Sunday, March 27, 2011

Lecture 2: K. Rose

I was excited about the beginning of the lecture and her early work. The combination of performance and video reminded me of a theater play I saw 8 years ago in Sofia, an adaptation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita directed by Stefan Moskov. The staging included video projections interacting with the actors on stage. For instance, a character was beheaded by standing in front of a huge video projection of two hands tearing paper. The dark background behind the piece torn off coincided with the actors head therefore hiding it. The actors/characters in the play were treated like puppets as big hands or interiors of model houses were projected onstage. Given the fact that Kathy Rose did her experiments in the early 80's I was wondering what would happen in her work later on.

Her hand drawn animations imposed on her were great, she also performed really well in these pieces. Its no wonder she got NEA grants for these works. However, there was a break in her work that changed everything for worse. She began using more sophisticated video equipment and later digital equipment and it seems that she does not know how to take advantage of this. I would not call her newer work fake or lacking expressiveness. Rose seems to be confused by the medium. What happen in her later videos is behind the screen and this takes away all the life from her earlier ones where at moments I truly wondered what is the projection and what physical reality. Kathy's newer work also had little innovation, she kept on using the same images, even same samples, same music. She also did not contextualize her work clearly, besides Japanese traditional performing.

Lecture 1: L. Nakadate

It was very insightful to see her talk, mostly the way she talks rather than what she said. It is fascinating to me how she succeeded in a very conservative institution as Yale (maybe she didn't but that did not destroy her confidence), the unusual approach to her work at this time, her eventual recognition and the current exhibit in PS1. Laurel does what she wants and she believes in it to such an extent that she does not question its value or meaning. This became obvious to me from the way she answered a question from the audience whether she regrets exploiting the lonely men.

I did not like her early work. The moment when she entered the strangers homes is when she exposed herself to risk. As soon as she figured out these are wretched and miserable people, she did whatever she wanted. It is clear that the 3 men on her early videos are indeed lonely, don't know how to react to her dancing, don't know what is happening. I cannot imagine them harming her. Instead of being compassionate with their lack of social skills, she ridicules them. This recalled Amelie (2001) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, where the very lonely main character interfered with the destinies of other lonely people in order to make them feel better. What Amelie was doing is totally opposed to Laurel in its intent. Nakadate is very nihilistic and reminds of celebrating over the weakness or misery of others.

Feeling lonely herself, she acts like children usually do: distancing themselves from the different or weak in the group. Laurel desperately wants to be different from the lonely middle aged men in order to reject the idea of her ownloneliness. This is done by ridiculing them and emphasizing her own youth, able body and daring character.

I can see a feminist discourse in her work, very distantly. Her early videos are about identifying weaker people and celebrating their weakness.
Is there any socio-economical consideration in her works? I did not ask her this question because I don't expect a honest answer anyway. Her victims are obviously of low income and this is something that sets her apart from them. How did she pay her studies in Yale, her trip in Japan, her 30 day train ride?

Instead of challenging gender power relationships her work seems to be exploiting power generated by her subjects economic hardship or emotional trauma due to different unknow reasons. What is lacking in her work is investigation of the reasons for her subjects current state. Instead she exhibits their way of being as a trophy.

Aki Kaurismaki has many powerful movies about loneliness. This is the main topic in his very unsettling Proletarian Trilogy including The Match Factory Girl (1990) about a female factory worker and Shadows in Paradise (1988) about a garbage man. Kaurismaki's painful focus is not just loneliness but most of all the reasons for it.

What can be seen in Nakadate's work is vast impermeable surface. Her crying face is a facade, a confrontational image rather than a personal experience. Given the fact how much recognition and shows she has made, it seems that the demand of the art market is towards more and sturdier facades.

Studio Vist: K. Rose

I showed Kathy all the work I could on the computer screen. I started with my current work, at that point only black and white and a few color ones. Then were the Bulgarian series, the Car Landscape, the Georgigrams. The empty cities did not catch her attention, she suggested to have more in order to suggest emptiness better. Then she really liked the start of the Bulgarian series but did not the second half. What she found in the sublime nature photos was my presence as an artist and individual, they are theatrical and dramatic. I agree, these photos are very successful as landscapes. Kathy liked the best my Georgigrams, they invite the viewer in my personal world. Her suggestion was to continue this series as they are most personal and inventive. Because I showed one panorama from the empty cityscape series Kathy referred to her father who used to be a professional photographer doing a lot of panoramas. She showed his images on the web site of a New York gallery.

