A subconcious reality.

This lesson we spoke of artists in relation to psychology, and the subconcious. A world in which our minds are left free to switch off into a much simpler state, where we do not need to use our brain, and we do not need to think as much about what we are making.

The subconcious was a key ingredient to New Zealand born artist, Len Lye's art pieces. However, he had started out drawing images inspired by several artists, and aboriginal art. He drew many symbols, mostly circles, which soon he came to find out that in relation to the ideas of Carl Jung were very similar.

Jung had an idea called the "theory of scnchronicity". He believed that each of us as humans are alike, living in harmony, and that we all subconciously think alike in a way of primal form. Even us as different races, and from far different parts of the world will still produce the same symbols to eachother. A small section at the back of the brain is supposed to feed this primal urge. It guides us into what we feel is right, or what we feel we should draw subconciously.

Len Lye figured that being influenced highly by aboriginal art, he produced the circular images much in the same way his aboriginal ancestors would have determined them, through the use of the small part of his primative brain, or his "old brain" as he had called it. Symbols, in the subconcious would have driven those people millions of years ago to produce art, Often very sylisticly, because they would not have been using their "new brain" to see an object, and draw it from reality.

The hero theory further portrays this idea of unconcious thinking. An old tale of Hercules would have a basic skeleton to his character. he would bare a weapon of choice, in his case a shining sword. He would also have in his story some sort of damsel in distress, and a conflict making a barrier between him and his girl. The hero of coarse, thrashing his sword in the air, passes all challenges ahead of him with flying colours, and sweeps up the girl without one bat of an eyelash. This idea has always been used in stories, perhaps even in primal times. Today, we also have a similar skeleton for stories in cartoons.

Popeye, for example uses this. His weapon of choice being spinach! The greens to make you tough as steel! Gulping it up, he swims over to skull rock island, biffs Bluto in the face, and swoops down to collect his sweetheart, Olive Oyl.

We all seem to have this constantly evolving ideal lurking somewhere in the back of our heads to copy and reproduce unconciously.For this reason, it is quite easy to see why a man from china, may be able to draw a symbol in a similar way to someone living in the united states. or that they may even be thinking about the exact same thing at one time. A simplistic, primal portrayal.

todays lesson detailed the idea surrounding form following function. It rather confused me...but I think I almost have my head around it.

For me, form follows function means that anything that is made should be made according to it's functionality. In our lecture we were shown a house where the outside was very plain. this was because the designer had not thought much about the outside at all. They had only designed the inside because that is the functional part of the home, the inside. And that is all that is needed to look good. If we decided then that a door or window is needed in a certain place from the inside , if it looks strange from the outer side of the house it will not matter, because of the rule that we should think about the functioality of the house first, and not worry about appearance.

We cut out blue, red, and yellow shapes to attempt to prove bauhauses form follows function theory true. The verdict? I don't think it worked very well. Most of the class picked random colours according to the shape, rather than the colours Bauhaus said we are all programmed to choose due to the thought of it's function as a shape. Bauhaus said that the circle must be blue, the square must be red and the triangle must be yellow. I can almost see his idea in this because as functions, waves of water can be round, and they are blue. Stop signs are red, and they are sometimes angular in shape like a square. I do not see any resemblence to the triangle however, leaving this theory a rough hypothesis.

Bauhauses idea that form must follow function does not appear to be very consistant. There are never going to always be true examples of this idea in the world because things are constantly changing. He assumed that civilisation has smothered the creativity in design thinks that nature is much more perfectly drafted. However, this is not so. For example, in nature an animal will have certain characteristics that may help the functionality of the animal. The fur, perhaps would be one function as it keeps the animal warm. But When the weather changes say, due to global warming, this function does not follow its form anymore, so it will either need to change and adapt or face over heating and dieing out.

If Bauhaus had researched into his idea he would have realised the flaws within it. Nothing, even in nature istelf has perfect design. Neither can colour be determined merely by the shape or size of something.

madness in multiples

Todays lesson depicted the idea of multiples, and the over all effect this can have on ones work as a whole. If I were to think about an artist whom uses this idea in their work, an obvious person who absolutely SCREAMS this idea would of coarse be Andy Warhol.

