You're Fired!!

Todays lecture saw quite an interesting lecture from Bepen Bhana. He did things rather differently. He didnt show us ANY of his work. But instead concetrated more on the influences behind his work. He showed us artists such as Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman. Then he showed us an episode of 'The Apprentice UK'.

This episode saw those British entrepreneur's being pushed into a world of art. Yes, art. This was such a culture shock to most of those contestants. Their mission or objective for the episode was to choose two photographers, and hang and sell their work to the excited public. Most of the contestants didnt have an appreciation or an understanding of the artwork. But I only felt this because I study visual arts and it is something I am interested in. They however looked at the art from a commercial point of view. They picked their 'favourite' photographers or photographs, I couldnt help but noticing that they chose the photographs which were pretty and attractive to them and more so what they thought the public would be interested in. I'm going to look at this from their point of view. I am putting myself into their heads, I am going to become a greedy woman in a lavendar pant suit and pretend that I want to make millions of dollars. For now all I know is money and business.

So, hi. I'm Kerrie, business woman extraordinaire, with a British accent. In my business woman head I can see why the contestants did what they did. They wanted to make money, they arent artists, they are little business robots. It was primarily about selling the artwork, which in some cases is as important as the art itself. I mean an artist needs to survive somehow. So they do the unthinkable, they remove all emotional response to the artwork and sell it to the world. Most of the photographs in that episode was sold at a rather high price. Which is perfectly fine, they aimed high. Good on them! Some were over priced individuals and some were sold as a set. One would want an individual as no one else would have it. It was rather funny to see the contestants set up the gallery space to sell the artwork. Some of the contestants approached selling the artwork by talking to the buyers, and faffing around, just you know, casually talking about the artwork, trying to appreciate it.

While some homed in on a person who seemed 'interested' in the art work and haggled to make a sale. I think that the value in the sense of appreciating the artwork was lost in this episode. They saw value in the money side of things, 'Duh'. But really this episode I think was a learning curve for the contestants. So Donald Trump and Sir Alan, shame on you. Have an appreciation, otherwise, you're fired.

'Like two mountain climbers roped together'

Today we had a rather interesting lecture from Fran Allison. Interesting you say?? Well I at least thought so. Not only did I find her jewellery work really beautiful and refreshing but I also found that the way she works is interesting as well. Fran likes to explore different material, re configure pre existing material, and experiments. Fran sees her work as 'uncomfortably seductive'. Fran talked extensively on the idea of collaborating with other artists. Collaborative art means to work jointly, especially in a literary artistic production. I find the idea of collaborative art really intresting. I found it interesting how one can be in a group or collaboration, do their own work and in the end come together as a group and deal with concerns
and ideas.
I believe that collaborating with a fellow artist or group of artists is indeed a fantastic idea. Maybe for myself right now in my art school years isn't the right time. But certainly in the future I would like to. I see a certain strength and unity between artists and their work when they collaborate. There is indeed a strength in collaboration because well, obviously two heads are better than one. The art work will also have a tendancy to develop and re evolve into something better or even into something worse. Artistic collaboration also puts forth some questions about the 'nature of authorship, authenticity and the artists' relationships to their work and audience'.[http://www.collabarts.org/] Some artists work collaboratively in a positive way, while some choose to collaborate and deal with such issues agains politics and cultural regimes.
A great example of a good collaboration was between the two artists Picasso and Baraque. Picasso described his and Braques relationship and collaboration as 'We were like two mountain climbers roped together'. [http://www.augustana.ualberta.ca/files/group/3029/20Cbraque2009.pdf] I also strongly believe that collaboration not only strengthens group work and interaction greatly, but it is also an intimate and precious gift to work with someone with the same thoughts and ideas. Putting your head together with one a person similar to yourself can certainly create a really strong body of work. Not only can collaboration do that, but it can also [and I strongly stand by this] develop and enhance one's own individual practice.

Fiction and Reality...Blurred.

