Ada

Collective Event

Collective Event

Collective Event 

https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/gareth-sansom/

https://www.vogue.com.au/vogue-living/arts/first-look-inside-gareth-sansoms-retrospective-exhibition-at-the-ngv/image-gallery/ece81bc0fee86550f8c86dbecbf5bc08?pos=1

http://www.cwjefferys.ca/1896-toronto-art-student-league-retrospective-exhibition

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?exhibition_id=1848

https://www.facebook.com/events/222480335099992/

https://mymodernmet.com/takashi-murakami-exhibit-vancouver/

Having gone to many galleries in the past couple of weeks, we’ve decided to create an art exhibition ourselves. Taking on the idea of VALUE, we’ve decided to explore the differences between perspectives when viewing an artwork - namely, the difference between ‘intrinsic’ value (how an artist might view their own work) and ‘extrinsic’ value (how others - an audience - might view the same artwork). 

Each group member shall take a few past works and put them on display within the context of a gallery, with our event being an exhibition called ‘Retrospective: A Student’s Perspective’. Each work shall be exhibited alongside bar graphs that will act as value-determiners, juxtaposing the artist’s perspective with that of an audience. The event itself makes the assumption that the artists showcased are well-established and distinguished within the art world, however, the uniting feature of the event is that all the works are produced by students, taking on the question of how much value each artwork holds.

WEEK 10 Brainstorm

WEEK 10 Studio Exercise - Static, Noise, Interference, Glitch

The ‘whiteboard artwork’ was created as a result of a class experiment where the whiteboard was dragged across several markers held out, unmoving, by students. The artwork is now interfering with the class slides Anna is trying to present.

WEEK 10 Studio Exercise - Static, Noise, Interference, Glitch

There are many layers of interference demonstrated through our performance. The most obvious one would be the umbrella interfering with the various attempts to shelter from the rain, as is clear through the first video (original version). However, in this second version, the technology decided to interfere with the film-making process, with the intermittent slow-motion effect being an unexpected auto-setting on Joey’s phone. 

WEEK 10 Studio Exercise - Static, Noise, Interference, Glitch

Original version.

How does collaboration create communities in art and design? What challenges do collaborative approaches face and what are some of the solutions?

With this second assessment, I’ve decided to take on a completely different approach to responding to the idea of creating communities through collaboration. Whereas my first assessment can be seen as a rather controlled and closely monitored process of collaboration, my major work predominantly focuses on the exact opposite - a more natural and unintentionally configured process of collaboration. Since human beings are a naturally social species, collaboration - on however minimal a level - is able to become an inherent quality of our everyday lives. 

The neighbourhood setting is a highly effective analogy for conveying this idea of ‘inherent collaboration’. A neighbourhood, I believe, is the perfect embodiment of an inherent, organic collaboration that sees no bounds and requires no force or deliberation to be set into motion. Neighbourhoods are rarely meticulously planned out and deliberately constructed. It is merely an amalgamation of many individuals who happen to live in the same place, unintentionally collaborating to create communities of familiarity and, hopefully, of comfort. And yet, the many different elements are able to come together to create a seemingly cohesive entity, containing the hustle and bustle of many minds in some form of irregular - at times predictable, at times not - synchronisation. Effectively, this idea makes an artist out of every individual, regardless of their level of contribution, and makes an artwork out of every neighbourhood, regardless of its level of aesthetics. And the idea of ‘collaboration’, despite being such a driving force in ensuring the existence of such neighbourhoods, are rarely considered by the persons - or ‘artists’- involved in the creation and maintenance of these neighbourhoods - or macro-scale ‘artworks’.

Every neighbourhood has in common this one factor: that it is a coming-together of multiple minds and multiple contributions, most of which is not deliberate or carefully planned out but is nevertheless an efficacious mode of collaborative production. And so, fuelled with these observation manifested into realisations, I set out to depict this analogy. 

The way I constructed by depiction of a neighbourhood would most likely be rather different to how somebody else - even someone who lives in and experiences the exact same neighbourhood as myself - would interpret and depict the vibe and atmosphere of said neighbourhood. As Pete McCutcheon says “I decontextualise then I reconstruct.” I aim to do the same: to decontextualise my own neighbourhood into a series or disjointed sounds with no apparent origin, and jerky images that, when looped together, creates a specific mood and atmosphere that can be experienced on a level that is universally relevant. This reconstructed sense of fragmentation is also fitting to illustrate the lack of cohesion as a result of many many minds working on the same ‘material’. However, this can also be seen as a form of abstract beauty, where individualism and the beauty in what is otherwise mundane and ordinary is brought to the limelight. 

This idea of “treasur[ing] the local, the small-scale, the eccentric, the ordinary: whatever is made out of caring” is greatly inspired by silkscreen artist Nancy McIntyre who makes artworks that are often centred around examining the seemingly insignificant, mundane landmarks that hold elements of nostalgia and a sense of quality. 

