Enhance 34 to 36, Blade Runner Clip UNIT THREE note

The photograph has been scrutinized for data, and in this still image (taken from the 1984 sci-fi film Blade Runner) it is shown to tell more than what appears. By looking through the surface deep into the reflections in the mirror, the protagonist is able to find a necessary clue. See entire clip here---->x

willingness to work with the uncertainties and the constantly evolving experiences we have in the world

In this project the photograph is used as a way to consider physical space. A main condition of the photograph is its capturing of time. As well there is a constant evolution, or progression to the state of existing things, that they in effect are instances of their existence in time.  

PROCESS: select an image, event, figure, object, situation, concept

Categorize it according to a "stayed" position, à la Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment, or even in terms of a definition, "It is THIS".

The artwork you make is an 'undoing' of this instance, of this definition. It is to provide the layering and the expanded view, or the exploded view of the instance. See "Things Come Apart" link in side-column.

Materials: Open
Consider: the frame of reference in which we are to observe the work in its final form

I'll be looking at the wider context with which the work is displayed: the state of the wall, the floor, the plinth etc. Clean them and have us (your viewers) focus on what it is you are saying with your work!


further examples:
Andreas Johansson, Sweden
Collete Fu, USA


Andreas Johnasson: photograph as shown in installation

Installation view (not the clean and purposeful room!)

Opposiing view (background props of photographs):

Colette Fu

Critique day 18 Mar 2014

Please click on grading rubric as listed in pages menu above.

It's going to be an awesome critique today. I can't wait to see the work.

Unit Two Criteria etc.

Criteria:

To make an installation that discusses two-dimensional catered space of a photographic image

Parameters:

The choice of subject-matter is open.

A chosen photograph is "involved" in the final installation. How the photograph figures into the final installation is to be determined by the artist. This relationship between photograph and the installation is to be understandable by the viewer.

The photograph can be the resource for the installation, or vise versa. The installation can be the subject matter for the photo.

Where the installation is situated is to be considered. The installation borders are evident for the viewers.

Scale is to be determined by the artist.

Materials are consistent with and add to the design intentions and concept behind the work.

critique parameters

Quoted from (Launching the Imagination)

Description: The first step is to look carefully and report clearly. Without evaluating, telling stories, drawing conclusions, or making recommendations, simply describe the visual organization of the work presented. A descriptive critique can help you see details and heighten your understanding of the design. The student whose work you describe learns which aspects of the design are most eye catching and readable and which areas are muddled and need work.

When using description in a spoken critique, it is useful to consider the following compositional characteristics:

• What is the format or boundary for the design? A circle or sphere presents a very different compositional playing field than a cube or a square.
• What range of colors has been used? A place and white design is very different from a design in full colour.
• What is the size of the project? Extremes are especially notable. A sculpture that is 10 feet tall or a painting that is one-inch square will immediately attract attention.
• Is the visual information tightly packed, creating a very dense design, or is the design more spacious, with a lot of space between shapes or volumes?

Cause and Effect

Build on description using cause-and-effect critique, you might conclude that  because [of certain design qualities] you might conclude the design is dynamic. In a cause-and-effect critique, you discuss consequences as well as choices.

Greatest Strength/Greatest Potential

Many projects have one notable strength and one glaring weakness. To create a positive atmosphere, start by pointing out the strength in the work. Begin by looking for [formal attributes]:

The level of unity in the design and how it was achieved.

The amount of variety in the design, and how much energy it generates, 

The visual rhythms used and their emotional effect.

The attention to detail. This could include craftsmanship, conceptual nuance, or compositional economy.

A conceptual spark. We all love to see an unexpected solution that redefines the imaginative potential of a project.

notes for UNIT THREE "At this Given Instance"

"I would say we all practice it even if we don't like the word conceptualist or conceptualism. What we're practicing is no longer an attachment to something finite, but rather a willingness to work with the uncertainties and the constantly evolving experiences we have in the world, which are of course in our current condition largely brought to us through the agency of technology." Ian Carr Harris

Premise: Unit Three looks the dematerialization of the object of art (Lucy Lippard). It is to analyze and to situate an instance (whether it be an event or an object) and provide evidence to the structure and make-up surrounding that event or object, whether of its making, or of its demize.

 It is to illustrate the larger trajectory that its evolution can be said to exist (i.e from before it was assembled, or after it came apart). 

It is to discuss in an artwork how we construct our understanding of something, whether it be a condition, a thought, a situation, an object, a story, a figure, an image, and how the conception of it is informed by the maintenance of it as a static whole. 

See the work of Gillian Wearing, Rachel Whiteread (House), Ian Carr Harris, Adad Hannah (Two Views), Francis Alys (When Faith Moves Mountains, 2002)

It uses the photographic image as a metaphor for this idea, that at some point things are held together but will eventually fall apart. (A literary reference to this it Alan Weisman's book "The World Without Us", 2007).

