While I am a student of Media, Society and the arts, I feel as though art always seems to escape me. Art in the classic sense has never really been something that has captured my attention or given me any special feelings inside when looking at it. Even when I am trained to think of some things as classic art, I still can't understand why people believe so and find them to be more often then not pretentious.
However, with New Media Art, I feel as though I finally understand some of it and can appreciate it much more than something by pollack or picasso. The lecture given to us last week made me realize even moreso how I can connect with New Media Art on a much better level than I can with classic art. I also feel as though with New Media Art, its a broader spectrum of things, so even if you don't appreciate one aspect, you may be able to appreciate another.
I found some of the experiments to be quite interesting. In one of my other classes we actually saw a movie with the two actors pretending to be members of an indigenous tribe. While in my other class I hadn't thought of that as art, I could see how in another context it can be looked at as performance art, and through the use of video, it becomes new Media Art. Another one of the experiments that caught my eye was done by Brooke Singer. The idea of studying people and how they react to having their information shown at the swipe of a card was interesting.
I think what fascinates me most about New Media Art is the idea that it doesnt need to be art in the typical sense. It doesn't have to be a beautiful or artistic photograph. It doesnt need to be some amazing theatre performance to be considered art. The ideas can range from photographs to experiments to interactive sharing (such as the dream message system).
I have continued to tell mysef to make trips to the Neuberger to check out the artwork there and to take advantage of something so close. My first trip was for this lecture, where I didn't get to do much looking, but I think in march when the Off the Grid exhibition comes around I may spend some more time there. I'm looking foward to seeing Loius Hock's work on illegal immigration (it's something that hits close to home as my boyfriend is here purely on a visa though him and his family came illegally), as well as Brett Blooms showing of prisoner inventions.
I feel as though Brett Blooms showing of these such things are a similiar idea to Duchomp's ready mades. Bloom is taking something that is already made, recreating it, and showing it to those outside of a prison cell. I find this similiar to Duchomps idea of taking something and placing it on display and calling it art for others to see.
Perhaps New Media art is a continuation or a spin off (in a very loose sense of these words) of the dadaist movement. These things are not our idea of classic art, some may even look and say these things are not art at all, however they are slowing gaining recognition, as did Dadaism. Perhaps today our New Media Art is the Dadaism for this generation. One day, perhaps in museums worldwide we'll see a lot more New Media Art placed on display or recognized as high Art.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Architecture After Couture
The Varnelis reading spoke of the art of architecture and how it is related to fashion. The author gives examples of how architecture and fashion were used as ways of showing a class status starting at around the time of the Enlightenment.
However, we were told moreso to focus on the aspects of power, protest, and pleasure. When looking through the article for these things, it has plenty to offer. Many of the examples in the article have all three of these intertwined. For example when speaking of Louis XIV, power and pleasure go hand in hand.
Even from the first paragraph when the author reminisces of a metting with an older grad student, it is pointed it that by the clothes the grad student was wearing he was apparently more knowledgeable. This is an example of how fashion can portray power. Because you look better, people assume you may be knowledgeable. A more easily accessible example may be looking at a construction worker and an office worker. People may assume that because the office worker is more likely in some sort of a suit and tie, he may be smarter. By now we should know this is not always the case.
However the grad student is wrong on their topic and the author ends up presenting the same article to his students. Some of the students end up taking pleasure in reading the article while some wonder why they are being told to read it.
As the article moves along, we see how the taste in fashion is very closely related to pleasure. Some of this is assumption, while some is a given. King Louis the XIV took pleasure in creating Versailles, making it known to the world that he had power. Upper class woman would take pleasure in their good clothes, even making "pilgrimages" to Paris to see the newest fashions.
However, architecture seems to protest against these ever changing shifts in "what's hot". And we see how fashion changes and even those who find themselves taking pleasure in fashion changes. One of the biggest examples of protest in this article is when he speaks of the London fashion botique which provided clothes for youth who wanted to mark off their difference and make it not a class thing, but a generation thing. "These were rebels who would not defer sensual satisfaction for the sake of savings. These were youth who were if antyhing different."
The paragraph after this shows a huge protest of one fashion designer against another, of course we also have to realize he may have been in a position ( having power) to protest.
After reading the entire article, one thing that stuck with me was the fact that Banana Republic and Target are put on the same level and "middle-blow stores". Never once have I considered Banana Republic to be anywhere near the level Target is.
Unfortunately the pictures on the website did not load when I looked at them, making it hard for me to understand exactly was MOA was. But I did see how people could take pleasure in having their home decorated like a life style they take pleasure from to begin with.
I never realized how those three topics would come up in even just one short article that much. I didn't realize it could be so relevant. I do think it is interesting that these concepts can come up anywhere and about almost anything.
However, we were told moreso to focus on the aspects of power, protest, and pleasure. When looking through the article for these things, it has plenty to offer. Many of the examples in the article have all three of these intertwined. For example when speaking of Louis XIV, power and pleasure go hand in hand.
