Thursday, May 9, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
What's That For, Master?
My first "Arduíno" board. The "Arduíno" electronic board is an open-source electronic prototyping platform, based in flexible and easy-to-use hardware and software. It was designed for artists, designers, hobbyists and everyone who wants to develop interactive projects.
Master? It's not necessary to be an electronic or programming master to produce one or two interesting things with this board.
To know more:
Arduino Official Website: http://www.arduino.cc/
Prof. Mário Vairinhos' blog, of the Univ. of Aveiro: http://nop.blogs.sapo.pt/
# 4
"The Salterns of Aveiro", video, 4:23 min
Salterns are a method of salt making that uses somewhat larges amounts of land neighboring the sea (that is, almost swamp).
Nowadays it seems that there isn't a single place that can't be pointed at that hasn't suffered human intervention. Wherever we look everything seems to be framed by the standard of the human work. And within that standard the recent overpowers the ancient - and I note that I said recent, not innovative.
P.S. - The movie has no sound.
P.S. - The movie has no sound.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
The Right Question
It's not rare an artistic work of art being undermined by lay people (and sometimes by non lay people) being that questioning very often oriented in the direction of the comprehension that one make of it. And if one is a bit rusty - read formatted - of the grey mass, that questioning is very often (and mistakenly) confused with personal taste, producing unfundamented criticism.
The following video, together with the previous post, materializes an interesting and exemplar formulation.
It is my opinion that there are no easy or elementary answers in art, one must consciencialize. It is also mandatory to keep an open mind and be able to discuss with that predisposition when posing a question. Last, but definetely not least, the right - or maybe the most important - question when before an artistic work of art will be, in fact: is it interesting?
The following video, together with the previous post, materializes an interesting and exemplar formulation.
It is my opinion that there are no easy or elementary answers in art, one must consciencialize. It is also mandatory to keep an open mind and be able to discuss with that predisposition when posing a question. Last, but definetely not least, the right - or maybe the most important - question when before an artistic work of art will be, in fact: is it interesting?
Monday, March 4, 2013
An Afternoon in a Dog Day
Upon the Nixon reelection ceremony in 1972 teh attentions of the great public were paradoxically diverted by the media to the occurrence of a paralel happening. That happening, despite being bank robbery, wouldn't have anything special about it if it wasn' for the robbers mobile: John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile rob the Brooklyn branch of Chase Manhattan bank to pay for the sex change operation of Ernest Aron, alias, Elizabeth Debbie Eden, girlfriend of Wojtowicz. Nevertheless, thanks to the unexpected rapidity of the police response, what was predicted to be a 10 min heist escalated to a 14 hour duration kidnapping situation, being the bank workers at the time of the heist held hostage. On his side, Richard Nixou didn't like, to say the least, to see his protagonism being robbed by that happening and personnaly sends FBI agents to murder those two bank robbers. The policial protection on site managed to avoid John Wojtowicz death but not Salvatore Naturile's.
The events on that day were adapted to cinema by Sydney Lumet in 1975 with the title Dog day Afternoon, with Al Pacino in the leading role. Curiosly, john Wojtowicz conceived the plan for the robbery after watching the movie The Godfather in the cinema, where Al apcino also stars in one of the main roles...
In 2000 Pierre Huyghes does a video called The Third Memory in which, through a bi-channel display, it's shown a mix of scens from the movie with Al Pacino, TV news records of the time and reenactements of the events of that day by John Wojtowicz himself. (In the following link that video can be seen).
Pierre Huyghes, "The Third Memory"
This is what I consider to be one of the finest examples of contemporary art. It's a well defined, coherent and powerful work.
The video refers to the "first memory", corresponding to the memory of John Wojtowicz himself that begins in his own perception, free from influences, of the events in which he was intervener and of what all that came afterwards; the "secind memory" it's the colective memory - or the public memory if you prefer - of the happening still associated to the remembering of the movie Dog Day Afternoon; the "third memory" it's the "remastered" version that Pierre Huyghes show us of John Wojtowicz's memory by now influenced by the media and more particularly by the language of Dog Day Afternoon. This is the concept with the most direct aprehension in this work: the memory. Nevertheless, if we scrape a little deeper, perhaps we may find that still underlaying to the concept of memory is the notion that that a culture with no memory has no identity, may this being the ultimate concept of the work.
To know more:
The Renaissance Society
The events on that day were adapted to cinema by Sydney Lumet in 1975 with the title Dog day Afternoon, with Al Pacino in the leading role. Curiosly, john Wojtowicz conceived the plan for the robbery after watching the movie The Godfather in the cinema, where Al apcino also stars in one of the main roles...
