#adad2018

Assessment 1: Poster - Final Work

For this assessment I chose to explore and research the 4th question, “Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights?”

Throughout the development of the assessment I undertook several avenues of research, much of which was practice based and lead. This included viewing the various depictions of men and women as represented through fashion magazines, with a specific focus on the Vogue publication. But cutting out these images and comparing them against one another I began to see how the depiction of binaries became very clear and evident, and its specific focus on the genders of man and women, and also the sexual binaries surrounding their engagement with one another. More often than not, men and women were paired together and would be seen wearing various attires, stereotypically associated with their gender. Even key features are prevalent, such as soft features, poses, hair length, makeup etc. are used to highlight the various binaries. An interesting one, on the sexual binaries front, is the placement of the models in regards to one another; often interacting through sexualised touch, which brings into question the binary of sexuality and what that looks like in a visual sense.

STATEMENT 

Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the 'human' and the environment.

 In this second assessment I approached the question on a personal level. After conducting some research and reading. I thought about Michelle Reader's 'Seven Wasted Men' and it interested me in the way she used one month's worth of garbage to construct her sculptures. Furthermore, she commented on how much you can tell about someone through their waste. I agree with her statement, however, I thought about it the opposite way. How much you can tell about a person through their shopping trolley. In a consumer driven society, sometimes when I go out shopping, I can't help but look at what other people have in their trolley/basket and without knowing it, I start making assumptions. As mentioned before, I wanted to make a comment on the relationship between the humans, non-humans and the environment within a household. This led to the idea of exploring the relationship and discovering the purpose of the indoor plants within my own home.

With further research, I focused on one specific area, Feng Shui. As well as having the ability to lean the air, "Plants have innate positive chi, clear the air of allergens, and really do wonders for us," Marianne Gordon of Feng Shui With Me says. "Much like caring for animals, caring for plants and the action of planting or watering elevates our chi and makes us true or more grounded." Plants are associated with the wood element and are believed to balance the other elements within the house: fire, metal, air and earth.

For my first experimental activity, I took some photos that I found quite interesting to look at. After an in-class critic session between my fellow classmates, I was able to see which direction I want to take with my project and imagine what my final work would be like. For my next experiment I wanted to move away from photography but not completely. Having decided on a personal/cultural theme. I found two photos which were taken from my last trip overseas to my mother's hometown in China and the other photo was of buildings at night in Hong Kong. With these two photos I did some small alterations with the colour/ contrast and hue/saturation options to enhance the photo. These images reflect a different relationship between humans and non-humans in a different environment/setting. The environment which you are brought up in has a relatively high impact on the individual's life.

For my third experiment I went back to photography and further explored the indoor and outdoor plants and experimented on how I would like to document them. For my fourth and last experiment I went to search for more information about the Chinese Zodiac, here I wanted to explore the relationship between humans and non-humans. The Chinese Zodiac is part of a traditional Chinese Culture. There are 12 Zodiac signs and are represented by 12 animals. Together they form a recurring cycle where one year is represented by an animal. Each Zodiac sign has an element. It is believed that the year a person is born determines their zodiac sign which affects their personality. It is also believed that there are different degrees of compatibility between the Zodiac signs. The relationship between humans determined by their Zodiac sign really interests me. Furthermore, Chinese culture, the koi fish holds many meanings. It symbolises, good fortune, success, prosperity, longevity, courage, etc. However, Koi in Feng Shui, is said to attract abundance and prosperity. Although I really liked the significance of the fish and the photos I took, I felt like it looks unfinished.

For my final work, I decided to choose the following photos. The plants I have chosen to display as a part of my final work includes, Orchids and Snake plant. With my final work I wanted to express the significance of the plants by exploring the relationship and discovering the purpose of the indoor plants within my own home. Plants are believed to help the flow of energy within the house and help build a harmonious relationship between the family. I represented the images separately with a white background around them to communicate that you can't just have one plant, you need other types to balance out the energy within one's house. The white background is the space within the house, the different positions where the plants placed in the rooms.

