Final Project: The Archival Vessel: DESIGN

Help your partner by answering the following questions in writing:

1. What is their main idea? Do you see it throughout the book?

Do you understand this idea better after looking over their book?

2. What can they do to make their idea clearer and better represented in the book?

3. How can they make it more interesting?

What is the most interesting part of their work - how can they focus more on this?

4. Do you see the structure of their archive reflected in the book?

List 2 strengths and 2 weaknesses of the following aspects of their project. BE SPECIFIC.

1. Visual hierarchy

(does the book function on both a macro and micro level,

do they need more scale changes, is the hierarchy clear)

2. Structural complexity

(does the structure reflect the archive in an interesting way, not just as a gimmick)

3. Visual consistency

(are the fonts, colors and other visual elements consistent throughout)

4. Narrative consistency

(does their story have a beginning, middle and end)

You will be graded on the quality of your feedback. One copy to me and one to your partner.

parafiction/relational aesthetics

rhyzometer

un/monumental

landscape

ye olde photoshoppe

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/europe/in-russia-a-watch-vanishes-up-orthodox-leaders-sleeve.html?src=me&ref=general

Final Project: The Archival Vessel: CONTENT

Time to gather everything together and make some sense of it ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What you must include: (your will be graded on the following. does not need to be in this order. you choose the hierarchy)

1. Short description of each theory and how you chose to approach it - must be in your own words

2. One to three sentence summary of the main idea you have pursued to varying degrees throughout your work in this class (based on the ideas of your artist - your Project Statement). This idea may have developed as you progressed or may have been there all along.

3. Images of each project and your process (you can choose how to show your process - feel free to go back and recreate steps if you did not record them)

4. Final summary - can be in words or visual

5. Organizational structure based on the archive you researched

THE ABOVE CONTENT YOU MUST HAVE COMPLETED FOR NEXT WEEK

AND ORGANIZED INTO YOUR STRUCTURE/FORMAT. This rough draft is due next week.

Use today in class to gather all your information so that you can work on just the organization as hw

-------------------------

You may also choose to include:

-diagrams, process notes, appendix of images you chose not to include, information about your artist and their projects

Other possibilities:

-information about other relevant artists who are pursuing the same idea

-other images or visual materials that you want to include, that you think would make your content more interesting

Parafiction/Relational Aesthetics

Rhizome

Relational Aesthetics

relational aesthetics

Final Project: The Archival Vessel

DUE NEXT WEEK:

Your final project will function as an archive/collection of all

of your experiments in this class + the theories we've explored.

Research and present 3 examples of archives or collections

that you could use as a model for your final project.

For ALL THREE examples you must present your analysis:

a. the different types of content found in the archive

b. the structure of the archive and how it is navigated

c. the purpose of the archive

d. the audience for the archive, how they are located

and how they are effected by the archive

Choose one of your examples and use it to

make a sketch of the structure of your final project

(storyboard, maquette, wireframes)

Your final project must exist as a video, book or

website and operate as a narrative

>>>>Your presentation is a slideshow that includes your analysis of the three archives

>>>>with supporting visuals, your sketch for your final project, and your Project Statement.

**Please consider what an archive is and how it is meant to operate.

Find archives that interest you - can a junk drawer or car trunk be an archive?

How can collections operate as records or archives?

What is the difference between a living archive and a dead one?

Enlighten the class with your findings in a formal presentation next week.

------------------------------------

TODAY IN CLASS:

You must answer the following questions and

turn in before the end of class in order to receive credit:

1. How can people learn from the ideas of your artist and

how you have chosen to express them in your collection of projects?

2. What is the thread or threads running through your work conceptually -

what do the different pieces you produced have in common aesthetically?

This is your Project Statement. Include your it in your presentation.

Relational Aesthetics. mikey

Terry Richardson @ OTIS

Terry Richardson visits Otis College of Art & Design on March 31, 2012...

Or does He?

But on a serious note... you can get a signed photograph if you show up between 11-12pm

RHIZOME

.jpq

an exhibition by Mikey Uphoff of every jpg image within his Mac book pro. The total amount of images totals over 9,000 images from stock imagery, screenshots, multiple different versions of past projects, and personal photographs, some that could be considered embarrassing.

Unmonumental/Monumental

I Like Recession and Recession Like Me
website displaying multiple animated gifs.
Each Gif is sampled from multiple perspectives with in one unique space. A community of young adults + a warehouse + a large black fabic + one grey kitten

Chaka Kahn! Events only tell the myth in which is told.

OR SEEN

unmonumental/monumental

new romantic landscapes

Parafiction

PARAFICTION

Parafiction

Relational Aesthetics + Parafiction [assignment]

DUE THE 28th:
(you may choose to work with a partner if you
can justify blending your parafictional realities)

Relational Art + Parafiction
How will you create 'relational art' out of your parafictional image?

