Dont be fooled, Kenny's poo job is fake.

Todays lecture was introduced by tutor, Eldon Booth. He spoke of his interests with moving image, and how he liked the idea of blurring the line between fact and fiction. These two values can easilly merge together in film and television today to create a realistic sense of fiction. This is done with the use of camera transitions and techniques. The film "Elephant" which we viewed today is a film which clearly portrays this.

For Eldon, fact vs fiction seemed to be something strong which drove his moving image pieces. He spoke of how old "handy cam" videos from the late 90's on programmes such as "worlds dumbest criminals" were easilly packaged programmes, (as they were merely sent in by viewers and needed no extra filming) portraying a strong sense of reality television. This was because these tapes were filmed by every day people like you and me. They were not of high quality and often portrayed camera shake, out of focus shots, natural lighting, or background noise. Today in the film and television industry, they have used these ammateurish techniques to mimmick the feeling of a false sense of reality. For example, In Eldon's work "withdrawl" each of the scenes are fake, and have been acted out by his brother and grandfather. However, because he chose to film this with the "handy cam" in mind, it enacted reality fimling, creating visual trickery. THIS is how the line between fact and fiction can gel together.

The film "Elephant" uses the exact same techniques to trick the viewer into thinking what is happening is reality. Of coarse, the storyline WAS based on a true event, but as they have put their own interpretation onto this event (tried to fill in the missing view points of the collumbine attackers, students, ect.) they need to make this as believable as possible. This has been done throught the use of natural lighting, blurred camera shots (eg. when the boy in the yellow shirt sits down at reception, his face is blurred out for a few moments) and as much background noise as possible. Also, shots are long and drawn out, which make the films pace a lot slower - like in real life. We see all view points of students and the attackers, which are repeated but shown at a seperate view point each time. Each view point,continues for quite some time, showing where that particular person is going and doing at the same time as everyone else. This cut up, repetition has been used to create a sense of mundane daily routine. The essay "Sublime Anarchy in Gus Van Sant's Elephant", touches on this idea. It states from the film that -

"John's dad is drunk again. With a resigned air, John insists on taking the wheel and drives himself to school, where he runs through what the viewer learns is routine: car keys are deposited at the office, safely out of dad's hands; then john phones his brother to come collect their father."

Kenny was a "mockumentary" film about Kenny Smyth, a chemical toilet cleaner, played by actor Shane Jacobson. This was a laughable documentary spoof, which had no real fact involved.

"Funnier than bum full of m&m's! This mockumentary is great for a laugh. it's the sort of movie you go to with a group of friends and have some good out-loud belly laughs. There are so many one-liners in here that I'll have to wait till its out on DVD to note them down. However, amidst all the hilarity and pooh, Kenny is a sensitive bloke who has family problems like all of us. He is a real, regular bloke! This film also stands as an indictment on society. It brings the silver-tails back to earth with a resounding "plop" After all, everyone has to cr*p!! The final scene (not counting those in the credits) is a re-make of an old classic revenge prank that looses nothing in it's reworking. Loved Kenny's dad!" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0822389/

This film most certainly blurred the line between documentary and fiction because even though they made his life look real, and documentary-like through the ammateur techniques, there was in reality no such toilet cleaner living in a trailer park.

ER is a television programme which also decided to use these techniques in order to involve the viewer into the programme itself. In one of the test shows (filmed live) they had the camera shoving itself right up against doctors, as if you were in the film itself. The jerky camera movements, actors eye contact with the camera, and following panning all made the television show look realistic, just like "Elephant", "withdrawl" or "Kenny", again using the "handy cam" techniques of the late 90's. But no matter how real it looked, It was all a fictional plot. Simply a fabricated existence.

pop art worth less?

This lesson we had lecturer Richard Orjis come to speak with us about his work, and how he first put himself out into the world. He spoke of his interests with flowers and how these are important to his practice because of them being culturally safe, and that he sees them as defining beauty. Overall, he seemed to be a very spiritualy strong person. One other thing which came up was his interest in the shift between hight culture and popular culture. What are my thoughts on these? Well if you ask me, you shouldn't have asked.

Ha ha, but no seriously. When I define high culture in my mind, several things float in. Louis Vitton bags. Snotty broads smoking cigars, handling their money while they stand grinning smuggly at gallery dealers. And the silence. The deafening silence of a gallery. Will I be kicked out if I whisper something into the harsh white void? I also think of classical music. And opera. Loud, horrid, and shreiking. It all seems so rough and threatening. I have come to the conclusion that high culture is something which cuts a strong line between the "high breeds" and the barbaric oafs. I hate to see such patronising difinity being made. Popular culture art is defined as cheap, and tacky. Something which perhaps was made with no actual idea of the real value in art. Something such as Andy Warhol's multiple celebrity prints, or Duchamp's readymades. They are seen as inferrior to "high" craft. after all, who would want to buy a toilet? That cant be real art. But then I think that perhaps they want to be defined as "popular culture" for a reason.

