REsearch & writting

Workshop 24.10 - DIY Editorial publication

I had a lot of fun creating my zine out of this article The Science of Storytelling: What Listening to a Story does to our Brains. I think this was a good starting point on the editorial report as it gave me a visual support on understanding of some of the platforms available as pamphlets and zines.

Most of all this made me start to think about size, format, scale, typography, layout and design accommodating the subject in context.

The next step to be taken is probably to choose the right subject for my report, something that interests me to my core forcing myself to make a good range of research to get a better understanding.

The subject

When choosing the right subject I had to bare in mind the matters I really engage with. Since I've been seeing a lot of documentaries and films and general I thought it would be interesting to pick one that appealed to me as a starting point for my research on whatever.

I was torn in between two documentaries: Before The Flood (2016) and Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (2012).

The first one directed by Fisher Stevens is a documentary that shows how the climate change is affecting society and how we can prevent the demise of ecosystems and human species. This is matter that concerns me the most in terms of my way of living, diet and consumerism. It's something that is permanently on my mind throughout the choices I make everyday for myself. So this would be a good subject to talk about on my editorial since I have strong opinions and good resources as in articles and websites to support my report.

The second one directed by Matthew Akers and Jeff Dupre is about Marina's big exhibition on MoMA in 2010 and it's basically a summary of her work as a performance artist throughout the years. It documents not only her work as an artist but how she deals with big performances spiritually and entering a specific state of mind as a person. The film also informs a lot about curation which is something that I'm starting to look at as our Project 2 show is coming up. So this would also be a good matter to write about since curation and performance in general is starting to grow on me (also the idea for our group project involves performance as our main piece). It's something that I know very little about which is good for me to start a fresh research and formulate fresh opinions about it. This would be a great opportunity to dive into this new interest of mine since I have a good amount of resources including the NUA library.

I balanced my two choices and I came to prefer Marina's documentary as a starting point for my report since it offers a range of knowledge paths I can choose from and a lot to research about.

Research methods

To be able to investigate the subject matter of Performance Art I'm using sources as videos, library books, films and possibly a going to the Whitechapel Gallery in London to see William Kentridge's exhibition Thick Time.

I'm looking into a range of paths I can choose being Marina's film as a starting point. I'm looking into the social, cultural, historical, political, artistic and psychological sides of this side of contemporary art.

I'm still not sure of the course I want to give to this report so that'll be the next step on this process: to decide where I want to go from this. Do I want to take a more political and historical path? Or a more cultural and psychological path? What exactly I want my audience to feel and think and they're reading my report? What type of journey I want to take my audience on?

What is my point?

Structure

Having the focal points in mind I decided to brainstorm with what I have gotten so far from my research. I was able to visualise better what I was working with and make up my mind of what I'm most interested about in this confusing web of information.

I came up with another diagram but this time more focused on the structure instead of quantity of information I gathered so it'll be more clear of what I want to write, evaluating how smooth the connections are and if it makes any sense to the reader. This structure is constructed to be in a circular direction since I want to finish it making a point about my actual starting point, taking the reader in a journey.

After defining my final diagram I came to a very interesting conclusion. The form of art defines a very specific relationship between the piece and the audience. As in any visual arts what we get is a transmission of thought/idea/concept from the piece to the viewer and the '"interaction" ends there. What's so special in performance is that we get a constant exchange of understanding and knowledge since the work of art is only complete when both parts are in play and the reactions reproduced by previous actions (and so on) makes this art thrive for flat hierarchies to reach the audience and being considered (by me) a humanity's mirror.

So I guess I found my point.

Visual arts

Performance

Marina's MoMa performance

Define performance

happening and its psychology

Impact on the audience

Art being a mirror for self and humanity as a whole

Art form resistant to commercial forces

Questioning art and artists themselves

Variety of artists that produce work related to identity

Fluxus art movement and Zen

Identity "Every body as a self"

How to perceive the world around us?

Mid-unit review 27.11

This 30min. mid-unit review was convenient as I got to realise some curious aspects and connections within my practice by just talking about them out loud.

I realised that this blog is a really good platform enabling me to maintain a daily relationship with my ideas and line of thoughts, making sure that I document my every decision making. I found this particular point really hard on 1st year as it was difficult to me to keep up to date as I went along the projects.

