Project 3 Ideas and Stuff

-humans make systems to order their experience and to make sense of the world: empirical, analytical, theoretical systems:

-categorization=naming

-naming categories as a system of control

     -Adam and the animals

     -science (esp. psychology) just naming

          -Foucault

          -false control 

               -feel more in control?

               -be in control of at least something in the universe?

-humans make systems in order to control their world

     -even if it is not real control

Artist Statement for Project 1

How Beauteous Mankind Is!

This work is a representation of some contemporary saints, Henry Ford, Sigmund Freud, and Søren Kierkegaard.  These men were chosen because of the gears of society they were pivotal in starting in motion: Ford with mass production, Freud's influence on psychology, and Kierkegaard being the father of existentialism.

The inspiration to elevate these historically, yet secular figures to a religious level was inspired by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where Ford, primarily and to a lesser extent Freud were referred to as the God of their dystopian society. 

Because these works reference Huxley's dystopian, physically and emotionally safe society a digital candle is the most appropriate votive object, there is no danger of fire, or of being burned, yet the emotional reaction to a digitized candle is by the same device watered down.  This work, by referencing Brave New World (even when viewed without the original context, but especially with it) portrays the same anti-dystopic warning as the book. 

The title is a quotation from Shakespeare’s Tempest that occurs just before the line that gave Huxley the title for his work. 

          O, wonder!

          How many goodly creatures are there here!

          How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

          That has such people in't!

                    The Tempest (V, i)

These Words: Haptic Visuality, Variable Media

Here are some good words and what they are supposed to do:
-Haptic Visuality
This one is about describing vision, not in the traditional way as a gaze, but instead as a sort of touching with the eyes. This reflects the idea of perception as a liaison between the object and the perceiver, in fact is perception on a more intimate level. Rather than perceiving things at a distance, as is typical with vision (where you stand back to admire something) one is intended to perceive things under the sensation of physical closeness (as it is necessary to get close to touch something) while actually using the sense of sight.
-Variable Media
Variable Media refers to works of art that can change format without compromising the original work, it especially refers to preserving audio and video works that were created and stored on outdated technology that are in danger of being lost. An example of this would be to store video, not on the 8mm tape it was originally created on (which doesn't allow much convenience in displaying it) but to update to perhaps a more conventional (contemporary) format. This will allow the work to be experienced in the same way even after the means to display the work as it was originally produced become obsolete and unusable. The Variable Media Network website defines this as "defining the work independently from the medium".

Artist Statement for Project 2

Still-life with Bottles, Photograph and Bananas

With the exception of the film footage of the moving water all the images used in this work were captured using a scanner.  This use of the scanner is intended to capture the items more as autonomous objects without including setting, and even minimizing the role of perspective.  This is also paralleled conceptually with the idea that a scanner can literally reproduce something in a digital form, a scan of a paper document is the document in a digital form, so it follows that a scan of the object is the object, only in a digital form.  The problem comes from the fact that essential qualities of the object are compromised in the digitization process, that is to say a photograph still fulfills the same role when scanned, however what is the role of for example a piece of food, if it cannot be eaten?  The work then denies all the practical and physical purposes of the object and only the symbolic remain.

 This work is intended to be read as a vanitas, this is alluded to in the title which names the work as a still-life despite the transitory nature of video.  This is just one of the conventions borrowed from the vanitas of Dutch still-life; others include the inclusion of over ripe fruit to symbolize decay and deterioration, as well as the use of chiaroscuro and having a collection of individual, symbolic objects.  The photograph is included to induce nostalgia and feelings of loss, and the money and bottles are included as a probable cause.  The film footage of the water is intended to make time apparent, and reinforce the feelings of futility against its invariability. 

Sound was not included in the work as it is intended to be an allusion to still-life painting portrayed using the conventions of video, the inclusion of sound would weaken this allusion as the work would be read exclusively as video.  This work is intended to be presented projected onto a conventionally prepared canvas. 

Here's a Hint about Project 2!

 

A List of Links about Candles and Other Things

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_can
http://www.walmartphotocentre.ca/album/gift_landing.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votive_candle
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/OQRLd4SD0Ar/Obama+Votive+Candle+Stirs+Collectors+Critics/0QjOxfzw6q3
http://www.circle-of-light.com/Spells/religious.html
http://www.bartleby.com/210/
http://www.catholicsupply.com/christmas/saint_meaning.html
Jerry Seinfeld - Patron Saint of Nothing?

Love is Dirt Biking.

Here's a dirt-bike-riding-kite-flying valenties day gift I made for you all.