Week 8: Craft

Craft

The word, "craft," has often been diminished in importance by popular culture and reduced to being loosely associated with hobby. The stereotype regarding craft is that one passively engages their work and that it doesn't necessarily require any creativity. It is often derided as being inferior to "art." Instead of seeing craft as separate from art, I see it as a necessary preparation, the training aspect of creativity. For the visual artist, it helps to strengthen the mind, sharpen the eyes, and develop the discipline to persevere with a task until the goal has been achieved.

Many of the artists and themes that we have explored this week would be arbitrarily categorized by some as "craft." After further exploration, however, we come to recognize the artistic value the work has and that this subversive categorization could not be further from the truth.

On tuesday the class was treated to a terrific guest lecture by Anya Kivarkis, a professor from the jewelry and metalsmithing department. Prior to this lecture, my understanding of jewelry making was very limited, other than being seen as a superfluous luxury and a pleasant gesture of love. In fact, most of the work that professor Kivarkis presented was not jewelry in the traditional sense of being luxury items, but instead addresses methods of production and ideas about luxury using jewelry. It is jewelry that comments on jewelry.

Gijs Bakker created a series of work that subverts the idea of luxury. In his Real Series, he takes pieces of real jewelry and from that design creates a larger-sized replica of the piece from costume jewelry. The smaller real piece of jewelry is then placed on top of the costume jewelry. The larger piece suggests that it is more important, even though the smaller piece contains authentic gemstones. This juxtaposition of these two pieces of jewelry, one "real" and one "fake," forces the viewer to place arbitrary value on the pieces and to determine which one is the valuable one, the "real" jewelry, or the costume jewelry replica created by the artist?




This other artist doesn't necessary work in the same medium but still addresses the same idea of value in his work. Kaz Oshiro paints replicas of ordinary objects that are nearly indistinguishable from the objects being copied. These ordinary objects, often overlooked in real life, are endowed with greater value once the viewer acknowledges it as a copy. The object is made of a different material than the original and lacks functionality, yet despite this, it is more valuable than the object that it copies because of the realization that it is a work of art. The object reveals a process and the focus emphasizes the the artist more than the object. When this ordinary object is encountered again in everyday life, the viewer may observe it closer this time.






Another artist that we have observed over the last week is John Feodorov. Born of Polish and Navajo descent, Feodorov is highly influenced by his conflicting heritage and explores the idea of spirituality in his work. Much of his work takes Navajo folklore and traditions and puts a contemporary spin on it. Feodorov describes his own work as "artifacts of contemporary desperation--a search for a Something, an Other, that may or may not exist." His Totem Teddies represent this spiritual conflict. While the bear symbolizes power and dignity in many native cultures, it has been castrated of its dignity in the contemporary form of a teddy bear and has transformed into a cute and cuddly commodity. In an effort to reinstate some of its lost dignity, Feodorov instills spiritual qualities into the teddies in an attempt to regain some of their lost dignity. However, despite his attempts, the whole prospect also seems desperate and hopeless because they are still teddy bears and in that form cannot possess qualities of power and dignity.





A video work by Feodorov presents a common issue in contemporary society and attempts to rectify it through traditional spiritual means. In his video, "Office Shaman," Feodorov takes a common issue in contemporary society, workplace productivity, and attempts to find a spiritual solution to it through traditional shamanistic ritual reformatted for the work environment. The result is humorous but also desperate in that it is aware of its own desperation. This causes one to question whether by attempting to reformat these traditions for a workplace environment whether the tradition itself is undermined and ridiculed?



Observing the work from this week has proven to me that even work that may seem like craft can still be endowed with meaning. Craft is a necessary process of art and without it the artists' intent would be less effectively communicated.

Week 7: Permanence

We were told by our professor that this week would be the most difficult to comprehend and in a way, she is right. So many themes have been criss-crossing our thoughts, but since I promised in my very first blog entry that I would attempt to discuss an overall idea each week, the main theme I feel that I should discuss is the idea of permanence.

We as human beings exist in nature. There is no way that we cannot exist in nature. However, we have been led to think of art as this eternal force, some mighty entity whose holiness exists beyond time and nature. When I was very young and first introduced to art, I was provided the generic examples of what "art" is: Greek statues of figures with slender movements and blank stares. The "Mona Lisa," forever preserved in a glass shrine sitting in the Louvre. All the examples I was first introduced to all had one fundamental thing in common: They existed in the seemingly timeless context of the gallery space. The white space of a gallery evokes the aura of the eternal, an environment outside of nature. However, this is a very conceited way of looking at the art. The reality is that someday all the art we see now will all be gone; the Greek statues will crumble, the Mona Lisa (despite the best efforts on the part of preservationists) will discolor and disintegrate. Even the buildings that house these works will eventually return to the earth. Many contemporary artists have understood this fact and have explored making work that is cognizant of being part of nature.