Popular culture breaks the restraints of regular art. It is free and loud and different. It expresses things which the world are interested in and often in a very relaxed nature compared to "high" art which is very tight, and strict on formalities. There is room for experementation, often breaking the boundaries of the formal white canvas. Popular culture art exists in t-shirts, album covers and magazines, expressing Bright colors, Music, and Celebrity culture. And although some pop culture artists did display their art in a formal gallery, they still often broke a few formalities. An artist which does come to mind is Steve Keene. He produces mass produced paintings over and over, selling them for a very small price in an atmosphere similar to a bustling market. This is something which Richard Orjis was explaining. He likes the idea that an image can be very easilly accumulated. Magazines are an example, where you can often simply tear out an image if you like it, and stick it onto your wall. What steve keene is doing is very similar. by making multiples of an image (like in a magazine) he can sell it for a small price, and everyone can have a genuine piece of art for your home.

"Steve Keene says his art is like a CD — and this has nothing to do with his designing cover art for some of the world's hippest indie rock bands. It's disposable and forgettable or pleasing and memorable, depending on who owns the wall where the piece hangs." - http://www.thegreenbuilding.net/gallery/press.html

Limits increase the value of art. By having less and less of a certain image, like an original painting it increases the ammount of money it's worth. so why do it? Pop culture is known for creating "throw away" art, which is created in the masses. On T-shirts, canvas or paper."High" art is far too cherished. Surely by having the idea that pop art is barbaric and "un-art-like" , then an ACTUAL art piece such as a Monet would be valued and cherished more. It is not "throw away" art. there is only one.

But I dont see the difference in value between a rembrant compared to a piece by say, steve keene. They are both art, and like an expensive bag, or a cheap one, which ever you like better should in my opinion hold more personal value.

Do ya research!

Research for me, is the hardest damn thing in the world. It can take a long time to finish my research processes, and actually see where I am heading with these. I think for me it is very important that I push myself to develop on my thoughts, and accomplish a strong concluding point. For me, my conclusions are often some of my biggest weaknesses, and that is mainly due to lack in background research. To focus on my ideas, I must proceed in the examination of my concepts, and find out how these relate to the things I am reading and viewing.

When starting any kind of research based task such as an essay or assignment, I usually start off with a brainstorm. A kind of map that spits out all of my ideas and thoughts around a certain topic that I have chosen. Each thought can branch out into another, and from this I can begin to sift out and pick the most important ponts from all of the chaos. soon after, I may hop onto the internet to get a basic idea of someting that I am trying to research (like a book, event or artist model). I say a rough idea because the internet often warps the truth a little. Once I am certain about what kind of things I am looking for I could move onto a library to get further information on these details. And sometimes, a few straighter details than the internet.

This makes me think back to something which Grant told us in today's lecture. Colonialism. Settlers coming into New Zealand, and building their own structures and government with no real knowlege of the land. They hadn't even thought about the phisicality of New Zealands hilly atmosphere before they decided to plonk a pre-designed road layout over the top. What they did, was take a chunk of road from edinburrugh, copy and duplicate it onto a part of Dunedin. They only built from the things they knew. Even street names were exactly the same. The only problem was that by merely duplicating what they knew without any real research, the grid shaped road, suited for a flat type of landscape was a total missmatch to the bumpy curves of New Zealand.

This is how I see my work. If I only thought about ideas in my head, and wrote duplicates of the things I already know, I am going to end up with a pile of useless, insufficient reasearch. I wont be able to extend on my thoughts, or back up ideas with new knowledge or quotes. My research will be rather one sided, having only one point of view, and possibly a few twisted truths. If I were to talk about someone I didn't know at all like Charles Dickens, and wrote about him in an essay without background investigation saying, well he was a guy who wrote a book about something. it's obvious that I will fail my essay. My content has to be explained and justified.

For me, my X factor would come from watching and looking. Seeing things, and consuming as much visual information as I can handle. I am a visual learner. And this is most likely why I would get a bigger kick out of a book of photos, rather than a thick paperback. I also like to physically research. Go places and look. Take in the atmosphere. I may go to the place in which I am going to set my phototshoot, and take a few snapshots, so that I can further think and plan out how I am going to approach the task at hand. I find joy in finally concluding what my ideas are, and how I am about to portray these.

value is the key to sales, originality is the key to value.

Todays lecture was spent mostly learning about the differences between art sales and commercial sales. I also learned about the value of art, and why art should be valued. Lecturer Bepen Bhana helped to explain these ideas, after we viewed an episode of The aprentice UK.

In The aprentice UK both teams (stealth and eclipse) had to choose two artists of which they would hang and sell their works in a small gallery. When presented with their selection of artists , I felt that each team wanted to steer towards the artist which made the most asthetically pleasing work. The work which was not weird, or too out of the usual. The program constantly stereotyped art as a crazy, and expensive. Something which doesn't make a lot of sense either. This was because a lot of people in each of the teams didn't seem to quite get it, making fun of the photographer who had captured images of fish over curvy bodies. They made it look like rubbish too. The indian man remarked that there was a picture of a blank space and a cello, and he could buy all three of those items down the road for a few quid. Because the fashion photographer was selling her lip portraits for such a high price, it also stereo typed art as money. However, not all art is money. Often people do work for free because they feel that putting a price on art soils it completely.

