Richard Orjis

Richard was very into creating his own little world and cult/religion. His photography for the series Welcome to the Jungle is quite interesting and in his mind is the cult of Christchurch. For this he did a piece of performance art involving a kind of ritual to the coal as if it were a god. He also invited people to come and coat themselves in coal soot and then have their photo taken. It struck me as a little odd when he first told us all about this in the lecture, however it made sense when paired with the actual works that came from it.

There is an Australian artist called Patricia Piccinini who does a similar sort of thing in terms of back rounding her works. Piccinini does quite a range of art including photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. In her series Nature’s Little Helpers Piccinini makes weird and wonderful silicone creatures that seem to make you feel quite disgusted. They all have quite ape and human like features, yet have a very creepy, alien ugliness to them, as if genetic modification gone wrong. In an essay Piccinini writes about how certain things cannot be undone and it becomes apparent that she is talking about the environment and the extinction of certain creatures. This doesn’t surprise me as Australia has a lot of endangered animals. Piccinini’s work is founded on this idea of technology vs. nature, and the possibility of technology fixing nature. Her sculptures are incredibly detailed and uncannily real. She says this is because she wants it to all seem believable and I think she completely succeeds in this. The viewer has no choice but to be pulled into this world and see her judgements about today’s society and environment.

I think Richard has succeeded in this too, but has done it in quite a more direct way.

Performance art is quite forceful in this sense. To fully understand Richard’s work (and most other performance art) you have to let go of reality and let yourself participate in the piece. Along with his performance piece go a series of photographs, mud drawings, and ‘Photoshop flower people’ images that all add to the Welcome to the Jungle cult.I think using a created fantasy world as a base for art works is awesome. For the viewer it is always a fresh and intriguing experience, and for the artist it is quite personal in the sense that it is a real piece of them.

Steve Rood

Hey Tessa, sorry I missed Steve's lecture, but here's an attempt at the blog anyway.

I thought I'd start this blog as a bit of a continuation from last week. One because I don't have too much to write about on Steve, and two because when I gave a little further thought to collaboration I was a little embarrassed at my laziness last week.

These two pieces are from the Cow Parade collection which has been touring around the world since 1999. The cows get auctioned off after each event and Cow Parade has made over 20 million dollars doing so. This money gets given to charitable organizations. These two cows are both done by New Zealand artists, and were displayed on Auckland streets. Buzzy Beef was done by Jill Jessup and Pohuticowa was done by Kathy Reid.

These are two pieces from the Vader Project. Like Cow Parade, this is a project that travels, contains multiple artists working on the same canvas, and the individual pieces get auctioned off at the end. The collection started in May 2007 at the Star Wars Celebration IV event in Los Angeles and has been to Europe, Japan and Pennsylvania.

I wonder if these two examples are really collaborations or not. In a sense they are because of the multiple artists working on the same canvas. However the artists are not working together, and are making individual pieces. Still not a hundred percent sure on collaboration vs collective.

As for Steve Rood, the Photographer. I read a few blogs of Steve's and I found them all quite cool. He seems to be really down to earth, and has quite a fresh approach to society and societal happenings. I'm not a very big fan of photography, and I find it quit hard to think of any photographer I like. Reading a friend's notes I saw a quote I quite liked (you'll probably read it several times) "Photography is just a blip in the landscape of visual technology". I liked it because I think its completely true, and I think sometimes photography is a little bit over rated sometimes. Here are the pieces of Rood's work that I do like, I found them on his blog.

One photographer I like is Gabriel Orozco. This is probly because he doesn't only do photography..and probably also because I like all of the other stuff he does (the link is the massive one at the end). I'm not sure you can make too many comparisons with Orozco to Steve, however there is a certain seriousness that comes through in both artists photos. This is quite nice in photography, as it is easy I think to be really humorous.

http://www.cowparade.com/

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/10995/the-vader-project.html

http://thetofsteve.blogspot.com/2009/08/armageddon.html

http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/longvalley/RSnXHO6sAsJVHaD6fz8lLGNmkASO8DnghIdS248wjQwHovuHGZpB24YJTupK/gabriel_orozco.jpg&imgrefurl=http://longvalley.posterous.com/%3Ftag%3Dgabrielorozco&usg=__220rKdayLkUIpT5LAB0D2wpc2Qc=&h=593&w=436&sz=51&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ChlMh-WmTInusM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3DGabriel%2BOrozco%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1540%26bih%3D871%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=122&vpy=44&dur=4694&hovh=262&hovw=192&tx=111&ty=126&ei=u0ilTN3GBNq5jAePhIWrDA&oei=u0ilTN3GBNq5jAePhIWrDA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=40&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

Fran Alisson

Fran's lecture was quite fresh compared to past lectures I thought. She didn't seem so wrapped up in herself which was nice, maybe this is a result of being part of Weeds.

