Great Intensity

Long Sorrow could also have the title, “great intensity”. Anri Sala’s 13 minute film immediately draws in the viewer, with the mystery of sound and sight. The initial scene of Long Sorrow is placed outside a door, leading to a room. The camera gradually moves inside the room, towards an open window. A mysterious sound is heard in the distance and an unknown figure appears to move, which resembles a plant, bird wings or flowers. As the narrative unfolds, the sounds continue sporadically. The camera moves closer to the moving object and it eventually becomes recognizable, as flowers placed in the dreadlocks of a male musician.

The intensity of the narrative is increased as the viewer can see the man is suspended outside the window, many stories above ground. The viewer is drawn in further, as the sounds are intensified, with the sounds of free style jazz, played by the musician, Jeemel Moondoc. A type of call and response, with the background sounds of both traffic and a church bell are eventually heard. The view shifts from inside the room, to the outside. The method of the man’s suspension remains unknown, but the camera scans the area, surrounding the building and eventually settles on sporadic fragments of the man’s face. Michael Freid notes that the viewer is often closer than the viewer would like to be. Embodiment is experienced as the camera permits, with the fragmentized view throughout the film.

The musician’s playing is sharply captured in a fragmentized view of his eyes. Towards the end of the film Monod’s eyes slightly close and open, not appearing to focus on any of his surroundings. He seems to be unaware or interested in the camera. His spirit, the surrounding and music have merged, as evident in his physical response to playing the saxophone. Michael Freid states, that “theater and theatrical are at war today…”. This refers to an image that is contrived, where the subjects act as if there is no camera versus one that is considered authentic, as it depicts a candid moment. While it’s clear from the location of his performance the musician is aware that he is being filmed, the sincerity with being in the moment is also evident.

During Freid’s presentation he explains that the work is not the most significant, but the experience of the work. It is evident that the concept of free jazz is integral to the film, as Moondoc performs in response to his surroundings. There was not a musical composition written for the film. At the end of the 13 minutes of Long Sorrow I desired to experience more; more sounds of the saxophone; more sights of the greenery surrounding Jemeel Moondoc and most importantly a view not controlled by the camera. I wanted the camera’s wall to be torn down or at least ripped. I wanted to put the fragmentized frames together, I wished to experience the moment as Jemeel Moondoc, or at least someone with a ‘bird’s eye view’.

Walking through a museum is always overwhelming.  There is so much to see and observe.  The Cantor Center is full of every genre of art.  I was specifically drawn to the Native American Collection.  When I stand before these works I am mesmerized by the simple line work, and of the beautifully painted animals and patterns so simple and elegant.I appreciate that these pieces tell a story, recording their past. It is like deciphering code. The longer I gaze at the work I start to notice the smaller things, where the fire licked the side of the pot, small chips and wear and tear..  I am continually reminded how beautiful and timeless they are.  For me this experience is embodied more that visual, mainly because I relate so closely with clay, I know the process in which the piece was made and what the steps were to finish it.  While observing the work I  want to sear the images in to my memory, but I generally end up sketching them, trying to capture the strong simplicity of line and design.

Perhaps I'm Being Too Literal...

So, perhaps I'm being a bit literal but Duane Hanson's Slab Man is a piece that has caught my eye every time I have been to the Cantor and could, perhaps, be the literal embodiment of embodiment...(?)  Now, I am an object maker so it makes sense that I might be drawn to Hanson's piece due to it's display of technical mastery, or perhaps it's the fact that I have done my fair share of manual labor and can relate to this disheveled, rough, depiction of working-class fatigue.  While these things may be true there's more to it than that.  The most intriguing thing about Slab Man is that no matter how much I know that he is an artificial construction of synthetic polymers and everyday clothing, the fact remains that he constantly startles me!  During my time in the gallery he remains in my peripheral field as a member of the general museum goers and then I turn to focus on him and I am startled once again!  Is there a problem with my short term memory?  Do I fear manual labor that much?  Or is it the instinctual reaction to the perceived physical presence of a large human  in my vicinity that causes this reaction.  I do empathize with him; the apparent fatigue, the dirt, the disheveled appearance, all reminders of a past life that I honor, but have made great efforts to enrich in other ways.  There is honor there and pathos...  Yet I am still impressed by my repeated physical reaction to the piece.  Though I value a controlled perspective in my own work I think Hildebrand got it wrong with this one; it's the fact that we can interact with this work, that it does come into our space as an equal member of the crowd and that we appear to have no control over it except our ability to retreat from it that gives it its power.  Plus, I'm pretty sure he had B. O. ...