His prints and paintings are repeatedly mass produced in multiples. Cans over cans over cans over bottles over bottles over bottles. But in my mind I begin to think about the meaning if this. why would he want you to see an image like this so many times? what effect would it have on the work itself? would the overall meaning change if there was purelly one bottle in the middle of an empty white room?

Well, in our lecture we learned about Walter Benjamin's idea of Aura's, the exillerating feeling that you expirience when in the presence of an original piece of artwork such as the mona lisa or similar masterpiece. They are one off's and make you think about the history and making of the painting. The effort put into a work that has taken time to produce makes you feel just a tiny bit closer to the artist themselfes.

When we think about Andy's works, None of his works are originals. Like a photograph, or cheap copy of a fine art print, he has used the silkscreen process to produce much more than one copy, eliminating the exillerating effect of a work. He has used the complete opposite to Walter Benjamin's idea, to achieve something of a rather mind numbing effect. In some of his pieces he has used rather shocking imagery of car crashes, electric chairs and suicides. Topics banned from the mass media for its graphic imagery. What he has done is softened the blow of these images. they are no longer as shocking or provocative. They neither resonate the feeling if an auora. They are not original works, and we do not stop to concentrate on purely one to think about time and effort, or to feel closer to the artist.

When you view an exebition of Andy Warhols works, you may be overcome by the shear mass of images thrown at you. If I think about this in terms of the world, he has definatly mimmicked the ideas of media. magazine articles and the news flood the streets, numbing story's of their effect, to a point where you probably wouldn't think twice about it. The elecric chair is an exaple of this. what was once a shocking image of torture and cruel American execution is now merely an image. Only a work printed onto canvas, multiple times under the name of one American Arist, Andy Warhol.

I'll have a cheese pizza with extra ice.

Spike Lee's film "Do the right thing" is developed throughout with several ideas depicting racism and the struggle for racial harmony amongst a close community. In particular, I feel that temperature plays a crucial role in the film's development, in many different forms such as ice, fire, or water.

At the start of the film, we learn of heat waves bursting through the streets of Brooklyn. The moggy weather used in the film depicts a very clever metaphor to represent the harmony of races. As the heat rises, so does the temper of many, resulting in annoyance and aggrivational build up to a point of near explosion.

In Mookie's ice scene with his girlfriend, We can see clearly how the use of temperature is vital to depicting certain ideas in the film. As Mookie is black, and his girlfriend is of another race, Italian American, The ice running ovcer her body is seen as a metaphor for racial harmony. It is something which is used to soothe the hot friction between their cultural differences, but unfortunatly due to Mookie's job, there just wasn't enough time for "ice", causing aggrivation within their relationship.

One colour that springs to mind when I think of this film is red. There is red almost everywhere in the film. There are red lights flooding onto the screen in the begining where Mookie's girlfriend is dancing her heart out, bright red painted on the wall where the three old men sat to chat in their deck chairs, red in the roses which the Mayor gave so kindly to Mother Sister, red in the colour of the fire hydrant, red in the fire engine which came to douse the flames in the pizzarea. A colour of many connotations. Love, heat, passion, anger... And in almost every scene where this is shown, such comnnotations are strife.In the Mayors situation, There was a complication between the Mayors admiration for Mother Sister, as she did not entirely like him at first, unsure weather to accept the red roses or not. With the old men, they merely gaped into the asian man's shop on the corner, speaking of asians taking over their country, as he had opened his business in only a year. Situations like this were racist, and stirred unnessesary heat, as tempers rose.

Heat was a major element to the contribution to racism, being a representation of the many races in the film. African Americans, Italian Americans, Koreans, and Europeans, were the races which all lived together in the same community, however they mixed like fire and water. Hot and cold. Neither could exist freely without the other there, hounding them with racial slurr and comment. This enflamed the situation, which unexpectedly exploded into a contageous rampage. The result? A rather charred pizzaria, soaked to the bone in the very element which could possibly have cooled everybody down and saved it all.