I liked how she compared collaboration to a flat or a club, pooling resources. It must be easier all round for the individual, and take a lot of pressure and stress out of making works. I imagine only specific types of people would be suited to being involved in a collaboration, Fran said you have to be very democratic, this doesn't surprise me but made me wonder how you choose people to collaborate with. Like interviewing flatmates, maybe you interview artmates? Being part of a collaboration must have a very interesting effect on your practice. Fran said it becomes quite a safe space to pursue ideas because responsibility and consequences get divvied up. I think a collective differs from this, in that everyone is working towards the goal and has separate tasks to complete. Whereas a collaboration rolls all ideas and skills together.

I really could not help but make comparisons of Fran with Frances Hansen, and Mary Curtis. The way Fran collects cake tins (baskets in Frances's case), uses domesticity as a theme, and explores materiality is uncannily alike what Frances is into. The result of all of this however, is more fitting to compare with Mary Curtis's pieces, and in fact both Mary and Fran cited Helen Britton as an inspiration. Helen Britton's pieces are trinkity and often floral, this is a theme that also flows through Fran's work. When I viewed Mary Curtis's work in Object Space I talked about how a really wanted to touch then, I get the same sensation when looking at Britton's and Allison's pieces.

The one solid similarity you can make about these four artists is that they all generate work from giving life to old and used objects. Fran quotes Julian Schnabel in saying "I work with things left over from other things", which I suppose is a less attractive way of saying it. I compared Schnabel's work to Hansen's earlier on, and I fell he lends his ideas and techniques quite easily to Fran's practice as well.

Deborah Crowe

The picture of the bridge at the start of Deborah's slideshow shows us her infatuation with weaving, architecture, space and

structure. This is what her main idea is heavily influenced by, and made from. It is not surprising when you find out that she is trained in weaving, and she said she uses it to create 3d shapes and environments.

My favorite works of Deborah's are Kibble Palace Small World (20

09), Sidestep (2005), Shift (2000), and Collared (1999). I also quite like her Warp series.

In her work Shift (2000), I immediately made comparisons to Dion Hitchens work Te Wao Nui a Tane (1999). These works by Dion are smaller then Deborah's Shift, however they are similar in how they command space in the room and are constructed with a sort of transparency. Deborah talks about creating a contradiction in the space, and she succeeds in doing so. These lightly made figures are flimsy and transparent but seem to fill the space up. They cast big moving shadows and makes

the space seem quit airy. Although I haven't seen this piece in the flesh I imagine the viewer would feel a little dwarfed, as the three dimensional shapes take on quite a human form. Dion's works do the same in that manor. This work of Deborah's definitely employs her usual tactics of intervening with space, and using weaving.

I really enjoy looking at Sidestep (2005), it's a digital print on pvc mesh. Again Deborah uses a weave (or mesh in this case), and the image itself seems to be woven together as

well. Deborah talks about photography as a way to construct inventional drawings, and this furthers her practice. I think you can see that his is quite an experimental work when you place it along side her other works. Invention is also quite apparent in Kibble Palace Small World (2009). I really like this work, and there is something quite enjoyable to look at about it. As well as invention in these two works, there is a huge sense of intervention. Kibble Palace Small World puts you in a very imaginary spatial place, this really intervenes with the original image. You also get Deborah's weaving again as the window pains collide and intersect.

I liked how Deborah talked about how architecture is just a different scale of bodily containment, and I completely agree with her. You can easily see how the two effect each other in trends and inspiration. The images at the end of Deborah's slideshow really interested me, although I don't think they were works of art. The scaled down and repeated close ups of architecture reminded me of some of Steve Lovette's later works Up - n - dwn (2006), and Tresspass # 17 (2005). These works by Steve also intervene with space and also have a weaving sensation about them.