Our meeting lasted for about 20 minutes, maybe because Kathy could not get into my current work and talk about it. Her world view and understanding of art is strongly related to the personal, the artist is to communicate a unique world they have access to. I like this but I don't fit there, or maybe to a lesser extent. It was very helpful to have an artist with different sensibility reacting to my work. Kathy advised me to go after the personal and to express it in my work.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Studio Visit: L. Nakadate

Laurel reacted strongly to my constructed spaces images, the only work I showed. Wondering whether that was a positive reaction, her visit informed me about types of viewers. She praised the photographs as images but was confused by my intentions behind them and the way I talk. She wanted to fit them within her own narrative and preconceived notions of what the reality is, which is fine. What was troublesome for me was her drive to impose that narrative on me.

The meeting started with listing names of photographers who have done work on the topic (or how she understands the topic) the names she gave are only American: Tim Davis, Todd Hido, Jeff Weddstone and Catherine Opie; without referring to Gursky, Struth or Atget for instance. Her other very pronounced reference was Alec Soth, she insisted that my images have to do a lot with his work. Her most favorite images were the Baltimore slum street and the pasted architect renderings on the glass entrance. What struck me was her saying several times "...what I want to see...". Laurel pushed the conversation towards the recession, the failure of the American dream, the bad situation in mid sized American cities. In her words this is what my work is about or should be about.

Indeed, there is recession and I have done work about the recession in Bulgaria, however, this is not the focus of my current work. The recession is one of the economic elements determining the landscape and social interactions, but the US is a huge thing and generalization is not what I want to do. For instance, the economic boom of the 1960's was actually more devastating for American cities. While many people lost homes and jobs due to the recession of the late 2000's, the car centered infrastructure and white flight that happened in the mid 20th century actually ruined the lives of many others. The worst times for American cities was not the recession but the 80's and 90's as consequences of infrastructure and urban planning. Richmond has greatly recovered from this period, Baltimore too, although to a lesser extent. My goal is not to illustrate the recession but look for the reasons behind the existing situation; examining spatial design, the realization of design and people's interaction with the built spaces.
This is what I tried to articulate, not sure how successfully.

Laurel was not happy about my point of view, in her words refusing to say that there is recession is "fucking bull shit" and is very ignorant to say such a thing as a foreigner. Also it is disrespectful to argue with a visiting artist. My answer was that I don't reject her opinion, on the contrary I respect it, as she needs to respect mine as well. The conversation continued after this point for another 10 minutes. She appreciated that I believe in my work and she really liked the photographs. Again there was a remark about Soth and his vision of America and how my images function for her as an alternative view. Her advice was not to photograph in NYC because so many people have done that. I still think about the value of this advice and what it means. This city is so huge and full of history and history is one of the things I try to work with.

Nakadate's response was a great example of place / space difference. After she labeled the work as "series about mid sized American cities" she did not try see the my intention in the series. Instead there was already a set narrative, a predetermined way of reading the images. I agree the work has documentary value, however, this is not the only thing it is about. The goal is not to show the reality (very subjective) but make the audience more sensitive towards the reality around themselves. Or at least this is my intention, I don't know how successful I am.

I'm currently looking at Catherine Opie's work, who is the good reference from the names she gave me. I will look up Soth as well.

Monday, February 28, 2011

1st word: Place

from MSN Encarta:
area or portion of space; locality; square or street; dwelling; location with particular use; point in something; proper position; opportunity to study; status; responsibility; job; somewhere to sit; position in series; position of digit in number.

My
definition of place: a mental construct modeled as representation of space*.
space: physical dimensional reality that can never be subjectively experienced as such.