Gender and Embodiment at the Cantor

The work of Tom Rippon, Women Finishing a Novel, 1982, is an excellent example of an embodied experience, as well as the embodiment of a woman. While it appears to be a painted wooden chair, the piece is porcelain with glaze on a wooden base. The size is approximately large enough for an average ten year old to sit comfortably. If it weren’t for the raised position of the piece displayed, the thin legs of the chair and the size, one would assume it was a utility piece. Additionally, the familiarity of the object, the physical openness of the chair and the open book resting on the arm of the chair draws the viewer into the work.
Society has established colors which are more closely associated with each gender; this includes the pink for girls, blue for boys and yellow for gender neutral. The gender associations are often established from birth. The use of colors of pink, light orange and green seem to have the sparkle of fingernail polish, instead of the deep colors of red, blue or brown, which are often considered masculine colors. Colors contribute to gender performance from an early age. The artist also suggests feminine qualities in the use of lines, curves and the pattern on the floor, which seems similar to kitchen tile-again references presumed gender associations.
The experience of viewing this piece in the museum setting, provides a different result than had I viewed the image in a book. The supporting text further leads the viewer to the same conclusion of the importance of gender and embodiment.

Empathy, Embodiment and Abstract Art

My first experience of an empathetic response to a work of art happened in the second floor galleries of SFMOMA when I encountered Mark Rothko’s prosaically entitled No. 14, 1960. I was magnetically drawn to this 9 x 9 foot painting that seemed to project its presence from across the room. I felt compelled to enter the gallery and seat myself on the bench in front of it. What happened next was totally unexpected and slightly unsettling. After I calmed my mind and focused on what was directly in front of me, I experienced the sensation of literally falling, tumbling directly into the artwork. It wasn’t that the art had become an extension of myself or that I had disappeared and had merged with it, it was more that I had entered the universe that the painting had opened up to me and that I was experiencing this new world from within the frame.

Reproductions of this work do it no justice. I was aware of myself sitting on the bench but at the same time I felt enveloped, almost smothered, by the hot stickiness of Rothko's glowing golden rectangular. I was inside this fiery mass looking out through its orange-red skin. I could smell the dusky, smoky, sweetness of honey in beeswax and could feel the sensation of heat, like the hot summer sun, on my body. I felt as if I could explore the outer contours of this viscous but fluid mass by swimming through the channels created by the artist’s brushstrokes until I slipped through one of them and plunged into the deep indigo blue below. I hit the cold, brown bedrock beneath it that silenced all sensations and I continued to slide right out of the painting. I could imagine that the drips and splashes on the surface of the work were the traces, the visible evidence of my presence.
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What came to mind immediately was Icarus of Greek mythology who was able to fly using wings made of wax and feathers. In his exhilaration with flight he ventured too close to the sun, his wings melted, and he plunged to his death into the sea below. Icarus became my own personal title for this painting. I learned later that in an earlier Surrealist and more figurative stage of his career, Rothko’s interest was in developing an art based on myth. It was later that he began to create softly contoured rectangles of luminous color that seemed to float within their monumental canvas enclosures of which No. 14, 1960 is a prime example.

