Dr Alistair Payne seminar

‘The main thing wrong with painting is that it is a rectangular plane placed flat against the wall…it determines and limits the arrangement of whatever is on or inside of it’ – Donald Judd ‘Specific Objects’

We had a very open discussion covering many broad and important questions from the limitations of painting to more general ideas such as the importance of art to society and even how one can classify a work of art (if at all possible). For those who missed the seminar I will try to repeat some of these points (if anybody thinks I have left a particularly interesting one out then please bring it up!). It is worth noting that the original seminar group read through two texts: ‘specific objects’ by Donald Judd and ‘art and objecthood’ by Michael Friedman. I have found a link to the Judd essay online however I was unable to find a whole copy of the Friedman.

Judd - cep.ens-lsh.fr/poetik/doc/judd-specific%20objects.pdf

Ever since Duchamp there have been arguments over the ‘death of painting’. Painting is limited, ‘the rectangular plane is given a lifespan’ however by concentrating on the limitations of painting are painters today giving painting fresh importance?

In his talk Alistair spoke about the idea of ‘Frontality’ and that he was interested in ‘challenging the notion of surface within painting’. His work attempts to bring painting off the two-dimensional plane into three-dimensions, but by doing so he is betraying painting’s most distinct characteristic – the flat surface. Therefore can his work still be classified as painting? Do we need to classify it?

How do we classify a work of art? I think it was Angela who talked about the idea that a streetcleaner is creating art simply by the act of cleaning the street. Alistair Payne then mentioned an artist (I can’t remember the name) who would do things such as picking up a discarded piece of clothing, take it to the dry-cleaners and then return the clothing to the spot from which he picked it up.

Judd claimed in 1965 that the ‘disinterest in painting in sculpture is a disinterest in doing it again’ but how necessary is the constant progression in art? Michael Brick suggested that perhaps this is a Western symptom, pointing out that Egyptian art had remained unchanged for over a thousand years. The idea of the ‘artist’ did not exist until Vasari’s ‘ the lives of the artists’.
This was a very interesting, and I think important, discussion and for those who missed it this is an opportunity to add your thoughts and opinions. For those who were there and feel there is something to add then please do! The blog allows room to think when adding your ideas (the seminar might have been a bit intimidating!)

Mark Melvin Seminar

Discussion centred around 2 main points; the artist as craftsperson/technician and processes in video editing which mimic old media techniques - splicing, razoring in Final Cut for example. I have tried to reproduce some comments that were made below.  The text for discussion was Lev Manovich's Flash Generation available at this link www.manovich.net/DOCS/generation_flash.doc

Sarah Tulloch discussed the physicality of film as a medium being a relevant consideration in its use, Mark Melvin later re-inforced this point by mentioning the presence of film (as opposed to video) projectors in gallery spaces as being a particularly powerful one.

Ross (1st year?) mentioned that he had produced some work contrasting new and redundant technologies (typwriters vs word processors) and physically pulling old technologies apart and making interventions. Ross if you could include a link to this work on the blog that'd be wicked.

Gavin (4th year) made the point that older technologies require more time and investment. This lead to further discussion about how much artists should learn about the technologies or skills they work with. Mark Melvin suggested as an example that learning to arc weld for a one of project would not represent an efficient use of an artists time. Tom Schofield suggested that the danger with that can be a lack of awareness of processes at work within the building of something which can feed into the work. Sarah pointed out that this mostly only true in process-based work.

Please post on these issues! This blog is your chance to think about what you want to say before you say it. 

Denise Hawrysio

We were originally interested in the idea of how collaboration works, and how open this is in Denise's work. We looked at her collaborations with other artists or "non-artists", the environment, incidents and natural processes and encounters with objects. These happenings or performances were often marked onto the printing plate.
We were also interested in the links between Denise's work and the ideas of Fluxus, including social engagement, chance/impulse change, process and performance.


During the discussion the following questions were raised:

What constitutes collaboration, are there rules that should be complied with?

Can you really give up all aesthetic control to the subject/collaborator, and does it really matter?
Highlighted in Denise's Log splitter prints, good collaboration was when the artist had no aesthetic control. Within this piece Denise is questioning this framework.

Is a paradigm shift the "best" outcome of collaborative work?
Although this is not a motive for Denise it can sometimes be a unexpected result.

Rachel Thorlby seminar: Face Value?

We used the text The ontology of the Photographic Image from Andre Bazin’s What is Cinema? as a starting point. We felt this was a way into the issues surrounding the effect photography had on the plastic arts and their ability to represent reality.

Based on looking at the work of Rachel Thorlby and our own areas of interest we arrived and three core questions to be explored in the seminar:

The object/image relationship in Rachel’s work

The use of impoverished materials in the construction of artworks

What is the contemporary relevance of the romantic and how does that relate to our ‘idea’ of landscape?


Discussion:

Briony asked a question about whether Rachel’s criteria for choosing images was purely aesthetic/formal or if she selected images because she was interested in their history.

