#contextsofpractice

Lecture Series: Provocations - GCOP200

In this session, we were shown how most influential artists, films, media can stem from mistakes and accidents.

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitsky) was an American Photograher who strongly represented the Dadaist's and Surrealist's. He started off a photographer, and tells his history behind the classic 'Rayograph' as being a mistake. Man Ray was greatly influenced by Marcel Duchamp, a founder of the Dadaist’s group, then moving from that, the Dadaists moulded themselves into the Surrealist group, who gave undivided attention to the importance of the unconscious mind, dreams and understandably, Freudian Theory. André Breton was one of the leaders of the Surrealist group and wrote the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 in which he chose to define ‘Surrealism’ as ‘pure psychic automatism’ meaning, the content is created not by rational thought, but by the minds own development of thoughts in it’s own convoluted way when unconscious or when thoughts are left to go wild.

Freudian Theory is based on, or developed from the ideas presented in Sigmund Freud’s book ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ (1899), in which Freud noted many both interesting and objectionable points of psychology, a few of his main ideas focused on the idea of the human personality being sustained via the Id, Ego and Superego. 

The 'Sabattier Effect' or 'Solarisation' effect was initially mentioned by Armand Sabatier (spelled incorrectly), he noted the quality of photographs with this 'direct positive' effect but he could not recreate it. Man Ray perfected the solarisation technique after the light in the darkroom was accidentally turned on while the photographs were being developed. However it is very likely that other people found themselves recreating the effect by accident due to its nature. 

Of course, the majority of art is based on experimentation, change and uncertainty, artists, filmmakers, creators universally have to experience the evolution of their ideas and ‘learning to fail’, so to speak. Even from a young age, most children and infants are taught that failing is an option, as many a time the better one, one can only strive to achieve from failure, certain success provides and benefits nothing to oneself.

Lecture Series: ‘Provocations  - Contexts of Practice Year 2′

This first session focused on the way society is built, how it has developed into the way it is at this point in time, who has power in society and how it is maintained. Alongside this we are to focus on how art can achieve a momentary breach of control. 

In general sociological studies, it is noted by many that the capitalist society is run by those with ‘power’ over those who do not, power can come through in a variety of ways, from race, to gender, to wealth, to class all of which interlink in one way or another.

Michel Foucault was a very important individual whose ideas and research brought a lot to the table in terms of surveillance and the transformation between ‘sovereign power’ and ‘disciplinary power’ in our modern society. Through his book ‘Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison’ (1975) he notes the difference between these two forms of power.

Sovereign Power → typical of pre-19th century monarchy. Where control was asserted through violent punishments and brutally inflicting harm on people at the view of the public.

Disciplinary Power → post-19th century development, new control now governs body and ‘soul’ through surveillance.

Foucault also noted that disciplinary power replaced sovereign power as modern technology has become much more efficient and effective at controlling people on a global scale. 

‘The Panopticon’ Foucault explains DP through a design of prison in which the prisoners cannot see the guards but the guards have a full view of all of the prisoners, therefore the prisoners feel they might be being watched and so will act much more cautiously, becoming a form of self-surveillance and self-discipline. Because of this, Foucault also argues experts are important on rehabilitating the deviant and changing their behaviour. He believes the psychologist profession developed around the same time as modern prisons.

Foucault's readings led to many other sociologists who came to mention other forms of control in modern society, another example being from Thomas Mathiesen (1997) as he argued that the ‘Panopticon’ allows for the few to monitor the many, but noted that the media allows the many to see the few. He calls this the ‘Synopticon’.

Media coverage has come under much fire as people are beginning to understand the influence media has on society and the pressure it creates on so many others, the way the entire system is designed is so tightly compromised of bourgeoisie ideals, it never focuses on the scandals and crimes of the rich, rather choosing to publicise the events of crime from those who are in the lower class, usually committing crimes just to make ends meet or to keep up with the lifestyle that modern advertising likes to provoke as the ‘proper’ way to live. John Thompson makes note of this by saying that powerful groups such as politicians fear the media’s surveillance of them as it may uncover damaging information about them. Acting as social control over their activities. The public also monitor each other, via dash cams for video evidence.