Three, two, one AND action!!!!! Hi there, today we had a lecture from Eldon Booth. Eldon Booth is the man at moving image. He works within the art world and the commerical world. These two extremes has prompted his work to deal with things like blurring the lines between fiction and reality and mixing and experimenting. Booth is also very interested in creating illusion of reality, and then an illusion of the reality being recorded. Confussed yet?? Yes, I am. Its kind of like going to a carnival and going into one of those psychotic mirror rooms, where theres a mirror reflecting a mirror, which reflects a mirror, which reflects you, and you are holding a video camera.

But seriously lets not get silly now. Fiction and reality are two very opposite ideas. 'Fiction' means creation. And reality of course means, well, reality or the real. It is interesting how film and television these days shows these two ideas. Now when I think of Fiction movies or TV I think of The Matrix and Lost and things like that. Get a grip they aren't real, well not yet anyway. They are just a creation of some madman who wishes his world could be all strange and slow motion. But haaha imagine that, dodging a bullet by bending backwards. But seriously, there are some pretty wacky movies out there, some are genius, refreshing and amazing. And some, well not so successful. Im not going to name any. Now reality is the exact opposite, yes, you guessed it, opposite! Shows such as Survivour, Extreme Makeover and Girls of the Playboy Mansion are some of the many reality TV shows that society cant get enough of. But think about it, how much of this stuff that you see on your screen, is true. I'll bet maybe a tiny fraction is real because my friend the media lies. The reason for reality TV is to entertain and engage audience, its all exciting 'real' life drama about normal people such as yourself. This is why we cant get enough. So really, in reality, reality TV isnt real because sometimes it is staged. And that is just for money and to entertain. REALITY TV!! I am ashamed. But really who do you think is going to win in America's Next Top Model??

Reality has been pushed into cinema as well. But its not all about surviving in the wild, whilst builidng a house from sticks and spit. Its not about who gets to sleep with Hef. Its about documentary. Yup, I said it, documentary. Now many things have been made into documentaries. The Grandfather of documentary was Robert Flaherty, he was famous for the documentary 'Nanook of The North' this documented the life of those strange Eskimos. But lets not go on too much about Nanook. Society really does like documentary because I guess most of them hit close to home. Such as the documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' which tried to answer the quesiton about America and its gun violence problem. But some documentaries can blurr fiction and reality. Sometimes they are known as 'mocumentaries' and a great example of a great mocumentary is our very own Peter Jacksons documentary or mocumentary called 'Forgotten Silver'. This was a documentary telling the story of 'forgotten' New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie, and the rediscovery of his lost films, which presenter Peter Jackson claims to have found in an old shed. McKenzie is presented as the first and greatest innovator of modern cinema, single-handedly inventing the tracking shot (by accident), the close-up (unintentionally), and both sound and color film years before their historically documented creation. The film also shows fragments of an epic Biblical film supposedly made by McKenzie in a giant set in the forests of New Zealand, and a 'computer enhancement' of a McKenzie film providing clear evidence that New Zealander Richard Pearse was the first man to invent a powered aircraft, several months prior to the Wright Brothers'

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Silver]

And get this, most of New Zealand was fooled into believing that this was all real. Haha New Zealand, you got served. This small example of blurring fiction and reality really puts forth the idea that anyone who wants to believe, will believe. Oh, and that TV and some cinema lies. But on a more serious note, some cinema documents actuall reality. But not in a documentary style. Such as the movie 'Elephant' by Gus Van Sant. Yes this is a sad but true story, but it is Van Sant's own rendition of what happened that fateful day at Columbine. This rather poetic film hits you right in the heart and you cant help but feel for the characters in the movie, simply because they are so real and believable.

Are You Being Served?

This week we had Richard Orjis speaking to us, I was rather excited as I had seen an article about Richard Orjis in the 'Sunday' magazine. Which is my favourite read on a Sunday when I'm on a break at work. Anyways, he is a photographer who likes to combine and juxtapose, likes magazines, likes the idea of narrative through stills, likes connection with history and finally relates art to nature. I was captured from the moment he showed us his images. They were beautifully presented careful works with vivid blacks, serious faces and stunning flowers. I am of course talking about his 'Empire of Dirt', 'In my fictive, mythical and gothic Empire of Dirt a contemporary pagan, earth-worshipping cult, endeavours to make links with the natural world...' Unlike most of the previous lecturers he bought magazines!!!! Yes, those beautuiful glossy wonders, filled with boring words and amazing pictures. I love magazines, I have a book in my room where I stick pictures that I like from various magazines. The reason that Orjis had bought magazines was to show us his images had been placed in magazines. I was in awe, for me having one of my photos in a magazine would be brilliant, millions of people would look at them, hopefully cut the image out and stick it in their own scrap books and glance at it every now and then. I wouldnt mind at all. What I was also fascitated by was that Orjis encouraged photographers to go out there and ask for work experience. And that is my mission for the holidays.