Even from the first paragraph when the author reminisces of a metting with an older grad student, it is pointed it that by the clothes the grad student was wearing he was apparently more knowledgeable. This is an example of how fashion can portray power. Because you look better, people assume you may be knowledgeable. A more easily accessible example may be looking at a construction worker and an office worker. People may assume that because the office worker is more likely in some sort of a suit and tie, he may be smarter. By now we should know this is not always the case.
However the grad student is wrong on their topic and the author ends up presenting the same article to his students. Some of the students end up taking pleasure in reading the article while some wonder why they are being told to read it.
As the article moves along, we see how the taste in fashion is very closely related to pleasure. Some of this is assumption, while some is a given. King Louis the XIV took pleasure in creating Versailles, making it known to the world that he had power. Upper class woman would take pleasure in their good clothes, even making "pilgrimages" to Paris to see the newest fashions.
However, architecture seems to protest against these ever changing shifts in "what's hot". And we see how fashion changes and even those who find themselves taking pleasure in fashion changes. One of the biggest examples of protest in this article is when he speaks of the London fashion botique which provided clothes for youth who wanted to mark off their difference and make it not a class thing, but a generation thing. "These were rebels who would not defer sensual satisfaction for the sake of savings. These were youth who were if antyhing different."
The paragraph after this shows a huge protest of one fashion designer against another, of course we also have to realize he may have been in a position ( having power) to protest.
After reading the entire article, one thing that stuck with me was the fact that Banana Republic and Target are put on the same level and "middle-blow stores". Never once have I considered Banana Republic to be anywhere near the level Target is.
Unfortunately the pictures on the website did not load when I looked at them, making it hard for me to understand exactly was MOA was. But I did see how people could take pleasure in having their home decorated like a life style they take pleasure from to begin with.
I never realized how those three topics would come up in even just one short article that much. I didn't realize it could be so relevant. I do think it is interesting that these concepts can come up anywhere and about almost anything.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Encoding, Decoding
It could be that because this article took me forever to read I found Hall’s style of writing to become annoying. Instead of being clear cut with a concept that’s already difficult enough to understand due to it’s layering of concepts, he makes it harder than it needs to be. He constantly has sentences that show what something is not doing before finally telling us what it is doing. One shorter example of this is on page 97, “The terms ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’, then, are merely useful analytic tools for distinguishing, in particular contexts, between not the presence/absence of ideology in language but the different levels at which ideologies and discourses intersect.” And that is just a small part of his entire argument of what denotation and connotation are and are not.
Of course, hidden beneath these complex sentences, large words, and what seems like a never ending article, is one concept that I found to be so simplistic that he attempts to complicate. Within his encoding decoding essay, he talks about how the things we see on a screen are not actually those things, however, they represent those things. He uses the example of a cow, while we may see a cow on a screen; it is not an actual cow. Later on, sticking to a similar ideal, he then goes on to use a sweater as an example and all the different meanings that can come with it. He says while is it not a sweater, yet presenting the image and ideal of a sweater, it can offer different meanings such as what weather is coming or a romantic walk in the woods to name a few.
This ties directly into his use of semiotics, which is defined (according to dictionary.com) as “the study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior; the analysis of systems of communication, as language, gestures, or clothing.” For Hall, he not only breaks down communication in the forms of mass media, he even goes deeper to set up into stages of how communication takes place and how it can be interpreted and possibly where the interpretation can be changed. As mentioned above, he uses the example of the sweaters as one way mass communication can be interpreted a number of ways.
Odds are, there is a lot more that I just am not catching in this article. Be it that his style of writing has distracted me to the point I can’t grasp the information he’s trying to send me (maybe he should’ve encoded this article a lot easier for the rest of us to decode) or perhaps I’m too tired to continue to dissect this article. Whatever the case may be, I do hope that I get a clearer understanding before class or during the class lecture. Oh yeah, and I pray to god there isn’t a quiz on this one.
Of course, hidden beneath these complex sentences, large words, and what seems like a never ending article, is one concept that I found to be so simplistic that he attempts to complicate. Within his encoding decoding essay, he talks about how the things we see on a screen are not actually those things, however, they represent those things. He uses the example of a cow, while we may see a cow on a screen; it is not an actual cow. Later on, sticking to a similar ideal, he then goes on to use a sweater as an example and all the different meanings that can come with it. He says while is it not a sweater, yet presenting the image and ideal of a sweater, it can offer different meanings such as what weather is coming or a romantic walk in the woods to name a few.
This ties directly into his use of semiotics, which is defined (according to dictionary.com) as “the study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior; the analysis of systems of communication, as language, gestures, or clothing.” For Hall, he not only breaks down communication in the forms of mass media, he even goes deeper to set up into stages of how communication takes place and how it can be interpreted and possibly where the interpretation can be changed. As mentioned above, he uses the example of the sweaters as one way mass communication can be interpreted a number of ways.
Odds are, there is a lot more that I just am not catching in this article. Be it that his style of writing has distracted me to the point I can’t grasp the information he’s trying to send me (maybe he should’ve encoded this article a lot easier for the rest of us to decode) or perhaps I’m too tired to continue to dissect this article. Whatever the case may be, I do hope that I get a clearer understanding before class or during the class lecture. Oh yeah, and I pray to god there isn’t a quiz on this one.
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