1) Sze Tsung Leong




Typologies of cities and infrastructure, on the topic of space and place.
Hes is a Guggenheim fellow.

quote: "...cities are prolonged accumulations of time— from a Roman amphitheatre overlooked by a cliff of recent concrete construction in Amman, to a Medieval cathedral rising above a flat, seemingly endless landscape in Ghent, to a colonial city center undulating over the Andean topography of Quito, to the postwar patchwork of histories of London, to the sinuous lines of highways engraving the attenuated landscape of Houston."

web site:
http://www.szetsungleong.com
review: http://www.szetsungleong.com/Leong_Artforum_2006.pdf
review: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/arts/design/06geft.html?_r=1



2) Pleven 1907


A photographic portfolio I found by chance in the Central Archive in Sofia. It examines the development of Pleven, Bulgarian town, celebrating 30 years from the end of the Ottoman invasion. The main subject is infrastructure and public projects emphasizing the new European look with many photos of construction or places that would be soon demolished. While the portfolio celebrates the new look, it is a document of a disappeared era.
One place is changed into another.

Contains 52 photographs, artist unknown. I would go back and scan it if I could.



3) George Tice - Urban Landscapes






An array of everyday places taken out of context and sequenced in order to show them as spaces. I am not sure whether this is Tice's intention as his writing is quite limited. He is a 1973 Guggenheim fellow.
Quote: "... I had to suppress my sense of familiarity with the subjects so that I might perceive their own special qualities and isolate them within the frame..."

Tice, George A, Urban Landscapes, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey 1975



4) Michael Wesely


Relating personally to his images is impossible as their representation of time is so abstract and out of human experience. They must be very anti place, however, he photographs buildings, all of them parallel and cubic, very ideal and conceptual. They are spatial manifestations of mental constructs common for the contemporary human. These spaces are logical and can be successfully defined with words and numbers.
Wesely illustrates the transformation of mental constructs into spaces, however, his images keep a huge distance from subjective experience thus depicting again pure spaces. I see a very strong connection to Gordon Matta-Clark in the ability to see through.

quote: "
As Ms. Hermanson Meister has noted, they also suggest a kind of response to the late Henri Cartier-Bresson's notion of "the decisive moment,'' that one single instant that captures the full essence of a situation, arguing instead for the power of aggregation and the recognition that change is never just about beginning and end states, but also about that magically indefinite gap between them." Jeffrey Kastner NY Times article, see below

web site: http://www.wesely.org/wesely/index.php

review: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/arts/design/26kastner.html



5) Das Rad (2003)



An animation by Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger, funny but also with a very sophisticated idea of alternative time and space. It relates to Wesely's long exposures. Spaces are seen from a very subjective point of view and yet detached from human experience, resulting in a very different idea of place. This work was completed in 2003 using a mix os pupets slow motion animation, sets and CGI animation. It was nominated for an Academy award.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330801/
http://www.dasrad.com




6) Elastic City
- "conceptual walks and living theater"

The organization is found by Todd Shalom, a poet, who curates artists to interact with participating audience. The result are events in which the audience is the performer responding to the artists' challenges posed within a city environment. The point is redefining peoples experience of place by putting them in situation different from the everyday life. I find this to be meditation on what makes spaces into places. This seems to be similar to what I intend to do although these happenings are a much happier take on the subject compared to my work. I like the idea of curating experience.

Quote:

"Elastic City intends to make its audience active participants in an ongoing poetic exchange with the places we live in and visit. Artists are commissioned by Elastic City to create their own walks. These walks tend to focus less on providing factual information and more on heightening our awareness, exploring our senses and making new group rituals in dialogue with public space in the city. Elastic City is produced and directed by Todd Shalom. He realized the idea for Elastic City while suffering from altitude sickness in Cusco, Peru."

web site: http://www.elastic-city.com
Review: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/arts/10elastic.html?_r=1



7) Darren Aronofsky - Pi (1998)

The movie is about the conflict between experience and rationalization. This is important as mental constructs/spaces relate to real spaces. Not paying attention to one of the two categories and only focusing to the other may be very degrading to the human mind. I saw the movie 6 or 7 years ago and I vaguely remember the struggle of the main character lasting for the entire duration and the very clearly the ending, where he did not reach his goal but had an epiphany. I will definitely see it again when I get the chance to.

review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F03E2D9173AF930A35757C0A96E958260
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/



8) Aki Kaurismaki - The Man Without a Past (2003)

The movie is about a man who looses his entire memory after an accident. He does not know who he is or where he is from. What is interesting is his struggle not to rediscover himself and get back to his previous life but to build his identity anew. He does that by altering the spaces around (makes a "home " out of a freight container) and fully engaging in the community he has ended up in thus creating a place, more over his own place.
Notions of places can be personal or imposed by others and it was fascinating for me how the main character in the movie invented his own place.