1. Imagine the world in which your parafictional image
(that you have already created) exists as reality.

2. Create relational art for this world.

By the 28th you need to have completed your foray into relational art.
You must have documented the occasion as a video or short book of images.
The images should create a narrative of what occurred at your relational event.

----------------------

Consider:

What would be experienced as a normal social activity in the
reality you are imagining?

Can you construct a situation in which people would participate,
based on this fictional social environment?

Relational Aesthetics [background]

"At the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo, the Pacific Standard Time
show "Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981," has an
audacious premise: Much of what we take for granted in the diverse
panoply of recent international art first emerged in California nearly
40 years ago.

Take so-called relational art, a ballyhooed 1990s phenomenon in New
York and Europe in which artists acted as social designers of communal
events, like a makeshift soup-kitchen for cooking lunch or an outdoor
cocktail lounge at a biennial. A full generation earlier, Allen
Ruppersberg opened a cafe near MacArthur Park and a hotel on Sunset
Boulevard, both as artworks, while San Francisco-based artist Tom
Marioni brought enough beer for 16 friends to socialize in a gallery
at the Oakland Museum, then left the furniture and empty bottles on
display as the exhibition. Intermittently, Marioni has been doing "The
Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art" ever
since 1970." - The Los Angeles Times

------------------------

"the institution may overshadow the work that it otherwise highlights:
it becomes the spectacle, it collects the cultural capital, and the
director-curator becomes the star." - Hal Foster

------------------------

"Similar to the feminist and alter-globalization movements, these
groups want to avoid replicating the authoritarian structures of
the institutions they are opposing."
-The Washington Post on Occupy Wall Street

------------------------

Beech explains further that “(t)he participant here is generally powerless to question or critique the art or the art-concept, nor are they, in any real sense, a meaningful or true collaborator within the work. I question the motivations around art that acts as an alleviator in this way, for what purpose do we need to coexist and be interconnected and for whom?” You can read the article here.

------------------------

AS PRACTICE:

@ 5min: http://www.ubu.com/film/relational.html

Rirkrit Tiravanija: http://newarttv.com/Rirkrit+Tiravanija

Consider:

1. regurgitating old ideas in a different time (effectiveness, responsibility)

2. how does this relate to the internet

3. why now?

4. good incarnations v bad in the implementation of relational art

5. power structures, spectacle, easy money, hard sells

YOU MUST READ:

Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics by Claire Bishop

additional reading:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yea4qSJMx4

http://www.observer.com/2011/09/the-fall-of-relational-aesthetics/

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/14/entertainment/la-ca-glynn-20110814

http://allegralaviola.com/Exhibit_Detail.cfm?ShowsID=28

http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/31511/

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-moca-gala-abramovic-20111112,0,1348643.story?track=rss

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/10/art-review-under-the-big-black-sun-at-moca.html

http://nymag.com/arts/art/features/51998/

parafiction | who wears the pants

This addresses the idea of letting go. Evident in the non-fiction pieces by Joan Didion, life is a series of fortunate and unfortunate events. We have no control over the order, or the severity. "Let go of the pants" and free yourself.

rhizome

monumental/unmonumental week2

Spontaneous photos taken to portray a certain lifestyle

monumental unmonumental week 1

Portraying innocence and spontaneity (400 Blows) through photography.

unmonumental

rhizomatic structure

Landscape

rhizome

Unmonumental/Monumental

Parafiction and Make-Believe, Deception and Magic

Identify something that you wish were true. This could be cultural, aesthetic, psychological, interpersonal, or scientific. The only requirement is that it be a thing that you are interested in trying to prove to someone else, that also relates to the ideas of your artist. This 'someone else' could be a small or large group of people, but you need to be familiar with your audience.

Read the article on Parafiction.

Write down the answers to these questions:

1. what is the 'truth' you will attempt to prove?

2. who is your audience?

3. how can you convince your audience with an image or image series?

CAUTION: This should not be a joke, though it could be humorous. Pick something your artist would approve of. Pretend they are watching you from on high

NEXT WEEK: distribute your poster, booklet, flier or mini website in which you have made truth out of fiction. take a picture of you putting up or passing out your work in a public place and post on the blog

Unmonumental

New Romanticism

Mikey Uphoff

Rhizome Week 2

Determine the appropriate rhizomatic vessel for your images.

Incorporate the ideas of your artist when structuring your work.

Your work should be presented in its final form - consider how it should be shown/viewed.

Post all of your final projects to the blog before next week's class.

New Romanticism

Rhizomatic Structures

“There is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made.” Deleuze & Guattari

characteristics:

1-2 connection and heterogeneity

any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and it must be

3 multiplicity

no points or positions in a rhizome, only lines

4 asignifying rupture

can be broken or shattered at a given spot, but will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines

5-6 cartography and decalcomania

a map and not a tracing: the map does not reproduc and unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the unconscious. a map has multiple entry points

----------------------

due next week:

Finish reading the article.