Right, back to the question. 'High Culture' you ask. Well, um I guarantee that most people writing about 'High Culture' in these blogs will talk about designer fashion, expensive fur coats, cigars and chiwawa's in pink purses. And then there's 'Popular Culture' and I'm guessing that people will talk about 'fresh' shoes, The Simpsons, mainstream music and those naughty celebrities. Lets look at 'High Culture' and 'Popular Culture' from an art point of view. Here we go, societies definition of:

A 'High Cultured' person: A person with an appreciation for 'High Art' including literature, music and visual arts. A person who walks around in tight italian made pants and Ralph Loren shirts, oh and they also have shiny shoes and slick greased back hair. A person who is well educated and visits all the BIG fancy art galleries with their check books.

A 'Popular Cultured' person: A person with limited knowledge of 'High Art' including literature, music and visual arts. A person who walks around in ripped jeans, bogan t-shirts, oh and they also have grotty converse shoes and messy hair. A person who is living in the culture the culture in which everyone wants to live in. Normally associated with celebrities in tv/movie/radio industry.

Stereotypes are stupid. Stupid! Why do we do this, why does society want to put people in their place simply because of the way they look, act or where they were educated. Think about this, what if a 'popular cultured' person walked into a big fancy art gallery. How would people feel? How would this messy, underdressed person be percieved. I do that all the time, I walk into art galleries in jeans etc, I dont care. The good thing is that no one actually looks at me funny, New Zealand's a good place like that. Or what if a 'high cultured' person walked into the store 'Hot Topic'??!!! Jeez, beneath our fancy or 'hip' exterior's is a person, we are only human. We all have the right to walk into the Warehouse or Gucci [actually not Gucci, I heard that you stand at the door and the people from the 'inside' look at you and decide whether or not to let you in , depending on if you look rich]

But really I think that popular culture and high culture in art has been blurred. I mean look at Andy Warhol's work. He's turned 'popular culture' into 'high art', his Monroe pictures and Campbell Soup Cans fetch for like millions of bloody dollars, they are hung in fancy art galleries. They can relate to both 'popular culture' and 'high culture'. Duchamp turned a urinal into a fountain, Picasso turned a bicycle seat and handle bars into a bulls head. These works are priceless. The world would break into global panic if one of these works were stolen. You don't think a normal person can make 'high art' because they were bought up in 'popular culture' But at the end of the day, most if not all famous pictures, artwork etc will end up on the internet or magazine's where I can just rip them up and stick into my book.

Is there a time for that, yeah? But its time to change, Yeah!

This week we had an excellent lecture from Rebecca Hobbs. She concentrated on important factors and ideas that influenced and helped her photography to develop. These idea's ranged from, cinema, music, images [form] arbitrayness [I hope thats a word] commitment, pathways, tangents and planning.
How do I approach idea development do you ask?? Thats a great question and one that I know that I'm going to struggle to answer. Soooooo I'm just going to have a crack at this and say what ever comes to mind. First, let me start with influences. I am greatly influenced by music. Seldom do you see me without my ipod. Seldom do I not have a song stuck in my head. Sometimes music would influence my work, but really its just a motivator, it keeps me going. Its music artists and singers such as Nightwish [Finnish, Symphonic power metal] Lacuna Coil [Italian, Rock metal] Otep [American, Avant-garde metal] and more recently Crystal Castles, You Love Her Cause She's Dead and Kap Bambino, who are all electronic, experimental, noise bands. They sound a bit like nintentdo games. Movies and cinema also influence me, I really enjoy Film Festival movies etc. But when it comes to my work and starting it off I often feel blind folded. I dont know where its going to go and where its going to end. It would be safe to say that my work develops via experimentation and artist models. So, artist models and research is important. I do it because its second nature to me, it was drilled into me at college. All I heard was 'Artist models!!! Artist models!!' and 'Development and regeneration!!'