The value of art ranges vastly from nothing to everything. As in the program, they portrayed several photographs of lips, all vastly overpriced according to the boss, talking to his apprentices. It's a photograph, yet nobody ever spoke of how many photographs there were in this set. was it a set? were they a one off? In terms of value, I would say that any item with fewer copies made would be much more valued, such as an original painting. This is because it has created rarity within the item. There is only one. Photographs are often not as valued because you could initially make thousands of copies.

the apprentices seemed to have no clue about the value of art, assuming that the images that were prettier had more face value. This is definatly not so, as the other team sold more images of dead fish, than they did the lucious lips. there were many photographs of the lips, with no variety. Yes, they were different in terms of colour, but they were not original within themselfs in terms of images. For example, if there were many lips and one eye for sale, which do you think would sell first? originality is often the key to value. And making something more valuable can lead to better sales.

Is gallery art better? I think not.

Today we heard about the art practices of sculptor, Dion Hitches, and the ways in which he manages the business side of his gallery entries.Selling art is just as important as making it, and you need to plan your business well. While explaining this to us, he also explained the differences between private art commisions, and public art projects. I soon began to pick my favorite.

Basically, a private art commission is when somone makes a private order for a particular artist, to get a piece of art specially made for them. When you are responding to a commission, you must always make sure that you are getting a good deal on their deposit, prefferably 50% of the cost. This is aspecially important incase there is a problem getting the full ammount payed to you later on.

The difference between private commisions and public projects, is that a public art project details entering your pieces of art into a gallery space to be shown and sold. There are no deposits made on the artworks because nobody has chosen to buy them yet. Basically, it is as if you are putting your items into a very expensive shop, for sale. A private commission is much more immidiate when it comes to making a sale because the person buying has ordered you to make it in advance, practically guaranteeing a sale. In public art spaces, it may take up to 10 years to make a sale, as your art floats from gallery to gallery. As Dion Hitches told us, his piece "manatepatupiahere" only sold after 7 years of being in many, many galleries.

Another key difference between public and private projects, is that private projects tend not no be anything special. Usually when an artist is comissioned to make something they are merely extending their actual art practice, or in other words, regenerating old designs to fit into the needs of the consumer. When an artist is making a work to place in a gallery space, it is generally a fresh, new idea. They will still need to think about what type of art will suit particular kinds of galleries, however it will still be something new and eye catching so that their art will be accepted into the gallerys show. There is no need to worry about acceptance within private commissions because the consumer has already chosen you, the artist, and paid for half of your art piece. This might often mean that you are spending a lot more money at a gallery, than when doing a commisioned work because commisioned works do not always require time making small mock ups, or wasting materials on failed trials. You already know roughly what you are going to make. When working for a gallery space, there can be a lot more time and money involved - mock ups, mistakes, trial and error. You could often put a lot of money into a project, and because there are no deposits being made, it may NEVER sell. You are initially taking risk, and in the end, you could possibly earn nothing.

The narratives within these two types of art practices can be very different. While a gallery work can be a lot more personal to yourself, having your own ideas put into it, A commissioned work can be much more personal to the person you are making it for, fitting it into the consumers own ideals. The people involved in the development of narrartive within a gallery, is yourself. What are your own ideas used to drive the making of your art? How will you chose to portray this? In a private errand, the ideas come from the consumer, and you are the one who will be portraying these ideas. Developing these concepts comes from talking to the consumer, and finding out what they need the artwork for (where it is placed?), and what it will mean to them once it is made.

Also in terms of differences, I found as Grant explained to us in his own ideas on "art", he does not think that something is art, unless it has been publicly displayed. In cases such as this, it could be partly true, because there are only a limited ammount of eyes who will see the piece. It is not shown in the town square, or an uptown gallery, and often it will be overlooked as art because it will be sculpting the landscape of the garden, or enhancing the walls in your home. The art will begin to cross over into the realms of decor. When Hitches sold his first artworks, he noticed that people were not buying his art as art. They were buying them to match their drapes. Even when the art begins to move from gallery, to home, this can definatly occur. Sometimes, we do not always care about the preciousness of an original gallery artwork.

So, I then began to ask myself. Is a regenerated commision made for a home, really so different to a fresh painting, newly thought up for a gallery? They both contain meaningful ideals, and sometimes they may even look similar. Why should I care? It still matches my drapes.

Archival art is not for everyone.

Todays lecture detailed the work of tutor, Steve Lovett. His work as it seems is a collectionary repertior of people and places from his past. Steve likes to work with the idea of people and dialogue, and the way in which this can connect people and places together in a kind of linking web. Viewing some of his works, I could see that a lot of his works were quite archival based in terms of using his own family photographs and such.

Well, If I were to ask my self about the word "Archive", and what that particular word means, I would have to say that it was about collecting. Keeping groups of things together from different parts of time, and storing them away. Photographs, little nick nacks or trinkets, or old clothes from people who wore them in the past. Archives to me are very hoarded. whether it be about your life, or history in general, nothing is thrown away. It is all kept together in groups. I would say that Archiving things would also need to be in some sort of basic order, be it alphabetical, numerical, or even in the order in which these events occured. Although as we saw today, not every archive is ordered. Boltanski was an artist who clearly kept a lot of his work unordered, having tins of random reciepts and bus tickets all crammed together in stacks of rusty biscuit tins. You cannot find anything.

