Alix Pearlstein Lecture

Alix Pearlstein uses her background in sculpture and installation as well as dance and choreography to create performance based videos.  During the lecture she showed a range of her work, from videos dating from 2000 all the way up to 2008.  Although the themes and narratives of her performance videos vary greatly, they all speak to the immediacy of live performance, and the importance of gesture.  Pearlstein also mentioned how she tends to always shoot her videos in blank white studios, thereby removing any context from the work.  Instead, she relies on the gesture of the actors in the video to provide the context to the viewer.  After watching several of her videos, especially the ones that have multiple and simultaneous channels, I began to get a sense for the choreography and rhythm that were inherent in them.  The first video she showed was titled “Two Women” and had a cut out of a naked woman interacting with a real man.  The camera angle distorts the scale, so that at first glance the magazine cut out seems just as big as the person, and it is not until the end that the true size of the object is revealed.  I found this piece awkward and hard to relate to, although I could definitely see how it fits into performance based art.  The last videos she showed were more recent and both filmed with multiple channels, which I found to be more interesting.  The overall quality of the film seemed better, and with a larger ensemble of actors and a distinct wardrobe, I began to see the cinematic and theatrical overtones apparent in her work.  However, since these videos were meant to be seen as an installation, I think perhaps something got lost in translation, and that I could appreciate them more if I saw them as Pearlstein intended.

Thursday Posting: Function

Role

“The Function of Buildings looks at the way in which the design of a building is informed by its function and the demands of climate.”

            -- RIBA architecture.com

Harper, Jennifer.  “In America, form no longer follows function; survey finds trend in architecture.”  The Washington Times.  29 November 2005, A09. 

In Jennifer Harper’s article she discusses how at one point in time form actually followed function in America’s public buildings, which revealed a building’s purpose and enhanced a sense of community.  However, according to Harper and research done by Ohio State University, that time is long gone.  Harper quotes Jack Nasar, an urban planner who directed the research done at Ohio State University.  According to Nasar, “if form follows function, then you should be able to look at a building and have a good idea of what goes on inside.”  Nasar believes that when citizens cannot “read” a building, “cities descend into impersonal, confusing places.”  If form were to follow function, Nasar states that “it should make life in the city more pleasurable and comfortable, and help people figure out where they are.”

This article interested me because in my work I am concentrating a lot on different types of buildings and architecture, and removing certain elements of the buildings that thereby disguises their primary function.  However, reading this article brought up an interesting fact that most of American architecture at the time is not designed around its specific function, giving most of the buildings we see an anonymous quality, with or without removing certain elements.  

Monday Post: Josef Schulz

Josef Schulz was born in 1966 in Bischofsburg, Poland.  He attended the Düsseldorf Art Academy and was taught by Bernd Becher and Thomas Ruff.  Currently he as an exhibit of large-scale color photographs at the Yossi Milo Gallery in New York.  The series is titled Form, and it is the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States.  According to NY Art Beat, “The works begin as traditional, analogue photographs of halls, factories and storage facilities taken with a large-format camera. Images of common, mass-produced, industrial structures are then stripped of any individualizing elements through digital manipulation.”  Schulz is careful to remove any logos or signs of wear, as well as doors and windows, turning these modern structures into “idealized versions of their original design concepts, without context or scale” (NY Art Beat).  Removing these elements also removes whatever function or use these buildings could have, thereby reducing the buildings to “relationships between color, shape and form” (NY Art Beat).  Schulz is careful to include a wide array of colors in his photographs, some which are so bright and sterile that his photos almost look they were digitally simulated.

Artist Website/Gallery:

http://www.josefschulz.de/sachliches_index.htm

Artist Interview:

http://www.josefschulz.de/textklerrkx.htm

Thursday Posting: Removing Context

Elimination

“By removing any indication of function or use, the structures are reduced to relationships between color, shape and form.”

-Yossi Milo Gallery

Reid, Graham.  “Adrift in a Surreal World.”  New Zealand Herald.  23 Feb. 2005.

Graham Reid was the senior music writer for the New Zealand Herald for 20 years.  He now hosts his own music and travel website.  In his article he discusses the removal of context by photographer Loretta Lux.  Lux is well known for her portraits that she takes of children, which she superimposes onto made-up, fantastical looking backgrounds, letting the viewer contextualize the photographs as they see fit.  Reid explains Lux’s process, stating: “Lux's subjects, usually the children of friends, are dressed and sometimes given odd but symbolic props - a fish, a loaf of bread - then photographed under even, shadowless light. The results are faces and skin which have pale complexions and the visual resonance of porcelain. Then the work begins. Using Adobe PhotoShop software technology, Lux sometimes slightly manipulates the scale of the heads, hands or torso, and places the child's image into a plain backdrop which she may have painted herself.”  Reid’s article discusses the impact that the removal of information has on Lux’s series of photos.  By completing removing the children from their original background, she is eliminating the elements of scale as well as context.

