Animate Arts Kid's Blog

Relational Aesthetics

animateartskid — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:46:34 +0000

Nicolas Bourriaud has an interesting article, covering a lot of the same kinds of topics animate arts 4 has been looking into this quarter. Namely, this piece on relational aesthetics describes the theories behind the rise of this new way of creating, encountering, and appreciating art in a way that closes the gap between producer and consumer. What differentiates this article from some of the others is specifically how Bourriaud looks at the communications that take place between artist and spectator (and spectator and spectator, and artist and artist), and what new cultural goals are defined by said communications. “Art is a state of encounter,” he states, and what he means is that the very social and timely nature of these new forms of exhibition begin to reshape our ideas about limitations of form versus content. This world of art allows for unique visions to be played out within a common sphere of interhuman relationships. A new dawn of temporal art that both accentuates and inflicts changes of and on society is in our midst. Let’s not downplay it.

Jenny Holzer Interview

animateartskid — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:46:02 +0000

Holzer starts the interview by talking about her art in terms of its survivalist nature. She goes on to talk about how and why public places and pieces are more meaningful to her than pieces that are forced within the boundaries of museums and galleries, and how art is meant to be viewed in the contexts of everyday life. I’ve been writing these blog entries for hours and hours and it’s my birthday so I’ll finish this one up later. Bye!

Hans Haacke 2

animateartskid — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:29:06 +0000

Haacke starts this interview talking about his own “political art” and why that term is ineffectual and narrow-minded. Even though he expresses that his art is really more dealing with ideologies rather than individual events that appear in the newspapers, he goes on to mention a number of highly-charged pieces that have to do with specific issues of the day. Discussion follows concerning the cancellation of the Guggenheim show and the motives behind that incident. The rest of the article is HH explaining various pieces that he created in reaction to certain political atrocities and for certain occasions. The interview closes with its best soundbyte: “Dealing with real works requires a commensurate sophistication.”

Hans Haacke: System Aesthetics

animateartskid — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:04:54 +0000

The first few lines of this interview with Hans Haacke reveals his immense awesomeness. He had an exhibit removed from a museum because of its muckraking nature but the man is legitimately just trying to make some interesting socio-political statements. Haacke explains systems as a group of inter-related elements that come together to achieve some joint goal, and to separate those individual pieces would destroy the system. These systems can be originated by an artist, or existing ones can be interpreted/demonstrated by someone. One motif of Haacke’s work is change, which he says separates him ideologically from the minimalist sculptors, and is also an interesting statement about his political views. “All things dealing with a social situation are to a greater or lesser degree political.”

Environments & Happenings

animateartskid — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:24:50 +0000

This is a synopsis of an interview with George Segal and Allan Kaprow, two artists who use art and arts surroundings as the development of a new and participatory medium. The beginning of the interview goes back to their roots as painters and how they evolved towards their current works. The focus then changes a bit to how spectators are involved with the spaces, in terms of how they act and where their movement is restricted to. Kaprow goes on to describe the three umbrella guidelines for Happenings: theatre, ideas, and participation. Theatre is similar to theatre, ideas is when the consumer is forced to think about certain concepts subjectively, and participatory Happenings are when different activities of scale and length are agreed upon and then interwoven throughout life’s other activities. Lastly, the artists speak of the use of sound in their pieces as well as draw comparisons between environmentals and other 20th century works (which fall short in their eyes and mine). One quote that particularly struck me in this piece was made by Segal: “Happenings are difficult as the devil to photograph because very often the cameraman was not a good enough artist. Or was the artist not strong enough to make that image apparent?” I like that quote because it shows how aware Segal is of the risk in “artworks” like these to defy ranking, but still there are some that are somehow better (either in construction, intent, overall cohesion, or whatever) works than others.

