Blog 8: Nicolas Mirzoeff- “Bodyscapes”.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. "Bodyscapes". Bodyscapes, Art, Modernity amd The Ideal Figure. Routledge: London, 1995: 19 – 33.

Nicholas Miroeff writes as a Professor of Visual culture. In his writing Bodyscapes he opens up the idea that visual representation of the body has an effect on the body and on the individual.

In the reading group we discussed the idea that we come to realise our own body, outside of our body; that our body becomes coherent outside of itself. Lucille used this example- as babies we are born without control of our bodies and need someone to look after us. Our experience of our body is thus fragmented, it is not organised within ourselves, it is organised outside of itself.

In this sense our body is fragmented. It changes and grows with influence and control form outside of itself. It is affected by social and environmental situations. A body can be adapted to suit its surroundings. Mirzoeff writes, “In the contemporary world, such arguments run, the fragmentation of the body has become a fact of everyday life.” (Mirzeoff, 1996; 25). One can change the body through food exercise, plastic surgery etc, bit by bit, fragment by fragment.

And because our body is affected by what happens outside of it, I think visual representation can play a part in shaping what our bodies should be like. We look outside of ourselves in advertising, other people etc to gage who we are or who we think we should be. In a way I think we are feed a whole lot of ideas and ideals that are outside of ourselves. In this sense our culture and society can affect so much of who we are and how we see ourselves.

Donna Haraway suggests that we are cyborgs- human organisms made up of our material being (our body) and machine (the imagined the external or in-organic, constructed and fabricated).

"By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of 'Western' science and politics--the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other - the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. The stakes in the border war have been the territories of production, reproduction, and imagination." (Haraway, 1991: 150)

The thing that really interests me in Haraway’s statement about the cyborg is that it is involved in a “border war”. I feel a border war is concerned with a space of negotiation between one and the other. Looking at the borders of the internal body and external world as places for change opens up the idea of the internal individual negotiating the external influences in the construction of identity. It makes me think one can choose how to represent him or herself- not just have a idea, identity or image forced upon them.

References:

Haraway, Donna. ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge: New York, 1991: 149-181.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. ‘Bodyscapes’. Bodyscapes, Art, Modernity and The Ideal Figure. Routledge: London, 1995: 19 – 33.

Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. New York University: New York, 2008. 12th June 2008. http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Nicholas_Mirzoeff

Blog 7: Chris Townsend- "Feminist Photography".

Townsend, Chris. "Feminist Photography". Francesca Woodman. Phaidon Press limited: New York, 2006: 38 – 45.


Chris Townsend seems to offer a formal and thematical approach to some of the works of Francesca Woodman in his writing Feminist Photography.

I found a paragraph at the end of the reading that was of interest to me because it made me think about the medium of photography in representing space and how the body, or a person can change the space in the photograph. He writes

"Woodman looks specifically at the domain of photography as a medium, how the space inside the camera relates to the space it represents, and how the medium proceeds from a discourse of mathematical rigour in which the body, and other subjects, disorder the time and space that photography would seek to analyse with such precision." (Townsend 2006:44)

I think the Townsend talks here about photography, as a medium that has been concerned with documenting the truth i.e. the space in the camera is a replica of the space it represents. This idea however has changed through the development of photography because it has become obvious that the body and other subjects such as people in the work, or viewing the work or in fact taking the work, cannot be separated from the reading or meaning of the photograph. For example, what the photograph represents is read differently depending upon the person analyzing it (their culture, time, and place).

In Kate Bush’s writing The Latest Picture, she talks about how photography was used by early Conceptual artists

"Who can be divided into those who utilized photography as a tool to document ephemeral actions or events or gestures and those who reflected more profoundly on photography’s inherent “anti-artistic” nature- its widespread functional applications; its descriptive precision; its non-unique, serial nature; and its stylistic neutrality." (Bush 2003: 262)

In the above quote, it seems that photography was looked upon as a sort of copying device. However in Woodman’s work Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1875 – 78 one can see that ones perception of space changes in the work when a subject is added, or a subject adds a gesture to the space (a drawing in this case). It makes me look at the flattening effect of the camera in the first two images and realize later in the series when the body is added that the photographed space is actually a room.


I find the idea of the body or subjects changing space interesting in relation to Amunsden’s artwork Garden Place. She too critiques the medium of photography. She states

"by engaging with how photography socially gathers meaning, Garden Place picks apart how space itself is culturally constructed. All of my previous series have systematically addressed space - the photographs have relied on the viewer's cultural investment in the depicted." (Amundsen, 2003 - 4: 1)

Amundsen here relates the meaning of the photograph as constructed by the viewer and the artist- the photograph gathers meaning in relation to those who interact with it. The spaces she uses, such as public areas, are also spaces that gather meaning by people interacting with them socially.

