Relational Aesthetics

In short, relational aesthetics sparked my curiosity.  Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud examines artistic projects that seek to engage the public audience by requiring some sort of interaction or reaction in the public sphere. The notion of using art to create social interactions was fascinating to me, and seemed much like a psychological experiment.

So I looked more into artists who helped to revolutionize the movement of relational aesthetics in the 1990s. From placing candy in piles on a museum floor to paying heroine addicts to get high in a formal setting, these artists did it all. And for what? To simply create a social interaction among people. But this idea is profound. In a world of lessening personal social interaction due to exactly what should enhance it-social media- I believe exhibits like this serve the important purpose of re-centering focus on the shared human experience.

Gabriel Orozco was mentioned in Bourriaud’s essay, a man who helped to pioneer relational aesthetics. One of Orozco’s first endeavors into relational aesthetics was his exhibition entitled La D.S. In this worked, Orozco sliced a silver Citroen DS into three pieces lengthwise, and the middle section was removed. It formed an arrow-like car that visitors were allowed to sit in, open the doors, touch, etc. The car was not made to be driven, but rather to be a force of social response. In such a formal setting, it seems unusual that visitors would be allowed to touch the car and mess up “sacred” art.

Thus, the idea of relational aesthetics not only provides a vehicle (pun) for social interaction, but also challenges society to rethink about their notions of art. This can be very hard to do, as a white-walled gallery often dominates the minds of many people when they think about art. Relational aesthetics throws this idea away and invites the visitor to come touch, see, feel, participate.

 

Endless Sea of Checkerboards

There is definitely a theme within new electronic media, and I think part of this theme is to create simple designs out of computers that have the ability to be infinitely complex. Sure, there are some works that require much programming and technological skills, yet other projects are very basic in design.

This week on rhizome.org, the posting about Plateau (2010) by Tabor Robak serves to illustrate exactly what I mean by simplicity in some new media works. Plateau is a very simple design, as the upper half is completely white and the bottom half consists of repeating gray and white checkers – creating the illusion of..wait for it..a plateau. There is some depth perception and the checkers seem to be disappearing, but beyond that, the work is very plain and simple.

Really, I’m not sure the why the artist chose to do this, but to me, as I said earlier, maybe it has to do with the infinite complexity of computers now. Maybe because they are so complex artists choose to find solace in simple designs that provide a social commentary that art can be created from simplicity.

How Sweet Art Is

On Art 21 this week, the site posted an article entitled “Contemporary Art, How Sweet It Is” about an artist Paul Root and art historian Nicole Root who decided to undertake an almost humorous project – creating sculptures out of candy and other sweets. While the art is purely amusing to look at, the article suggests that Shore and Root were truly trying to comment on the culture of contemporary sculptures and bring into question some important notions regarding “new” art.

In the project, Shore and Root sought to recreate important projects by Minimalist and Earthwork artists and sculptures. In essence, Shore copied the work of these artists, but made something new through his use of candy and his artistic eye. On the surface, I find the exhibit to be very appealing. There  is something really neat about creating a child’s fantasy by making a world where even art could (ostensibly) be eaten. But deeper than this is an important message, I think.

By re-creating contemporary art with candy, it seems that Shore may be making a commentary on contemporary art itself and how it really breaks all boundaries and tries the new and absurd. In the article, Shore mentions that he thinks by recreating the works with candy, the art may be made accessible and less intimidating to those unacquainted with recent art history.

I think that this is a very good point to make – contemporary art to those who often do not look at art may seem crazy, inaccessible, and incomprehensible. Yet, what Shore did to bring this kind of art closer to all people is a very smart idea. Just as a Shakespeare text can be made easy to understand by the “Spark Notes” version, this contemporary art was made more accessible to the viewer by using a familiar medium and playful attitude. The more relatable, the more understandable.

Deus Digitalis

So I actually find this piece online media art really awesome and interesting. Usually I shrug off Flash-player-made online art as being designed by programmers, not having much meaning, etc. But not this time. Deus Digitalis, an audiovisual installation, by Hans Verhaegen and Jean Delouvroy is not only fun to watch, but also has a good deal of thought and meaning behind it.

The animation made from the old school version of Flash at first may appear to be one of those old screen-savers or graphics from a 1980s video game. But upon looking closer at these highly recognizable patterns and standard computer graphics colors, you see that the moving figures are actually symmetrically arranged people in groups of 25. The project seems to explore the symmetry of human motion and how motion in itself can create art.

Further, the artists got their inspiration from visiting a cathedral in Germany, and sought to recreate stained glass colors and patterns in the realm of new media. The fusion of old gothic art with that of new media presents the viewer with something novel. I surely have never seen moving and interactive stained glass before. In this case, I believe that the creation of internet art was effective and original.

Beyond the purely aesthetic or entertaining, these artists put much thought into the inspiration for their patterns and the symmetry behind them.

Light is Waiting

Since we are currently working on “reinventing” commercials, I thought I would look in to some works that involve cutting, dubbing, flipping, and more this week. One theme I noticed on rhizome.org–for some reason, artists really seem to like using the 90’s television show Full House as their material. That observation aside, the video Light Is Waiting (2007) by Michael Robinson uses very interesting techniques, though it is at times jarring and painful to watch-literally-because of the highly saturated and vibrant colors.

Robinson utilizes found footage from Full House, involving multiple different scenarios, to create one video piece about 10-minutes long. The initial scene involves two of the main characters, who are young girls, trying to carry a T.V. up the stairs, yet drop it to the ground below. As the T.V. is about to crash, Robinson interrupts the feed with a sound akin to loud static from a radio and the rapid blinking of a bright blue background (that’s the part that hurt my eyes).

From there on out, Robinson slows down the rest of the found footage to create voices that are long, low, and drawn out, and the visual alternates between slowed down and transparent footage of Full House when they are on an island and rapidly blinking solid colored backgrounds.

These artistic decisions are interesting to say the least, and also ones that I do not fully understand-probably because this is my first time trying to work with video footage. I thought it was very effective how right as the T.V. was about to crash from the original footage, Robinson interrupted with jarring, in your face, sound and color. It highly dramatized the situation, which is what I believe the whole video does for various scenes of Full House.

What was especially effective to me was when Robinson slowed down one of the characters’ voices that said “It’s ok. You can tell me anything.” He made what are often used as reassuring words sound almost creepy, causing the viewer to question the true motive behind such a phrase.

The next scene with the cast on an island with natives. Robinson mirrored many of the images during this sequence and made them almost transparent. I found this mirroring and transparency highly effective to (what I think may be) Robinson’s message regarding this kind of family sitcom shows. It had a kind of redundancy that may serve to point out the redundant and cliched plot line of many of these shows. I’m still not sure what the flashes of brightly colored light was for during the rest of the video, except to maybe hurt my eyes. It caused me, and I’m assuming some other people, to look away.

All in all the video used techniques that we may be using in making our commercials, and it was helpful to see these in action-even if I don’t understand the real meaning of the video.