This sparked a discussion centering around the undermining of any claims to ‘truth’ in images both painted and photographed. Rachel was drawn to images that could have a slippage of meaning, i.e. a dress becomes a type of landscape. She did not select images on the basis of their historical narrative but once selected she became involved in their background stories.

The discussion moved on to Rachel’s use of impoverished materials vis a vis the elevated status traditionally associated with portraiture or landscape painting. The low-value, low-tech use of materials like cardboard and polystyrene within Rachel’s work was a mixture of experimentation allowing the materials to ‘do what they do’ and a desire to reconfigure and re-invent the original source material.

Rachel talked about the masking or intervention in a straight reading of the face within her work on portraiture. She wanted to direct attention away from this figurative aspect of portraiture as she was not interested in the figurative. By using strategies related to Surrealist ideas of juxtaposition and masking out the figures within a landscape she hoped to provoke a sense of the uncanny and in some way reinvent the image.

The consensus of opinion was that to merely represent reality was not central to what is considered interesting within contemporary art practice today.

We ran out of time to really cover the third question in our framework: What is the contemporary relevance of the romantic and how does that relate to our ‘idea’ of landscape?

Please feel free to discuss this here on the blog. As a starting point we thought that the romantic movement has a huge influence on how we represent and construct visual and mental ideas of what landscape is even if it’s ideals have been superceeded by a more naturalist/realist sensibility.


Posted By Sue Warlock and Sarah Tullock

NADIA HEBSON, the uncanny valley

In this morning's Seminar we embarked upon a crazy journey attempting to delve into various topics surrounding issues of the sublime, the portrait, artistic intention, and robots.....

Perhaps because all of these issues are so complex we were left with more questions than answers, but will attempt to summerise what was touched upon below;

Sublime and the Contemporary Sublime: A strand of thought very evident in Nadia's work, however something we all agreed is hard to define, or even attempt to capture. This concept is perhaps restricted in the present day due to it's associations with the enlightement, but could be thought of as the 'blankness of nature'.

The Portrait: A problematic mine-field that continues to entice artists and viewers alike. Does the portrait still have a place in contemporary painting? and if so how should this be tackled? what place does identity have within the idea of portraiture? does it still remain to be a vehicle for emotion, in comparison to other mediums such as film?

Artistic Intention: A heated debate exploring whether artists should set out with a clear outline of what they wish to convey, or if this must be handed over in it's entirity to the viewer.

Robots: Welcome to uncanny valley!

Many thanks to Nadia for bringing some very interesting points of disscusion forward.

Laura Napier

Laura Napier’s lecture was followed by a seminar on time. Chaired by Daniel Jagger and Kelly Murray.

“Time is a relevant issue to be considered within Laura Napier’s Work. It is raised on several levels from the different “times” or timelessness she creates in her work. This ranges from her physical instillations, to the audiances own perceived and real time as the space is explored.

This opened up the discussion for looking at time in a broader sence in relation, not only to instillation, but also sculpture + painting. The role of the gallery + institutions that often create a false sense of permanence + fixed sense of time to art+art objects also opened up an interesting trail of thought.

Laura is also interested in the way it is possible to control or even manipulate viewers to move around her installations in particular ways. This seemed to provoke conflicting responses with often viewers resenting being controlled + when left to explore freely, every viewers experience being different.”

Neil Bromwich- The aesthetics of social engagement.

Does art get in the way of social change or can it be used as a vehicle for social change? Can art contribute to social change at all or is it hindered by the fact that it is called "Art" in the first place?

These are some of the issues we discussed in the post-lecture seminar. With relation to "Sci-fi Hot Tub" we considered the affect of an art work in a social environment i.e Kielder reservoir, as opposed to the white walled gallery setting. In the discussion Neil suggested that although the art work "lost something" in the gallery space, it also allowed for a new critical perception.

How did you feel about Neil's work? What draws you to his work- the spiritual utopian aspect, the aesthetic documentation or the social engagement within a more public realm.

Ginny Reed: what can we say about nostalgia..

Ginny talks about the importance of the subjective realm in her practice ( Barthes "punctum"). How does the use of medium and documentation alter this interplay?.......

Jamie Allen : Killing Lena

What is the relationship between the human and the digital component in Jamie Allens Work......Does this have implications for digital technologies of the future......?

NEIL GALL : Shelf life

Simon Groom , in his essay on Neil Gall, talks about the stillness and suspension of time in Neil's paintings. Through what medium are these qualities memorialised......does size matter?

HEATH BUNTING

How does access effect "virtual" and "real" networking systems. Are these relationships exclusive?

SUSAN ALDWORTH : scribing the soul

Can consciousness be defined?

URBAN ART

In Urban Art's projects, what is the relationship between history, politics, place and community?

EDWINA ASHTON

What qualities arouse pity. ....Are these interrupted by human intervention?

HANS ABBING: Why Are Artists Poor?

How do you measure success?

Isobel Young: what remains (james)

How is Isobel's practical framework sustained by her conceptual framework.

Sally Underwood

How is the audience a part of Sally's language of " destruction"?

Jayne Wallace

In Jayne Wallace's research, to what extent does technology have the potential to effect the meaning/perception of the object ?...............discuss