Steve Lovett

My Favorite pieces by Steve are Trespass # 17 and Up - n - dwn. The first piece talks about how beaches are being sold into private ownership and were no longer accessible for the public. This piece is not only awesome to look at, but it sums up Steve very well I think. It is a 6 colour print on paper and is very very detailed. Screen printing allows you to do this well and I think it gives a good insight to how Steve thinks and operates.

It is clear that Steve basis his work on social and personal issues. His work Holding the Man (1996) talks about the HIV crisis, which effected Steve severely, it was easy to see that this still haunts him. He talked about how this piece got taken down from a clinic, this must have been interesting. When you make work that relates to your own personal issues so strongly it must put a real damper on your own attachment to the piece. In saying that it must also really increase the passion that goes into the work. I think it would be really hard to lay yourself out like that in a piece of art.

Steve is a very multi-layered artist. Not only in his screen prints, but also in his media. His work Speaking Parts (1998-2000) uses screen printed images and sound. This layering of media is quite interesting I think, and must have had a very weird affect on the viewer. I think Steve is also quite layered in the way he thinks and deals with his inspiration (social, personal and political issues), It's plain to see that his pieces are rich and deep with thought. I immediately made comparisons and similarities with Frances Hansen's work. Frances also works with layering quite heavily.

In terms of how he has evolved as an artist, I think it is clear to see that his earlier practice dealt with a lot of personal issues. In his later pieces, I see more social and political issues being addressed and also it seems that his latest (2010) pieces take a decent step back from being so deep in meaning. I think it must be quite fresh to make a work that is more aesthetically pleasing after being so conceptual.

I really like Steve as a lecturer and person. He is really quite clever and it definitely shows in his work. I find it quite interesting how he gets involved in his work on such a personal level, this must cause some kind of internal conflict, and would have curious effects on how you feel about your finished pieces.

Frances Hansen

I'm not completely sure whether I liked Frances Hansen's work or not, but I did think her process was very methodical and interesting. As a young person at Art school I find myself consistently trying to leap ahead to the end product. Lecturers keep trying to beat this habit out of me, and it was cool to see how someone as experienced as Hansen works. Her process is quite epic I think, and I was a little surprised to find out that she was a mother as well as an artist. I'm thinking it must take a lot of effort to finish a piece whilst cramming all the "collecting, constructing, thinking and changing" in, as well as running a house and looking after kids.

It is not a surprise however, that her practice is heavily based around domesticity. This is definitely a key factor in Hansen's practice. You are a product of your environment and the domestic environment I think has a heavy influence on Hansen. Running a house must be a repetitive and monotonous job, and Hansen said her mind often wonders whilst doing household chores. Maybe this is more of a creative environment then it first appears?

One artist that Hansen said really influenced her was Dan Arps. This I found quite fitting, as I think her art looks a lot like his art, but on a 2D scale (for lack of a better term). Hansen thought Arps's work "is how a disgruntled office worker would make art". I thought this was really funny, and it made think that maybe Hansen's work is how a disgruntled housewife would make art? I really couldn't find many images of Arps's work, which is a shame as I think it would have been easy to make some comparisons of her work to his.

One Artist I did look into who can make strong comparisons with Hansen is Julian Schnabel. His work Bob's World is done on wood and canvas in '06 and is made out of oil, wax, bondo, ceramic plates and horns. This fits well with Hansen's work, as she also layers the hell out of her pieces, and uses all sorts of found materials. I think layering is definitely a key step in the making of Hansen's work. When you work with so many different materials it must become very tricky in what can go on top of what.

As for A Garden of Peculiarities, I thought that "Plant = Art" was a funny statement. Of coarse plants equal art, plants are a representation of nature and I think nature has always had heavy hand in art making. Mainly because nature is so aesthetically pleasing (jelly fish, snow flakes, crystal formations, bacterial growth), and isn't that the driving force behind art? To be aesthetically pleasing? Maybe not a driving force, but definitely a classic reason. If my above statement is correct, does that mean that places with more nature produce better art? Say, New Zealand vs. Los Angeles? I've been to L.A. and it's weird that when you hope off the plane the sky is not blue it is usually grey. What do you think?