I didn't realize it at the time, but in a contemporary art museum, I was creating my own narrative that connected an ancient Greek myth, 19th century German aesthetic theory, and an American abstract painting. Robert Vischer and his theory of empathy has given me a framework for understanding my own experience. I've learned that the experience of an artwork does not have to be limited to the intellectual and visual, but can be fully embodied in unanticipated and rewarding ways that can open us to a greater understanding of the world beyond our limited view of self.

feeling of death

The most interesting work to me was "Splendid Grief: Darren Waterston and the Afterlife of Leland Stanford Jr". At beginning, I didn't know that closed black gate was a gate could lead us to a exhibition. I only found some black paper butterflies decorated on a small room outside. I followed these butterflies and then I pushed the gate and entered into the Ruth Levison Halperin Gallery, which has been transformed into a mourning parlor that serves as a memento mori to the late Leland Jr. Well, be honest,  I didn't plan to stay in this gallery for long. I started from the left side. When I pass by some oil paintings on the wall, felt some communication with the paintings on the wall.  I stop in front of the panting. I felt something is surreal.  

The first one that got my attention was a painting about Leland and an angle. This is one of the museum collection. In this painting, the size of leland and angle is in an interesting contrast: the angle is in front but she is small. Leland is behind the angle but the size is much bigger. The angle is crying and Leland is staring at the lens. The color is in contrast too. The crying angle hide her face in her arms, the overall color is dark and brown. Leland is standing straight behind wearing light blue, and everything is in details. As all of his other portraits, Leland looks proud and no face. I felt some connection because I know this life (Leland) was exist, and this panting was painted after his death. It was a strange feeling.  Every time when I  take a walk in a cemertary park, I feel I have some connection with these passed people, especially if i see their black and white photos on the stone. Does Darren Waterson had the same impression when he saw Leland's portraits in the museum? Does he has some special interest of "death"? The first time when I saw his water color painting, the flowers were beautiful and inspiring, but they remind me the dying flowers. And then I start to think why Waterson use "after life" on his title. From a Buddhist perspective, the current life is a continuation of the past life. Does Waterson want to build up a connection by making this show? In eastern philosophy, we should not bother lives in the other world. It is all about "feeling", I realize I cannot explain too well.  

 

I have to pass by a large installation that placed on the center of the gallery. It was from the ground to the ceiling. The bottom was designed a circled couch that allowed the visitors to sit and rest. A The installation was fully decorated with black butterflies. They were elegent but it was a little bit too pretty and too busy to my taste. 

Some pictures of our fieldtrip to Stanford

Gates of Hell, Auguste Rodin
Photos © Hedwig M. Heerschop 2009

"What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes."
Auguste Rodin

Finding myself in a big room filled with more than 50 sculptures by Auguste Rodin I felt as if he put them there temporarily if to say; “ I be right back”. It seems overwhelming and creates some sort of a “presence”. I can feel the emotions reflecting off the sculptures. The forms and lines of the sculptures playing with the light create a magical harmony in this room. Although as fascinated I am in this room, Le Penseur, or The Thinker, mesmerized me most.