In Steves work I definatly saw an element of archiving. He has kept pieces of his past and turned these into works of art. This very much reminds me of scrap booking. A way of archiving our past. Putting our old photographs, postcards, pieces of hair and articles into an album, and making these into small heirlooms. In Steves work, he has done the same by copying, old photographs from his childhood and from where he grew up, and added to them with print and paint.

For me, I do not see a trend between archives and artists. Neither do I see Autobiographical trends. Not all artists take their past and make it onto art. infact I have only seen a moderate ammount of artists who keep bits of their past and express it in ink ect. Artists like Bauhaus do not use any elements of their past in their work. Bauhaus merely takes shapes and adds further meaning to them. There is no representation of his childhood or past, or even any kind of archival quality added to it. Infact, One of my favorite artists Josephine Wall (image above) is someone who has never used a biographical element to her paintings. All of her works are based on the imaginary.

I do not think that I like the idea of making my art based around a documentary of my life. This is because my own life has never been an inspiration for me. Perhaps my past intregues me a little more, but I am perhaps more interested in the pasts of others. Better still, I would rather not make art that is archival of the past hardly at all. For me a faked archival look can be pretty - vintage looking borders and old documents. However, faking the past in photoshop, by taking old papers and manipulating them is probably as far as I will go. Grunge is something that I enjoy. The stains of life? Not so much.

broad spectrums = lesser knowledge?

Today we were enlightened by the practises of Deborah Crowe. Artist, tutor, and in her mind a "practitioner".

Deborah uses a wide variety of materials ranging from the use of textiles, wire, flax, photoshop to produce digital collaged works, and the use of various other drawing mediums. As Deborah progressed within her art making processes, she began to realise that she wanted to make works which were in a three dimensional world. she wanted works which stood on their own. This was her transformation from using flat flax, and moving into the use of wire to make larger, three dimensional works. She spoke of her thoughts about art, and that she did not see herself as an artist. This was because she did not specialise under any kind of profession. She has knowledge within a wide range of things, and practices them. Hence, her self description.

For my own art practices, I feel that it is crucial to realise what it is that I am enjoying the most, and also what I am absolutely best at. For me, if I know that someting will not take me far in my practices, I usually begin to narrow down my options a little further. For example, I am not mesmerised by jewellery making. For someone who has decided to become unspecialised in my own opinion may lack crucial skills picked up from a specific subject. By specialising, it gives you much more time to practice within one subject, and learn even further skills, to push your learning and understanding of it even more. If you were unspecialised, I would think that someones understanding of say, Digital Photography, (along side several other ideals) would be lesser to a man whom has purely learnt how to use a digital camera and photoshop. These things may come more natural to him because of his constant practice. I do not believe in doing everything for the sake of doing everything.

HOWEVER, although I say this now, I am bound to contradict myself immensely because I also do believe that having a slightly broader spectrum of learning can also be a plus in terms of individuality. You will know more skills, and be more likely to make newer and more unusual works. You will have the freedom to open your mind and create almost anything you think possible. I merely think that having too much knowledge can possibly be a downfall. I also feel that in my own art, I will eventually specialise, although I would have atleast one or two other subjects to back up my art practice because specialising within perhaps a couple of practices can be a very good thing indeed.

Old treasures to find new concepts

In today's lecture we had Mary Curtis come in to talk about her art practices with us.

As a jeweller, Mary is a collector. She likes to collect objects, and images of objects that will inspire her own work. She sees them, and thinks a lot about the way in which these objects are similar and at the same time, very different. Each of these objects have a sort of relationship with eachother as groups, and often the objects themelfs become a part of her own work too.

As she develops and forms new ideas to inform her own work, she often goes back to look at other jewellery made in other era's of time. This is to get new concepts and thoughts about her own art practice through other's ideas. This is definatly something useful to do, especially when you are not brimming with ideas. Many artists go back to think about art in historical periods, be it 1960 or 1860. By looking, it gives you so much opportunity to develop and re-arrange someone elses concept, to create your own fresh idea.

An example of this is the very small era called "post-modernism", where apon artists looked back and revived the use of heavilly ornamented objects. The Memphis design group, took old designs in furnature, and highly decorated them to form a very new concept, much different to the just passed modernist period of dull whites and blank spaces. Their concepts were new and they came from looking at the old. Seeing an idea and re-working it to make it their own.

I would definatly use this idea at times to form my work. There are some very interesting items out in the world's past which I like. Often the items which intregue me the most are displayed on programmes such as "The antiques road show". Small ornate pill and snuff boxes are something which I find to be inspiring to me. Vintage books are something which I like aswell because they always seemed to be very decorative with their borders. If I were to re-make this, I could scan in old images, and work them into my own art. Op shops also give me inspiration not only because of the objects themselfs, but also the atmosphere of going into an old shop. You are delving into a small piece of time, where there are old treasures, and piles of old books to be found.

dope hat

I viewed this video and used it as inspiration for my moving image piece, as I have always found it to be very interesting. There is always something new to see.