Robert Smithson was a sculptor who often worked in nature. His best known work is "Spiral Jetty", an artificially bulldozed rock formation off the coast of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. He specifically chose the site to near Golden Spike National Historic Site, the location of the famed golden railroad spike symbolizing the connection between West and East. The location of the jetty on the Great Salt Lake is barren and void of life, as though time has stood still. However, the tide still comes in and out and sometimes the jetty is submerged and sometimes it is visible from shore. This process erodes it over time and inevitably it will disappear. The work remains permanent as an idea but is only temporary in its execution.


Another artist who collaborates with nature in his work is Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy really experiments with the idea of impermanence in his work. Every material he uses is found in nature; no man-made material is used to attach organic pieces together. He is not committed at all to the idea of preservation. The only remaining evidence left of his work is in photographs. As an artist one of the most difficult undertakings is to be indifferent to the fate of work and embrace the transitoriness of the natural environment. Andy examines this notion in his work every day.





There was an excellent documentary created about his work called "Rivers and Tides". This is a trailer for the film:



French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes wrote a pivotal essay challenging the glorification of the author as a permanent fixture in literary work. Though it was originally written in the context of literary criticism, it also applies to the artist and artwork as well and has been adopted by the art community. In it, he proposed that "to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author." This can be interpreted in many ways, and has been strongly debated by both the art and literary community since it was written in 1977. What it means to me is that in order for the reader to completely appreciate the work, the work must become about the reader. The author must relinquish their position as sole interpreter of the work and distance themselves from it so that the work can stand independently on its own. While I do agree with Barthes that the age of the glorified author is on its way out, it is sometimes knowing who the author is adds invaluable information to the work. This is especially relevant to work of a political nature, where the identity of the author is wedded to the work. I believe that what he is disputing are the egotistical tendencies of the author to his work and advocating for greater accessibility of the work for the viewer. This essential text is something that I will continually be referring back to as an art student.


Thinking about the art that we have seen this week has made me contemplate my transitoriness in the world. Everyday I walk through campus and see that I am only one of thousands of other students, all of whom are at this university for very similar reasons, with very similar goals and aspirations; whose parents have probably said similar words of encouragement to help them while pursuing their education. I am a part of this environment like everyone else and I struggle to establish what sets me apart from everyone else here. I have been struggling with this for quite some time. I found a quote from William Kentridge in the documentary, "Anything is Possible" that really hit close to home for me. In this scene, Kentridge was recalling a conversation he had with a friend where he was asking his friend what he should do with his life. He quoted his friend as saying,

"You're now 25, 28. You have never had a job. You are unemployable. Stop talking about someone giving you a job. No One will give you a job. Do what you're doing and make a success of it, or a failure of it, but stop imagining that there's going to be a different trajectory for you."

I have always known that I will be doing something with my life that involves art in some capacity. Hearing this made me realize that I shouldn't be reliant on the traditional path of employment that so many other students struggle with. I might as well make my own path like William Kentridge does. In the end, that is what will set me apart from other students here.

Going Digital

My generation is being inundated with digital media. We are drowning in a sea of information that so many of us believe we are in control of, but are in fact oblivious to its apparent control over us. Walking through campus at any given time of the day (even before my 8 AM classes - seriously, who could you possibly be messaging that is awake at that ungodly hour?), I'll see so many people immersed in their mobile devices, completely ignoring the presence of other human beings who are sharing their physical environment. When I attended Sarah Lawrence, where there were class sizes of no greater than 15 students, it would be impossible to slip a quick text or check e-mail while under the close observation by the professor. At the University of Oregon, however, where lectures can regularly exceed more than 100 students, it is not uncommon to see half the students covertly catching glimpses of their shiny beepy things. And even though it is academic policy in most classes that electronic devices are forbidden, students can't help the hypnotic allure of technology. Even I cannot deny that technology has had that affect on me at times.