Eldon Booth

Eldon's lecture was kind of funny. I know nothing of film, even though, I thought his ideas and the films he made were very alternative. Not that this is a bad thing. I suppose this is only because I am readily subject to feature length, mainstream films.

In filming Five Good Reasons, 06 Booth witnessed a burning car, which he filmed. He said he was more interested in filming the people that were running to watch the burning wreck then filming the wreck itself. He also said rubbernecking was deeply grained in human nature, this reminded me of the film we watched in our Gaze lecture Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock. We talked about how the girl was being watched, and then she views the painting that watches us. The whole thing gets turned around on itself, and it becomes clear that voyeurism is a main theme. This can also be related to Booth's first film Withdrawal. In the short piece we watched, the camera did a lot of following as apposed to normal film shots. Booth said this was because he didn't want the viewers to gain insight into the characters, this definitely happened in Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Booth talked about how he did Withdrawal with a hadycam because he wanted it to have a reality effect. This was due to the epic amount of amateur film footage shows on TV. There are two films that I have seen that use the same technique. Cloverfield was made in 2008 and was directed by Matt Reeves. The whole film is shot on handycam and someone even told me it was as long as a handycam can film for. The second movie is Open Water, filmed in 2003 and was directed by Chris Kentis. Open Water is about divers that go missing, and the footage becomes them bobbing around in the water for a day or two. Eventually they get eaten by sharks I think. The two movies both have suspense filled moments, and try to capture a lot of emotion from the characters. As apposed to Booth's movie, I would say these two are more Action type films, where as his Withdrawal, I think was more of a drama.

Booth's exploration of reality and illusion is quite apparent in both films. He said he wanted to blur the lines between fact and fiction. I'm not sure if he meant this in terms of, the story line is fiction, but he wants to make it seem like fact? If in that case then most directors blur the lines between fact and fiction. I think both films use an illusion of some sort to gain the characteristics of reality. I think most films do this actually, gaining a sense of reality is a general goal in any film.

Dion Hitchens

I thought Dion was quite cool, although brought up in Mangere, he has family and connections from the Bay of Plenty. I lived in the B.O.P for the last 9 years of my life. I enjoyed feeling a little close to home as he was talking about Te Teko, and the Waimana valley. I rolled my car in Waimana about 6 months ago haha.

Hitchens is really into art that is interactive with the viewer. What I found quite interesting is that the interaction is quite forced and confronting, the viewer really doesn't have a choice about being involved. He does this by using sensors, this renders the viewer completely unaware of what is about to happen. I'm not sure if I like this or not, and I think a set of ethics definitely would have been considered. In saying all this I also think that it gives Hitchens work a real edge. I really can't think of any sculpture that move and interact like his.

The type of interactive sculpture I really like is the type that you are completely attracted to, and are aloud to touch if you want. A good example of this is Big Red by Gaye Jurisich. I saw this piece at the Tauranga art gallery in 2008. What amazed me is that you were aloud and encouraged to walk through it. Big Red is made out of the red tags for tightening rubbish bags. As you walk through the piece you become lost, and your sensors become a bit overwhelmed. Eventually you come to a bit of a whole in the middle, where you can look up into the strands. I thought it was quite awesome.

I don't know too much about sculpture, but I think Dion's work is a good representative of how sometimes it can be a bit over the top. Big Red has the same 'ginormous' properties as some of Dion's work, but I think it is a lot more attractive in terms of interaction. I like Dion's smaller works such as TE WAO NUI A TANE 1999, UNTITLED PRESENCE (Small sculpture series) 2010, IN THE MIDDLES. These are the ones that are made from Willow and use weaving to take their shape.

Hitchens practice is also heavily influenced by culture and history. I liked it when he was talking about the willow tree, and how it was introduced and is now a pest. That says to me he really thinks and researches his artwork before making it. And he's right, I have a willow tree in my back yard in Matata, it's definitely a pest. Being both a Maori and Chinese descendent is something I think would effect Hitchens art practice a lot, although from the slides he showed us it seemed he is more focused on making Maori themed works then Chinese. This I am not surprised about, as the Bay of Plenty, Auckland, and all over New Zealand has a pretty rich Maori culture. Hitchens clearly draws on this as inspiration and motivation to produce his sculptures.

http://www.artgallery.org.nz/index.php/ps_pagename/newsarchive/news/99

Rebecca Ann Hobbs

Rebecca's work was pretty cool I thought. The art works I really liked were mostly from her series Up With the Fall, Down on the Diagonal. My favorites were Slip n' Slide, 2006 and Waiting, 2007. I also really like Drunk Power Poles.

