Lesson 5

Medium specificity

-norms - basic elements of a medium - limits creativity (we are made to follow others)

-subjectivity decreases

-rules increases (bounded) 

-simplified judgment GOOD/BAD

Intermedia

Critique:

Traditional art- compartmentalization

                         - raw materials

                         - everyday objects

Decomposition *Dick Higgins

- describe the overuse of norms

Experimental work

-x based on history

-artist should give a meaning

-critique norms

 -highlight their power

 -will finally go back to norms again

Dada (1920) <--> Fluxus (1970s) --> intermedia

Compare and contrast of DADA and FLUXUS

Fluxus (Germany, U.S.) <--> internationalism <--> Dada (Paris, France)

*Equal value of all materials

F - breakdown (theatre)

D - collage [experiment with painting and photography]

D - idea of playing and gaming, performance

F - art is a form to play

     nonsense is a meaning

     highlight more on gaming

D - aggressive communication - political

F - fun, bring art to everyday life

     x political

Video tape [Performance back stage]

- intermedia

- everyday objects   ]- clues (how to look, how to analyze)

- Time

- seeing must inform by concept cannot simply telling GOOD/BAD

- replying language of cinema - box-liked framing

- frontal view - feeling of painting

Theatre - features of theatre?

- focus

- one main character    ] - critique one single focus

- parallel action             ] - critique one single focus

Nam June Paik's Video

- white background + Dust & Scratches + No audio

- about our consciousness but not contents

- cinema - light off + projection

- projected our dream & fantasy

  - develop to storytelling mechanism

Robert Rauscenberg [ late1960s ] Open Score - open work

--> "9 evenings"

- technology and art played together

- look at & listen!

- 2 layers of transposition

  - place - listening --> looking at audiences

- mediation

- sport performance + sound

- things become sth else step by step

e.g. audiences become obj of seeing when they are on screen

[through camera] -> [framing, focua on specific things] -> [camera can see in dark] -> [angles]

[CRITIQUE by Open Score]

Performance

- script

- must have a guide

- automatism

- open work

- it can be an improvisation of script

Andy Warhol World Exhibition

When I went to Taipei on January, I visited the exhibition of Andy Warhol in 中正紀念堂, who is one of the greatest artist in Pop art history. In this exhibition, his paintings, readymade objects' art works and his different way of printings were displayed.

I knew Andy Warhol when I was still studying in PolyU HD. I know his most famous works only like the banana, Campbell Soup, etc. only at that time. This time, I realized his history of life and different works that I had not seen before, I have more feeling about his works now. I like the way he tried to use many colors combinations in painting and printing. You would have a thought when you encountered those colors combination at other place, that is, "Oh, Andy Warhol!". And the idea that he put society icons and industrial brand to be an artwork is very interesting as we would have no idea how they can be related to art normally, he broke the boundary between them.

Here are some works displayed in exhibition, as I was not able to talk pictures inside, I captured some of the examples on web.

 

   

During lesson, some of the short films also created by Andy Warhol were shown. However, I think his videos are not that attractive compared with his other works.

And I found some others...

Lesson 4

DADA

*intermedia

*medium specificity

*2 key concepts from experimentation

*~mid 1950, related to lots f countries

*most important characteristic of experimental art

*emphasize the fact that "What are the basic component of this art form"

*EG. the tpic of cinema last week

Automation not another form of cinema

"monphology

Intermedia

-conceptural fusion between traditional art

"compartmentalization"

e.g. divide people with male and female

-controversy between people studying cultural study

-thought across compartment?

Dada

-WWI

-Industrial Revolution - science

technology - belief and human value

-Switzerland (neutral country)

1916: Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings

-opened the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich

-artistic entertainment, daily meetings

**Tristan Tzara [A man with a tie]

Hans Arp, Marcel Janco, Hans Richter

-not a single movement

-non-sense - did it on purpose

                - main point of dada

-anti-nationalistic

x value, x boundaries

*Use of new tools / materials [everyday objects]

*Like non-Westren culture film [esp. Africa]

*Representation?! [x]

provoke sensation

"Gadji Beri bimba" Hugo Ball

-stanza makes sth look like a poem

-not about meanings but how the line arranged

**Xu Bing

English not only about meaning and sounds but arrangement

MERZ : painting, room, wall

Readymade - manufactured objects

Marcel Duchamp

*Photomontage and Collage

*Equal value, anti-meaning

Man Enrst - collage for unexpected social satire

               - change of scale

[DRESSDEN] Ars Sonata

Dick Higgins - "intermedia"

