Steve Lovett - 24/08/2010

This week we had artist and lecturer Steve Lovett talk to us about his practice. I really enjoyed Steve's talk and was really impressed by the professionalism of how he presented himself and his work. When listening to him explain the ideas behind his works, it is quite clear that there is a strong relationship between the work itself and his own personal experience. You can also see that Steve’s great enthusiasm is rooted in the enormous passion he has for what he does. He makes works with incredible depth of meaning.

In general, Steve's works deal with the way in which we move through the world as historical subjects in space, as well as time, transition and loss. His practice seems to express his personal thinking related to role and identification in the society as well as history and storytelling.

It is more so in Steve's earlier works that he comments on social, political, moral and physical relationships in relation to the human condition. These earlier works are definitely more content driven and personal than later works. They speak of a personal history, as well as 'James Baldwin's' idea that we are all part of a historical process.

For example, 'Holding the Man' (1996), is a piece of work that speaks about the HIV crisis of the 80's and 90's. Steve spoke on a very personal level about how this work came about and how it relates so personally to him. I found it interesting that when purchased initially for a local health centre, it was removed from public display after complaints from the centre's clients and staff, who found the content objectionable. I was inspired by the angle that Steve took in relation to this kind of situation, he mentioned that he doesn't mind if his work get much publicity or not, because his work is made out of strong personal conviction.

"Much of my work is printed, Printed images are nomadic by nature. Uprooted and un-homed (if not un-homely) they are about the processing and transmission of information. At some level they conform to the way I have developed an understanding of the world." (Steve Lovett - http://emit.manukau.ac.nz )

One artist that Steve mentioned that I found really interesting was the work of Glenn Ligon. Steve and Ligon are similar in that they both adresses social and political issues that relate to them personally. Ligon often uses language in his paintings to address the position of African Americans (especially men) in contemporary America.

The messages that he uses come from texts by African American writers and he often intentionally blurs the words to illegibility in order to oppress the image, much in the same way the words he uses have oppressed African Americans.

In the image 'Untitled (Two White / Two Black)'1992, by using stencils, Ligon is directly referencing shipping crate labels, such as those used to transport slaves, as well as political and civil rights signage.

In his works Ligon challenges mainstream Western Culture by merging text and image to illustrate the breakdown of language and the absurdity of cultural and racial prejudice.

In Steve's digital work his particulary interested in researching questions of origins, destinations and the nature of belonging both for the individual and for the printed image itself. In his collaborative works, he mentioned that he wanted the works to be about the people that his works are actually about and not just the work itself.

'Mother and Daughter What can we say?' (1997). This image was built around the notion that can we know ourselves only in the second person through our dialogues and interaction with our friends, lovers, families and colleagues. And although focused on pairing defined by each collaborator, this work speaks about flexible notions of community and attachment.

Steve then began to show us some of his works that involve elements of sound and voice in dealing with ideas of history through story telling.

For example, 'Speaking Parts' (1998-2000), contained speakers and a single channel sound track of forty voices. This installation was built around portrait images but the constant archive of voices is what draws the viewer in. In this work, Steve got each person involved to speak about home, belonging and presence. The voice of each person present in the work asserts their presence, which crosses a boundary between private and public space and intimacy. This piece also addresses the space between fact and fiction because each voice is a first person account, therefore you get stories that no one can argue with.

'Trespass # 17' (2005) is a six colour digital print and speaks about seabed, foreshore debate. It address the issue of accessible coast being passed into private hands and becoming beyond the reach of the everyday public. I found this work really interesting because it affects us all and we all can relate to this in some way.

'Intersection 1214307845' (2007) is a work that features the observation of a single location at different times of the week, looking at a different usage of a single site.

"I am endlessly fascinated by the ways in which we organise ourselves in relation to others and the spaces we move through and are able to inhabit or are not able."(Steve Lovett - http://emit.manukau.ac.nz )

Some of the more recent works Steve has been producing are a little less laden with meaning and are more about the aesthetic, abstraction, the colour and the density of the work. These are mostly prints of dynamic scribbles, sometimes over images, with round holes cut out to display colour underneath. In these works he is not so much concerned with the message so much as the materials and the look.

At the end of this weeks session we watched Patrick Keiller's film, 'London' (1994). This film documents a journey undertaken by the unseen 'researcher' Robinson and his similarly unseen companion, the narrator. Robinson's aim in this film seems to be to traverse, by foot, the length and breadth of London, in search of some sort of understanding.

I found that this film was neither a feature film nor documentary but a type of provocative essay in the form of a journal, or letter recording fictitious journeys through a very real city. This film was shot during a low point in the history of London, 1992, a year which witnessed the re-election of John Major, the continuation of the IRA bombing campaign and the beginning of the 'fall of the house of Windsor'. There is lots of detail concerning literature, history, and architecture.

