18th May - Advertising

This week we looked at the idea of art being part of an advertising system where it is seen as just another object of value, where it is the artist's skill that is being bought and sold, also I found it interesting how an artist might not be able to create the art they want when they are a part of that system.

We watched John Carpenter's film They Live (1988) which was really interesting and eye-opening to me, I never realised just how many advertisements we see everyday and how they are part of our lives and also how we take them for granted. Set in 1980's America it explores the culture of greed, consumption and the undertones in adverts that tell us to obey. I think it also explores a fear in society of being controlled. In the film it shows that the wealthy people are actually aliens, hidden with subliminal messages and the media, who are the ones doing the controlling.

A great example of this use of advertising that I found which has made an impact on me was actually in the film Casino Royale directed by Martin Campbell (2003). The film has been called a 144 minute long advert and there is a reason: product placement. The man James Bond has greatly influenced society. He is a connoisseur, he is charming, handsome, highly intelligent, heterosexual, a good leader and is loyal to his country. Also he demonstrates a wide range of very impressive skills like being able to fight, free-run, shoot guns, etc. These qualities of his give him a Midas Touch, only everything he touches turns to 'sold'. Whatever Bond owns, people want which not only explains it making a US $4 billion but also it explains why after the success of Aston Martin in James Bond, global brands will pay $3 billion for product placement. Only some of the brands seen in Casino Royale were: Omega Seamaster, Land Rover, Heinekin, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson. All these brands however were only seen for a few seconds each or for only one shot, so paying so much money for only a few seconds of viewing seems kind of ridiculous. Even Richard Branson himself appears for a few seconds in the film at Virgin Airlines going through metal detectors.

I found this use of advertising really interesting because it is part of an art medium that is viewed everyday, everybody watches films and especially a contemporary action movie like Casino Royale. This film in particular, because of its fame for fine products, helped me to see that adverts really are what we live in and they have become so common their messages have become subliminal. Their goal is to make you recognise them and remember them and to tell you to buy. The statement that it is pretty much a 144 minute long advert links directly to the idea of art becoming just about money. After all, James Bond wouldn't be as successful now if it wasn't then.

May 11th - Materiality, Surface, Affect, Site

This week we watched a slide where we saw some artists who worked with materiality like:

Eve Armstrong, Run Off, 2007

The materials used in this were metal shelving, metal display hooks, clotheshorse, metal storage racks, plastic filling trays, plastic storage stacks, pegboard, chrome towel rail, chrome stool base, chrome rubbish bin, plastic rubbish bin, plastic bucket, Perspex tube, carpet, plastic plant pots, carpet protector, Tupperware lids, plastic bowls, towels, ice pack, and a pot plant (Rhipsalis Capilliformis).

She has a passion for what other people might think of as rubbish, she sees beauty in it and she also likes to work with layers and different colour palettes. I like how in Run Off the colours are greys and blues with a hint of green. I also like how it can appear as a still life, for example because of the objects used it could be the life of an office worker?

I mostly am intrigued by the materials and how they are the work without anything else, they aren't glamorized or sitting on something though it would be interesting to know if she did place these objects in those positions on purpose and if so, why? Perhaps it is a relation to her other work Spill, 2005 as this has a similar shape in the way it is sitting, with objects moving outward in a pathway at the bottom.

A good example of surface was:

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967

From www.webexhibits.org/colorart/marilyns:

"In August 62 I started doing silkscreens. I wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly line effect. With silkscreening you pick a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It was all so simple, quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. When Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face the first Marilyns."

By screening these famous images you see all these different effects, themes, but also what was contemporary. This is pop art. When we focus on the flat surface of the prints we see him moving away from the traditional realistic three-dimensional oil paintings and is instead showing difference in two-dimensional. This is the only observation I have explored of surface as I don't think work being literally 3-d would have made these works memorable, they would have just been classed as sculpture.

Affect in art is what I came to understand as a sensory experience, so I chose this artwork to look at:

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977

400 custom-made, stainless steel lightning rods planted in the ground, stretched for miles, and only six people are allowed to see it at a time.