*Rauschenberg

Painters (first group of abstract painters)

--> collage (Alan Kaprow)

--> decollage (Wolf Vostell)

--> Inclusion of concrete objects

--> Environment (envelopong collage)

--> Happenings (Kaprow 1958 people are involved in the collage)

Happening - kind of intermedia

- Beyond theatre

- Stage's shape, portability, flexibility

- Beyond omprovisation

 - Higgins - stacked Deck

**Al Hansen

~Collage, music, theatre

3 important elements for happening

Process poem "by A. Leandro from Ponto Ovum 10"

--> Repetition - Variation

Fluxus group

-question what medium is

-break out the boundaries (expanded art)

-Challenge the normal frame of reference of the audiences (xpassive xonly sit here)

Milan Knizak - "Destroyed Music 1963/1980"

John Cage - Graphic notation

Nam June Paik - Music performance without music

About Egon Schiele 2

Egon Schiele's pictures are in the aspect of expressionalism. I love the way that he contorted the shapes of women, at that period, 1910s, people tend to draw portrait of women, but the traditional form of women's portrait is more elegant and implicit. And the colors he used was always dark and surreal compared with normal. He style is unique and glamorous.

  

  

About Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele (12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century.

Schiele's work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism, although still strongly associated with the art nouveau movement (Jugendstil).

The most important collection of Schiele's work is housed in the Leopold Museum, Vienna.

I like the work of this painter as the portraits he drew have special attraction power for me. And I notice that one of the Japanese caricaturist draws picture like him so much, so I think the caricaturist was inspired by Egon.

Picture down here is by 荒木 飛呂彦（あらき ひろひこ、1960年6月7日 - ）Alaki Heloheko

Lesson 3

Experimental action

-chance operation - free association

-open work

Rules [Open work]

-important in open work

-Turn out endless action

-Breakdown a continuous scene and combine it again with some rules

-Montage

Linda's video work

-one lomg shot 6 mins

-with feeling of being edited

-play with white balance, shutter...

-shake the camera horizontally

-play with intervals

-pure randomness

-how to switch it to an open work?

 -instead of intervals, use the household's sound?

Ada's video rule (閉路電視)

Combinations

Permutation

MATTHEWS ALGORITHM

-rules and rules about rules

EG. 2 Third Sonata for Piano

-Francis Schacffer

-plays with tape recorder

Sea Organ - music instruments played by the sea

               - how the water hot the shore

Film projection + performance

eg. film runs when someone enter the room

eg. everytime when someone walk inside, the screen turns off

NEW WAY: 360 degrees projection

Found Objects (Readymade)

-existing manufactured object turn it into a new work

Photomontage and collage

-all material have equal value

-contrast in perspective and texture (ultimate rule)

Lesson 2

1)Automatic writing in Group of 6 (automatism)

-process-oriented

-->with narrative logic

-->turn whatever you write to a story

-->lastly, step out, tell you more about the story

-->not really a full circle

SURPRISES AND AMAZEMENT

*Interactive between different materials

*not isolated

*multiplying what you already have **Gaming important!

Many different selves, not only one

-always there -unconscious mind

John Cage - "4 minutes 33 seconds"

-Silence? What music is?

-Silence is also a form of sound, "anxiety of audience"

-Empty sound?Constructed Silence?

INITIAL STEP!

Paul Klee (1879-1940)

-childhood drawing

Presentation:

John Cage

*Pushing the boundaries

Divergent of thinking

*Ursonate Kurt Schwitters

*Open work

**27 sound manufactured in a kitchen

**Water Walk

Comments:

After watching John Cage's Videos,

-What is the different between sound and music?

-Although it is impossible to perform perfect silence, we can feel and experience silence... then is silence a kind of music?

Fluxus

-to flow

-international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s.

-Intermedia [Dick Higgins]

-Valued simplicity over complexity

-Strong current of anti-commercialism and anti-art sensibility

-Work with whatever materials were at hand

Event scores

-performances

-brief and simple

-attitude

-fun, humor have always been an important event and element

NAM JUNE PAIK

JOHN CAGE

Da-da

-cultural movement began in Zürich 

-anti-art

-non-sensial word

MY PRESENTATION

-find linkage between image(still) and sound

-Can sound be captured within an limited boundary?

-Can we feel sound if we are not really hearing them?

-mood board: emphasize what feeling I want to express