I came to notice the door handle as a rather fascinating symbol, and perfect for embodying the idea of unintentional or organic collaboration. For a significant majority of us, it is pretty much inevitable that we would come across a door that we’d have to pass through as a daily occurrence. And thus lies the ultimate structure for the basis of my artwork. Attaching pens to various door handles around my neighbourhood and taping paper to the door, I was able to set up a mechanism for initiating the organic collaboration that I would later depict. As it is imminent for individuals to pass through the doors, at the end of the day I would have pen strokes repeatedly drawn onto the pieces of paper. I made a series of ‘drawings’ and used them as the foundations for creating my final sketches. The final artwork is a happy marriage of sounds and visuals - a collection of ‘moving’ sketches that run in a loop, illustrating the various aspects that make up the collaborative community that is a neighbourhood. 

As I had explored in my poster for the first assessment, I made the observation that artists are often alone, trapped within their own scopes of intricate ideas that can only be expressed by themselves and themselves alone. However, how can one by truly ‘alone’ when everything one does is so closely linked to their responses to other people and the environment around them? Every little step that you make in your neighbourhood, every tiny change you make to your front lawn, every door handle, knob, latch you happen to turn or move, renders you an artist in your own right - and a collaborative one at that - as you interact, communicate, create with the individuals around you, resulting in a macro-level art piece.

Bibliography

Georgetown Ben & Jerry’s (2003), Nancy McIntyre, http://www.nancymcintyrestudio.com/#

The Best Damned Cherry Blossom Picture I Ever Saw (2010), Pete McCutcheon, http://www.petemccutchen.com/RustReconstructed/TheBestDamnedCherryBlossomPictureIEverSaw.html

Untitled (1966-7), William de Kooning, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kooning-untitled-t01104

Rough Sketch of a Group of Figures, Thomas Stothard, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/stothard-rough-sketch-of-a-group-of-figures-t09952

Major Project - Project Update 2

I’ve decided to create a series of rough sketches to get a general idea of how I want to portray a neighbourhood setting. Each of the sketches starts out with the collaborative ‘drawings’ made out of moving the various door handles. I’ve discovered that each door handle creates an arc of varying degrees of curvature which results in a comfortable starting point for each of my sketches.

Major Project - Artist Inspiration

I ended up doing a lot of research on the work of artists who either focused on simple, mundane, everyday subject matter, or worked with very simple mediums. This, I felt, was most reflective of the intentions behind my own work, where I’m examining the effectiveness of an underlying, unintentional collaboration that exists within an ordinary, universally experienced setting - the neighbourhood. Every neighbourhood has in common this one factor: that it is a coming-together of multiple minds and multiple contributions, most of which is not deliberate or carefully planned out but is nevertheless an efficacious mode of collaborative production. 

Artist Inspiration: Georgetown Ben & Jerry’s (2003) by Nancy McIntyre

The silkscreens that Nancy McIntyre makes are often centred around seemingly insignificant, mundane landmarks that hold some element of nostalgia. She often examines the tension between the ‘then’ and ‘now’ of a place, focusing on how a place ages and evolves rather than when it was in its pristine conditions. As she says herself, the purpose of her art is often to “celebrate the human, the marks people make on the world. Treasure the local, the small-scale, the eccentric, the ordinary: whatever is made out of caring. Respect what people have built for themselves. Find the beauty in some battered old porch or cluttered, human-scale storefront, while it still stands.”

http://www.nancymcintyrestudio.com/#

The way I construct my depiction of a neighbourhood would most likely be rather different to how somebody else, who lives in and experiences the same neighbourhood, would interpret and depict the vibe and atmosphere of said neighbourhood. As Pete McCutcheon says “I decontextualise then I reconstruct.”

Artist Inspiration: The Best Damned Cherry Blossom Picture I Ever Saw (2010) by Pete McCutcheon

Pete McCutcheon is a photographer who, like Nancy McIntyre, often deals with the ordinary and seemingly mundane, but contextualises his subjects in a way that renders it virtually unrecognisable from its original image. Despite this, he is able to retain the essence and mood of its original image and translate that mood into a whole new visual experience. 

I’m considering a roughly sketched-out style for my major project as that is what I’m reminded of when I look at the door-handle ‘drawings’ I made in my experiments.

Artist Inspiration: Untitled (1966–7) by William de Kooning

Artist Inspiration: Rough Sketch of a Group of Figures by Thomas Stothard

I’d like to be able to depict a neighbourhood in a new and interesting way, whether it be through a unique medium or as something that is not immediately recognisable. I want to be able to highlight the collaborative aspects of a neighbourhood - how all the bits and pieces come together to form one collaborative work - but also the parts where collaboration may have failed - e.g. a discarded piece of trash on the side of the road. But, come to think of it, even a piece of rubbish contributes to the overall mood and atmosphere of a neighbourhood, thus acting as an part of the collaborative creation... I will need to give this further thought. 

Artist Inspiration: Mexica (2018) by Douglas Simonson

Major Project - Project Update

Continuing on from my experimentation, I sought out various doors around the house and around my neighbourhood to create a series of different pen strokes. Then I edited the different pen strokes so that they overlapped each other in one image for a more dramatic and interesting (hopefully) effect. At this stage of the project I was still struggling to figure out how this will all manifest into my final artwork. 

WEEK 7 Experiment 

3 How does collaboration create communities in art and design? What challenges do collaborative approaches face and what are some of the solutions?