“There’s Nobody Here but Me”-Cindy Sherman

I really liked Cindy Sherman’s work. I thought that her use of photography was interesting in that she really wasn’t using it to make art, but instead she was using it more as a tool to document the art she created. I think her film stills were intended to capture the sort of universal stereotypes that we impose on women in our culture, which are especially prevalent in film. She seemed to be focusing on this idea of women in masquerade. The way she was able to make over herself into so many women is indicative of our culture and women’s transformability. 

“Elements for Mystery and Investigation”-Sophie Calle

I thought that Calle’s voyeuristic photographs were especially interesting because of their obsessive, but at the same time, ambiguous intention. There was a sort of snapshot quality about them but also a serious and mysteriousness. She said referred to them as documentation of her “mutual journey” with her oblivious subject.  The idea that an arbitrarily selected stranger can consume your art and life I found especially fascinating. I thought it was really interesting that she had herself followed to see how she is photographed as a stranger. 

“The Amateurist” -Miranda July

Even though I am not sure if I understood the conceptual intricacies of this video, I was really captivated by her character (as the woman surveying the amateur). The idea that she was observing herself in captivity and the kind of arbitrary number communication system both sort of play with this idea of control, communication and identity. The emotion that she invested into her tedious job and her dedication to the amateurist, made her connection to the “primal” female more tangible. 

Alex Bag

I thought this video was hilarious. I liked how unified the random anecdotes with the narrative of a stereotypical (untypical) art student making her way through school. Bag relied on parodies; popular stereotypes and great costumes to provide commentary on the way society and culture shape our perceptions of normal, boring, artistic etc. Some of the anecdotes, such as the killer bunnies, I was not as able to directly link to cultural stereotypes, but overall I thought the entire video was entertaining, insightful and hilarious. 

“Tommy Chat”

I had no idea what was going on in this video, but I liked watching it because it was so unbelievably bizarre. I seriously felt as if I was watching a video in a different language. This reaction, (feeling as if I was watching something from somewhere else) may have been partially intended by Trecartin because by removing myself from the context of the film I was more unbiased in recognizing the cultural spiffs it was commenting on.  The makeup was great. 

Pippilotti Rist Screenings

 I loved her videos. I really liked that her works were aesthetically vibrant and energizing. I went to the MoMa recently for the first time, and her videos immediately reminded me of something that would be screened in that central foyer on a gigantic scale. The fluid camera angles and mesmerizing music made her work seem bigger than the screen we were watching it on in class. 

Intention and Artifice

This article discusses the implications of a photographic image, many times in comparison to the implications of a painting, and how the representational qualities differ in certain contexts. For example, a painting, has a more representational potential since its subject can be completely fabricated whereas it is impossible to produce a photograph without a specific subject and thus connection to reality. Therefore, he claims the intention of photographic representations is more casual and less intentional than those associated with paintings. However, in attempting to determine the sincerity and legitimacy of a photographic representation, he suggests that we search the image for inconsistencies and absorb its overall coherence. He notes that the abundance of visual information communicated through photographs encourages an abundances of complex interpretations of the same image. The nature of the context of the images determines our capabilities of weighting its plausibility. Also, he says that an image’s authenticity can also be determined by considering the intentions and credibility of the photographer and what their potential motives would be in deceiving the viewer.

“The Body, the image and the Space-in-Between”-Margaret Morse

This article attempted to diagnose the implications of video installation art through the context of its direct relationship to space and viewer. Because video installation cannot be commoditized in the same manner as other art forms, its relationship with the viewer is much more transformational and transient. Unlike a painting, video installation cannot be documented or reproduced. Its “frame” is temporal. Morse distinguishes video installation from other art also in that it “allows the visitor rather than the artist to preform the piece.” She classifies each installation as a sort of “cultural experiment,” reliant on others’ experience and interaction. Video installation is different from theatrical or cinematic film in the tangibility of its impression of reality. Video installation amplifies the experiential substantiality and de-emphasizes the contained artifice.  Morse also describes the myriad of manipulations a video artist can make to tweak the visitors interaction with the installation. The way the space is ingested by the visitor can be altered through controllable elements (arrangement, lighting, size) and uncontrollable factors (their temperament, comfortability, personal space). I thought Morse’s analysis was thorough and insightful but its textual form detracted from the experiential benefits it praised.

“The Art of Noise, Futurist Manifesto 1913″ by Luigi Russolo

This piece is a letter tracing the chronological transformation of noises’ impact on society throughout history.  It begins with the primitive and divine associations of sound as something “independent of life,” and moves toward the invention of music and the notion of vertical, and not solely horizontal, sounds. Vocabulary such as chord and harmony began to enter the world of noise. Yet Russolo’s primary objective of this letter was to introduce the the new arena that noise has entered, now accessible through the progression of machinery, which is noise as art or noise-sound. Russolo describes how modern technology has broadened the scope of noise potential and antiquated the innovation of musical or “pure” sound. “We must break free at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.” This new genre of noise he describes as a kind of “musical reality” that would rely on the tempo of trolleys and the pitch of textile mills complemented by the energy of crowd in conversation. Russolo invents a language that infers the ingenuity of noise-sounds and emphasizes the liberation we will feel if we embrace the great abyss of pedestrian noise.