Although I didn't particularily like Hobbs's work Ah-Round, I did find it quite interesting. She talked about Imperialism, and the colonizing of countries. This I am not to surprised about, as she is from Australia, a country that was heavily colonized and subject to imperialism. In the work Ah-Round The camera circles a black man watering his plants quite happily. In the hand out Hobbs gave us she says that the "360 degree camera movement represents moving full circle, and pays tribute to Marcus Garvey's BSL ambitions."

While viewing the video I thought of the colonization of Australia. The camera circumnavigates the island and Madou, the subject, who represents the indigenous people of Australia. He is happy, and is completely unaware of being viewed. It could be as if this is all about to get taken away from him. However the relationship the camera has with Madou is one of intimacy, not something a colonist would feel. I don't know if I am supposed to find these sorts of similarity's in the video, but it definitely ties in with the idea of Imperialism.

I think Hobbs has quite a lot of social knowledge. She has studied in California, now lives in New Zealand, and was brought up in Australia. Imperialism and colonization is not a foreign concept for these three country's, especially Australia.

While Studying in California Hobbs was surrounded by a lot of western themed things. So she made western themed artwork. Her other video piece is called Tumbleweeds, 2004. It features people slowly rolling/tumbling through an old western town. This piece deals more with the absurd than Imperialism, however when I think of Westerns or western movies or anything western I also think of Indians, A group of people heavily subject to a lot of colonization and imperialism.

I think Alex Monteith should win the Walters award, to be honest I was a little underwhelmed with all the contestants and there wasn't an artwork that I really liked. I base my decision on how aesthetically pleasing the works are, Monteith's motorcycles were the only work that I enjoyed looking at.

Mary Curtis

Explore the relationships between function and decoration in the works of Mary Curtis with relation to her work processes and presentation in the exhibition.

Mary Curtis's exhibition at Objectspace in Ponsonby was quite interesting I thought. I really have no experience in jewelry making or wearing for that matter so I feel I have a bit of an outsiders view. The pieces were small and interesting, ranging from necklaces to brooches. They used a very wide variety of materials and really projected an invitation to touch. She used so many different types of materials, it seemed that most of them were very untraditional/contemporary. The piece I liked the most was defiantly the Green Blanket Necklace. This utilized different sections of a green tartan type blanket. With these pieces she is taking functional everyday objects and turning them into something decorative. Their purpose is completely turned around.

One thing I thought was funny is that she paralleled this technique with how the objects were displayed. Curtis used big glass cabinets to display individual pieces. Like the materials that the pieces use, the cabinets had their full functions revoked, which is a little sad I thought. The Jewelry was put on small spindly pedestals in these cases. The cases themselves were quite old and dull, almost antique looking. This contrasted greatly with the small contemporary jewels. There was almost something funny about peering into this massive dull old cabinet to look at a very small bright and pretty brooch or ring ect.

Curtis said she spent a lot of time in Europe and that this exhibit was a "Direct result of playing in Germany and following my travels around Europe". Whilst in Europe she spent time with fellow jeweler Helen Britton. The inspiration in the two artists work is very clear. It takes a little while but in Britton's work you start to recognize everyday items, you get the same sensation while looking at Curtis's pieces. The above picture is a Britton piece. I really feel the need to touch, just like I did at Objectspace.

Curtis I think is very aware of the function of objects, and how she can manipulate this to create her art. While talking to us she said, "She always considers the back of the object as importantly as the front." This says to me she is also very aware of how important presentation is to the object. Not only does this object have to improve and decorate a person, it has to stand on its own and be a work of art. Curtis has definitely achieved this, and all though I’m not exactly sure how the massive cabinets were supposed to make me feel, I do feel that they displayed the jewelry well. Maybe the focus was more on not taking away from the jewels rather then adding to them.

Just a note.. “Big glass cabinets” are called Vitrines. Must have missed that on the handout.