Art - a gleaners paradise?

Frances Hansen came in to talk with us about her art and processes. We also viewed a short film about gleaning. Or in other words, the job of picking up scraps after a harvest is finished. Also, we took a trip to the city in order to view a few galleries, in particular two rooms.

When Frances began to talk about the materials she likes to use within her art, it intregued me that her processes were very similar to that of a gleaner. The first step she takes whenever she wishes to make art is to collect. She spoke of often visiting second hand stores or even local dumps to find these materials. Often her materials were pure rubbish. Cardboard, pot plant tags, plastic slips or bags. Retro whicker trays were a favrite. Things that people would usually think little of and throw away. But not Frances. As a gleaner, people collected items which had been disguarded due to breakages, faults, or purely from being old stock, using them for their own personal use. This can include food, furnature, or other items of interest, mainly because they were poor, or had little money for new items. Frances was being just as economical. By gleaning for the materials she needed, she took pleasure in knowing that the objects she has gathered from the dump or local op shop would now have a brand new life. An extended life, transformed into pieces of art. They would no longer be adding to the dump.

As we viewed the two rooms gallery, another artist we viewed who enjoys collecting materials to work with Judy Darragh. Most of her Art is compiled from gleaned objects. There was a large installation work composed out of hundreds and hundreds wine corks, dipped in various colours of paint. She too, makes new life from dead objects.

I read about this artist in detail from the two rooms website, http://www.tworooms.org.nz it states - "Throughout her career, Judy Darragh has brought to our attention the flagrant waste of the consumer society by using our left over debris to make witty sculptural assemblages and installations shamelessly reeking of sentiment."

Her art is a representation of our gluttonous wastages. It amazes me at how many bottles of wine must have been drunk to equate to the ammount of wine corks she had collected from the streets to create her artwork with. The image above is a photograph compiled of small toys that she has sprayed silver, and dripping with various melted acrylic sheets. In Franceses case, her cheap materials come to a big advantage, selling her two dollar trays for over 100 dollars a pop! All she has done is add her own personal element to each tray. Now Thats what I call a profit! If we all decided to waste less of our waste we too could make cash from trash, and save the environment all at the same time! Couldn't we?

For me, my art does not come from the street. Although I decide not to scrape the contents of my bin onto the road, I do not have a large obsession with saving the world from plastic whicker snack trays. To be Frank, I don't give a Bob's arse about the planet. Nor do I wish to use up the very last drop of paint before starting a new tube. However, I must say do enjoy the feeling of history that can come from an old object. It leaves me to wonder what type of person may have previously owned the object and why. Occasionally I might collect and use old materials, or dirty burnt paper, but this is merely for effect. I love the feeling of layering papers together, or painting over many layers so that you can see each part. This a reason for my liking towards watercolours and ink. They can be as opaque or as transparent as I wish. I can build my layers as many times as I want, and over anything that I want. There are also many techniques involved with watercolours, which is something that I feel to have such flexibility is wonderful. Restrictions always annoy me. For me, freedom is the key to my art. If I wish to paint with mud, so be it. YOU wont be stopping me.

lifes a mistake, so draw it.

Today we had a lecture from a local artist Emma Mclellan, speaking about the progression of her artworks over time. She has always had a liking towards animals, and her earlier highschool works depicted animals with a perculiar human nature to them. She prefers to work with print media in a loose freeform style, and her works are often multilayered over canvas, paper or wood blocks. She does not like the strained cleanliness of traditional printmaking where you have many restrictions, need to be perfect, and imperfectionless. She prefers these imperfections, and mistakes.

I noticed that she had made many works titled with the name "chimera" in it. (chimera series II above) I decided then to research the name since I have never heard of it before, and found that this was the name of a great fire breathing, mythological creature. It too, like most of her works was made up of several different types of animals - lion headed, goats body, with a snakes behind. In animals, variation would be key to shaping and creating some of the worlds best creatures, even if not as extravagant as some of the worlds mythological wonders.

Emma's inspriration is mostly drawn from the intricate wallpaper designs of 17th century artist, William Morris. He works mostly with animals and nature, creating busy winding designs for a commercial use in furnature, curtains and wallpapers. Another inspiration point for her are the many bestiarie books where apon artists have tried to depict newley discovered animals with great difficulty, as the artist is often merely listening to the adventurer's descriptions. The depictions of the the animal itself would have become much more distorted, and more fantasy like as the artist would have never seen these amazing creatures themselfs. who knows? perhaps the adventurer was being a bit buff and made a few of the scariest ones up! Horses with long twisted horns, a rhinocerous with strange armour-like skin. They were playing god by creating all of these fantastical creatures. She enjoys these because they are not what they are supposed to be. They are not perfect, and much like her printing style, they have flaws.