In 2000 Pierre Huyghes does a video called The Third Memory in which, through a bi-channel display, it's shown a mix of scens from the movie with Al Pacino, TV news records of the time and reenactements of the events of that day by John Wojtowicz himself. (In the following link that video can be seen).
Pierre Huyghes, "The Third Memory"
This is what I consider to be one of the finest examples of contemporary art. It's a well defined, coherent and powerful work.
The video refers to the "first memory", corresponding to the memory of John Wojtowicz himself that begins in his own perception, free from influences, of the events in which he was intervener and of what all that came afterwards; the "secind memory" it's the colective memory - or the public memory if you prefer - of the happening still associated to the remembering of the movie Dog Day Afternoon; the "third memory" it's the "remastered" version that Pierre Huyghes show us of John Wojtowicz's memory by now influenced by the media and more particularly by the language of Dog Day Afternoon. This is the concept with the most direct aprehension in this work: the memory. Nevertheless, if we scrape a little deeper, perhaps we may find that still underlaying to the concept of memory is the notion that that a culture with no memory has no identity, may this being the ultimate concept of the work.
To know more:
The Renaissance Society
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
And Yet Another Question of Aesthetics: Is It Art?
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| "Brillo Boxes", Andy Warhol, wood and silkscrenn, 1964 |
In 1964 Andy Warhol exhibited at the Stable Gallery, NY, a work of art titled Brillo Boxes (see picture). The design was not in fact his but of another commercial designer called James Harvey. the question is almost immediate: is it art? And being art: how can one tell between two resemblant objects which of them is a work of art and which is not?
The question in all resembles to another question raised by Descartes: when in dreaming the experience that one lives in the dream is not discernible from the experience that one lives when awake, whereby there is no intern criteria to the lived experience that makes the distinction between dream and reality. In the same way the differences to look in order to respond such aesthetic question can be (should be) sought in the exterior of the work of art. Before anything it's maybe convenient to accept that, like Marcel Duchamp said, "aesthetic delectation is the danger to be avoided"[1] (see "A Question of Aesthetics"). Then, it will be necessary to accept that any work of art it's a representation: what is the work of art about? (typical question).[1] Next, and non lesser important, the structure of a work of art is different from the structure of the objects with which the work of art looks like.[1] Let's see, with an analogy: a handwritten word apparentely it's no more than a set of marks and traces; but the word put together with those marks and traces is endowed with a language, a meaning. Well understood, the construction of the word accordingly with that language is caused by the need of communication. But the way that those marks and traces phisically construct the word it's different from the causes of communication: the shape of the marks and traces are fruit of, e.g., the personality of whom writes the letters that build the word. The word has therefore two distinct structures: the linguistic structure - of communication - and the formal structure - the word graphics. Similarly the work of art will have a different structure from that of the object that it looks like: the work of art will have a structure that it's more attached to representability and the author's intentionality ("what is the work of art about?") while the object with which it resembles will have a structure that is attached to its functionality. Warhol's Brillo Boxes - and even because its formal structure it's different from the soap boxes: Warhol's Brillo Boxes are made of wood while the others are of cardboard - embodies a content and a meaning: they manifest a statement and they are a metaphor of some kind.
Most definetely, they are not just soap boxes...
Arthur Danto quite well systematizes this problematics of identifying the works of art with the enunciation of two somewhat elementary conditions:
a) the work of art must have a meaning
b) the work of art must embody that meaning
These are the two essential conditions to distinguish a work of art from artifact. Arthur Danto based his reasoning on a Ludwig Wittgenstein approach: what remains over when you subtract from the fact that you raised your arm the fact that your arm went up? There are several examples to ilustrate this question: the socialist movement, the fascist salute, the Black Power movement, etc., are gestures that aren't merely reduced to a raisen arm. In the same way, what remains over when you subtract from the fact that something is a work of art the fact that it is an object?[2]
Another art theorist, Monroe Beardsley, would somehow resume: a work of art is something produced with the intention of giving it the capability of satisfying the aesthetic interest.
[1] Arthur C. Danto, "Art, Philosophy and the Philosophy of Art", 1983
[2] Arthur C. Danto, "Ontology, Criticism, and the Riddle of Art Versus Non-Art in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace", 2008
To know more:
Arthur Danto: Wikipedia
Arthur C. Danto, "Art, Philosophy and the Philosophy of Art", 1983
Arthur C. Danto, "Ontology, Criticism, and the Riddle of Art Versus Non-Art in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace", 2008
Andy Warhol: Wikipedia
Andy Warhol Museum
Andy Warhol Foudation
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