Photo © Hedwig M. Heerschop 2009
The immense figure sitting in the middle of the room created quite a focal point. I could sit here for hours and see myself in the same position in unguarded moments when I am drifting away in my own thoughts. I drift back for a moment to my home country where seven bronze sculptures were stolen last year January from a Dutch Museum near my hometown in the Netherlands. One of the bronze works was The Thinker. It was found but was badly damaged by the thieves who were probably after the bronze for money. They had already taken off one leg and made a start on the head.
Photo ANP
The museum decided to exhibit The Thinker in damaged state to show the public how these thugs managed to ruin something so irreplaceable. But is it irreplaceable? What is not replaceable is it’s unique place in the line of reproduction. The image could be replaced the provenance can not. After Rodin’s death in 1917 the state of France inherited all his works and molds with no restrictions on quantity. Rodin made all his sculptures out of clay and then made plaster molds. Rodin poured the first sculpture of The Thinker in 1902 and after that there were twenty more replica’s made. The one in the Dutch museum was one of the earlier ones. So is this one than considered an original, or the one here in Stanford’s Cantor Museum, or all the other ones spread around the world? Each one is unique as unique as our individual responses to it.
Rodin created The Thinker originally for his monumental Gates of Hell also to be seen at Stanford University. They are a pair of bronze doors intended for a museum of decorative arts in Paris. He didn’t cast The Gates of Hell during his lifetime, but it gave Rodin a rich source of ideas for individual figures and groups that he worked and reworked for the rest of his career.
The theme for Gates of Hell was taken from Dante's Inferno, and The Thinker was Dante himself. The initial plan was to put the figure on top of The Gates of Hell. It was not until 1880 that Rodin started to exhibit The Poet/Thinker. Many more were cast in a smaller size made from the original hand-made clay model.
Here I sit overwhelmed by the powerful emotions created by being surrounded by such incredible work. It makes one think.

Photo © Hedwig M. Heerschop 2009

Long Sorrow

 

In the thirteen minute film by Anri Sala, we are pulled into a small room, slowly. The camera image deliberately controls our pace. There is something there beneath the open window but we can't yet make out what it is. Sounds of a saxophone are audible. We are made aware of the camera's presence. Our perspective changes as the camera rolls in. From radiator to window to saxophone to mouth-piece, the camera is constantly reframing. We are given fractional sites of embodiment, shifting, as the notes are heard. This fragmentary presentation adds to our intensity. 

 Image and sound articulate one another.  

 Captivated by the soulful and sorrowful whaling of the free-jazz artist, Jemeel Moondoc, we are drawn into the music in an empathetic response.

Michael Fried brought in this film to help give credence to some of his theories on art. 

In this film we are made aware of the saxophonist playing while sitting on the ledge of an apartment building. He is absorbed in his music. He is unaware of being viewed. Fried talks of the absorption as its  "to be seen-ness."

Fried has long complained of Donald Judd and the "literalists," of not owning up to the theatricality of their work. 

In, "Long Sorrow," the emphasis of the activity of the camera is seen by Fried as the "owning up" to its theatricality. We are made aware of the camera but we are drawn in by the music. The music takes us inward, into the soul of this man and into ourselves as well as taking us outside where we hear church bells and traffic. 

I loved the music in this film. And yet, thinking back on the evening, it is also Fried's voice that I hear, rapidly firing his words as though there was an urgency in his getting out all that he had to say.

The music of the film held conviction. We were caught in the moment, spellbound by the improvisation of the saxophone. "Like a high wire act," Fried said, "at any moment it could fail." We "experienced" the intensity through each moment. 

 

 

 

Georgia Granite Circle

Walking quickly through the museum I couldn't help but be struck by Richard Long's "Georgia Granite Circle." While there were many works that were interesting and warranted further attention there was no doubt that I would spend my fifteen minutes with the circle of granite. Having grown up in a scientific family and spending summers in the New Hampshire woods that are strewn with granite boulders I recognized the rocks as granite immediately. Indeed when I sat with the work many childhood memories came flooding back to me. More than anything I could imagine how it would feel to walk across the rocks. I would have to struggle to keep my balance walking on top of the rocks as they moved under my feet. As a child I was also an avid rock collector so I was drawn to the many small glinting crystals in the granite, these are good specimens, the kind I would have taken home as a child. Indeed it occurred to me that Richard Long's main emphasis with this work may be nothing more than a celebration of the childhood joy of rocks. It also made me remember throwing rocks into lakes and rivers, where one goal was always to through the largest rock you could. While all these reactions to the work engaged me and drew me in I wouldn't say I lost myself in the work, or was embodied in the rocks. I definitely empathized with Richard's and indeed all humans love of rocks.
I found that after sitting with the work for several minutes I began to imagine myself shrunk down so the rocks were like mountain peaks. Standing on top of one of the rocks I could look out at the vast expanse of jagged granite peaks, like I was in the middle of some great mountain range. My sense of scale then shifted so the rocks were like large boulders that were several times my size. This reminded me of badlands type landscapes that I really love. I could imagine hiking amongst and climbing on the rocks. I really did begin to lose myself in the work, and I became embodied in the rocks.
Kenneth Baker the art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle called the work "defiantly uncommunicative", and perhaps he is right, but maybe it's the lack of overt message on Long's part that does make it relatively easy to lose oneself in the work.