When looking at a photograph, I find it difficult to realize it as an un-bias copy of real space. As soon as people are involved in the artwork in any way (making, viewing, or featuring for example), it becomes an image or space to be perceived rather than a given space.


References:

Amundsen, F. "Garden Place (Artist Statement 2003 - 04)". Chartwell Collection. 3 Feb. 2008. http://www.chartwell.org.nz/art/featuredworks/fionaamundsen.asp

Bush, Kate. “The Latest Picture”. The Last Picture Show. D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.: Minneapolis, 2003: 262 – 266.

Ownes, Craig. “Toward a Theory of Postmodernism”. Appropriation, and Power. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture. Oxford: University of California Press, 1992: 88 - 113.

Townsend, Chris. “Feminist Photography”. Francesca Woodman. Phaidon Press limited: New York, 2006: 38 – 45.

Blog 6: Craig Owens- "Allan McColloum: Repetition and Difference".

Owens, Craig. Bryson, Scott, Barbara Kruger, Lynne Tillman and Jane Weinstock. Eds. “Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference”. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture. Oxford: University of California Press, 1992: 117 – 121.

Clive Owens was an American art critic who was the editor for Art in America and wrote for a number of journals on diverse topics. In his reading Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference he suggests that serial production results in the death of difference.

Mark Jeffery writes

"Death is constitutive of the symbolic order, because the symbol, by standing in the place of the thing which it symbolizes, is equivalent to the death of the thing: the symbol is the murder of the thing." (Jeffery 2006: 64)

Once the object, or thing is symbolized or turned into a sign the originality of the object is lost. This idea reminds me of Walter Benjamin’s writing The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he suggests that when an art object is reproduced, the original essence of the object is lost. “One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” (Benjamin 1936: 4) The reproduction is like a sign of the first object- it stands for or represents it. Majlinda explained that she thought the original aura of the object died when it was reproduced. We consume the copied object and have no idea of the original- we consume the sign of the original.

This seems to be what Owens is saying when he talks about the serial object standing for or representing (as a sign of) difference. Owens explains that while mass production eliminates difference through standardization, serial production “reintroduces a limited gamut of differences into the mass-produced object.” (Owens 1992:119) For example in our reading group we used the example of iPod, they are produced in different colours, with different features and the consumer chooses the iPod for way it can symbolize or suit the consumers individuality. The iPod becomes a symbol of difference and in this way serial production limits difference itself. “Consequently, what we consume is the object not in its materiality, but in its difference- the object as sign. This, difference itself becomes apparent: to carefully engineer and control the production of difference in our society.” (Owens 1992: 119)

I think Owens suggests that in McCollum serially reproducing and repeating artworks, he is making us aware of our culture, “a culture in which difference is “artificially re-created by means of the repetition of quasi-identical objects” (Attali)” (Owens 199: 120), a culture that is concerned with the consumption of signs. He creates objects that are almost identical to each other (which he names surrogates), and sells them as artworks. One then buys the works for the fact that they are different, at the same time turning difference into the very thing they consume. At the end of the day however, the artworks are not different they are repetitions- there is no original- it is dead.

"For although it was possible to view each work as a mirror reflecting all the others, at the same time it was merely a reflection of all the others." (Owens, 1992:118)


References:

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, 1936. Marxist Internet Archive. 2007: 1-17. 7th June, 2008. www.marxist.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.html

Jeffrey, Mark. “The Real and Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel”. Journal for Lacanian Studies. 4(1), 2006: 50 – 75.

Owens, Craig. Bryson, Scott, Barbara Kruger, Lynne Tillman and Jane Weinstock. Eds. “Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference”. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture. Oxford: University of California Press, 1992: 117 – 121.

Blog 5: Bracher Lichenberg-Ettinger- "Trans-Subjective Transferal Borderspace."

Lichtenberg-Ettinger, Bracher. Massumi, Brian Ed. "Trans-Subjective Transferential Borderspace". A Shock of Thought: Expression After Deleuze and Guattari. New York: Routledge, 2002: 215 – 238.

Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger is a feminist theorist, psychoanalyst and an artist. In this piece of writing she relates psychoanalytical theories to painting. She talks about the idea of the painter being both patient and doctor and the artwork thus being a symptom and a remedy.

