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but for us it's the image that is key, and it provides the historical reference point from which we can understand how the practice began.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