Size matters

Viewing the "Gates of Hell"(To your Right) by the French artist Auguste Rodin is always very pleasant. I admire Rodins craftsmanship in modeling 180 figures in despair, and the carefully placement of each and single one of them. But, do I feel the horror of loosing my soul? No, I didn't. I felt that the figures emotions were a bit cliche, in their positions and facial expressions. I also had a hard time relating to the figures which were 15cm-1 meter tall, maybe if I was the same size as them, the whole thing would have had a stronger effect on me.

Take an artist like Ron Mueck (To your Left) who uses scale to have a impact on the viewer, and does it ever! His ordinary models and the positions of them, are powerful and intense. The scale is so big and successful, that it changes the figures from ordinary to extraordinary.

Deborah Butterfield's work

I am impressed by Deborah Butterfield's work: a horse made of bronze branches. What I am admiring her work is that she managed to create a form depending on her personal feeling. I was also shocked by the sculpture material which appears to be real branches but is made of bronze. At the first glance, it looks like a horse painted by Beihong Xu, a famous Chinese painter. The character of the Chinese traditional painting is to express the spirit of the artist by the Chinese writing brushes. I feel that those bronze branches are just like the strokes which represent the artist inspirational moods. When I looked at this piece closer, branches are connected very well to form inner and outer space in a horse in an abstract manner. The hollow space between branche brings us a lot of imagination. In Chinese painting, the virtual and the real are most important expression techniques. In this horse sculpture, the artist took advantaged of the negative and the positive space in the strutures so that the whole form shows grace and ligtness. To some extend, Deborah was exploring the material expression and the relationship between inside and outside. She digged out the unique character of the material which embodied the artist's mood and interest.

On Fried's talk

Sitting at the lecture I was pondering Michael Fried’s discussion and it’s relevance to contemporary representational painting, and found that this was going to be another experience, like most lectures I attend, to take in as an experience, and an addition to my mental art history dictionary.

The video by Anri Sala, titled "Long Sorrow," was a perfect example of the experience part, which is what I think Fried was getting at in his talk. So, here I am with four friends, with interest invested in this talk, and a small auditorium of complete strangers, as Fried presents a brief overview of his earlier work, then shows Sala’s video.

The first scene in the video shows the interior space of an empty white room, from the vantage point of the middle of one wall looking out a window in the center of the opposite side, with a radiator under it, with something propping up a hinged window. There is a saxophone playing. Whatever is propping up the window is placed a little to the right of the middle of the window creating asymmetry in a symmetrical composition.

The saxophone is playing and I am staring, and having an experience. At this point I am not fully invested in the movie. The strangers are around me, and I am intrigued, confused, and aware of myself trying to be aware.

The camera slowly moves towards the window.

I am uncomfortable at this point because I am becoming part of the scene and subconsciously I don’t know if I want to be. As the camera draws nearer the window it is becoming very obvious that what is propping up the window is the head of someone playing the saxophone we are hearing. This moment is the switch from an abstract image to the conveyance of some form of narrative, but I just want the image. As the video plays on it remains very abstracted, and presence, or “presentness” as Fried calls it, is always there. There is a need though. At the very moment of my engagement I am in dialog with the director (Artist), trying to show me, where everywhere else in the video I am looking. This, and the on the spot question from Professor Raysnford after on how I liked it, followed by a sparatic answer from myself, made me rethink my experiences in general. I look, watch, listen, answer, etc. and this moment of "presentness" is everywhere, and the video, Fried’s talk, Raynsford’s question, and my paintings are all an image of "presentness."