In my MFA seminar I was interested in opening up a space between the artist and the viewer. I think Lichtenberg-Ettinger talks about how the artwork is an object that opens up this space. She uses the example of the artist being both doctor and patient, the artwork as a border-space that is a symptom of the artist (artist as patient), but also as an object that can allow the viewer to think of things that they wouldn’t possibly think about, opening up the potential of their thoughts (artist as doctor).

"The doctor-and-patient borderspace finds its echoes in the viewer; its vibrations impregnate the viewer’s psychic borderspace. It sheds light on an archaic trans-subjective rapport between I and non-I and on a possible transmission between different subjects and objects, beyond time and space, in a potential in-between zone of object-and-subject borne and yielding by painting." (Lichenberg-Ettinger, 2002: 215 – 216)

The artwork can open up the viewer to new and different ways of thinking about the world. There is a space between the viewer and the object (the artwork) where thought is generated. It makes us want to know about what it means or represents. Mark Jeffery talks about Lacan and desire. He suggests that it is “desire that opens up the subject-object relation in the first place”. Both Jeffrey and Lichenberg-Ettinger talk about Objet A, the “object-cause of desire”. (Jeffrey 2006: 57). He talks of the image of the North Wall by Edward Weston as an example of how Objet A works in relation to desire. He says the work could be looked upon as a

"lure for the scopic drive, rather that a representation of the ‘holy’ or of perhaps a ‘life force’, it goes some way to explaining how a fascination with the image might develop, but without having to make the further speculative step towards defining the exact nature of the numinous life force itself. The point, perhaps, it that objet a works by fascination and that causes us to impute deeper meanings to the image." (Jeffery 2006: 58)

He explains that the image acts as an object that makes us want to know what lies beyond, it drives the viewer to want to know and the artist to want to create, it doesn’t represent the thing that lies beyond, but acts as an object that leads us to desire to know.

The borderspace here is between the viewer and the artwork and the artist and the artwork, where the viewer is affected by the art and the artist is by the artwork. The artwork is an object that drives the viewer to know and artist to discover and explore through making.

References:

Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger. Anna Johnson 2002-2007. 6th April, 2008. http://www.metramorphosis.org.uk/

Jeffrey, Mark. "The Real and Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel". Journal for Lacanian Studies. 4(1), 2006: 50 – 75.

Lichtenberg-Ettinger, Bracher. Massumi, Brian Ed. "Trans-Subjective Transferential Borderspace". A Shock of Thought: Expression After Deleuze and Guattari. New York: Routledge, 2002: 215 – 238.

Blog 4: Zizek- “On Radical Evil and Related Matters”.

Zizek, S. (1993). "On Radical Evil and Related Matters". Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology. Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press, 1996: 83-124.

I found this an interesting reading because I had spent time with it in my PGDip year. The writing is from Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology, a book by Zizek who is a philosopher and writes often about the psychoanalyst Lacan.

In the excerpt titled On Radical Evil and Related Matters he discusses the idea of the Real (in Lacanian terms) or as Kant would call it, the noumenal Thing, the Thing-in-itself, that can only be explored through the symbolic.

We discussed in our group the idea of the Real, or the Thing-in-itself, as something that is a noumenom, something that cannot be explained or put into words, something that is beyond our comprehension, for example death. And discussed the idea that the Real can only be known to us through the symbolic, one can only know of the Real through representation of it. Zizek describes Magritte’s painting Le Lunette d’approache (1963) as a work that shows us that the Real can only be alluded to and talked about through representation.

"In Lacanese, the painting would translate as thus: the frame of the windowpane is the fantasy-frame which constitutes reality, whereas through the crack we get an insight into the “impossible” Real, the Thing-in-itself.”(Zizek, 1993: 103)

I question that came up for me was, how can an artist make a viewer aware of or allude to the Real in an artwork?

At this point I remembered a writing I had read by Hal Foster titled Death in America. He uses the examples of Andy Warhol’s series Death and Disasters (1963). He talks about trauma as being something we can’t understand and can’t explain in our symbolic world. He suggests that a function of repetition is to “repeat a traumatic event (in actions, in dreams, in images) in order to integrate it into a psychic economy, a symbolic order.” (Foster, 1996: 42). I guess in a way that is true, the more you see the event the less traumatic it becomes, it kind-of serves as something to focus on when the Real (death/ trauma) can’t be comprehended. The thing that Foster brings up here- that I have to agree with is that although the repetition can act as something to help the person deal with the real, it can also produce a new type of trauma, thus making the viewer aware of this unexplainable thing, the Real. He states

"repetition serves to screen the real understood as traumatic. But this very need points to the real, and it is at this point the real ruptures the screen of repetition. It is a rupture not in the world but in the subject; or rather it is a rupture between perception and consciousness of a subject touched by an image." (Foster, 1996:42)


The Real in this sense is the trauma one experiences when looking at these images.