Seeming to be obssed with French poets and Romantic English writers, Robinson strangely declares London to be a series of monuments to these writers and their adventures: Canary Wharf's tower becomes a memorial to Rimbaud's wanderings in the London docks, and Bus route 15 is sacred etc. London is not only an explanation of London as a failed city, but it seemed to me to be an attempt to re-imagine the city and reinvest it with all the values that Robinson feel to be missing.

This film related to some of Steve's work because the film 'London' is a public record, idea and archive of how Robinson sees the city.

Overall, I learnt a lot this week, and found it extremely interesting learing about Steve Lovett's journery of  discovery and experimentation with different ideas, methods and materials in his practice. 

Bibliography:
http://emit.manukau.ac.nz (Steve's Powerpoint)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Ligon
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film

Collecting, and Constructing

Frances Hansen                                                     17/08/2010

This week we heard from practicing artist, Frances Hansen. I found her use of materials very interesting because she uses everyday objects, which I would normally never take a second look at, to create amazing art works. Frances' work seems to focus on observations from her everyday life, and being a mother, much of her work has been based around the home and therefore 'domesticity'. We can see this through her amazing use of materials.

Some of the work that Frances' showed us were paintings done in oil and acrylic on canvas. Her abstract approach to these works contain elements of recognizable imagery. For example, she often uses banal household containers such as empty bottles of bleach, mild, jiff and dishwashing liquid, she then sets about transforming and reconfiguring these to create works that are, "surprising things made with unsurprising things".

We can see this in the works, 'Big Belle' and 'Bathroom Arrangements'. In these two works, objects with association to domesticity are enlarged and painted as silhouettes in the artwork.

The idea that I seemed to grasp and relate to the most out of Frances' talk, was her process of collection, and construction. I found it really fascinating to hear about her process of creating these pieces of work, and the thought and effort that is put into them.

The first point she made was about noticing and responding to your surrounding environment. Which, I think, is important for any artist to understand, because your work often flows out of your surroundings and life experiences. At this point, she mentioned that she always has her camera on her and will take photographs of anything that she notices or that catches her eye. Next she talked about collecting and compiling materials, and how she collects and keeps, often what I might consider rubbishy material, in order to use later in works. Next she talked about how she constructs and arranges materials by placing and experimenting with configurations and colour.

One artist that Frances mentioned was Patrick Pound. I found that Patrick is similar to Frances in that he also takes very low tech, everyday objects and makes them more interesting. We can see this in his work, 'Landscape of Mirrors'. (1991, oil paint of plastic platters)

Another artist that was mentioned was Eve Armstrong. I found Eves' work really interesting and when researching I found that she has a passion for packing tape. What I would normally look at and see as merely tape, she looks and sees beauty in rolls of brown plastic tape. I found that the packing tape often becomes the base in her work, as a background to collages or as a way to incorporate sculptural objects with the surrounding environment.

Eve describes her work as “adaptable support structures," (www.artspace.org.nz) and like Frances' work, I think that Eve's practice tends to fall sort of uneasily between the formal, the relational, and the environmental. Her work, like Frances' is made up of the unwanted surpluses of household, but also urban environments. And also like Frances work, Eve's focus is on taking an otherwise unwanted object or resource and adapting it, extending or adding to its physical as well as formal functionality.

Overall, I really enjoyed this session, and found it extremely interesting learning about Frances' process and how she constructs her artworks. I love the very ordered and organised process that she goes through in order to produce her final works. 

Bibliography:
http://www.artassociates.co.nz/artists/frances-hansen.aspx
http://www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2005/evearmstrong.asp

Reality and Illusion

Eldon Booth                                                 10/08/2010


This week we had practicing artist Eldon Booth talk to us about his work. Booth produces work in moving image, film making and has also done some collaborative work with artist Deborah Crowe which are small objects that include sound and video components.

Booth is interested in blurring the lines between fact and fiction when it comes to film and television. His work looks at the idea of reality and illusion, which he addresses by use of film and editing techniques such as split screen, shot counter-shots and montages.

When looking at his work, Booth's short film's seen to focus on stories and circumstances that relate to the human condition within New Zealand societies and communities.

In Booth's first film 'Withdrawl' (2001), which was shot in collaboration with Jason Crane, he addresses this idea of reality and illusion. He has accomplished this by creating a documentary feel about the film. Documentary film is the visual expression of, "a broad category of moving pictures intended to document some aspect of reality." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/documentary+film)

Booth went on to explain that in the late 90's, which was around the time he started filming 'Withdrawl', reality television programmes were a big thing. For example, Emergency scenes caught on camera, etc... He then talked about how he liked the fact that the camera couldn't anticipate the event before it happened, as well as mentioning the fact that these reality instances were mostly caught on hand-held camera which resulted in jerky hand movements, etc...