We also talked about my experience in project 2 as it was a group project. How I was able to adapt my practice and ideas to other peoples' minds. I felt that the tasks throughout the whole project really helped forming a sense of good communication within the group and in our final piece for exhibition we were finally in sync with each other.

Niel helped me see how I'm actually interested on concepts to do with hiding/transparency, which connect both with my 1st project and this editorial report, making clear association between my theory on writing and my own practice. This was something I didn't notice before I talked about it during the review.

My take on this will be to reflect upon this last point and definitely make connections with my editorial and try to start developing some independent self directed work around those thoughts.

Trip to London 28.11

After I saw this video on the right (and after tutor Emily told us about William Kentridge's exhibition) I knew I had to go to London to check out some exhibitions both for my research and personal entertainment.

I planned my day out and went to the Whitechapel Gallery to see Kentridge's Thick Time and also to Tate Modern since I never went there and I was really interested and curious about their central temporary exhibition Anywhen by Philippe Parreno. I went alone and that definitely contributed for me to get the most of my day.

I didn't knew much about William Kentridge before knowing about his exhibit so one of the things that really attracted me during my experience at the gallery was definitely his connections and influences by his home country, South Africa. I could relate a lot to his artwork since I have south african origins myself, which contributed to my understanding on his practise, I was able to connect.

This was the first time I experienced an exhibition in which it requires the audience to actively experience the duration of each individual project since all of them include film, sound and movement. This had a huge impact on me because until that point I've only seen things like those (including live performance) on Youtube and I can say now that videos almost don't do justice to experiencing artworks live.

This was also the first time I evaluated contemporary art critically, since last time I went to a modern art museum/gallery was probably 5 years ago and I still wasn't capable of such thing.

Reflecting on his way of working and materials/resources he gets to express himself I think he really gets the most of them, making living collages and also making the audience believe these objects are real and alive as sentimental and thinking beings when in reality they're made of broken and found pieces. A metaphor for people I perceive.

Also Whitechapel had a little room dedicated to the Guerrilla Girls (an anonymous group of feminists activists founded in 1985) concerning a specific survey on the diversity in European art organisations. That research goes by the title It's Even Worse In Europe. I found this really interesting since the results are amazingly curious and questionable at the same time. This campaign exposes to us (the public) the corruption in the art world concerning minorities and I think this subject in general should be more developed within mostly our society, shouting for individual voice and freedom of speech as human beings and not for our gender, our ethnicity or our sexual orientation.

Concerning my trip to Tate Modern I can say that I was blown away by what I saw. Contemporary art reaches a point that it is only complete with the participation of external individuals, because at the end it's about what we felt and experienced during the time we disposed to appreciate it and not about what we actually saw.

Parreno did a really good job showing us that. Anywhen questions our perception of time and space inviting us to this immersing experience. It really challenges you to incorporate this sense of uncomfortableness within a public free space, sensitive to change and transformation. It also explores ideas of chance and control as the order of events are totally random and influenced by the environment we're in.

This trip was really valuable both for my research and for personal growing as an active thinker. I was never much of a fan of modern art but after my own discoverings and learnings concerning the editorial task (through library books, interviews, experiencing galleries in real time, etc.) I fell in love with this form of expression. Because a painting or a sculpture alone can transmit a lot of thought and emotion but this sort of art makes you actively contribute and just appreciate what's happening in real time and making your own assumptions about not what you saw but how you felt, concentrating on the individual but at the same time in our society and race as humans, making us realise bigger problems that we had not until that very moment or just appreciate how clever these people are to make all of these thoughts cross our minds as busy beings that don't have time to even think about our surroundings and I think that's the whole point because otherwise why would we, artists, even "lose" time on such thing?

"If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it's a human need."

- Ai Weiwei

"What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he's a painter, or ears if he's a musician, or a lyre at every level if he's a poet, or even, if he's a boxer, just his muscles? On the contrary, he's at the same time a political being, constantly alive to heartrending, fiery, or happy events, to which he responds in every way."

- Pablo Picasso

(quotes found in Tate Modern, on How Can Art Change The World?)