References:

Foster, Hal. "Death In America". October. 75, Winter, 1996: 36 – 59. jstor. University of Auckland, Auckland. 3 Dec. 2007

Zizek, S. (1993). "On Radical Evil and Related Matters". Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology. Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press, 1996: 83-124.

Blog 3: Jaqueline Cooke- “Heterotopia: Art Ephemera, Libraries, and Alternative Space.”

Cooke, Jaqueline. “Heterotopia: Art Ephemera, Libraries, and Alternative Space.” Art Documentation. Nov, 2006: 34 – 39.

Jaqueline Cooke is the research support librarian at Goldsmiths University in London. In her reading Heterotopia: Art Ephemera, Libraries and Alternative Space, she talks about her research regarding the collection of art ephemera in a library. She discusses the potential of art ephemera to represent contemporary alternative art practices such as practices that are not object-based but are tactical and contextual.

She suggests that by putting art ephemera in a library, one is giving the sort of art it is concerned with “value as a source of potential histories which might otherwise remain obscure”. (Cooke, 2006: 34). We discussed in the group that our fine arts library gave precedence to books of artists’ works and books concerned with art history and theory. The library in this sense is an ideological space, because it is a space that is determined by someone who what is important or not in relation to fine arts. As a group we found this interesting as we all often look outside of art books to find information to inform our work.

In a way, in a space like a library, we are always subjected to the dominant society. In M Gottdiener’s writing on Lefebre’s work The Production of Space, Gottdiener writes

"Every mode of social organization produces an environment that is a consequence of the social relations it possesses. In addition, by producing a space according to its own nature, a society not only materializes into distinctive forms, but also reproduces itself." (Gottiener, 1993: 132)

In our library, we produce a space that reflects the dominant societies values and structures. However I think it can be a space that also has the potential to change the dominant culture.

Cooke suggests that, because a library is a heterotopia, it can include different understandings of ideological spaces. (Cooke 2006: 34). An idea Foucault talks about in Of Other Spaces. He suggests the library is a heterotopia, a space that has “the curios property of being in relation with all other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invent the set of relations they have to designate, mirror or reflect.” (Foucault & Miskowiec, 1986: 24).

The library as a heterotopia is a space where both the contradictory ideologies surrounding object-art practices and alternative art practices are reflected and produced. In changing the value of ephemera by placing it in the library, I think one challenges what society has traditionally thought of important and of value.

See you in the general library.

References:

Cooke, Jaqueline. “Heterotopia: Art Ephemera, Libraries, and Alternative Space.” Art Documentation. Nov, 2006: 34 – 39.

Foucault, Michel and Jay Miskowiec. “Of Other Spaces”. Diacritics. 16:1, 1986: 22 – 27. Jstor. University of Auckland, Auckland. 25, April. 2008.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/464648

Gottdiener, M. "A Marx for Our Time: Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space". Sociology Theory. 11, 1993: 129 - 134. jstor. University of Auckland, Auckland. 25 April. 2008 http://www.jstor.prg/stable/201984

Blog 2: Akira Yamamoto- "Culture Spaces in Everyday Life"

Yamamoto, Akira Y. "Culture Space". Culture Spaces in Everyday Life: An Anthropology of Common Sense Knowledge. University of Cansas. Lawrence: Kansas, 1979. 37-44

As a professor of Anthropology and linguistics at the University of Kansas, USA, Akira Yamamoto writes “Culture Spaces in Everyday Life: An Anthropology of Common Sense Knowledge.” in the field of social anthropology. This reading addresses culture theory, specifically the idea of culture space.

He refers to culture space as a conceptual space. It is “the physio-temporal space which functions as a frame with which a certain activity is carried out by persons.” (Yamamoto, 1979: 37)

Through experience, humans learn the codes, rules and theories of how to behave within a cultural space. We are exposed to the signifiers of a cultural space. These signifiers are often acted upon in an unconscious way and we often unaware of our learned cultural behaviours until we are placed in a different culture, with a different set of signifiers. For example Majlinda discussed that in her Albanian culture, it is customary to hug someone when you greet them however when she came to New Zealand she was made aware that it was not. By being in another cultural space she became aware of different learned cultural behaviours.