Present a body of work in 50 images, printed as thumbnails, 10 up.
The images must be taken by you but can be sourced online if they will eventually exist online. You will hang your images and present your plan for the rhizomatic form your images will take at the beginning of class. You must still relate this structure back to the ideas of your artist. Include a diagram of your structure that incorporates the viewer. Be prepared to work in class next week.

New Romantic Landscapes

Create a large 'new romantic' landscape using the ideas of your artist.
Landscape must be at least 24x18. Printed on the large scale xerox printer (kinkos?) it will be cheap.
If you choose to present your image in black and white, it must function without color.
If you print in color, be sure to use it to your advantage, for both cost and effect.

Your landscape can be constructed or 'real', contain figures or not, but it must be well reasoned.
This is a one week assignment so HAVE FUN.
---------

note: you must complete your assigned reading

unMONUMENTAL part II: vessel

EMAIL ME THE ANSWER TO NUMBER TWO BELOW.

Consider artists who use photography in 3D and 4D work. List four. Why is the transformation necessary?

Meet with a partner to discuss possibilities for your work:

Come up with three possible options for your image(s) in 2D 3D and 4D.

Choose the best option and write a few sentences detailing your proposal.

1. Why does this format make the most sense in light of what you are trying to do?

2. How is it monumental/unmonumental?

3. Do you have any technical concerns?

Discuss with me your plan and turn in the answers to your questions before the end of class.

-----------------

Please feel free to experiment. I want you to produce something you are excited about attempting and showing.

unmonumental/MONUMENTAL

Ask yourself:

How would _________ create an unmonumental image?

How would _________ create an monumental image?

Which makes more sense?

Which is more interesting?

Why might your artist choose to do either?

Once you have determined which path to pursue, consider both your tools and your vessel.

Your tools are what you use to make the picture: methodology and content

Your vessel is how you choose to manifest your picture in physical space or real time

WEEK ONE:

Make your images.

You will be graded on how well you choose your tools:

ie. does the medium/methodology fit the message-

the ideas of your artist paired with the idea of (un)monumentality

Digital camera? Lighting? Construction or built scene? Chance vs. structure? Human vs. absence of human? Series of experiments? Tiny worlds? Overwhelming scale?

Next week you bring in your images. Week two you will fashion your vessel.

how can monumentality remain interesting?

how can unmonumentality become beautiful?

Research: Critique and Reinvent

IN CLASS:

Write a critical analysis of one of your artist's works.

1. Describe the artwork. What is it?

2. Analyze the artwork - how does it fit within the artist's body of
work? Situate the artwork within art history, what preceded it and
what came after. Describe critics and audiences response to the work.

3. Criticize the artwork. Strengths, weaknesses. What does the artist
appear to be trying to do? What is the artist actually doing? Did they
succeed at what they attempted? In what ways did they succeed and in
what ways did they fail? What is the fundamental weakness of this type
of work?

You will have the rest of class to write your analysis. Please use
your time in class. Please ask questions if you need clarification.
Next week is due one typewritten page that covers ALL of the above.

--------------
HOMEWORK:

Make a diagram of either:
1. The artwork itself (how is it functioning?)
2. The artists intent in making the artwork (what was the artist
attempting to do?)

Create two image sequences:
Sequence A: 3 images that articulate your diagram
Sequence B: 3 images that use your artist's ideas to approach a subject of your choosing


SUMMARY OF WHAT IS DUE: 1 written page, 1 diagram, 6 images (3 per print). Images
must be printed 3-up in accordance with their content. Consider what is the appropriate way to display them. Think of it as a simplified poster or artist's print. Include your diagram. Use a grid. Hang at the beginning of class.

Artist Research

Find 3 artists whose process you admire and who share some of your interests (list is provided or you may make an argument for someone not on the list). They must have written substantially about their process and craft. Research these three artists and write a sentence about the ideas of each. Choose the one you whose ideas most interest you and write a sentence about why you chose them. Email me your choice and your rationale - I may be able to provide you with additional info.
------------
Go back to the library and see what is available on the artist you chose. You can also use the internet to get an idea of what is out there. This time, widen your search - exhibition catalogs can be a great resource for writing on your artist. Interviews are a great source if your artist has not authored their own essays.

HOMEWORK DUE next week:
presentation
---------------
Present the work of your artist and their ideas to the class (5-7 minutes). You must include the answers to the following questions:
1. Who were they inspired by? Who were their contemporaries?
2. What were they fighting against?
3. Why did they choose to make work?
4. What is their work about?
a. their point of view >> artist statements, interviews, essays
b. critics point of view >> art reviews, essays introducing exhibitions, collections of writings
c. Discuss what you have in common with this artist in terms of your own imagemaking process.
NOTE: do not want to hear story of their life, only their ideas >> you MUST have images/sound/text to support your representation of their ideas.

You must have at least 10 image-based examples in your presentation.

You must have at least 2 writings authored by the artist (interviews ok).

You must have at least 3 writings authored by critics.

Provide me with a typed page answering the above questions and listing your 5 sources of writing.