Photographs, particularly documentary photographs capture and represent a given instance in time. That all moments leading up to the photograph and all instances after will have shifted or changed and perhaps no longer even be in existence. It is what legendary documentary photographer Henri Cartier Bresson referred to as the decisive moment.

This project is to address in an artwork the shifting nature of an object and how "we assign a hierarchy of value" to it according to what we know---> how we arrive at the conception of what something is, that the conception of it unfolds in time. We learn about something, or have a notion about what something is and we either maintain that conception, or it is forgotten. It is influenced according to new information or of new conceptions. We assign a value to it.

PROCESS: There is a constant evolution, or progression to the state of how things exist. They are assembled and absolute only for an instant, and only for the time in which we perceive them, or elaborate on them in our mind.

This is an open project that uses installation and/or photography.

Exploration, Artistry, Editing, Making

The evaluation of projects and exercises can be a tricky affair, especially if the outcomes and goals remain unclarified before the work is due. It is important therefore to have the outcomes and expectations for a given project understood in advance - BEFORE the project is due.

We will be discussing the evaluation goals for UNIT TWO next class (mars 4).

Now in regard to this, a main evaluation goal is not simply the idea behind the work. I like to see is how the artwork itself expresses or communicates the idea; how the idea itself is in the world and not in your head alone (or if it is to be in your head alone, how might we see it --> see Joseph Beuys Theory of Sculpture, and Social Sculpture). For this course the comprehension of the project brief, your idea, and the relationship between the two are the focus. 

To get Started:
There is the loose idea you have about the project brief. To get somewhere with the idea (this can happen on account of being inspired or motivated by an idea - or not!) you actually have to work, with actions of the hands, making things or writing them down. Make a diagram of a concept, doodle, brainstorm,  record it, tape or film it, take a picture of it. It is a physical thing, not a discussion anymore or a thought. It's down on paper. This is the start of work in studio.You don't even have to have an idea yet as to what you're going to do. Sometimes it helps just to start sketching and playing.

Then there is a commitment to the process, a determination to demonstrate and experiment, to commit to the mistakes and learn from them. It is to make a statement and verify it with experience.

In terms of participation I love to see a willingness and courage to exact necessary edits and refinements given in a particular course of action in executing an artwork. Plan for yourself and allow for a rest period so the work has time to gestate. Then make further refinements. It's exploration, waiting, labour, waiting, artistry, editing, waiting; execution development, waiting, and remaking. These are the things we do when in studio.

In terms of evaluation: I'm interested in investments that people make in pursuing an outcome, and the evidence of research and discovery done in the preparing to execute a plan of action (with a sketchbook, or models for instance). This is the ask questions first part. It's the why am I doing this and what am I doing it for etc.?

It is a mastery of the materials and the labour in using them to communicate and to present a design. It is a consciousness of the materials, and how they may be read to make the concept known. It's a working with materials to have them do what you need them to. And it's time, to step away from the project and come back to it to understand what it is you've done (which you can't see right away usually).

_______________________________
To develop work:
Practice seeing (you do this when you draw from a model, or meditate). What is before you? See to know. Explain the things around you; write about them; describe them. Get inspired by words, by sounds, by sights....Put it down. Try to understand something by unknowing it; try to unname it, or to understand why it is you know about it simply because it is named.

Practice being okay with uncertainty. The next two unit projects have indeterminate results. And I've said before - knowledge production is about making choices (largely). It isn't about being right or wrong. It's blurry. You don't have to know precisely where you are going when you begin (you even don't have to know when you're in it). Let the actions of the hands carry you. This is the mind-mapping divergent thinking process. You can stay with an idea way longer if you're writing about it, or drawing it.

To work in Studio:

About Ideas:
The idea behind the work is one thing, but it isn't everything. An idea is the thought or suggestion to a possible course of action. Ideas are philosophical and have been used to cover a range of subjects. The idea provides the plan from which to work from. When chosen, a given idea can direct the way in which you conduct your exploration. It provides a grounding, and boundaries. It motivates and inspires.

Unit Two: Show no Show

"There is something in every picture, no matter how well-structured a picture is, that escapes being shown." (Jeff Wall 1993)

The new unit is called "Show-No-Show". Photographs only ever show a facet or angle of something. They capture an instance in time, and freeze it there, as if, it is the only thing that exists about that moment (until the next photograph is taken of it). For Henri Cartier Bresson this is photography's decisive moment. Sculpture exists in the round, and through time (you don't ever see all of a sculpture at once) yet the potential for it to be there, as always, is strikingly different from photography. It has physicality for one...

Unit Two project is to make an installation that endeavors to discuss two-dimensional catered space and time using sculpture - i.e. to state the difference between what the photograph shows and doesn't show and use sculpture/installation to do it. 