Emma's idea is to take these old designs and strange drawings, re-print them, and make them her own. In doing so, she had used Photoshop to scan in and manipulate the beasts , creating strange new hybrids. She then used the print screen process to print her beasts and pieces of wallpaper over previously painted or sanded down surfaces. Like Morris, she also enjoyed printing on fabrics. Traditional printing requires you to take one large sweep, printing the entire image, however she does not print in such a way. she prefers to print small sections of the wallpaper over her work, making her prints irregular and imperfect. This links into her own ideas on life, that it is never perfect. there will always be a flaw within it. even our own brains are imperfect when it comes to remembering exactly what something looks like. The old bestiarie books may have looked rather different if our minds could imagine the perfect image of an animal and draw it just so. Luckilly todays screen printing process does not require the largest brain to duplicate images, however even so, there may still be a few mistakes.

This is a reason why she loves the manual techniques of printing. With the hand, your picture is open for so many man-made flaws. Off-set ink, wrong colourations, sizing difficulties. Imperfections that cannot always be helped. She also prefers not to have the restrications of traditional printmaking. Most techniques limit you to printing on paper. Screen printing hardly limits you at all, being able to print on plastic, fabric, glass ect. making the results of the print even more unpredictable. This is what can make a print so unique. Like life, her art will always vary, and change.

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.

stay true and be bored blue....

Todays lesson was based around the idea of "truth to materials", meaning that an objects material should be able to be read easilly. I wondered what on earth this implyed because after all, something like a spoon is obviously a spoon, made of metal, and you can see this quite clearly. Most items can be read. A table cloth is made of fabric, a chair, made of wood...But delving further into this idea I began to see how some materials are not true to what they are made of. Some are made of quirky or unexpected materials in an attempt to fool us.

An example of this that we saw was of the delicately "carved" fireplace. This victorian wonder however, was not of wood at all, it was moulded from cast iron. A deceiving design of which imposed no boundaries on itself. Being cast iron, many items like this could be immensely over decorated, because you can cast virtually anything from iron, exploiting the material for what it is normally used for.As I thought about the idea of exploitation of materials and playing with the use of different substances, an artist that we talked about in our lecture sprung to mind, Lisa Walker.

Lisa's works are composed out of many found items and bits and bobs which are compiled into brooches and jewellrey, which she feels would appeal to someone, changing the items original use, or the
"truth to its material" into something quite different. She quotes something along the lines of "There is a person out there for this piece. I don't know them, but there will be."

When we normally think of a necklace, or any other jewellrey piece, we usually imagine gold, silver, or diamonds. Precious materials with connotations of money and wealth. Her pieces are comprised of items with little money value, having quite different connotations alltogether - of which each individual person looking at her jewellrey may feel, on a quite personal level. Something memorable. This had changed the actual use of each item. What was once junk, has found a heart and home.


Because Walker's work is not true to it's materials, it brings a very interesting element of wonder into it.Each individual piece intrigues the mind to wonder about materials used in the making of each brooch, necklace, or ring. Textured and bright colour draw the viewer in to examine on a much closer note.
Sometimes it may take you a while to figure out what some of her pieces are made out of. This induced feeling of curiosity is something I like about what her jewellery does to people. There is also a sense of unpredictability involved which makes works such as Lisa Walker's interesting. none two are alike. They are purely original and do not suffer the medeocre comodity of comercial jewellery.

-I came across this unusual book made by Stas Bekman of which I feel is also a large representation of being un-true to it's materials. The book has been adjusted and changed in order to work as a lunchbox or case. Like Walker's art pieces, (for example, the broch made of old floor sweepings) it has been made decievingly. you may not see at first that it is a box.

A man of solitude

A commodity is something such as an object or skill that is sold or exchanged in a shop rather than making It for personal use. When most of these objects or skills are done in the modern world today, they are Usually ruled over by a capitalist idea. A capital is basically when people only accumulate a small part of A skill such as making the legs on a chair. They only need to finish their small part in order to Continue with the making of the object in its entirety. Jobs are split down in a capitalist society, Reducing people to their sole labour. For example, a man at a factory may only know how to install the Springs on a chair, while another man may only know the carpentry aspect of carving the legs. Neither Man can switch positions in the workplace as they only know the one skill.

In relation to this, the Documentary we viewed on Andy Warhol carried a strong impression of commodity and capitalism.Warhol made his works for sale in both retail to start and in his later years for sale as art pieces in a Gallery scene. They were designed and "made" by him for others to look at and buy. They were not for Himself, although the pieces were highly personal to himself, such as the multiple prints of the famous Campbell’s soup can.

Although the prints were for others to marvel over, purchase and think about, many did not seem to get The idea of his works at all. They were only soup cans. Why buy an expensive print when the actual can of Soup would only cost you 52 cents? Some would have probably wondered about the value of the can. If a Print of a can would set you back $100, was it better than the can itself? Many consumers have this way of thinking. That something similar, but of a higher cost equals a better quality product. Perhaps in This case it could almost be proven true, because the consumers could not see the personal meaning behind The cans. One of the reasons the print was more expensive or "valuable" may have been because of the Labour and personal hidden values it obtained. People could not see that the cans held something personal To warhol. Soup is warm, comforting and wholesome. It provided nourishment in which he grew up on. Also, A can made of ink and canvas was far less disposable than its metal duplicate which was usually tossed away.