The Artist’s Protest Against the Museum of Modern Art

animateartskid — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:21:11 +0000

In this interview, a group of artists respond to the Museum of Modern Art in the late 1960s. One particular sculptor, Takis, actually went into the MOMA in New York and removed a piece of his own creation that he specifically asked to not be displayed. Those involved in the interview speak of giving a bigger voice to the artists and art-appreciating community versus the Board of Trustees of the museum. They felt that the museum and its content were being controlled by the rich and the out-of-touch, which seems very backwards for an organization that largely influences and drives the direction of contemporary art. Among their demands was a public forum with artists, museum people, and community members all involved, which the museum flatly refused. They also wanted the museum to be more accessible, in terms of better hours and cheaper (freer) admissions.

One quote I really appreciate from this article: “I can’t be responsible for the morals of the affluent- I’m much more worried about the deprivation of the poor.” Spoken like a true starving artist.

Guy Debord

animateartskid — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:43:16 +0000

Banksy Détournement

Guy Debord, in his 1957 essay Towards a Situationalist International, proposes a radical departure away from art as we know it (or knew it?) back then. Debord states that everything that happens, in architecture, atmospheres, meetings, etc., needs to be viewed as an opportunity to increase humanity’s livingness. To exemplify this point, in his ideal future he states that painters will no longer be painters; rather, they’ll be situationalists who live their lives towards the proper emotional fulfillment who happen to paint. Essentially, Debord is suggesting that we do not have to suffer the mundane, the drone, or the boring. Emotional heights can be reached by studying and then classifying the situations that satisfy these desires and needs far more efficiently than our current… um… situation allows for. Also, it is necessary to note how Debord wants us to go about getting to this utopian future: overthrowing the bourgeoisie and their capitalist systems. Then he calls for the reader to depart from the old and never look back, and embark upon an epic quest for dat new new.

Détournement is one technique that the situationalists favored to subvert artistic messages of old. One modern artist who utilizes this technique frequently is the visionary graffiti artist Banksy. He often takes found painting, street props, and other items and twists them into a new and often opposing meaning from the original.

Umberto Eco & The Poetics of the Open Work

animateartskid — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:52:45 +0000

1. Eco opens the chapter by talking about a lot of pieces of “truly open” art that need to finish being physically “made” by a future consumer/collaborator. He compares this to a lot of other works (to some extent, every other work) that are open in the sense that they require the interpretation of a future consumer to be completed, and that interpretation will vary considerably based on the audience’s era, upbringing, company, mood, or any other of an infinite number of factors. He notes many works that are more ambiguous and therefore subjective, and in their own ways demanding of an inventive response. One piece that comes to mind for me is Holbein’s The Ambassadors, which required the viewer to approach the painting at an untypical angle to appreciate an undistorted Memento Mori skull previously hidden in the foreground.

2. Throughout the article, Eco continuously refers back to history and the sciences to better express his approach towards participatory and open art. Both inherently and explicitly, he mentions various theories and cultural views on reality that better help explain why certain forms of art (and interpretations of art) become or fade out of relevance. This is especially clear when he speaks about certain Einsteinian theories that relates to the ambiguous and clashing nature of the cosmos in terms of the writings of people like Joyce. Within the various interpretations of what the “true” meaning is, there are complementary ideas that can broaden and expand upon the author’s original work. Today, science continues to expand upon our definitions of dynamic movement, but even more so there is a general feeling that no work is truly done until the consumers dissect and reinvent it. We live in a world of mashups and graffiti artists. Even formerly closed works have seemingly thrown open their doors for us.

3. Eco goes over a number of philosophies, but the one that he is particularly drawn to is the aforementioned “complementarity” of both science and art. This idea states that certain systems can be properly utilized in a number of (even contradictory) methods to produce a satisfying result. It is in this way that Eco is able to explain that a piece is still the work of the initial author, even when future or contemporary contributors adjust it in a way that he or she never intended/imagined.