I was first drawn to the work of Loretta Lux because I felt that her process of creating imagery was on the same lines as mine.  Although her work deals with completely different issues than mine, we are both making photographs by removing context and taking the image out of its original setting and into a new one.  This recontextualization is an important concept in my work, and it is interesting to see how different artists are using it. 

Monday Post: Anne Hardy

Anne Hardy is British artist born 1970.  After graduating from Cheltenham School of Art with a BA in painting, she then went on to obtain an MA in photography from the Royal College of Art in 2000.  Hardy is currently living and working in London.  She is best known for her large-scale photographs of bizarre, seemingly existing spaces.  However, Hardy actually constructs each of her sets for her photographs, usually from junk found in markets.  According to Wikipedia, “Hardy puts these everyday objects together and transforms them into unusual, almost dreamlike environments which can be unnerving with their themes of abandonment and desolation.  The fabricated scenes of Hardy’s work reflect and comment on modern life in the western world, how people try to manipulate the space around them and how objects bought can too frequently be taken for granted or thrown away.”  The Saatchi Gallery, which represents Hardy states about her work:  “Strange, fantastical and a wee bit unsettling, Anne Hardy’s photographs invite glimpses into imaginary places, each suggesting fictions of a very surreal nature. . .  . her subjects suggest the not-quite-right ambience of madness or dreamscape; a sensation heightened through the unnatural intensity of artificial light.”  

Images:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/anne_hardy.htm

Gallery representing artist:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/anne_hardy.htm

Interview:

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/worlds_of_interiors/

Seung Woo Back

Back was born in 1973 in Taejon, Korea.  In 2000 he attended Chungang University in Seoul for his BFA and MFA in photography.  Back is well known for his “Real World” series, where he creates a weird fantasy world by composing multiple objects and buildings.  Tokyo Art Beat says the world that Back creates “is strange, cynical and distorted.”  They explain that “"Real World" is a series of photographs taken in a South Korean theme park that features miniatures of world famous tourist places. Fake architecture and the realistic Seoul landscape coexists there, and the rather calm images evoke an odd sensation and suggest the envy that South Koreans turn towards outside countries.”  Besides his Real World series, Back has also made another series titled “Blow Up,” which features enlarged photographs extracted from on original film made in North Korea.  Tokyo Art Beat states, “Like sneak shots, the images play skillfully on their viewers' voyeuristic interests. The reality of the country, different from the scene we normally see through sometimes exaggerated media reports, gradually slips out from the blown up images.”  Back has had these series exhibited all over the world, from Paris to Seoul. 

Images:

http://english.ganaart.com/artists/back-seung-woo/images/

Gallery/Website:

http://english.ganaart.com/artists/back-seung-woo/images/

Disney World’s Utilidors

Segregated

“Walt Disney wanted to keep the boring business of running a theme park separate from the magical show guests come to see. The tunnel is why you never see a pirate sauntering through Tomorrowland.”

-Grayson Kamm, First Coast News

 Grayson, Kamm.  “Hidden Places: Beneath Walt Disney World.”  First Coast News.  2007.  Accessed 18 Nov. 2008 < http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/florida/news-article.aspx?ref=rss&storyid=81978>. 

Kamm’s article is a rather ‘enchanted’ look at the business side of running Disney World.  Since Walt Disney created a sort of constructed utopia, there are many aspects of this theme park that must be constantly controlled and monitored.  Below the park is a mile-and-a-half long tunnel containing offices and hallways.  Kamm states “Walt called the tunnel the "Utilidor" -- short for "utility corridor". His Imagineers packed it with pipes and tubes that, for example, suck out trash from drop-off points around the park to a collecting station far away from the fun.”  Kamm also states that at Disney World, no one ever uses the word ‘employee.’  “Everyone -- from a character to a custodian -- is a "cast member" playing a role.”  And since there are no ‘employees’ there are also no uniforms.  Everyone wears costumes specially designed at Disney, which are then “manufactured all over the world.”  And it’s not just the cast members that need costumes.  Kamm mentions that “Every day, a special team inspects the clothes on the parks' audio-animatronic figures -- ones like the founding fathers at the Hall of Presidents in the Magic Kingdom. A crew works overnight repairing any holes or rips they find.”

Reading this article about the business side of Disney World was fascinating, because it really demonstrated how vulnerable an utopian environment is, and all the variables that must be constantly monitored, as to not ruin it.  I noticed that this article mentioned the special or gratuitous titles that are given to the workers at Disney World, which is similar to a blog I did earlier about the Houyhnhnms, where vocabulary also played an important part in the balance of their utopia.  While Walt Disney’s theme park functions on an utopian level, it also shows that factors such as overflowing trash and torn costumes would ruin his created environment in an instant. 

http://www.vacationdaysmagazine.com/blog/uploaded_images/wdw_corridor-703259.jpg