The exterior shot of the window further on in the video shows the saxophone player cropped out of the lower left corner of the picture plane, overlapping the offset window, which is framed beautifully by the exterior of the building, and small vertical abstraction to the right of the view beyond the building. There is a relationship to this aesthetic that I think is the “presentness” we all relate to, and is Fried’s topic for discussion. These moments we grasp to, that encode our existence, which we usually take for granted, is what experience, or language is all about.

I am sitting, typing now, and as I am thinking of what else to say, and about how I need to go back again and reread Art and Objecthood, I look out the aluminum framed, old, open sliding glass door of my parent’s house. The sound of traffic from the near highway hums, and framed in the bottom of the door, cut off to the right side, is my dog sleeping on his side. Breaking the plane of the window, he also overlaps the table and chair behind him, which is framed by the darkness of the shadow further away. I look for a split second more. I laughed, and turned to write this, and looked back for that experience, and the dog walked inside.

A moment, or "window" of clarity

Walking around the Cantor looking quickly, and passing all these great moments in time, I kept walking back to where I usually go when I have been there before, and that is the contemporary art wing, and specifically the Bay Area painting section. Maybe the placement of Diebenkorn’s “Window”, visible from both entrances, set it so I am constantly engaged with the painting. Yet, when I finally stopped and engaged with it as a solo experience, I am instantly walking into the painting.

The chair on the bottom right corner of the large canvas (92” x 80”) breaks the picture plane making the interior part of my space. Upon studying the metal folding chair at a slightly awkward perspective, it is lit with a cool light that overlaps the sill of the window and my perception of the flat surface is projected back into space of the warm, intense exterior of the building. For now, I am in the building. I am in the painting. I am fully engaged and embodied by the work, and my investigation and associations become amplified.

Frames within frames, complementary warms and cools, relatable and ambiguous subject matter intertwine the composition. The application of the paint is very direct, as is the information presented at first glance. This is a space recorded at a specific moment in time. The pairing down of information, making the scene more abstracted creates further directness to the composition, as if we are dealing with just the formal tools of painting, which are working to convey some sort of mood.

Knowing about Diebenkorn, and reinforcing my background from the simple wall text, I know that he was follower of Matisse’s work, who had a great influence on his decision-making. In particular, comparing “The Window” to Matisse’s “View of Notre Dame,” one would make obvious relationships, not only between these two paintings in regards to there formal qualities, but also the influence this particular painting has on Diebenkorn’s whole “Ocean Park” series.

Windows looking out into the world, with incorporating interior space, make it very easy to engage with what is happening in Diebenkorn’s work. That is the beauty in it. A simple looking, yet complex break down of shape, line, color, light, perspective, and so on make this piece a window that is personal to Diebenkorn, yet part of my space in the world too. Upon further investigation of this work I am continually impressed with Diebenkorn’s eyes and hands, and I equally surprised and intrigued by images within this image, and other works of his, like the simple horizontal lines of color creating light and shadow in the frame of the circle to the left of the painting, which appears to be some form of a railing or piece of the architecture of the building. And that bright, bold orange shape (roof top) is just undeniable. The space in this painting is part of our world, because he says it is.

