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.