Advertisement and me

The type of advertising i find most successful is fast food advertising, I'm a bit of a fast food addict, and find it quite difficult to resist a burger. I like to put this down to the good advertisements these places have. I havn't personally seen the image at the top, but i think it is a good example of a successful add.

I think that these sorts of adds have become such a part of our lives people just tend to become unaware of them. Mcdonalds is everywhere, you just simply can't escape it. It infiltrates your city, your home, your work, your bus, your computer, your everything. The snippet we watched from the film They Live by John Carpenter relates to this concept very well.

I feel like that all the time (minus the glasses). Everything in the city is telling you something or wants something from you. I must have a whole barrage of filters up to prevent my mind from overloading (I get this burning mental image of the guy who put up yellow paper/plastic all over the adds in the city when i think of this, too bad i can't remember his name). I like to think in the movie my filters are his glasses, and this makes me think is that really a good way of advertising? If i'm abel to filter out such things, would less adds be more? would i notice them more if they were harder to see and not so in your face?

One thing that draws me to this add is how good the burgers actually look. No burger looks that good when you receive it, but even if you aren't hungry most people won't find it hard to crave a burger when they see one so made up. Another technique used by Mcdonald's here is their logo, sitting on top of an intense red background the bright golden arches seem inviting and quite happy. People who eat this food will start to associate this image with the good feeling of chowing down on one of these burgers.

The good thing about this day and age is that people are striving to be aware of all the little tricks that are being played on them. So most of us already know about Mcdonalds, add campaigns, and how companies are quite deceptive to get you to have and then want their product.

People who are aware of this quite like to make images and comment about it. Taking an original promo image and changing it to tell a different (most often opposite or truthful) statement is popular for young designers and artists, here is just a gaggle of images iv'e found on google. In return to these sorts of images I think Macas has wizened up, and is probably a little bit sick of being taken the piss out of. The link below is to a website that has a few new and creative adds by Mcdonalds. I actually quite like some of these images and think they are really clever, I also think it will be a lot harder for haters to manipulate these images to put Mcdonalds down.

I don't want it to sound like I am for or against fast food here, I just think it is interesting how add campaigns can change depending on the publics perspective of that company.

http://www.inewidea.com/2010/01/11/17764.html

Materiality, Surface, Affect, Site.

I really like Katsushika Hokusai's work The Great Wave of Kanagawa. As this work was done quite along time ago, and is from a different culture I had to do some research to fully understand it- wikipedia wasn't that helpful. Although it did say that most westeners would view it wrong-"the normal, traditional way to view the print would be from right to left, implying that Hokusai’s Great Wave was designed to tumble into the viewer’s face, so to speak”. This leads your eye down into the big wave and spits it out onto Mt Fuji, does this mean that Mt Fuji is the focus of the woodblock print? Probably, considering this piece is only one out of 36 in a series called Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Mt Fuji is pretty well worshiped in Japan and I'd say this print is quite popular because of that.

In the lecture you mentioned the style of Superflat and the artist Takashi Murakami. I did a little bit of work on him last year, and really like him. I love this style as it makes for very interesting paining. I looked at the two painting's above done by Murakami and tried to view them 'traditionally'. However this did not seem to work. Murakami's work is based around the culture of Otaku, witch is pretty much gaming culture in Japan. Murakami has colaborated with other brands and people like Louis Vuitton and Kanye West.

The way Murakami lays out his work is quite like Katsushika's Great Wave. When you said it is flat and has a minimal amount of depth I emidiatly thought of Takashi's works. It seems as if it is made of heaps of different layers and the image has just been flattened. I think though, with Murakami's paintings there is no one focus, it is the overall that the layers create that is the focus. This contrasts to the Great Wave, where it seems the goal is to portray Mt Fuji.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Great+Wave+off+Kanagawa-a0144047882 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa

Narratives and Archetypes / Star Wars a New Hope

The Star Wars character I chose to write about Luke Skywalker. I chose him because he is the hero of the whole saga, this means he has to be attractive as a character and George Lucas definitely achieves this for me. Luke represents a lot of things for me, as a kid he was my hero. Now for me he sort of represents the kid at school who could never do anything wrong, ironically at school I was never that kid.