There is something about Dick

After strolling around at the museum and viewing some of my old favorite artists, I surprisingly got most excited to view the "Georgia Granite Circle", 1990, by Richard Long.
The 7.5 tons of striated marble stones was placed in a large jagged circular pattern. It takes approximately 8 seconds to walk around the whole piece, but somehow the scale of the piece felt larger when viewed from 65 cm from the floor, at a still motion. The rocks were light colored and around 20 cm tall. Some had stripes and some had natural silver/gold glitter inside of them, but still the all looked the same. The brightness of the rocks and the jagged circle felt elegant and calming, to me as a viewer. I think that the usage of a natural and organic media such as the rocks, strips some of a complexity away. It then leaves the work in a vulnerable and naked state, which I find beautiful and peaceful. Not only did I find these emotions in the piece itself but also within myself. The rocks pulls the viewer in and leaves the surrounding, in this case the museum, in a delete form.
So how can some granite rocks placed on the floor invoke a lot of emotions inside of me. Could it be the colors or the placement of them...or, the glitter? There is something about Richard Long precise usage of the granite. The unity the rocks shared in their size and colors, and a clear non egotistical need of grabbing attention by being different. All the rocks had simplicity and shared equally their space with its neighbour rock. None of the rocks had something more, nor, less then the other rock that was placed around the circle. Dear I say that it reminded me about a dreamlike socialistic point of view between the rocks. A point of view which I grew up with, and therefor I felt more of a connection and familiarity with these rocks, over any other work at the museum.

The Holographic Universe

The Universe is a Hologram, seriously...

(please click on the link above to view the original article)

I believe I have brought this up several times over the course of the semester.  In light of this week's readings, now seems an appropriate time to reconsider this idea.  Enjoy!

codes

The readings for this week brings to mind the Dutch artist Aernout Mik who uses photographic and videographic installations to present group behavior in a disconcerting interplay between individual and multitudes, thereby allowing events to become fully unconstrained situations. Cause, time and place can never be exactly determined and the stage like settings generally testify clearly to an exemplary artificiality.




Such an interplay of space can be very powerful in the post 911 (cliched I know) world where the so-called societies of control have the greatest functionality. Within the chaos of a terrorist attack, or the sheer notion of the possibility of such an attack. Critic Naomi Klein calls this "shock treatment", where the powers that be shock (using torture or terror) detesters or "insurgents" into a child like state, apt for manipulation. This is further amplified by the coded economic disphoria that we find ourselves in today, where numbers where created from pure imagination of a mass of greed.


Mik's work is interesting, because the disfunctional cadre of his interest loose all their individuality, becoming nothing more than "dividuals", elements of a code that can be turned on or off.

Deleuze even calls these codes "banks" with floating rates of exchange, no longer bound by the tenable moleculs of a gold standard, free to be manipulated by societies of control.

Technology and Text

I was first introduced to the concept of big brother, during high school upon, reading “1984”, by George Orwell. In Orwell’s novel, humans are ultimately subjects of observations, monitoring and are manipulated in many ways by the ‘one’ in control, “Big Brother”, also referred to as the government.

The discussion in the article, Virtual bodies and Flickering Signifiers, by N. Katherine Hayles in some ways reflects the concept “Big Brother”. In virtual reality however, humans become the ‘Big Brother’, who can control and manipulate another dimension. The dimension explored is not one that our bodies physically enter, but instead our mind. Hayles explains on page 72 that, “Questions about presence and absence do not yield much leverage in this situation, for the puppet both is and is not present, just as the user is and is not inside the screen”. Hayles goes on to discuss what she considers of greater importance, exploring “questions about pattern and randomness’.

Hayles explains technology does “more than change modes of text production, storage, and dissemination. They fundamentally alter the relation of the signified to the signifier”. Hayles refers the film, The Fly, when the “human becomes post human”. The artist Lalla Essaydi doesn’t use computer technology, but instead the technology of written text. Her photographs display Muslim women, who are fully clothed, typically only their eyes can be seen. Words of the Koran are written on them and throughout the photograph. Using previous knowledge one can assume these are in fact women, however, one may say they have been dehumanized, as many are forced to wear traditional Muslim clothing and are considered 2nd class citizens.

Hayles explains that, “it is comforting to think that physical forms can recover their pristine purity by being reconstituted as informational patterns in a multidimensional computer space”. Considering tech support is often needed, as computers tend to malfunction, I actually find comfort in the written text. One may say human immortality is only as good as its vessel.