This film follows the relationship between a grandfather and grandson and the different paths that they each follow. Booth has cleverly unfolded the story in a split screen manner. One side of the screen follows the grandson, the other shows the grandfather. This separation into two screens, shows the difference between grandfather and grandson and their separate livelihoods. However, Booth has shown simultaneous shots for each screen, which connect these two characters. For example, one screen would show the grandfather taking medication(drugs) to survive, and in contrast, the other screen would show the grandson with a whole bunch of friends taking drugs to get high. Another example is that in the grandfather would be lying in a bed, not moving, while the grandson was on a train(transportation), where the landscape was changing.

Booth talked about how he wanted to blur the lines between fact and fiction, reality and illusion in this film and I think that he achieved this really well. The film is shot in a documentary style that creates the illusion that the viewer is witnessing an actual event, rather that a staged scene. He deliberately shot the film in a very amateur style using a hand-held camera. This created effects such as jerky movements, sometimes blurred scenes, erratic pans as well as natural sounds. For example, you can hear noises in the train as the grandson travels, footsteps, etc... The use of these techniques all add to the idea of creating an illusion of reality.

One thing I found really interesting was how the camera was used to follow and almost stalk the character. The camera does not interact with the characters at all, it just seems to observe, as if spying on them.

Two names that were mentioned during Booth's talk were Andre Bazin and Raymond Williams.

Andre Bazin was a French film critique, theorist, philosopher and humanist, who endorsed wide shots, ‘shots-in-depth’ and also deep focus. When researching I found that Bazin preferred 'mise en scene' films(films that tell a story) and he termed this story telling ‘true continuity’. He was less fond of experimental editing or ‘fancy’ visual effects and he believed that the interpretation of a film should not be conducted by the director or film maker but should be left to the viewer. He believed in the idea that authentic photography and film represent reality.

Bazin's concepts on the tradition of realism were that abstraction and artiface should be minimum. The materials in reality should be able to speak for themselves. He believed that cinema occupies a unique middle position between the sprawl of raw life and the artificially re-created world of the traditional arts. And lastly, he believed that filmmakers can preserve actual time and space by panning, craning, tilting, or tricking rather than cutting to individual shots. (http://understandingfilm.wetpaint.com/page/4.+Andre+Bazin+and+the+Tradition+of+Realism)

Raymond Williams was a Welsh writer who stated that film within a the realm of realism must have a contemporary setting, must be concerned with human and worldly action, in human terms, and must be socially extended, which means it should deal with the ordinary persons life. (Notes from class, Quote by Booth)

Another work that Booth showed us an excerpt from was the 2006 film "Five Good Reasons". This film is strong in dialogue unlike 'Withdraw' where it is mainly natural background sounds and music. Instead, this film is an interview sequence, which is a type of fictionalized reality. We can see this by the use of montage and cutaway shots that create this false sense of reality, as if pre-staged.

In this film in a consultation with his doctor (psychiatrist), a man seeks validation for his thoughts and observations on society. 'Five Good Reasons' experiments with the format utilised by television current affairs interviews like '2020', or '60 minutes'. 

I found the ER television series clips that Booth showed us very interesting. It was fascinating to see the contrast between the first clip, in which the scene was played out in a shot, counter shot continuity editing style, and the second clip which was filmed on a hand-held. This second scene was shot and broadcasted live, which was something completely unique to this television series. Similar to both of Booth's film, the camera follows the characters on set, there is not editing, and the camera even gets in the way of the actors in some places.

Another film which uses similar techniques as Booth is Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" (2006). This film is loosely based around the school shootings that took place on April 20th 1999 in Denver, Colorado at Columbine High school. Here again, the camera follows the characters around, in such a way that makes the audience feel like we are following and engaging in the simple tasks of their everyday lives.

All of the characters lives and perspectives of what happened that day were shown through reliving the same scenario from different angles and viewings. This film also addresses the idea of fact and fiction as well as reality and illusion through the editing and camera techniques.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed the session this week. I have learnt a lot about camera angles and my eyes have been opened to how techniques can portray reality or illusion.

Bibliography:
http://www.eldonbooth.com/
http://understandingfilm.wetpaint.com/page/4.+Andre+Bazin+and+the+Tradition+of+Realism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/documentary+film

Interaction and Collaboration

Dion Hitchens                                                  02/08/2010

I really enjoyed this weeks session with practicing artist Dion Hitchens. I have never really looked into sculpture before, so for me it was a huge eye-opener. Dion explained that he is of Māori (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Porou) and Chinese descent which makes for a very interesting influence when it comes to art. When looking at images of Dion's works, it is clearly seen that he is strongly influenced by his heritage because his installations and sculptures all seem to mark places of historical and/or spiritual significance. It was clear when Dion was talking, that interaction and site are a big part of his art practice.