Though I find myself being critical of the influence that technology has had over us, what I have seen in lecture over the past week has made me realize that technology may have some negative influences on us, but it can also be a powerful force for change. John Park, a digital arts faculty member, shared many of my same concerns in his guest lecture. His three biggest issues with digital media are:

1. It lacks the tactile experience. Digital media as we think of it is viewed on a two-dimensional screen and thus lacks a certain richness and depth that is seen in other mediums.

2. It is expensive. Because digital media is always getting upgraded and improved, it is one of the biggest money-making enterprises. A piece of technology that was considered top-of-the-line at its release could be obsolete within only a few years.

3. It's turning us into zombies. In addition to demanding an exorbitant amount of our time and attention, it simultaneously dehumanizes us in the process.

After seeing this, it was nice to know that someone else shared my similar sentiments, especially someone whose profession is in the digital realm.

After he presented the shortcomings of digital media, he presented examples of work by digital artists who were using the medium for making social statements.

One of the strongest pieces he presented was the collaboration of digital media with dance. Prior to Park's presentation, I never really made the connection before, but the combination of dance and digital media explores new creative avenues of dance that have never before been possible and has expanded my conceptual understanding of what dance can do. The work by Chunky Move Dance Company pushes these limits using interactive projections that change form and respond directly to the movements of the dancers. In this case, the digital media is a tool, as well as the dancers. The dancers are absorbed into the projections, no longer human but part of the media instead. It becomes uncertain whether it is the dancers who are controlling the projection, or the projection that controls the dancers.

Chunky Move Dance Company - Mortal Engine


Back when I was living in New York I saw another performance by Pilobolus Dance Theater at The Joyce. The Joyce Theater is a contemporary dance venue that presents work that explores new ideas in dance and performance and Pilobolus fits perfectly into this idea. who similarly use digital media and dance in their work. The performance, "Shadowland" uses the guise of a screen to create optical illusions and create new forms with their bodies.

Pilobolus Dance Theater - Shadow Land


There is a lot of other work being done in digital media that goes beyond dance. In addition to being spectacular, digital media can also be very interactive. David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) created an installation at the Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan called "Playing the Building". He assembled an old organ to act as a trigger activating various devices throughout the space that created noises. This allowed the person playing the piano to not only experience the space in a new way, but to have control over the space as well. So much of the time if feels as though digital media has a hold over us, but in his piece, David Byrne creates an experience that gives us complete control over our environment.

David Byrne - Playing the Building


What I have learned from this week is that it can also be a powerful force for creating good. It is a pliable medium that can be applied in a seemingly infinite amount of ways. The debilitating qualities of social media end up being balanced out by the incredible innovations being made in art with digital media. It is a language that my generation has immediate access to and is familiar with. Therefore, the message communicated through digital media is also capable of being much more influential than traditional mediums. A final example of work is not digital media per se, but is a great example of social commentary in a digital media format.

Jersey Shore RPG Video Game

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

In conclusion, I have come to realize that digital media is only a tool, and it is up to us to decide how to best use it.

Now to end this post, I have to share with you something that my dad sent me in an e-mail. Despite all my railing on digital media that I have done, I have to say that this is definitely one of the most awesomest pieces of technology I have ever seen. I know that that is not a word, but it is the only way I can describe something so amazing. Click on this link for the Youtube video to watch. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=cuIJRsAuCHQ

The Power of Photo (and Photoshop)

What is it about photography that sets it apart from other mediums in art?
This is the question that our class has been exploring over the course of this week in both our readings and lectures.

Photography is relatively new as an art form and it's amazing to think how far the medium has gone since its first inception. The first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce out of his window in Le Gras, France, in 1826. Although it is very grainy and difficult to recognize, it is different from any other medium that came before it.
It started out as an experiment and wasn't really considered in the realm of art until the early 20th century. Since then, the most significant addition to photography since the introduction of color film has been the incorporation of digital into the photography repertoire, which is a relatively new development. Since then, photography has been divided into two devoted camps, one devoted to the traditional methods used in film, and another that has embraced the new technology as a means of easy photo manipulation. Traditional photographers are repulsed by digital photography and photographers who work in digital cannot understand, with all the advantages of ease and spontaneity, why anyone in their right mind would still work in film. I believe that the staunch opposition and sides taken between the two forms of photography undermines the medium as a whole and prevents both means of being seen as viable options of self-expression. I am not going to engage in discourse over which form of photography is superior because that is entirely missing the point. Each have their respective advantages and disadvantages, and choosing one form over the other undermines the creative potential of the artist. While the mechanical process of traditional photography provides certain results, the path to which this is achieved doesn't have to be concrete. From the work materials of last week, we saw work by Ann Hamilton in which she used her mouth as an aperture. She created images using a pinhole camera device that could be placed in the mouth and pointed toward a subject. When she opened her mouth, the paper was exposed and the image was transferred to the surface.