With materiality is the quality of what matters and whether or not we agree with the quote: "change the material and everything changes with it". For me personally it would change if you were changing the material as the object/thing wouldn't be as practical as what it was before. For example, if a tissue was no longer using soft material, it wouldn't be practical to use as much, like cleaning water that's been spilled over.  

"Time is one of the fundamental dimensions of reality" as said by Eva Hoffman as with time we always run out of it but we always need more of it.

With time, you can tell a story with social reaslim and an example of this would be Shane Meadow's 2006 film 'This Is England" which is set in 1983 as it illustrates how their subculture, especially white nationalists and white supremacists, which led to divisions within the skinhead scene.

A case study of a piece of artwork that includes the story of time is Tracey Ermin's My Bed from 1999 which included a bed that told a story by also using place - which connected back to when we learned about sense of places. This was inspired by Erwin's "sexual yet depressive phase" where she remained in her bed for days without eating or drinking expect for alcohol. This shows how much little time you can have yet still tell a massive story.

With places, you have different type of sense such as: neolithic (referring to the period of British, Irish and Manx history that spanned from circa 4000 to circa 2,500 BCE), renaissance (the influence of the European art between 14th - 16th century), industrial revolution (involving the manufacturing and transportation of products), information age (also known as the 21st century) and anthropocene (which is the human era now).

With senses of places, there are different meaning behind them. One example being 'to be orientated' which is like the underground tube maps. Another example having 'tactic knowledge' which means a place cannot be written down or verbalised, like an aesthetic, as you can teach aesthetics and it can also be changed multiple times. Another example is 'Genius Loci' which means the soul of a place.

A case study with creating a place is Rachel Whiteread's 'House' (1993) which shows that you can create a place anywhere and it can still have meaning behind it. Whiteread went on to say " Place is basically a selection of doll’s houses that have been very carefully stage lit from the inside. They are all second-hand objects, which I started collecting about 20 years ago... People may take these things as being rather sentimental – personally I see them as containing a great deal of pathos, as extremely sad, interesting and sympathetic objects. Some of them are really bashed up. They’re made by dads, uncles, grannies, and grandpas – whoever wanted to get involved in making them – in the garden shed."

With places as well, you can create ownership which can be done with graffiti, like for example Southbank in London which was once a skatepark years ago but now it has become filled with graffiti work which now can be owned by the people who left their mark there. Another example would be artists creating art onto things in a certain place, an example from where I live, someone drew little pictures onto trees around a dog park/forest and made a challenge from it so the public could join in.

There is a difference with seeing and looking which not many people will realise. This being with seeing, it's something we do arbitrarily as people can ask us "did you see that?" whereas looking is an activity that involves a greater purpose as we choose to look or not look at something and additionally, you can have the power to make a person look at something.

With semiotics, there are different type of signs as well. You have an icon that resembles it's referent and you also have an index that associates with it's reference (for example, smoke can mean fire).

A case study of this can be 'Little Red Hiding Hood'. The original story of 'Little Red Hiding Hood' was created by Charles Perrault, a French author of many famous folk tales such as 'Cinderella' and 'Sleeping Beauty', in 1697. Throughout the years, the story has changed with the storyline, however some signs within the story never changed. For example, the colour red connotes blood, love and danger and with the red cape added onto to that, it shows that the family is wealthy.

Semiotics connects back with identity with our belongings. With this, we start with looking at maps as maps tell us a narrative and an analog. A map is also a symbolic representations of our characteristics of a place. You can walk into a place and you can gain so much information with a short amount of time.

For example, if you walked into my bedroom, you would be able to gain all the information with all my interests as I want my bedroom to feel more me. I have posters of my favourite music artists, films and tv series, I have figures of my favourite characters, pictures of friends and places and concert tickets and many other things. On the other hand, you can go to a historical place and see all the history within the place by seeing the architecture and even the people there.

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