In other words you are to make a three dimensional statement (vis à vis installation) that discusses the limits, or exposes the "no-show" aspect of the photograph. Again, it is to use installation to "show" the no-show" in the photograph. 

This unit resonates with some of the points John Berger Ways of Seeing, episode one were outlining. "For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free." It is an artistic elaboration about what the group discussion uncovered 11 Feb, regarding aura. These aspects are part of theoretical essay writing by Walter Benjamin called The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 

For this unit project you can discuss the photograph in many ways. Principally you are re-investing the photograph with an aura of your own making. You take your cues from the photographic image itself and uses them to guide the installation construction.

With regard to project models, and references (on a kind of project spectrum) there is Panya Clark's artwork on the one end and Erin Shireff's artwork on the other. There is the taking a photographic still, and re-making it in the real (as if to elaborate on some fiction regarding the objects real or imagined existence) or to use the conventions of the artist monograph and photography and playfully use irony to build and expose the missing parts of the photograph using three dimensional form.

You are welcome to elaborate and develop a story based on what is imagined to exist in the photograph and use installation as the main production focus. You can work "backwards" or in this case make the sculpture and then photograph it and use the conventions of the monograph (with all the inherent strategies in photography - lighting, depth of field, focus, composition to name the principle ones, as well as develop a text to go with your sculpture) and present that as 'evidence' or as 'archive' to the real.

There are many ways to approach this project. Examples of artists working in this fashion include Panya Clark and Erin Shirreff. Early works of Canadian artist Liz Magor are relevant. Francis Alys's work "The Last Clown" (press <-- for link) demonstrates "behind the scenes"  studio as a kind of archive to the final completed work. 

Your job is as artist/curator. You are providing the broader context of the work. The source material comes from photography, or is in some manner derived from photography. It is to lay out the clues as to what one is looking at, or, to obscure them. It's to show, and not-to. A bit of a tease you might say....

Why This Course? Mini talk given as related to the Ways of Seeing, episode 1 with John Berger

I know I've been going on about the acronym WATER-FTW (i.e. what are the expected results from this work) and you're probably sick of it by now. But sometimes is is useful to ask the WHY question. And in this instance it's the "why this course?". A course like this could have many different titles: 


Sculpture and theatre
but for us it's the image that is key, and it provides the historical reference point from which we can understand how the practice began. And as we saw (week Feb 4th - Feb 11) with the Ways of Seeing, and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction things existed in the exact point/place at which they were meant to and were not especially transferable. If they where big (think The Temple at Karnac big) they really stayed put (mind you in the case of the temple at Karnac, the Egyptians extended very much for the monumental structures to stay put).
To see these big things, these artifacts, these objects, you had to physically travel there to behold them. And here behold is a kind of religious word but for us (in the Ways of Seeing context anyway) this is relevant. Often it would be on religious pilgrimage that someone would travel to go and see something that was anchored a special architectural setting (medieval church for example). In regards to the course then the bit of technology that shifted perception of things, well, to actually shake them right apart from their stability of being in one place exclusively - the invention of the camera.
You can now take a picture of the big thing, or the small thing and now you don't necessarily have to go to it (although you still might want to given it's importance to you). In other words, the camera mad things transferable.
With photography, the creating of images has informed a change on how we participate with objects and the world. This is a whole class in itself given to discuss this idea. It is the backbone of what we are doing here. Image creation, its speed of reproduction precipitates the breaking apart of whole static entities into very personal, layered, interchangeable, constituent parts and/or qualities that can be (will be if I have something to say about it!) explored in making of art.
So actually, with the course title Sculpture and Image we not only get the formal aspects and the principles and elements inherent with that, we also get the course content too (especially with regard to UNIT TWO: show, no show).
The hierarchy of a stable, uniform, singular object or image is brought into question. If it can be photographed it is as though it can be broken down, or taken apart, sliced, or skinned even.  Then the new representation of the object is mixed with other components (or contexts) and developed further into some other conception of reality.
I'm going to try (and I've been trying) to make this an understandable feature for the duration (and the remainder) of this course.

Sculpture and Language
Sculpture and the Human Form

With the Invention of the Camera there are losses and gains (class discussion)

group one
What's Lost?
(the losses can be perceived as gains, depending on your point of view)

Context
There's a distortion

Aura

make paintings obsolete

What's gained?

Have an appreciation of work on our own terms
There's more accessibility

group two

What's Lost?

Scale

value uniqueness of event

materiality

overdubbing (over an image) creates a difference

no frame, no environement

loss of intimacy

What's gained?

preservation of works existing now only in reproduction

accessibility

group three

What's Lost?

travel and going to the work, lost of momentum of ownership

scale (Voice of Fire e.g.)

Perspective

no longer involved in a journey or pilgrimage

What's gained?

Artwork available at all times

Satisfaction

couldn't get there necessarily (to see the Mona Lisa) but I still have a simulated experience of it.