4. As I mentioned before, music has increasingly become the most open medium of our modern times. Artists regularly put out pieces of their songs, either broken up bits of a finished work or just the initial musings of the author. These pieces fly at terrific speeds across the digital medium into the hands of hungry young producers, eager to put their own unique touch on their favorite author’s work. With the advent of digital technologies, it has become so fast and easy to replicate and mutate works of both visual and aural natures that without a frustrating degree of gross watermarking, there is almost no way to protect from it. What many artists of today have come to realize that it is far less painful to embrace this generation of producers and be happy that they now have access to a historically unprecedented amount of possible collaborators. As Eco notes, these pioneers are offering the interpreter a work to be completed.

PARTICIPATION

animateartskid — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:14:11 +0000

1. Two types of participatory art that Bishop addresses early in this chapter are forms of spectatorship that rely on raising consciousness through the distance of critical thinking or a paradigm of physical involvement. The first form was exemplified by German dramas that incited the audience to participate via a disruptive element. In the second form, physical proximity allows the seeds of social change to develop. One example for the first kind Man With A Movie Camera, where audience members were visually subjected to many of the actual production elements that allowed for such a movie to be made. An example of the second kind is the comedy of Andy Kaufman, where audience members were often left to wonder whether or not the artist was aware of his tragic onstage state.

2. Benjamin argues that more important than an artist’s declared sympathies were the positions that the work occupies in the artist’s declared sympathies of the time. Also mentioned is Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, wherein actors put forth so much honesty in their work that audience members have no choice but to become both engaged and involved in the work of the artist. This idea generally aligns with how Benjamin thinks; i.e. the apparatus is better, the more readers or spectators come collaborators.

3. Activation – the desire to create an active subject. Authorship – ceding some or all control of a work is more democratic and egalitarian. Community – a perceived crisis in collective responsibility, that can be remedied at least in part through participatory methods.

4. I’ve been to comedy clubs where the person on stage has called something out about me or my family. Although startling, being brought in to the act made the show a lot more personal, and in effect more pleasurable / memorable.

Adorno

animateartskid — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:54:24 +0000

‘THE sociological theory that the loss of the support of objectively established religion, the dissolution of the last remnants of pre-capitalism, together with technological and social differentiation or specialisation, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything;’ so starts the article, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” by Theodor Adorno.

As these polemical authors go, Adorno is the least interested in concealing his intense Marxism / anti-Capitalism. This doesn’t necessarily discount his points, many of which are well-grounded, but it does make the article less enjoyable to read. Adorno starts by talking about how mass media (which he simply calls “culture” [and is made up of movies, music, etc.]) is completely industrial and lacks any relation to that higher order of Art. He further articulates that the opinions of the public (which actually favor this industry system) is a part of this whole blighted system and not an excuse for it. The sphere of power that creates this culture is made up of an interwoven collection of smaller industries, whose ideologies are apparently in line with easy-going Liberalism and Jewish intellectuals (?).

How can different media and different products all fall under this category? Because they can all be boiled down to the same thing: whatever the vested interest of the capital investor is. Another easy way to gain insight into how encompassing this Gesamtkunstwerk is to look at how rigidly all popular media fall into formats, be them of length, set-up and payoff, melody, or any other of an infinite possibilities. Also, he argues that “art” is trending towards the medium of sound-film, which allows for no imagination on the part of the viewer and is seen as deeply connected to real life. Yadda yadda yadda; every deviation from the norm somehow confirm the validity of the system. Artists have never really disguised their subordinance to those with power/money, be them noblemen or the government; if they were to eat, they were at the mercy of their benefactors. If not, they would become economically, spiritually, and otherwise self-employed [read: screwed].

Humor, intrigue, and all pleasure that is to be found in these activities are (you guessed it) one and the same. Simple diversions, expected and stale, presented in such a way that the consumer believes to be in complete control of whether or not he or she relates to or enjoys the work. Advertisements are almost unnecessary in this community, where those who would be affected are ready and willing to buy and use products that they see through. As Adorno so crassly puts it, in this lifeless society, “personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odour and emotions.” The term culture itself endeavors itself towards replication, imitations of imitations, and thoughtless products that will no doubt best-sell their way into the places where our hearts used to be. Jesus, this is bleak.