Reference

1. Harness.J. Mental Floss ' 11 artists Doing Amazing Things With Recycled Materials' [12th Nov 2013. Available from http://mentalfloss.com/article/13046/11-artists-doing-amazing-things-recycled-materials [Online. Accessed 4th Sept 2018]

2. Frazier.K. Lovetoknow 'Feng Shui Plants' [2006-2018 Available from]  https://feng-shui.lovetoknow.com/feng-shui-home/feng-shui-plants [Online. Accessed 7th Sept 2018]

3. Carty.L.S Lovetoknow 'What Do Koi Fish Symbolize?' 2014 [2006-2018 Available from]  https://feng-shui.lovetoknow.com/What_Do_Koi_Fish_Symbolize [Online. Accessed 14th Sep 2018]

Research

My main focus regarding the vast concept of cultural appropriation is through fashion, the main area of this issue occurring in fashion shows and on social media.

Earlier this year, Gucci was criticised for putting turbans on white models. Many Sikhs condemned the move as a huge sign of disrespect, pointing out that the turban is a symbol of faith not a fashion accessory. This issue occurs far too often and inevitably leads to the culture being insulted needing to draw attention to this adoption of significant culture, a mockery for the catwalk.

User Credit: Harjinder Singh Kukreja https://twitter.com/SinghLions (2018)

Even before this, in 2017, globally famous models were put in dreadlocks and Native American headdresses to accompany their outfits, enraging the globe. Furthermore, and luxury fashion label Chanel was criticised for “stealing” Aboriginal culture when it revealed a £1,100 boomerang as part of its S/S17 collection. And when expanding the issue to celebrities, many such as Katy Perry, Selena Gomez and Beyoncé have been criticised for taking an item of cultural clothing and have appropriated it for fashion rather than as a celebration of that culture.

User credit: i-D https://twitter.com/i_D (2017)

However this topic is very delicate, as when it comes to cultural appropriation, it’s not really a black-and-white issue, and according to Dr Royce Mahawatte, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Central St Martins, trying to “draw a line” is problematic in itself: “It creates a victim complex in people who have not accepted that [...] British and American exceptionalism is over and that white supremacy in culture is being robustly challenged – especially in an age of social media.”

Since the line apparently hasn’t been clearly defined, on many occasions it has been crossed, however a simpler solution would be to simply leave the idea alone all together. All the traditional culture swishes for is for the dominant culture to leave their clothes of significance alone and thereby avoid the issue.

'The fashion industry and western ideas of dressing up and fancy dress are functions of our colonial and imperial pasts – there is no getting away from it' – Rachel Hosie

Concept Statement | Bibliography  

For my first assessment, I explored how conflict is good and is a necessity for the development of a strong community.  For my second assessment, I continue to explore the conflict aspect within my question. This time, however, I wanted to directly challenge the question, as the question implies that collaboration in arts always brings communities together and that there is always a solution to the conflict. My final work conveys the idea that collaboration may not always bring communities together because sometimes conflicts within collaborations cannot be resolved regardless of how much effort is put in.

When I think of conflicts I think of opposing forces between two or more individuals. This led to me exploring and experimenting with materials that display signs of opposing forces such as magnetic forces, oil and water and opposite flavours.  During these experiments, I was able to relate the interactions between the opposing forces within the object that I was experimenting with to how we behave in a collaborative environment where conflict is present. Realising this link and observing the objects gave me a better understanding of conflicts and why sometimes it can’t be resolved. The objects capture different aspects of conflict rather than one homogenous idea of two parties fighting. I really like this idea of exploring different aspects of conflict rather than looking at it as a whole and felt that it is something that I want to incorporate in my final work to help show how conflict may not always be resolved and why collaboration may not always work.

To help me develop an idea for my final work where I can achieve this, I researched how other artists have captured different aspects of conflicts in their work. I discovered artist Mona Hatoum who uses internal conflicts in her design to challenge our expectation and perception of every day. To an extent, I am using conflict to challenge our expectation and perception of conflicts. Hatoum’s aim to challenge our expectation and perception and her method of adding a design conflict to an everyday item to achieve this is a method that I plan to use in my own work. I felt it was an effective way to get the audience to challenge their expectations.

The expectation and perception aspects reminded me of commercial products. As commercial products, especially “As seen on TV” products often challenge your expectation and perception of a product. Due to the often-disappointing nature of the products after purchase. This too can relate to conflicts in collaboration. As consumers have an expectation of products to be good but sometimes they are disappointed by the products as their expectations are not met. Similar to how expects the collaboration to run smoothly but sometimes we are disappointed by how this is not always possible. They both desire an expectation for something but sometimes they are faced with the reality that their expectation cannot be met.

