Daily Archives: June 29, 2015

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Dadaism: Complete Nonsense

June 29, 2015 Shannon O'Donnell Leave a comment

The actual word ‘dadaism’ is a nonsense word which was made up with no real meaning. The creators wanted to use a word that meant nothing as a sign of protest against the First World War. This new idea was adapted in 1916. This movement can be seen as shocking, surprising and scandalous to most people, although it isn’t as crazy as people make it out to be. Dadaism was created by Hugo Ball in Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. This is the total rejection of rules and came from utter disgust after the brutality of WWI. Here Ball wanted an audience reaction to try and test their tolerance and to test them and their take on this new art form.
This can be associated with photo montage, this is the layering of different types of images cutting them out and putting them back together in a different way to create an entirely new image. Here many propaganda posters were created as a new movement and to influence citizens. This really interests me as I am able to explore how different countries and different leaders perceived themselves and what message they wanted to bring across to the world.

I like the idea of dadaism and photo montage. I think I am going to experiment with copies of old family photographs and create my own photo montage as well as maybe creating a few more realistic propaganda posters for past and present leaders. This will be interesting for me and I think that I will be able to explore a load of different aspects of this movement. For me I will be taking a chance to see how controversial a lot of what I am going to create will be, as well as it changing and challenging the way society thinks and perceives a certain influential person or period in time.

There weren’t many women involved with the dadaism movement but there was one popular woman called Hannah Hoch. Hoch was a German Dada artist, born in 1889. The reason not many women were a part of this movement because around the time this came about women were seen as secondary to men, that they should stay at home and nurture the children and were unworthy of work. Hoch was actually one of the originators of photomontage. She was the loan woman amount the Dada group as women were seen as lesser than men back then.

Mr T instruction, Research

Cubism: The Beginning of Modern Art

June 29, 2015 Shannon O'Donnell Leave a comment

Cubism became one of the most influential visual art styles of the early Twentieth Century. This starts in 1907 when Pablo Picasso painted a portrait of five prostitutes. However it wasn’t who he had painted as this was common for artists to hire prostitutes to paint as it was seen as disrespectful to paint a nude image of your wife or of someone else’s wife. It was the way in which he had painted them which really got people talking, starting the era of cubism and the gateway to modern art.

I fiind this painting very interesting because the way it has been done is as if these women aren’t human but also in a way to protect their identity so that no one can see who these women actually are. I do think Picasso did this just as an experiment, to test the way the spectator thinks, which came to be very successful as now any one of his paintings will be sold for millions of dollars as each is unique and there is only one copy of it. I find this painting visually interesting because it doesn’t show too much attention to detail. It gives the basic shape and outline of each woman’s figure unlike biblical painting that people are used to seeing on top of church ceilings [from 1500s]. I like that this painting doesn’t objective these women as many other painters have done so many times in the past. To me this painting is embracing the human form and physique yet somehow it managed to deface the women in the painting too. I’m unsure whether or not distorting these women’s faces was an experimentation of different shapes or rather a means to say that these women’s faces don’t matter and only their bodies do. I have mixed feelings about this painting as you can see it from many different perspectives and can take from it both positively and negatively.

Pablo Picasso was inspired by Etienne-Jules Marey [1830 – 1904] and Eadweard May Bridge. These two also created a new style of art called montage. This came from Russia as well as the theory of an active audience when watching films. Here the Russians believed that an audience watching a film want to get involved and think actively and take from a film what they want whereas the old American belief was that all audiences’ were passive and were just fed something and they took it all in and did what the advertisement or film told them to do.

Research

Situationists

June 29, 2015 Jessica Freire Leave a comment

Situationism is the theory that behavior is mainly a response to immediate situations.

The situationist international was a group of social revolutionaries, which was made up of artists, political theorists and intellectuals which started in 1957 and ended in 1972. Guy Debord was one of the members who stuck out the most. At first the situationists were concerned about how art had been held back and wanted to make art and culture one in everyday life. Then they became concerned about the capitalist society. They believed that capitalism gave humans dissatisfaction so human desire needed to be fulfilled by finding an alternative to a capitalist society. They are well known for their wildcat strikes and riots in Paris 1957 where there were general strikes all across France which almost put Frances capitalist economy on a stop although the strike did turn violent it was mostly artistic it included things such as songs, graffiti’s and posters.

Tom Pope was inspired by the situationists, I think there is a link between the work he does and the situationists because Tom Pope looks for a reaction and he challenges the norms by pushing boundaries.

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/index.html

Research

SPACE HIJACKERS

June 29, 2015 Jemma Hosegood Leave a comment

The Space Hijackers is a group originating in the United Kingdom that defines itself as “an international band of anarchitects who battle to save our streets, towns and cities from the evils of urban planners, architects, multinationals and other hoodlums”. Time Out magazine has described the group as “an inventive and subversive group of London ‘Anarchitects’ who specialise in reclaiming public spaces – usually without permission.