As a character I think Luke is pretty stereotypical, I would liken him to Neo off The Matrix, the Night Owl off the Watchmen and possibly Indianna Jones. All these characters share one vital thing in common and that is that they are all solidly good at heart. Obviously they all go through their different journeys and conflicts but ultimately arrive at the same destination due to their one defining characteristic. Maybe Luke wouldn't seem so stereotypical in 1977. The whole film is based around Luke and his journey. The ideas and themes you can draw from the film are a product of this journey.

Another character that I thought id talk about although not my favourite is Anikin Skywalker. I like the second trilogy and Anikin because they don't have a happy ending. This is quite a contrast in comparison to the first 3 films. The main characters also contrast against one another but in a parallel kind of way. I feel this sort of ending and themes is not common for sci-fi films, but may have started a trend. Avatar has the same sort of evil undertone and ending, I enjoy it.

I really liked this lecture, and like the idea of the dream world that never ends. As a kid i always had sci-fi dreams some of them were quite scary haha. I think that is why I like Sci-fi films so much, because you can just watch and escape. An extreme case in this age would be Avatar, I herd of people becoming seriously depressed after seeing the film. Because of how beautiful and dreamlike the world is in that film.

Museums and Representation

The themed room in the Museum that i thought i would write about was the Scars on the Heart exhibition. It is part of the World War Two memorial section, and it had the biggest impact on me.

The exhibition had quite a lot of interactive things to do, and not everything was sectioned off.I found this interesting because as i walked through i was really not in a 'touching mood'. I felt quite sad, and was not in the mood for learning really. They were clearly trying to teach the general public about the war history. The Museum used lots of sound (heaps of things made noise), text (naturally there was plenty to read), and dim lighting, i think this was to promote the actual displays.

After this area i went to the World War Two Hall of Memories. This was a very sobering display. I texted my friend who had a grandfather in a prisoner of war camp, and then proceeded to find his name on the wall. I took a photo and then walked further down the hall, as it was just after Anzac day there were heaps of flowers and cards and stuff. The Hall was very successful in telling its story and I wouldn't have done anything to change the display, i thought it was very honourable and classy.

Robert Smithson's Museum of the Void raised some interesting thoughts for me. That piece of writing (link bellow) says that 'Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum'.

I agreed with this statement to a degree. Everything in the museum was kind of fake and stale. I got very sick of looking at fake fish very quickly. By the end of walking around the museum my eyes were tired, so were my legs and also my brain. It was far too much information to take on at once, and soon i found myself avoiding things, and I felt bad in doing so.

I think this is quite interesting in that the case of most museums is that they are tombs. In fact if you go to a museum and don't expect to see dead things then your a little daft. Maybe what Smithson is trying to get at is that the commemorated dead often put a sobering tone over the whole museum. Maybe they should not be held in the same place.

http://www.robertsmithson.com/essays/void.htm

Tongan Style

The Tongan Style exhibition at Fresh gallery was something that did not interest me much. I know very little about the Tongan culture and even less about embroidery and crochet. However I do apprieciate the level of skills it would take to make a sheet or dress with this sort of embroidery on it.

I understand the position I am in as a westener, I am forced to look into this culture and art from the outside. This makes me a little hesitant to make judgements about it and such. This type of gaze is different to the male gaze. I feel the male gaze is intrusive and judgemental, and in contrast the identity gaze is careful and curious.

These sheets and dresses put the Tongan culture into what I think would be quite a contemporary context compared to normal Tongan culture. These pieces of work are associated with traditional things such as religion and marriage but in this context they are seen as works of art.

I think it would take a lot of learning to fully appreciate and understand what these works of art a really about, the gallery staff who talked to us about them mentioned that the patterns were made up of symbols. This is just a little piece of insight.

Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon- The 4th Auckland Triennial.

Last Ride is the 4th auckland triennial, and situates its works around ideas of risk, travel, and economic climate.

One of the artist i liked a lot was Shilpa Gupta, her works Singing Cloud and Untitled (airport split flap display board), were the ones that related to the tittle and theme of the triennial the most for me. The interaction Singing Cloud has with it's audience is quite intriguing. The ominous cloud of microphones makes noises which are very hard to pick up. They lure you in to try and make sence of it all but this is to no avail. The hand out says that the cloud was made after the 2008 bombay bombings, I like it because it has a very scary presance in the room, yet it invites you closer. The cloud can be compared to a cloud of smoke after a bomb has gone off. This coupled with the air port flip board which rolls over very scary statements makes a very bold statement about the risk of travel. Both these works use common objects to portray their idea, and both use noises to atract the audiences attention.

