one or two narratives seemingly seamlessly woven into one another. Fast interviews a soldier who tells a story about a German girl he goes on a date with, and about his vehicle running over an IED. The entire story is fabricated, then edited together using sound bites to create a new story, apparently ungrounded entirely from reality. The book form of the work contains the story that's being told along with photographs of the interview and of these scenes. Every picture is a still from a short video that was taken of that scene. A picture of two soldiers standing along side their vehicle is taken from a short clip of them awkwardly standing in a position that mimics running, and the wind and dust of the Middle East (California) ensures that no one can stand still for long. Even the shots of the interview are fake. Omer is seen in the book talking to the subject, mid word when the photo was taken, but the video shows Omer quietly sitting with his mouth half open, saying nothing, giving the illusion that he was engaged in conversation.
The two narratives blend together to create a third, more fluid story line that seems to jump around the world and back with no regard to the reader. Fast edited the interview extensively to create this story, and the audience isn't sure what is true and what isn't, even though they were fully engaged. This is interesting considered one short bit of the story in which fast asks the viewer how he knew he wasn't dreaming. The subject pauses for a moment is admits he can't really know. I suppose that this is the foundation of the work as a whole. Fast ends the film by saying that he is interested in how memory turns into narrative that is ungrounded from reality by means of time. He also says he isn't sure if this story (the story he is being told in the interview) will work, because it has taken up nearly 30 minutes, which contradicts the films 15 minute run time. This quick remark by Fast informs the audience that there is much they weren't told, even though the story seemed complete and believable.
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