Sometimes I don't have a reason for making the artwork, there isnt a special meaning behind it, man half the time I have no idea why I do it, I just do it because I love it or because I want to learn and improve, sometimes it just comes to me, call it intuition. But thats stupid, of course all work has a meaning, the meaning or ideas of my work usually come to me at the end when I sit down and actually look at the work. So right now I'm going to bullet point my process of working:
1. Medium: whether it be photography, 2D, object, moving image, digital.
2. Idea: Wait do I actually have one?!!! Do I even like the medium in which I'm working with?? When will I get an idea?? Am I inspired??
3. Stew: It cooks up in my mind. Sometimes I write the ideas down.
4. Learn: How do I do it??
5. Do It: If it fails, I'll do it again!!!
6. Research: Look at it, does it remind me of any artists?? Consume books, images, internet.
7. Do It Again!: Try to improve and develop it. Experiment with it.
8. Completion: Hurraaahh!! Its done! Now I can properly look at it and find out new things about the work and about myself.

Now once the work is done I can look at it and see the meaning behind it. This year I have found that my work within studio practice deals with family, especially the family members that are no longer alive, its probably because I didnt get to give them a proper goodbye, my screen printing dealt with my Grandfather. I only want to concentrate on the past of people and not where I've been or have come from. Where I am now is a good place, right now and in this moment is good. Secondly, people. Portraiture and bodies. Faces, expressions, emotions. Third, music and how it makes me feel and how I want it to make others feel. Next is lighting, its beautiful thats all I can say. Fifth would have to be words, the content and meaning of words, how they are put together and create impact. How I can change the formation of words to make it look or feel different to people. And possibly for my last studio rotation I am going to concentrate on my family.
As for the X factor, I think everyone has the X factor. My X factor comes from my experiences [which arent all that interesting, some people have better ones] but they make me who I am today, they make me Kerrie. Also my surroundings and what I'm dealing with internally at the time, by that I mean in my mind.

Kap Bambino - Dead Lazers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5E4QUUFG9Y&feature=related

The art of Archiving

This week we had the pleasure of hearing from lecturer, Steve Lovett. As Steve puts it, 'The focus of my work is continually shifting, yet there are a series of thematic concerns and formal visual concerns.' Much of Lovetts work concerns time, transition and loss. Working primarily with print, and believing that print images are nomadic by nature, Lovett is all about recording, processing and transmitting information. An archivist if you must. Lovett often archives much of his life and experiences, such as the idea of getting lost, navigation, unfamiliar teritory, history, us, family, education, access, social spaces and cultural spaces.

For me, upon hearing the word 'archiving' I see files upon files, draw's upon draw's of discarded, unwanted, dusty, precious and secretive information. Wikipedia defines archiving as this, 'An archive is a collection of historical records, and the location in which the collection is kept.[1] Archives contain records (primary source documents) which have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime'

I definately see Lovett's work as a way of archiving. But not in the sense of filing and stowing away information in dusty rooms for people to sift through and find years later. But infact his way of archiving is visual, we see and get a feeling of his experiences, his ideas and the context behind this. I certainly believe that there is a sense of autobiography in most designers and artist's work. It may be impossible not to make work about your beliefs or yourself, it may not be present at the time, it may even be subconscious and psychological, unless the artist can completely remove themself and their experiences from the work. Some artists make their life work upon archiving themselves, call it selfish if you must, but its just like keeping a GIANT scrapbook. Whilst some artists are set upon archiving people and places such as Christian Boltanski, who archives things of both himself and of other people.

I find I quite like making work like this but, not about myself but about my family, I have a very strange and interesting family tree, but thats for another time. I have, in the past made work about loss and the death of a family member, I think that in doing this it helps me to deal with the loss, and is sort of a rememberance of them. Although my recent 2D print about my Grandfather you can hardly see him because of the colour of ink, he almost fades into the paper. This means that he is all but a memory, fading, but still there.