Lucy discussed the idea that we are alienated to signifiers of our culture and only once we realise that we are alienated to these signifiers, can we choose to be free from them. For example one could say that Auckland has a car culture and that one is alienated to his or her car. One does however have a choice to walk or take public transport- to go against the mainstream culture and to be free of the confinements of a motor vehicle. This made me think about a reading in which Rebecca Solnit describes walking as an act of resistance to mainstream culture, as walking as a “reaction against the speed and alienation of the industrial revolution.” (Solnit, 2001: 267) Solnit seems to look at walking as a choice to free oneself from the signifiers of a culture tied to automobilization and suburbanisation.

It is interesting to think of art institutions as culture space and an artist as being alienated to the signifiers of the culture space in which they practice. I think it is important for an artist to critique and analyse their practice in relation to culture space. Only then can he or she decide whether they are going to make art that reinforces the codes and rules of the culture space or challenges and changes them.

References:

International Center for Scientific Research. CIRS: Paris, 1999.17th April 2008.
http://www.cirs-tm.org/researchers/researchers.php?id=84

Solnit, Rebecca. "The Shape of A Walk". Wanderlust: A History of Walking. London, Verso, 2001: 267 - 275.

Yamamoto, Akira Y. "Culture Space". Culture Spaces in Everyday Life: An Anthropology of Common Sense Knowledge. University of Cansas. Lawrence: Kansas, 1979. 37-44

Blog 1: Gene Ray- "On the Conditions of Anti-Capitalist Art"

Ray, Gene. "On the Conditions of Anti-Capitalist Art: Radical Cultural Practices and the Capitalist Art: Radical Cultural Practices and the Capitalist Art System". Left Curve. No 31. 
 Left Curve Publications: Oakland, 2007. March 2008.http://www.leftcurve.org/lc31webpages/anticapitalistart.generay.pdf

Gene Ray is a critic and theorist who has written essays surrounding the issues at the intersection of art and radical politics. In “On the Conditions of Anti-Capitalist Art: Radical Cultural Practices and the Capitalist Art system”, Ray writes about what he refers to as “anti-Capitalist” art practices and throughout the text discusses three models or position of practice that artists can choose from.

In this writing he discusses that art under capitalism leads us to believe that artists are free to create work that exists only within the realm of art, that art is autonomous (as a self governing entity, free to act independently from “life”). However I fell that art can be used as a tool to endorse the system of power, control and lack of freedom, as it is “a social institution that is organised into a system, of rules and conventions serving social functions that are largely ideological.” (Ray, 2007: 2) In this sense art is a product of society (as the Frankfurt School suggests, like a “branch” of culture), rather than a product produced separately from culture.

Ray explains however that under the capitalist system “artists enjoy more freedoms of expression than do people in everyday life” (Ray, 2007: 2) and this is why I believe that art can act as a powerful tool in influencing and opening an awareness of things that control and motivate our everyday life.

As art is affected by culture, it can also effect and transform society and it is interesting for me to ask in what ways it can. Martha Rosler describes art as functioning in society in many ways, from decoration to domination,

"to the capacity to re-imagine a situation either through an image or words, and combinations or other forms of representation, that help to put a defining edge around the thought, and help people crystallize their thinking, to help people to be able to look into and through a situation. To give people a place to stand, critically and intellectually, to be able to orient themselves toward a situation. To not feel overwhelmed or powerless or clueless." (Wright, 2000: 3)

The way that Rosler describes art as a crystallising of thought, suggests to me that art has a function that transcends the system it exists in and allows for individualism and free thought. I think Rosler’s 1974 work The Bowery In Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, shows that descriptive systems (photography and language) may be inadequate. It suggests to me that systems can be critiqued, and challenges us to think about systems themselves. The artwork here plays a heuristic role because it exists or “crystallises on the thinking realm.” (Wright, 2000: 3) The work encourages the viewer to think rather than just accept it as a standardized product of mass production.



Art in this sense has the potential to empower the individual; something that capitalism threatens to take away.

References:

Ray, Gene. "On the Conditions of Anti-Capitalist Art: Radical Cultural Practices and the Capitalist Art: Radical Cultural Practices and the Capitalist Art System". Left Curve. No 31. 
 Left Curve Publications: Oakland, 2007. March 2008. http://www.leftcurve.org/lc31webpages/anticapitalistart.generay.pdf

Linksnet. 20th 2008. http://www.linksnet.de/autor.php?id=1321.

Wright, Stephen. “Martha Rosler in conversation: packaging the public sphere”. Parachute. No 97. January / March 2000. Wilson Web, University of Auckland. 5th January 2008. http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/hww/
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