This is one example in which the photographic process itself can be manipulated and in which the traditional conception of photography can be stretched.

Digital photography is opening up a new realm for the medium and turning the established convention on its head. Photography was always trusted for its ability to honestly capture real life. But now that any photograph can be imported into Photoshop and manipulated to heart's content, this attribute unique to photography is starting to change. The digital manipulation of images has sometimes been met with success, and sometimes with (gently put) unintended results (see below).



Complex Magazine did an amazing review on their website of 50 Great Moments in Photoshop History. Another great source for terrible Photoshop work is the blog Photoshop Disasters.
However, not all Photoshop work is crap, nor is it only a tool for sinister intentions of manipulating real life. Digital Art professor Craig Hickman sees things where others don't. Though that could be said for any artist, Craig uses the power of Photoshop to create things that should be there. His work weds the real, physical world with surreal concepts. Craig has done a whole series of images where he uses Photoshop manipulation to create text and images on signs and walls where nothing initially existed. Craig's work takes the ordinary physical world and attempts to imbue it with some magic. What this seems to do is disrupt our normal relationship to the external world and surprise us with a new perspective. We are conditioned to see advertising that asserts or commands an action or impulse from us, and it comes as a complete shock when we instead encounter ideas and metaphors instead. On a marquee where we would maybe expect to see "99 cent cheeseburger" we instead find "sodium thiosulfate." Since I am unable to copy any images from Craig's website onto this blog due to copyright, you can see his work by clicking here.

A lot of what artists do is experiment with that balance of the internal and external world. This is especially true of photography. We have a unique relationship to photography in that it replicates the external world with such accuracy that we feel close to the subject. Unlike the process of other mediums, film is very spontaneous and mechanical; the camera is pointed, the aperture and shutter speed are adjusted to provide the desired shot, the photo is snapped, the image being transferred to the negative. The film is sent through various baths of chemicals to expose the negative image. The image is transferred to a surface. Take, develop, print. That's basically the process of photography in a nutshell.

But as we can see, photography does not need to be confined to the conventional methods of point-and-shoot.

To me, photography is one of the most exciting mediums to use. The development of color film yields instantly yields colors that would take much longer to replicate with paint. The process of imitating the natural world is relatively simple. Because of the medium's novelty, there are still many more ways that the medium can be stretched and explored. Another one of my favorite artists, Dan Eldon, uses the method of drawing directly on the developed image. Eldon was a white boy who grew up in Kenya most of his live and had an uninhibited sense of curiosity, exploring outside with camera in hand, documenting the natives whom he met along his travels. He tragically died at the young age of 22 while on a photo shoot for Reuters in Somalia, documenting the civil war there, but his beautiful journals forever serve as a testament to his memory and his creativity. His use of drawing on images and embedding them into his journal pages in a form of collage reflect a tradition of folk art and created an organic element to the chemical and mechanical energy of photography. Suddenly, these images were not rigid and permanent, but became melded with the organic brushstrokes of the human hand.

The potential that photography has as a medium is exciting to imagine. There are many more ways that photography can be used that haven't been explored by anyone… yet. All it takes is a bit of excitement and sense of fun. If the work is taken too seriously, it will continue to be confined to the conventions that have been established for it. It is up to us as artists to always explore the potential of our work, sometimes with reckless abandon, and to be impervious to failure.

As the weeks pass in this course, I begin to recognize a recurring idea regarding process: curiosity, wonder, novelty. To be a creator, the world needs to be approached every day with new eyes, always striving to see the same thing in many different ways. One thing that i struggle with in my art is surmounting that ominous slope of conventional thinking and to not be intimidated by it or held back from this objective by fear of failure or fear that I am doing something incorrectly and that there is a correct way to do things. With photography it can be very easy, based on the mechanical aspect alone, to be thinking of work in terms of correct and incorrect, wrong and right. It takes courage to put this type of thinking aside and fully trust your abilities as a creative thinker. However, it is possible, and when that pandora's box of creativity is finally opened, there's no telling how it would be possible to stop of deluge of creative ideas that begin flowing from your noggin.

There are so many more places photography can be taken to and expanded upon. The potential that photography has as to where it can go is exciting.