The group’s activities have included “guerrilla benching” restoring benches that had been recently removed and bolting them to the ground — organising a midnight game of cricket in the centre of the City of London financial district, and satirising the glossy architects’ drawings that are displayed on the perimeter of luxury apartments by depicting children’s playgrounds and other projects they believe to be actually desirable. Many of these activities aim to bring to people’s attention the role which corporations play in society in a different light.

here are some of their projects from 2011-2012

Analysis, Evaluation, Research

Tom pope study – paper aeroplane

June 29, 2015 Jemma Hosegood Leave a comment

In psychogeography, a dérive (French: “drift”) is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct the traveller’s, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience.

In relation to tom pope, he made a paper aeroplane, and visited a gallery. a typically quiet and classy place. Tom then threw the aeroplane across the room and went to wherever it landed and looked at the closest piece of art to its landing.

Research

Space Hijackers 1999

June 29, 2015 Sian Cumming Leave a comment

The space hijackers are a group of people who originate in the United Kingdom. Space Hijacking is mental graffiti, designed to change how the space is perceived and take some of the power away from the people who own or design the space. The aim is to ultimately prove to people that space isn’t used effectively and to show how restricted areas can really be unrestricted, you can boycott the rules right, then you’ll get away with stealing power from someone.

When they were formed in 1999, their first major action was the Circle Line Party – a party on London Underground’s Circle Line which attracted around 150 people armed with sound systems, disco lights and bars all disguised as luggage which attracted a lot of attention, but they were not being illegal. The Space Hijackers exist mainly to change the public’s perception of spaces it regularly uses, mainly by staging unexpected events. Their explicit objective is “to effect and change the physical space of architecture”, and, avoiding violent protest and other forms of transparent direct action, their methods aim “to invade and re-brand corporate space”.

The Space Hijackers inspired me to try more ‘out of the box’ ideas for my final outcome as I want my work to have a wider range of ideas to show more diversity in my work. They’ve made me think of lots of ideas to use for more videos rather than photographs which is more my thing, I want to do something i’m not as comfortable with to do how I cope with it and to see how I do with it.

Mr T instruction

Starting points – Final Ideas

June 29, 2015 Mr Toft Leave a comment

Objective: Contextual studies and developing final ideas

There is now 3 weeks left of this module and it is time for you to begin to develop ideas for final outcomes.

From the Planner Summer 2015 it states that you MUST Produce a number of posts that show evidence of the following:

1. Research: Look at a number of different starting points for developing your own ideas. In particular other artists within performance, photography and video for example see ppt: Performance and Photography, Photomontage and resources from below. Choose at least two artists references.

2. Analysis: Select key works for further analysis. Describe techniques used, interpret meaning, evaluate aesthetic quality. Make links to art history e.g. concept of Dadaism, Photomontage, Futurism, Surrealism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema, Situationism, Psychogeography, Performance art/Live art, Neo-dadaism, Conceptualism etc.

3. Planning: Write a manifesto with a set of rules (6-10) that provide a framework for your final project. Describe in detail how you are planning on developing your work and ideas in the next two weeks. Think about what you want to achieve, what you want to communicate, how your ideas relate to the themes of Chance, Change and Challenge and how you are going to approach this task in terms of form, technique and subject-matter. Illustrate your ideas with examples, mindmaps, moodboards etc. You can work individually or in groups.

4. Friday 3rd July Group crit: Critical reflection and presentation of your work/ ideas

5. Upload and process images/video using Lightroom/ Photoshop/ Premiere.

6. Final outcome: Edit, experiment and evaluate with a number of different creative outcomes using still images or video. Produce a number of posts that illustrate your working and thinking process, using screen-graps, images and annotation.

7. Create a title for your work and write an artists statement.
Review, reflect and describe the ideas, influences and meaning behind your final outcome. Reflect also on what you have learned during this module on Performance and Photography and evaluate how successful you were in realising your ideas and how it relates to themes of Chance, Change & Challenge.

8. DEADLINE Friday 10th July: Feedback and creative input. from Tom Pope and Gareth Syvret. Make sure you have work ready for presentation!

HELP & SUPPORT:

A list of art movements that you may use as contextual research. Many of them also produced Manifestos:

Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism, Situationism, Neo-dadaism, Land/Environmental art, Performance art/Live art, Conceptualism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema (those studying Media make links with your unit on Experimental film)

Here are a list of artists/ photographers that may inspire you:

Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Yves Klein, Bas Jan Ader, Erwin Wurm, Chris Arnatt, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Francis Alÿs, , Sophie Calle , Nikki S Lee, Claude Cahun, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, Allan Kaprow, Mark Wallinger, Gillian Wearing, Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade, Andy Warhol’s film work, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Marina Abramovic, Pipilotti Rist, Luis Bunuel/ Salvatore Dali: , Le Chien Andalou, Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera