Art Post Art - A Trip to the Gallery

I haven't before been to the gallery with the intention of seeking a response.. it made me spend more time really looking at each work and I think I will approach galleries like this from now on! An image reveals over time and the longer I spent with one work the more ideas started flowing and its almost as if a dialogue between your thoughts and the work open up!

There were three works in particular that stood out to me.

Ian North - The Wave, 2004

Bill Henson

Photographs
Untitled

These two photographic works were shown in different rooms, the top image was shown in the seduction room. It's contemporary presence stood out among a sense of classical paintings, It is the light in these images that draws me in, I find them both very seductive and melty. I love the bottom image, it is just epic.

I love all of these, I find them all very alluring but I will go with the Ian North painting as I found myself in it.

FINAL WORK AND ARTIST STATEMENT

Brianna Speight

ARTIST STATEMENT

COLOUR WHEEL

INTENTIONS

Colour Wheel is an idea that embodies the successes of my development process in Action Stations. It includes instruction, the intentions of humour and connection and a visual stimulation. The instruction reads – Form a line in order of height, turn that line into a circle – the person standing opposite you is your complimentary height. Ultimately, the idea of Colour Wheel is to make people feel connected.

DEVELOPMENT

The starting point involved five movements, exploring each through action and documentation. I focused on my everyday movements, I included commuting, communicating, learning, eating and dancing. I found communication fascinating to ponder, the exchange of ideas, and the back and forth dialogue, sending and receiving information - it is this process of connecting that became my point of departure.

I explored dialogue by conducting experiments that involved instructions. Initially I was interested in photographic responses via disposable cameras and social media outlets (snapchat). I disliked that each response did not have the ability to connect to the next response. After more experimentation I looked to how my ideas had developed and what elements of my process still remained relevant. I drew on my artist research to engage in the ideas put forward by Yoko Ono, David Shrigley and Erwin Wurm. I refined my ideas and came to the conclusion that my final work needed to involve a simultaneous group action.

REFLECTION

Colour Wheel was presented in class and in my opinion it was not overly successful. I think that if the instructions were followed under different circumstances it might have been more effective. As I was directing the instruction it failed to let people naturally wonder and it was difficult to present this to a group of people that already knew each other. However, it was interesting to see how people interacted in letting the event unfold. I enjoyed that the experience was the work and that the people created the line that I have been so fervent in including to my every practice.

I found it difficult presenting a final work to the class that was coherent with the intentions of my developed ideas. So what I would have done differently is the presentation to the class. Instead of bringing my ideas to unfold in the wrong context, I should have recorded people’s responses in the right context and presented a video to the class to show the work that I had been doing.

Overall I feel successful in completing this assignment, I pushed my ideas and found myself doing new things. By exploring the movement of communication I have discovered what is important to me in the every day. Which is that when ideas and experiences are exchanged via means of communication, understanding what’s occurring outside of one’s own existence broadens and the result is feeling more connected to the fluctuation of Life. 

PART 3

Refining

Important part of final idea develop

Let’s do a quick summary

I began with any movements, tried too hard, simplified it back to my daily movements, realised that communication is the movement I wanted to explore.

Interactions and responses became the centre of my focus. I used old and new technologies to document responses to selfie oppurtunities.

Realised that I wanted work to have a connecting quality

Set up game activities that gave people a chance to record ideas through drawing.

Felt like it was too silly and needed to be refined to an idea that can be presented in the classroom space.

I liked the idea of one piece of paper with a collection of people’s ideas to reflect a larger image of people who responded.

Tried to focus on how I can get the class to interact and have a drawn element that can connect people

Came up with the idea of asking questions to create a network of participants

The reoccurring theme is ideas pushed by this “rhizome” idea and a fetish of mine is line works so I have been trying to incorporate line.

the terms "rhizome" and "rhizomatic" describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation.

What I have steered towards.

Jessie had this idea that there could be a massive pencil that would take every person in the classto pick it up to draw a line.. I wish I thought of that myself and a lot earlier – it’s a cool idea!

An instruction piece

A movement

I had a brain wave the other night as I was thinking away from trying to create a line, because clearly this just wasn’t sitting well for me.  So I was thinking of abstract ways of interaction. I began thinking of staging ideas that already exist but putting them into the context of people. The idea is sourced from the colour wheel.

The idea is to take some concepts that humans use in life to order and group things together to create connections so that comparison/analysis can be made.

Currently in the process of thinking of ordering systems

The Colour Wheel 

Instruction.

Form a Line in height order

Form a circle so that the shortest and tallest person is standing by each other’s side

The person standing directly opposite you is your complimentary height

Colour relativity

A performance analogy

An allegory

A reflection

 

Complementary colors are any two colors which are directly opposite each other, such as red and green and red-purple and yellow-green. In the illustration above, there are several variations of yellow-green in the leaves and several variations of red-purple in the orchid. These opposing colors create maximum contrast and maximum stability.

I like this. It is about people, it is an interaction, it instructs, communicates, but it draws on much of my earlier thinking for this assignment. Why we move the way that we do. This end point comes full circle. Physically so but it wonders why we move the way that we do.  It is understood that part of human nature is ordering and categorising to understand the world around us. We need to. One of the ways that we understand colour interactions is by creating a chart that allows us to read the primary, secondary, tertiary and complementary colours.

I feel that I have always had a strong connection with the use of colour. I love it. This instruction piece is a reflection of what is important to me – colour and connection.

By

Part 2 - Drawing Responses

 I placed the drawing activities in the elevators on the 10th of October at around 11.30am and I went back to check on them at about 5pm. The pictures below was the result from just 5 and a half hours of the work being left in the elevator. Over the week the scribbles grew and expanded, the results were an array of comical, offensive, satirical, silly and thoughtful responses.

It is the 16th of October today and I went to the elevators to document the responses, but I was sad to find that they had been taken down. The two photos I have in this post are the only two pictures that I have to document the results.

Part 2 extended

Where to after the Cameras?

So the general idea after the camera experiment is that the interaction work could be strengthened if the participation yielded a more accumulative work. This thought came naturally when I realised that I needed the photos to do more, and was reinforced when I looked at Roman Ondaks "Measuring the Universe"

I'm going to set up some paper and pens for immediate, visual, accumulative responses.

Drawing is by far my favourite means of expression - it is first and foremost and reveals the process of thought. I'm excited to be moving in a direction that incorporates drawing.

A few Ideas

leave a word

trace something of yours

write a joke

A map of the world ask - what would make this picture better

A continuous line, with post it notes

Elevator initiatives - can you draw a continuous line for the duration of your elevator ride?

made up - "I'm creating an animation character that is a male, cat fanatic, salsa dancing enthusiast and runs a portable bakery business for parties - what should he look like?

Update 10/10/14

So I made some drawing activities and put them in the elevator
I went with two rather different ideas

Firstly, Mr Squiggle, the idea is from a childrens program in which one person is faced with a set of squiggles and they have to join them to make a picture. This is quite a playful game and a fun point of interaction. The second idea is a picture of the world with the question, what would make this picture better? This could invoke a more thoughtful response, or it could also not. Ultimately I am curious to see whether either of these insight any responses.

These drawing interactions have been placed in the elevators of the Dorrit Black building.

Thoughts

Movement is an area that I have previously thoroughly enjoyed exploring

I think because it focuses on process I am drawn to its fluxuating, unfolding, unprecedented outcomes. 

A work that I made is called A Line

In this experiment I explored the what drawing means to me. 

A Line

When I have in my hand, an instrument that can make a continuous line, I feel like I have all the freedom waiting to be explored. A line is not drawn, it is drawing, moving evolving and unfolding, and it is fluid and unconscious. I become lost in my own line, I am unsure of what will result, I simply focus on a feeling and listen to the rhythm of the marker against the paper. The line is initially slow and steady, unsure and curious. As the line travels further the story develops, thickens and deepens.

The line goes deep, it is added upon and at one point the opaqueness of paint smears your view, and then the line is clear again, as if a corner has been turned and clarity has appeared like open skies. Whilst I was drawing I was thinking about the land and the earth so my line bears a topographical element. 

Artist Research

Roman Ondak

Takes simple concepts and turns them into art

Measuring the Universe.

Measuring the Universe turns the domestic custom of recording children’s heights on door frames into a public event, referring through its title to humankind’s age-old desire to gauge the scale of the world. The process creates a work of art with a multitude of participants, merging art with everyday life in a confluence that is at the very center of Ondák’s artistic practice.

For Kaldor Public Art Project 28, highly acclaimed Slovakian artist Roman Ondák presents a trio of participatory works at Parramatta Town Hall. The historic venue hosts Swap (2011), the riveting interactive chain of barter and exchange that delighted13 Rooms audiences, and Measuring the Universe (2007), previously presented to great acclaim at MoMA, New York, and Tate St Ives, United Kingdom. The third work,Terrace (2014) has been created especially for Kaldor Public Art Project 28

Artist Research

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama is one of the most significant contemporary artists to emerge from Japan. Suffering from 'rijinsho', or depersonalisation syndrome, Kusama's art triggers visual experiences that metaphorically communicate the hallucinations, or veil of dots, she has endured since she was a child. This vibrant iconography, often transposed as nets or auras, dominates her practice.

http://bcove.me/6auhvjod
Yayoi Kusama’s interactive Obliteration Room begins as an entirely white space, furnished as a monochrome living room, which people are then invited to ‘obliterate’ with multi-coloured stickers
Over the course of a few weeks the room is transformed from a blank canvas into an explosion of colour, with thousands of spots stuck over every available surface. TateShots have produced this timelapse video of The Obliteration Room covering the first few weeks of its presentation at Tate Modern

PART 3

Step 3:

Critical reflection/editing choices/ then refinement and resolution

Select one development from step 2 that particularly resonates with you and has potential for an exciting well-resolved outcome and develop into an artwork by refining it. The work should develop again in this last stage so

your selected process/es should be used as a starting point and don’t necessarily have to be included in the final work your idea can and should evolve in response to your reflection on what your working experiments show you as well as your  intentions. Ie What you want the work to do.

REFINING

I want the work to show a response and I want it to bring people together, I want it to draw on aspects of humanity that allow people that haven't met to feel close to one another. Things that we all feel and share but don't talk about everyday, but its everyday feelings. I want it to be ephemeral and playful. 

What have I found so far.

People have their own way of responding.

Images are stronger than words in terms.

I imagine a work that is a collection of responses. 

I'm thinking a desk with paper pens and tape, an instruction and a wall to display a clutter of ideas.

Something extreme, awkward, inappropriate, silly, witty?

Or what someone would do with an object.

I mean in Erwin Wurms 1 minute sculptures in a particular gallery space he leaves an object, with an image instruction (he shows what you are supposed to do with it) 

What it there was an object and instead of getting involved physically, what it the viewer were to get involved with the object in the space of imagination. And then they were to draw what you would do with the object... or several objects and then a scenario is created from the responses of the viewers?

Or do I want to say something more political - a direct questions

Or what if were one of those folded pieces of paper in which each fold another body part is added and it creates a odd person composed by many different hands. Mmm I think I want there to be an object involved. 

Something to play with and something to document.

Make a sculpture, draw what you made and stick it on the wall.

Reveal a network. connections. A classroom rhizome(philosophical concept)

Artist Research

Erwin Worm

b. 1954
Austrian


One of Austria’s most successful contemporary artists.

Erwin Wurm certainly makes us squirm with Instructions On How To Be Politically Incorrect. Playing off various social taboos, his absurd scenarios make us think twice, and perhaps even laugh uncomfortably.