I found the angle that he took on site and spatiality really interesting because he emphasised the concept of ownership, and the way he creates work to make people feel that they own the space and interact with it on a personal level. I have never thought about it like that before, as I always see ownership in my own work, but have never considered the viewers interacting in a way that causes them to take ownership. I found that Dion does a lot of work relating to community, and a lot of his pieces are placed in community areas. "With the shift from site to community, or the conversion of community into a site, questions concerning the role of the artist, the public function of art, and the definition of community are given new urgency." (Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity)

Site and space collaborate nicely to his fascination with public interaction because as he quoted, "...art cannot exist without an audience." Another thing he mentioned was that he is not particularly precious about his works because part of the work itself is seeing the viewers reaction. He uses kinetic energy to create movement and motion in most of his works. These are in the form of inbuilt sensors that trigger when passed by unsuspecting viewers. When researching his practice, you can see that over the years Dion has continued to develop and experiment with interaction in his pieces of sculpture.

One piece of work that caught my attention was 'Te Wao Nui A Tane' or as he put it, 'Weeping Willow'(1999). When you first look at it, this set of work looks quite unusual and you don't expect it to do anything. But Dion explained that they have a sensor that triggers movement and the long, woven sculptures begin to spin and turn. When talking about this piece of work, Dion also commented on their position in regards to interaction. They are quite large installations and they were purposely placed in a position that the audience couldn't really avoid coming into contact with them. In this work Dion was playing on the idea of confrontation and as you can imagine, these weeping willow constructions would be quite imposing in relation to the human body. The fact that Dion's works are so focused on the interactive, means that the pieces may not be complete without a reaction from the audience.

Another work that I found really interesting was one of Dion's unfinished sculptures, which is an impressive collection of stylised Waka pointing skywards. The concept consists of seven waka, each ranging between 6.5 and 9.5 metres high, placed in a formation to represent the Kingitanga symbol of the Matariki star constellation (Maori new year). Each waka has several symbols embedded into it to represent different proverbs and aspects of history from the site area. Between the waka, a cluster of tuna (eels) will be suspended in the shape of a hinaki (eel net). Each of the waka will be up-lit and LED lights will illuminate the symbols and the eels. I really like this piece of work and think the concept is really clever.  I also think this work will look amazing when it all comes together.

One artist that Dion says he draws inspiration from is New Zealand born artist, Len Lye. Lye was known primarily for his experimental films, kinetic sculpture and his passion for motion, energy and his ways of composing them as forms of art.

"Kinetic experience lies deep in our bones," Lye noted, "It is a more constant experience than any other. Our hearts beat, blood runs, rib cages expand and contract, eardrums resonate, lungs vibrate, every attitude we enact we enact kinetically." (http://www.govettbrewster.com/LenLye/work/sculpture/)

One piece of work that I really liked was Lye's, 'Grass’ made in 1965. In this piece of work the whole wooden base that the thin metal rods are connected to gently/slowly rocks, so the rods emulate the movement of wind through long grass and, as the rods bend and move they ping against each other making very delicate sounds.

However not all of his works are so gentle. A 'Flip and Two Twisters' is a good example of a scary dramatic kinetic sculpture. I imagine you would stand in awe in its presence, overwhelmed by its physicality and fascinated by the energy involved.

'Flip and Two Twisters' a documentary about Len Lye and directed by Shirley Horrocks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2uY-CVyuX8

"I myself eventually came to look at the way things moved mainly to try to feel movement and only feel it. This is what dancers do, but instead I wanted to put the feeling of a figure of motion outside of myself to see what I'd got. I came to realise that this feeling had to come out of myself; not out of streams, swaying grasses, soaring birds; so instead of sketching lines and accents described by things in motion, I now tried to tie and plait their particular motion characteristics into my sinews - to attach an inner echo of them to my bones." (Len Lye, The Practice, from The Art That Moves, unpublished MSS, 1964.) http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issues11to20/Lye05.htm

When researching Lye's work, I find, like Dion, his works are very interactive with the audience and would cause each viewer to interpret and take ownership of each work in a very personal way. And like Dion, Lye's sculptures would also not exist without an audience.

Overall, it was a really interesting session and through getting a glimpse into the practice of Dion Hitchens, my eyes have been newly opened to not only the area of sculpture, but has also raised some interesting questions and thoughts about interaction and audience reaction. 

Bibliography:
http://www.paulnache.com/artists/dion-hitchens.aspx
http://www.windwand.co.nz/ourwindwand_main.htm
Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2002.
http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issues11to20/Lye05.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2uY-CVyuX8
http://www.govettbrewster.com/LenLye/work/sculpture/)