VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY V. AUTHENTIC MATERIALITY
I cant get the idea out of my head that I need to justify (to myself) why drawing, specifically pencil on paper might be a valid means of visual art today. I imagine it lies in the sphere of virtual technology image versus authentic materiality. We are inundated with fast paced technological image whenever we look, TV at home, advertising boards on the street, plasma screens in Dr’s, train stations and airports, I find myself looking away most of the time. I first heard the term schizophrenic society about 10 years ago, Tony Ousler had a very good show at the Lisson gallery, and he was dealing with the media image, he described the effect of technology in the way we consume it as schizophrenic inducing. I have since heard the term used again more recently. The school I send my kids to recommend no TV for children until the age of 14, they believe, and there is substantial evidence to back it up, that it detrimentally effects the way children develop their imagination. We have lent our telly to a friend, and I don’t miss it a bit, infact I feel empowered without it. I have a computer which I would be lost without (very handy for researching, social networking and watching DVD’s), but I strongly feel that there is too much technology around to the decline of the natural, healthy, authentic ‘experience’. We need a balance. So even though I’m interested in photography, especially the photo-shopped kind, which I might dabble at. I choose to work predominately with pencil on paper, I find it a healthy experience, I guess I would like to encourage this healthy or ‘authentic’ experience in the world around me. I might find an answer with the artist Dan Hays. In his essay ‘Painting in the light of Digital Reproduction’ he suggests painting a digital image exposes the flaws in the digital image, this is something that I want to reflect on. He also talks about landscape painting as a paradoxical space. http://culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/86/63
KATERINA FRITSCH
I remember her for her sculptures of repeated objects in bright colours. I have revisited this artist and found some of her new work to be brilliant. She has made the most amazing photos where it looks like the colour balance has been adjusted in different areas and I’ve seen one sculpture installation that I love (sculpture usually leaves me cold).
JOHN STEZAKER
I dont know how I havn’t seen this man’s work before, I have been extensively going to galleries for 1o or so years. I think his work is so clever and poignant to now. Masks and Pairs are my favourite series. This is what they say about him on The Approach’s website:
John Stezaker has been centrally influential in a number of developments in art over the last three decades; from Conceptual Art, New Image Art through to the contemporary interest in collage. Showing first as a part of the British Conceptual Art group in ‘The New Art’, 1972, Stezaker’s interest in the concept soon gave way to a long-term fascination with the image, finding new aesthetic allegiances with the image through working with found photographs and printed matter. This fascination is translated into alterations, deletions, visual concordances and juxtapositions of disparate sources, intuitively creating new images, relationships, characters and meanings.
Stezaker’s investigations continue to develop in this exhibition of new works that concentrate specifically on the portrait. The ‘Masks’ series pursue Stezaker’s ongoing interest with the hidden face. Found postcard images obscure and replace the subject’s physiognomy, leaving a ‘surround’ of hair, neck and clothes. In Pairs, (2007), the postcard masks the heads of couples, so that the point where they meet or embrace is fused by a superimposed image to surreal effect. Cavernous landscapes take the place of facial features and blend them into imagined narrative possibilities.
http://www.theapproach.co.uk/publications/stezaker…
CHLOE OSTMO
It seems that I just can’t stop. After working so hard for assessments I thought I’d take some time off, but I’ve got ideas in my head that I want to get down and work on (we do have our interim show coming up afterall).
Whilst compiling info for my research folio I found a few artists that I’m really fascinated with but couldn’t include as they weren’t relevant to my current work. I expect they will influence my work now in fact I feel a massive change coming on.
I saw Chloe Ostmo at the New Contemporaries 2010. She has made these amazing images with folds in. I have experimented with folding an image of ravens myself last year, and really enjoyed the effect, but at the time I hadn’t found a research area, so didn’t persue the idea. Now I think I will, I’ve seen one other artist fold a photo at freize which I also liked – can’t remember the name, didn’t make a note of the artist at the time but it is one of the few images that has stayed with me.
‘Underneath all reason lies delirium and drift.’ (Deleuze 1995). [21 November 2009]
After working very hard ‘full time’ towards my assessments for my ‘Part time’ MA at wimbledon – ignoring my children, partner, friends and family I feel the full force of Deleuze’s quote.
I have often felt that my body and mind will always try and balance itself. If I don’t get enough exercise I crave the fresh air. If I’m out too much I’m desperate for some quiet time with my book. Well I have found that after 2 months of solid research writing for my MA, my mind has entered a delerium & drift phase
My research folio can be found at
http://abbitorrance2.wordpress.com