First of all, you know this is a sensory experience because the viewer is in the work of art. In New Mexico, you have to stay in a log cabin so you are actually living in it. Seeing it also inspires ideas, like how it looks like something from a science-fiction movie or how the landscape looks like a conventional western. The picture it makes when lightning actually strikes is, as can be seen on the left, extraordinary and if you were there I imagine seeing this and being so close to it would encourage strong feelings of excitement, fear, it would be very thrilling to see it by stormlight. I think it would most certainly give me goosebumps. Also it would probably be quite loud when the lightning strikes.

For site I think that the site of the artwork is important because it relates to the artwork itself, it is part of the context. The most interesting artwork that had an important site to me was:

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1971

Smithson reportedly chose this site, the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah, because of the blood-red colour of the water and industrial remnants from nearby Golden Spike National Historic Site. The spiral appears and reappears as the water level rises and falls and ever since it was made it has been an icon.

Smithson wrote that the jetty jutting from the shore was ''the edge of the sun, a boiling curve, an explosion rising into a fiery prominence.''

4th May - Star Wars

This week we watched the original Star Wars film (1997) as we were exploring narratives, archetypes, mythologies and science fiction. In the lecture, what stood out to me most was:




David Friedman, Pareidolia: Alien Stapler
because it is a strong representation of popular science fiction in a very modern setting, it is very interesting to look at and kind of laughable when you make the connection to the stapler. It really draws the eye but mostly it makes the viewer, if they have seen the Alien films or something similar, immediately think of them.



Bill Hammond: Place Makers
because it firstly reminds me of when I was in primary school and went to an art gallery and saw one of his paintings (or it could have been a similar artist) of bird people and was told that he painted what he saw in his dreams. Things in dreams are always twisted or contorted from their real life counterparts and carry a theme of surrealism which also reminds me of Salvador Dali who is probably the most recognized artist for surrealism.




For Star Wars we had to choose a character to study, I have chosen Han Solo because he is the most interesting character to me and the most interesting archetype too. He is what you would call the Lovable Rogue: a person who breaks the law, for their own personal profit, but is nice enough or charming enough to allow the audience to like them and root for them. It helps that we, the audience, don't know the people he rips off and he makes sure to let us know that they are bad people anyway. The thing about Han is that he has his own version of a Code of Honour, he is more likely to save his own skin before anyone else's but the catch for this archetype is of coarse that he helps the protagonist which makes him, well, lovable. If you had told Han Solo in the prime of his criminal life that he would one day risk his life and ship and become a hero he would have had a witty smart remark for you. This is most of his appeal, sure he is a thief but he is funny and helpful at times. Another characteristic he has as this archetype is being brave and reckless, "I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around" he says, though even in the worst of situations he manages to get out without a scratch. Also it should be pointed out that he is very unpredictable which obviously is what allows him to be nice and likable.

The most obvious character I can relate the Lovable Rogue to is Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean who is actually a mixture of the Lovable Rogue and the Magnificent Bastard. Common elements are that he is generally a protagonist but is highly pragmatic and values his own life above anyone else's. Actually being a Pirate is quite appropriate for these men as they have their own code of honour and would rather adventurously pursue treasure than ambitions of heroism or love.
Another character from film could be Rick O'Connell from The Mummy, he is a reckless but highly skilled soldier who helps the woman for promise of treasure and never expects to fall in love.
Robin Hood
Dean and Sam Winchester of Supernatural who commit credit card fraud and other like crimes to fund their 'hunting'

It is good to compare Han Solo to Luke Skywalker because while they are both heroes they are very different. Skywalker is very ambitious from the get go and only agrees to go with Ben after learning of the death of his family. He is purely good and if he was a character in a modern film the hero in him would most likely be tested by his enemies, for example they would exploit his greatest weakness of being too much of a hero by capturing someone he loved whereas Solo until the very end would not have this weakness.