As Warhol advanced in the making of art, he soon began to remove himself from the personal aspect of his Works, focusing then on iconic people such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. He even went as far as Getting others to print his works for him, producing highly capitalist pieces. He would tell them exactly What he wanted - How big, the colours, and placement, and each person would have their own task. Normally, a print would have taken one person, who acclaimed all the tasks for himself. His pervious works did also show an idea of capatalism aswell however. The mere idea of a brillo pad box showcased the idea of work and labour. A workplace apon which many people are labouring in their seperate spaces, packing, taping, filling, and working with heavy machinery, using skills taught to them in the workplace, yet a man who is taping would not be qualified to switch places and drive a forklift.

Withdrawing himself from the aspect of involment in the making, it portrayed his own very much Withdrawn persona. Growing up he hated the idea of school, suffering anxiety disorders which would have Contributed to his shy, antisocial personality, affecting profoundly on his art as we know it today. A capatalist comodity.

gold speedos and liquorice sticks. It's all conviviality!

In todays lesson we were presented with three items of interest. Manaaakitanga, Conviviality, and Relational art, all of which supposedly relate to one another in some kind of way. At first it was hard to come to grips with what was being said, but after a while I began to have a better understanding of the three, and how they linked in with each other.

Manaakitanga is the act of acknowledging the mana of others with greater or equal value to your own. This could be through generosity, respect, affection, or welcome. For example,If I, were to host an evening of sort with food and drink for all of my friends, and my friends friends to enjoy, this would be considered a good token of my appreciation towards them. In other words, I would have a good understanding of Manaakitanga - love, generosity and hospitality. Especially by taking special attention to my guests whom I have not met before, and making them feel welcome. I could better my social status amongst my friends and family by providing them with good food, good company, and gain a better communal respect. The quality of your own humble-ness contributes solely to your manaakitanga. If you are one that is known to have good manaakitanga, if you are lucky, by word of mouth you may gain more mana.

Celebrations such as this must always be made to abundance. There must always be food to spare for guests to take home and give to their families. This is why perhaps that back when traditional Haraki's were most popular, the food would be placed over vast wooden structures for displayal and decoration. It made the occasion of a feast seem grand and over generous. The large linear forms are still seen in today's modern Haraki's, as food is still placed on angular shelfes to give a sense of over abundance. Many cups and plates are set out to add to the anticipation of the feast. This is also a decorative way of setting out the Haraki.

Conviviality is the expirience of being sociable within the company of those who are eating and interacting together. By having manaakitanga, you are creating a convivial environment for your guests to grow and flourish, and your mana will prosper in the company of your home. This is how these two relate to eachother in the terms of humble catering and hospitality.

Relational art is much the same in the way that it creates conviviality. It pushes people together to view and talk about art. it is interactive and often involves people doing something, or even simply taking an item away for themselfs to keep. An example of this was Felix Gonzales Torres' work, as it involved a seemingly endless rectangle of liquorice sweets, which people could come in and enjoy, talk about and view the art. The Sweets were constently being renewed ( much like manaakitanga involves food needing to be in abundance) and it made the viewers feel comfortable about chatting in the gallery with eachother. This sense of convivial conduct brought warmth and happyness. Humour also plays a part in the idea of conviviality, such as the video we viewed where it was the artwork (a man clad in a gold speedo, dancing his thing out) that was interacting with the people in the exibit.

"John Curin"

Written by Boris Staci
Published by Barry N. Abrams, Inc, 2003

The book catalogued John Curin's career up from around the 80's, portraying his ideas and Thoughts on his own work. I feel John Curin's ideas are loosely based around the idea of humour. His style is very much classic and controlled. He has never used modern techniques, Yet there is a beautiful abstraction in his works, which I feel makes light mockery of the Subject. A fluid distortion within the figures he draws. He spoke in the book about his works Being a "metamorphosis" of the past and the present. A merging of the two, both "exhausted categories". Today’s nudes are pushed to be perfect and slim. Tall and slender. We now have diet pills, surgery or even image editing programmes in which we can achieve these goals of perfection. This idea pushed him to produce quite contrasting ideals. Extremely large women, with sagging flesh. Large, voluminous breasts and hips, elongated thighs. Skinny figures, deathly thin.

The book gave me a thought as to how it compared with my photography task. The theme I had chosen Was 50's horror. Something glossy. Something glamorous. Something synthetic and made-up. My Female model was chosen by her slender, full figure. I did not choose someone of a larger frame however, because I felt that it would spoil the idea of the plastic dream world that older films Of their time produced. I needed to play on the thought of stereotypes, and even my 'killer' was of a large dark frame, towering over the 'damsel in distress', of which was a curly blonde, had red lips and long black eyelashes. Thinking of the mere facial expressions in the heat of a murder scene always leaves a smile over my face, because I see an element of humour, and over-exaggeration, compared with today's modern films.