I think these to works were the most succssesful in the triennial, I did not like Alicia Frankovich's works. I struggled to link the works to what the gallery staff were saying. Also I felt that the works did not tie in well with the theme of risk and travel, i know that the human body has a key part to play in risk and travel, however the works did not even hint towards it.

As for a Maori representation I think it would have been good, but I think it would have been hard to intergrate Maori work into the brief. I havn't been influenced by much maori work, and don't have a very good understanding of what I have seen. However in saying this I still think the breif would have had to been alterd to suit a Maori influence. Maybe this is why there was no Maori work.

The Male Gaze

Your Gaze Hits The Side of My Face by Barbara Kruger represents the feminists view on the male gaze well. It does this because there is nothing that the viewer can do to avoid becoming a voyeur. The woman who is looking away suggests that she does not want to be seen, however she is not stopping the viewer. The superimposed words on the image become her thoughts, and seemingly tell the viewer not to look. This horrible position that the viewer (supposedly a man) is put in is inescapable. Kruger has made it impossible for the man to not be objectifying the woman, as in the picture she is an object. It is also impossible for your gaze to not hit her face, as this becomes the subject of the image.

I do not like this type of art because it stereotypes all men as bad people. As much as men objectify woman, this photo fights back and subsequently puts all men into one category, fighting fire with fire.

The film Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock can relate well to this image by Kruger. The small segment that we watched in class was a great representation of objectifying. We see all things in this segment through the male’s eyes, he is spying on her and we only see her as an object. There is no eye content between viewer and subject, just like "your gaze hits the side of my face".

There is one part in the film where the gaze gets turned around. This is when the woman is looking at the painting. The viewer of the film is looking at the man who is looking at the woman who is looking painting, and the painting looks back at the viewer and the man and woman. This is the closest we get to eye contact. Another part in the film I liked is when the man is in the alleyway. We see both him and her in the same shot, however he is behind a door. This door literally represents the doorway between the viewer and the subject. She is the woman in "Your gaze hits the side of my face" and he becomes the viewer of the image. The only difference is he is there by choice.

Te Tuhi exhibition responce.

The exhibition at te tuhi was interesting. Ideas behind collecting were highlighted in all the pieces.

One idea that I thought about whilst at the gallery was the idea of hoarding, as opposed to collecting.

Daniel Malone's work was a category of his possessions. I define a collection as a group of stuff that all relates to each other in one specific way. His stuff does not seem like a collection to me, however it does all relate in one way, and that is that it all belongs to him. At the end of last year I had to move house, it is only when you move that you realize how much stuff you accumulate throughout your existence. I thought that Daniel did not own much stuff, and it was more of a accumulation then a collection.

However in his work I saw a lot of humour which I liked. There was a tone in his work which kind of made fun of his possessions, and I imagine if you trawled though your own stuff you would have a bit of a laugh.

The peice of art I liked the most was Found Time: Big Ben, by Elizabeth McAlpine. All I could think of whilst looking at it was the Clash song London Calling, It played in my head over and over again. Not sure if this means anything...just an observation. What I really liked about the work was the way it was layed out. We talked about how it was in order and was a collection of postcards. The postcards were in order of "time taken" so older photos were mixed in with newer ones. I thought this was interesting because the natural way of ordering for me would have been date...not time of day.

What I also quite liked about the artwork (and we touched on this a wee bit) is how it is an ongoing artwork. It has a very nice sense of time, a few of the postcards are really old, and it would be really cool to see some of them become quite futuristic, not only is this work a collection of big ben photos its also a collection of time (or has the potential to be).

As the work fills up with postcards it will become harder to finish. This reminds me of level 3 physical education, which I took last year. In fitness training there is a rule called the Principle of Diminishing Returns, this is where as you become fitter, the gains you make in training become smaller. This principle can be applied directly to the art work. I like this because it makes the artwork a project which is ongoing and could take ages to complete.