Testing 1 2 1 2

One is never finished with anything

I found the Deleuze article to be especially forward looking for its early 90s publication date. His assertion that codes and passwords are key for the society of control is right-on. We now have pass codes and passwords for all kinds of things. "Everywhere surfing has already replaced the older sports." Web surfing in 1992? If not, just another example of his very forward looking essay. I'm not quite sure what he means by, "Even art has left the spaces of enclosure in order to enter into
the open circuits of the bank." Art as commodity, investment? One art this has given rise to is the art of hacking and code jamming. There are now many conferences devoted to, and groups of hackers practising their art. The iPhone is a good example, they make the device to control which cellular network you can use, but you can hack the phone, or "jail break" it in order to use it on any network.
Stelarc's "Prosthetics"
While I can see that genetic engineering is a way to continue the species by redesigning and not reproduction as stelarc states, many of his ideas seem absurd and merely attention getting stunts. To think we can escape our biology seems naive. His assertion that off the earth we'd be better served by a hollow hard and dehydrated body makes me think back to the Egyptian mummies. Stelarc gives us a manifesto, but his ideas seem far from reality.

Gender issues

Article about the movie "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C05EEDF143AF933A15754C0A9679C8B63

The body in action

"AFTER A WHILE I HAD TO FACE THE FACT THAT A PERSON ISN’T JUST A BODY, A PERSON IS A THINKING, FEELING, CONFUSED, WORRIED, NERVOUS, FEARFUL BEING.”

------ Vito Acconci

Each time period has its unique character. That why Maurice Berger asks: "why was 'theatrical'space and time so important for artists in the 1960s?"  During that time, so many things coming up: black power, gay and lesbian, women' right, students' right, and left anti-war movement. During that time, Vito Acconci was one of the most influencial  artist.  He interesting in performing his body, focus on activity in his body art work, that makes his work powerful and more straight forward.

Seedbed

I think most of Acconci's works can  only be produced in 1960's.  I post his major works here. 

Opening

In "Opening", he says: "I am opening part of my body". He wants both open himself to us and to protect himself from our gaze. 

Trappings

trademarks

Claim

Remote Control

Performance-The Creation of Identity

The concept of identity is constructed by the ‘acts’ played out in ones life. Judith Butler, in the article, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory discusses the significance of acts in ones perception of self. Perception plays a significant role in establishing societal ‘norms or taboos’, which contribute to determining ones identity.

Embodiment is an ‘active process’; a sense of being. The concept of embodiment is filled with possibilities, engages in interactions with others, as well as takes action independently. However, as people do not live in isolation, neither is the action completed in solitude. As humans we never fully determine ourselves, as history plays a significant role in establishing how we define our self.

In the discussion of gender, as a sense of body, one can not exclude the discussion of appearance, as well as the physical attribute, which establishes one’s gender, in society. The identification of gender, in the context of the model of phenomenology model ignites a discussion of cultural identity, in general. Identity is a created reality, whether referring to gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. This creation occurs when the immediate culture and those in the periphery have defined the ‘norm’. However, defining ones self also includes the perception of others. The body is considered a boundary and gender is a construction.

The contemporary artist Yinka Shonibare, MBE does not address issues of gender identification, but instead the performative acts of defining national and racial identity. Shonibare, spent the formative years in Lagos, Nigeria. Eventually he relocated to London to earn his BFA and MFA. This is significant because he doesn’t feel he can be identified as African or European. He uses the “African” cloth to discuss themes of a created sense of being African, via wearing the imported batik style cloth. The wearing of the cloth is apart of the performance of establishing one’s identity on the continent and abroad. This would not be successful if the historical and societal norms didn’t pre-exist. The use of cloth demonstrates the theatrical performance of acts and the acceptance of the ‘audience’ and appropriating other cultural traditions for their own. Performance acts of feminism and gender can be played on life’s stage. Like Shonibare, the audience has to be an active participant in the performance of identity creation.