Curin was bringing this to our attention when it came to magazines and mass media. Movie stars and celebrities were made up to be perfect, and everyone wished to be just the same, setting ridiculous goals to become something of a clone. This high contrast for me, made the humour in his paintings come alive. This is what intrigued me the most. The realistic way he paints made the images seem real. True to life. The meaning being that not everybody is picture perfect. We all accumulate flaws over time. And this will never change throughout any society.

Yinka Shonibare MBE

Our recent trip to the Auckland art gallery came as an unusual surprise. A mixture of colourful patterns and traditional European clothing design typical to the renaissance period were present in the works. The capital artist on display by the name of Yinka Shinabore, played on an idea of African fabrics, as we would first interpret them to be, not necessarily as they are. In relation to the fashions of the time period, and the country in which the artist has portrayed in his works through traditional European garments, the fabric is not what they would want in their own fashions. It is African, and too loud for their reserved style. The chunky, bright patterns are somewhat distracting. This is what is ironic about the pieces. Even though they assumed the fabrics to be ethnically African, underneath it was actually made locally in Holland, fabrics which would have usually been made to their liking.

I felt that the sculptural aspect helped to push out the idea of semiotics, as the dummy's weren't the people themselves, they merely stood in for the people who would have worn the clothes, Well dressed Middle and upper class Europeans. Their heads missing, it made us focus purely on the clothing that they were wearing. The fabric was the main signifier to his work. It represented the fabrics used and made in Africa, although these fabrics were not at all made or designed there, they were Dutch.

This was used to symbolise racial harmony between the two groups. White and black together as one. The whole concept of fusion between European make, and African flavour and style was the signified as the fabrics were thought to be what they weren't. The woven garments were only made from something replicated to look authentic, standing for the "Nigerian design", made either locally or in Singapore. After the European colonisation of some countries in Africa in the 18th to 19th century period, the Dutch settlers came and started to sell imported fabrics that were (most importantly) cheap, bright and colourful. This became so common to a point that we made the assumption of the fabrics origin as African.

O Tamaiti

I thought the film that we viewed about the Samoan family was heart breaking because of it being so true to life. Many children in Samoan families expirience this, as they tend to have many brothers and sisters that need care but no one to be there to care for them, leading them to having to run the family themselfs.

The fact that there was no spoken dialogue in the film gave it an edge, which put emphasis on the sound used in the film. Even where there was use of dialogue between the parents and the children, it was spoken in Samoan, without dubbing or subtitles so that we would concentrate more on the audio features of the film. This helped to push the idea that there was nobody of parental age around to be there in the family to help the kids when they needed it. The parents mostly kept to themselfs.

At the start of the film the boys echoeing footsteps, coin slotting into the machine, and the brother complaining about the coke (without spoken word) gave an eerie emptiness to the films mood. Where were the parents? What were the children doing waiting out in a hospital corridoor? The mere suggestion that the older brother had to form a parental role between him and his siblings came from the coke that he had provided for them and shared around. it prortrayed the idea that they all had to fend for themselfs in the world, since they had no one to depend on. And as we then hear the cries of a baby, and see the unsatisfied look apon the older brothers face, we realise then, that there is yet another to be added to the family, to be looked after by the rest of the children.
As we later find out about the baby's passing, it is gut wrenching to think that all of those kids could just as easilly end up like their baby sibling, from being unsupervised. If one were to fall, who would be out there to help? Nobody. No one.

Disposable teens

Marilyn manson's video clip, "Disposable teens" ia a prime example of his own self elaboration, in which he has purposely made himself appear larger than life.

The very first shot of him, emerging from the water is very much demonic in appearance. The pale irises, thin white frame, large black lips and blacked out eyes make him seem almost non-human. This is similar to the many venus statuettes, (the first being found in Austria in 1908 ) as they were of something eye catching, and popular. Key sections of the stattuette were enlarged, whilst some were almost non-existent. This was because everyone looked at large breasts, and large stomachs back in that particular time period as beautiful because it was a symbol of fertility. In todays age, the ever growing want to be thin and made up, (which is NOW considered beautiful) has grown to such an extent that marilyn has created something of himself which over exaggerates this. No normal man could ever look like this non-human "person" naturally, without some kind of drug or surgery. Perhaps this is the reason why many see him as a symbol of Satan himself.

In the BBC documentary they spoke of baby seagull chicks recognising the red stripe on their mothers beaks, tapping at it for food. When faced with a stick with the same red stripe printed over it, they reacted in the same way, if not more when faced with a three striped stick. Like the birds favouring three stripes over one, Manson over exaggerates his looks to draw attention to himself. What he has done is drawn awareness to his own personal image through make-up, wigs and costume. He is the extreme of what people want to be. Skinny, made up and fake.
Standing clad in the robes and mitre of a bishop, he is presenting himself as a religious symbol. Bishops are said to be historically dated back to the original 12 apostles, greek icons of their time. It is an icon that he is trying so hard to become.

This is a strong contrast from the rudimentary begginings of his past, where at highschool he did not stand out from a crowd at all. Now people know him, fear him and worship him as a heavy metal god. Yet, underneath he is really just an average American like any other. People are only drawn to his persona, like the baby birds were drawn to the enhanced yellow stick.

[click on the tape below to see the video]