Week 19
Seminar brief:
take an aspect or of one of the last three set texts,and apply some of the
ideas to either your own work or another piece of work of your choice (a photograph,
film, art work, web site, piece of music). During the seminar I will ask everyone
to do a short couple of minutes presentation showing how the ideas in the text
are relevant to your chosen example.
The last three texts you can choose from are:
this weeks text "The Operations" by Lev Manovich from his book the "language
of new media". Its in the course reader.
Last weeks text "Baud Girls and Cargo Cults"
or the Daniel Chandler text "Personal Home pages and the Construction of Identities
on the Web"
Resources related to Lev Manovich's ideas about digital production.
Lev Manovich's web site/ home page. Lots of resources; writing, projects etc
http://www.manovich.net
Below: a series of images and projects that use found sources and digital processing
to alter their meaning and their appearance:
Often referred to as appropriation (or sampling in music terms)
Lev Manovich Anna and Andy: Lev Manovich 'streaming novel' rips Tolstoy's blockbuster
Anna Karenina through a script searching for a shortlist of keywords. As the
text zooms through a small rectangle in the centre of the screen, the occurence
of these words throughout the novel is clocked up. That's the Anna bit. The
Andy? That'll be Warhol. Each chapter of the book is accompanied by a series
of actorial mugshots of the characters.
http://www.manovich.net/AA/
Digital Artist Jon Haddock
A series of drawings from an isometric perspective, in the style of a computer
game. The subject of each drawing is the image, or images, that created a popular
cultural event.
http://whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/index.html
Internet pornography, digitally edited to remove the figures - montage created
by removing, rather than adding elements
http://whitelead.com/jrh/ISPs/index.html
thesmokehammer.com
This site has a downloadable video 'bush whacked' by Chris Morris. A brilliant
re-edit of Bush's state of the union speach that inverts its meaning with
searing satirical wit. The edit is sophisticated and a great example of how
digital production procedures (video editing in this example) can alter the
meaning of any event or image.
http://www.thesmokehammer.com/
Below: Older Images that use found sources and alter their meaning and their
appearance
Artist Andy Warhol used the repetition of images and screenprinting - his work
replicates the 'reproduced' look of images.
Warhol's work reminds us of the mechanical process that lies behind the production
of images.
Images
http://tigtail.org/L_View/TVM/B/NAmerican/b.%20post%20WW%20II/warhol-andy/warhol.html
Sixteen Jackies
http://tigtail.org/L_View/TVM/B/NAmerican/b.%20post%20WW%20II/warhol-andy/M/warhol_sixteen_jackies.1964.jpg
Electric Chairs
http://tigtail.org/L_View/TVM/B/NAmerican/b.%20post%20WW%20II/warhol-andy/M/warhol_electric_chairs.1963.jpg
texts and images
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/warhol_andy.html
Cubism and Collage
Artists Pablo Picasso, George Braque and Juan Gris
The first instances of collage and the depiction of space as composed by fragments
or disparate parts.
Manovich traces this development through digital production and compositing
techniques.
The web site below has examples and short texts about early collage and cubism.
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/grisham/1d_analycub.html
Artist Marcel Duchamp
Duchamp was the first artist use found objects and images to make his art.
What we would now call sampling in music.
His most famous image - also a kind of joke or pun - was his alteration of
a postcard of the mona lisa. (see below)
Duchamp also 'appropriated ' domestic objects - declaring them as art. His
most famous piece is 'Fountain' an ordinary urinal that Duchamp submitted for
inclusion in an exhibition. Some of Duchamps ideas have been taken up by contemporary
artists and musicians. Theresa Senft refers to the band Negitvland who take
the idea of sampling and appropriation to an extreme degree.
short texts on Duchamp:
http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/MONASV12.htm#Duchamp
http://www.artscienceresearchlab.org/articles/panorama.htm
Altering the mona lisa - or a postcard or reproduction of the Mon lisa (image):
http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/MONA11.htm
Declaring a urinal as art (image):
http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/images/DuchampFountain.jpg
Background reading:
Ernst Gombrich
"Art and Illusion"
Gombrich's book investigates how artists have always used conventions and representational
schemas to represent reality.