I decided to incorporated my experiments into commercial products that could be interacted with, adding a conflicting design element to it that represent different human behavioural aspects of conflicts. The use of commercial products represents how a good collaboration is something that we desire but may not always be possible. Each product has 2 labels on top of each other. The labelling of the products as “Community Brand” represents how the idea and aspect that is being represented is present in communities. The top labels have an instruction claiming that doing so would allow for achieving a successful aspect of collaboration. The instruction cannot be achieved due to the conflicting element design. The top label has an obvious tab, signalling the viewer that the top label should be removed, reviewing the bottom label that showing the true intent of the product as an aspect of conflict of collaboration and that the conflicting element reflects it.

Smell of great/bad chemistry | The conflicting element here is water and oil. Water and oil cannot mix due to its different chemistry. Representing how we desire to get along with everyone, however, sometimes regardless of how hard we try we just cannot get along with them.

Cube of Great Minds/Single Mindedness | The conflicting element here is opposing magnetic forces. The opposing magnetic forces show the magnet from aligning with each other. Representing how we desire for everyone to agree with each and to share the same idea, however, sometimes regardless of how hard we try not everyone will agree with each other.

Elixir of Sweetness/Sourness | The conflicting element here is the expectation of sweetness but receiving sourness instead. Representing how we want to work with people who are kind and supportive, however, sometimes we will have to work with people who are nasty.

Bibliography

“Capturing conflict through art”, Khan Academy, 2015, viewed on 13September 2018, https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/conflict-contradiction/art-and-conflict/a/what-about-internal-conflict-in-art

“What about Internal conflict in art?”, Khan Academy, 2015, viewed on 13September 2018, https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/conflict-contradiction/art-and-conflict/a/what-about-internal-conflict-in-art

Arteffusion, “Untitled (Wheelchair) by Mona Hatoum”, Arteffusion, August 2017, viewed on the 14 September 2018, https://arteffusion.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/untitled-wheelchair-by-mona-hatoum/

B. Geiger, “Sweet and Sour Opposing Forces”, Fine Cooking, [No Date], viewed on the 8 September 2018, https://www.finecooking.com/article/sweet-and-sour-opposing-forces

C. Davies, “Eyewitness: a war artist in Afghanistan”, The Guardian, March 2010, viewed on the 13 September 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/18/jules-george-war-artist-afghanistan

After our presentation we were encouraged to leave our posters out for the rest of the campus to see, so I placed mine by the message board. This section made sense as my ‘advertisement’ is intended to be educational so I hope people observe it and consider my message.

Moreover, I forgot to mention this to the class, but today is the 72nd year of Independence for India, and I couldn’t help but feel the sense of irony of presenting a poster about cultural appropriation on our day of Independence. 

Concept Statement

Chloe, Lilly, Karla

The artwork chosen is Infra realism by Kate Ballis and demonstrations the idea of perception. She used cameras that were converted to full spectrum and she also used various filters to achieve the final intended effect. Perception is represented by distorting the images using colour to highlight and contrast buildings and vegetation. We began the design process by researching the ideas of perception and how we could utilise these ideas in our own artwork so experimented with different materials. Some of the materials were translucent, coloured, scrunched and made our views of objects blurry. After selecting these materials we photographed very common images on the street and of flowers and different vegetation while using the materials to cover the lenses of the camera to distort the otherwise common images. By experimenting with distances between the lenses and materials as well as distances between lenses and objects in the images, we created different perceptions. This is demonstrated through the focus of lenses and how we see an image. Sometimes we focus through the material and the material distorts the object we focus on and other times the focus becomes on the material making the object in the background blurry, changing our perception of what we are looking at. Infra realism also has the ability to highlight aspects of an image that were otherwise going unnoticed which is also evident in our artwork as the materials are used to highlight and disregard aspects of an image to have a different perception of the same image. We used the editing programs to gather the images and videos to further enhance the idea of different perceptions being created with distractions of images and blurred film.

I then found another representative brand—— Hot-Kid Milk beverage. This milk beverage just like The drink reminds me of my childhood and the cheap commercials that circulated on all the channels. Grew up, it transformed from ordinary beverage with a strong memory of color label, the taste of it more than ten years still does not change, my friends and I love it, love the taste of it, even if there are more and more delicious and look better milk drink, we also from time to time to buy it, because it seemed to be no alternative.

When I drew it, I also chose deeper and less saturated color to show a feeling of retro and nostalgia.