review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9503E5DD1338F931A35753C1A9649C8B63

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311519/

Monday, February 7, 2011

Mediated Relationships 2


This is the book that returned me to the root of my interest in space and made me understand Eliasson on another level. The interviews in Iceland were the key: an environment with different rules informing his practice. The terms nature, landscape, beauty and sublime are replaced with (un)mediated land, (un)mediated relationships, spatial relationships, (non)representational landscape, (non) Euclidian geometry, representation, experience, awareness, interaction and subjectivity.

"Normal" people think that extreme sports are for the sake of adrenalin. But this experience is not for getting stimulants from the organism because the use of synthetic drugs is far easier and more effective. Neither they are for showing off, driving an enormous and fast car involves the least effort with the most output and is way "cooler".
Extreme sports are for certain people who need to experience space and time in more complex way.









It is not necessary to jump from cliffs to gain unmediated experience of space. This experience is also gained through constant exploration. Eliasson does his Iceland trips for a few months each year for that reason. Being immersed is more effective than exposed to intense agitation on short occasions.
That is why sublime is a troubling concept for me. Burke and Kant describe it almost as a shot of vodka - experience that happens and ends. In the postmodern world, with land greatly altered by humans, the sublime is different. The new sublime for me is the realization of the vast difference between mediated imagery - for instance the National Geographic photography on one side; and the personal experience of space on the other. The first and very important step is the realization of the gap between illustration and subjective experience.



"Hiker is a person who finds the most difficult way to a place where she/he has no business whatsoever."
In Bulgaria many people dissatisfied with the economy look for a parallel reality. Luckily, for now, they manage to find spaces, defined vaguely as "nature", that act as outlets. But they are not just places to escape, these spaces give a different experience of reality. They make visible the fundamental difference between life as doing and life as being. These two modes of life are vital for each person although the significance for each of them is different for different people. Washington DC metro area, where I moved eventually, is a space that does not offer much unmediated experience. The environment is meant to deprive people from the life as being and force them into life as doing even in their free time. Whenever not making money a person has to spend. Boys of Baraka is a documentary about the Baraka school that took failing Afro American students from Baltimore to Kenya for a school year of middle school classes. Although a social documentary the film deals with conflicting concepts of space.
There is an obvious link between sophistication and extended subjective experience of space.



This is what makes Eliasson's work political. His agenda is to make art about engagement rather than passive contemplation. His work promotes subjectivity, the act of exploration and the freedom to take action. The intellectual agenda is to bring awareness of the gap between images and experiences, the passive and the active, the representation and the unmediated. He encourages his audience to explore the contemporary sublime.

Although my work has not been about the difference between images and experience it is influenced by this issue. I have been trying to illustrate my concern of space through images or to defy/question other images mediating the experience of space. I find this concern with space in other artists work although theirs might not be as directly aimed at unmediated spacial relationships as Elliasons artwork is.


Robert Henke (also as Monolake)

Excerpt from Signal to Noise album here


This is completely synthetic electronic soundscape with no lyrics, no narrative, little composition as there are no crescendos or quiet moments, it does not imply or create a mood intentionally. And also it has no clear rhythm structure as no percussions were used. The music is more an experience than a container for meaning.
His music however is a mediated experience also, one can get into it only if previously sharing the same ideas about spatial relationships and what music can be.



I thought of making visible and untangle boundaries in a space, thus trying to emphasize the gap between the concept of space and the concept of place. I don't know if I'll be able to use fog machines and also he did very similar work in the 1970s and again in the 2000s. I thought that the light will create more opaque projection in the smoke and what is on the photos is not enough for my purpose.




Spatial installations. Not sure whether they are about (un)mediated relationships and the gap between image and experience, however, reflect interest in space as something to be engaged.



Lead Pencil Studio

Void as the substance


What the above images are lacking (maybe I haven't experienced the work personally and talk unprepared) is political context. They are about space but not so much about personal engagement and its responsibility. "You move and your perception of space changes", in other words the notion of space is dependent on the person engaging it. Nevertheless great work to see.






to be continued

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Mediated relationships

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