"There is not one rule which says this is art or this in not art. I think everyone has to define it by himself. I think art is something very important because it gives us the possibility to create a new reality or a parallel reality." -Erwin Wurm

Researching Happenings and the Fluxus tendency

"In Fluxus there has never been any attempt to agree on aims or methods; individuals with something unnamable in common have simply naturally coalesced to publish and perform their work. Perhaps this common thing is a feeling that the bounds of art are much wider than they have conventionally seemed, or that art and certain long established bounds are no longer very useful."

Instead of producing expensively autographed trophy objects that only the rich could buy, Fluxus artists set out to mass-produce witty, ephemeral think-art that everyone could afford and that carried subversive messages out of the gallery system and into your daily life. There’s a jokiness afoot as well, which you recognise from the default tone of modern advertising. Read anything in here and the chances are that it will a) need to be read again and b) make you smile.

For these same democratic reasons, Fluxus pioneered outdoor happenings and street events, particularly of a musical bent. If a cello player stripped naked to play Berio, or someone began wrapping their violin in sticky tape at the climax of a Ligeti composition, they were probably doing it for Fluxus reasons.

 All artists staging Happenings operated with the fundamental belief that art could be brought into the realm of everyday life. This turn toward performance was a reaction against the long-standing dominance of the technical aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism and was a new art form that grew out of the social changes occurring in the 1950s and 1960s.

A main component of Happenings was the involvement of the viewer. Each instance a Happening occurred the viewer was used to add in an element of chance so, every time a piece was performed or exhibited it would never be the same as the previous time. Unlike preceding works of art which were, by definition, static, Happenings could evolve and provide a unique encounter for each individual who partook of the experience.

These happenings, that emphasise the temporary nature of experience draw me towards the idea of the mandala. Tibetan monks create mandala sand paintings as a form of meditation and then destroy them, in recognition of the temporality of life - I learnt this at a really special Mandala Ceremony that was shown at Splendour in the Grass last year, Tibetan throat gurgling was also part of this ceremony!

Artist Research

Yoko Ono

Following the exhibition War Is Over at the Musuem of Contemporary Art in Sydney much information about the life and work of Yoko Ono has been released through the MCA website.
Here I came to percieve her work with a greater understanding of her experiences and political views.

Yoko was born 1933 in Tokyo, Japan and her name stems from the meaning "ocean child". Throughout her childhood Yoko experience uprooting, losses and the physical and economic devastation of WW2. Her early years instilled a strong hatred of war, a rejection of the inevitability of conflict and suffering and a belief in her own values and resilience to insist upon them.

Yoko's experiences strengthened her as a person and had a magnifying effect on her art. She grew beyond the passive observance of art, she pushed modes of expression through her work that investigated participation.

"Her art is encouraged my music, conceived by poetry, and inspired by philosophy.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

-John Lennon

A dream you dream alone is only a dream

A dream you dream together is a reality

- Yoko Ono

These images are from the exhibition War Is Over 

.

       From the personal to the political, Ono has embraced themes of loss, conflict, humanity, and the desire for world peace through her art.

http://vimeo.com/1967715

This is the Imagine Peace Maps work, here the viewer uses a stamps with the words "imagine peace" to visualise peace throughout the world. Achieving peace through the power of imagination.

Other work to look at - her film scores and instruction pieces.

Yokos words on Instructions

"Instruction painting makes it possible to explore the invisible, the world beyond the concept of time and space. And then, sometimes later, the instructions themselves will disappear and be properly forgotten."

This is a Yoko Ono initiative that has been set up to celebrate maternal love. http://mymommyisbeautiful.com/ The info/instructions are 

MY MOMMY IS BEAUTIFUL

MY MOMMY IS BEAUTIFUL is a tribute

to all Mothers of the World

from each of your children;

A celebration of the love that nurtures us all.

WHAT TO DO

Upload your mother’s photo to

our Facebook group, Flickr group, Instagram or Twitter.

Add the tag #mmib.

Write her name

a note about her, to her and to yourself.

If it gets to be a love letter,

a poem or a very long message

or as long as a novel (!)

that’s fine.

Make sure to squeeze her with big hugs and kisses in your mind

and send it with a sprinkle of  i ii iii