mid to late 20th Century Art Overview Week 5 SM1701. Contemporary and New Media Art Professor: David (Jhave) Johnston david.jhave.johnston --at-- cityu.edu.hk WEBSITE: http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm1701/2012_FALL/Jhave/ EXERCISE: During today’s lecture, on the sheet of paper I am handing out, write down 20 artists, put them in or close to the category in which you think they belong. Conceptual Figurative in-between categories Abstract Intuitive news These $10 Robots Will Change Robotics Education “Suckerbot, designed by Thomas Tilley, a computer scientist living in Thailand, started with a hacked PlayStation controller, and wound up winning first prize in the tethered robot category. In this case, the tether is the controller's USB cable, and Tilley attached the rumble motors to a pair of wheels. Suckerbot's list of parts comes to $8.96, but the real genius is the Chupa Chups. Tilley needed a way for the robot to sense if it ran into something, so he stuck a lollipop in each joystick. Whenever the Suckerbot bumps something, the weight of the sucker tips the joystick forward, and a signal is sent to the processor.” http://www.wired.com/design/2012/09/afron-winners Chinese Government to Shut Down Ai Weiwei's Firm: Chinese authorities plan to shut down Ai Weiwei's production company, Beijing Fake Cultural Development, because it did not follow annual registration requirements. The company last week lost its final appeal against a $2.4 million tax evasion fine, which the artist announced he has no plans to pay. Ai's lawyer, who announced the news in a blog post, said it is not clear when the closure will go into effect or how the news would affect the tax evasion fine http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/830070/china-shuts-down-ai-weiweis-firm-moca-unveils-youtube-channel ADMIN (review) new rules for blogs 1. Everybody on tumblr.com 2. Every student must make a blog specifically for this class SM1701 and this class alone. (only posts for SM1701 go on this blog; if you already have a tumblr account then simply create another blog titled Name SM1701) 3. Profile photo and description must be filled out: profile must include: your name & the name of this course SM1701 must be mentioned. 4. All blogs must have a title (there are many currently called Untitled.) 5. A total of 10 blog posts minimum are expected. 6. The date function must be turned on: so that each post displays the date it was created. & now a brief message about ‘empty’ art for those with ‘empty’ blogs….. Yves Klein Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle [Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility] (1959) is an artist's book and performance by the French artist Yves Klein. The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immaterial Zone), taking the form of a cheque, in exchange for gold Between 1947 and 1948,[2] Klein conceived his Monotone Symphony (1949, formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony) that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence[3][4] – a precedent to both La Monte Young's drone music and John Cage's 4′33″ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Klein monochrome paintings "authenticity of the pure idea." Yves Klein IKB 191 (1962) Yann Marussich Bleu Remix (2008) Award of Distinction Prix Ars Electronica 2008: Hybrid Art In his performance entitled Bleu Remix, blue fluid flows out of Yann Marussichs mouth, nose and the pores of his skin, whereby the artist regulates the quantity of fluid that emerges via his circulatory system. In Bleu Remix the artists invites visitors to experience a new and intimate voyage through his body. http://youtu.be/K3qRJQPe1OM http://www.aec.at/news/ “(April 1958), Klein chose to show nothing whatsoever, called La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le Vide (The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void): he removed everything in the gallery space except a large cabinet, painted every surface white, and then staged an elaborate entrance procedure for the opening night; The gallery's window was painted blue, and a blue curtain was hung in the entrance lobby, accompanied by republican guards and blue cocktails. Thanks to an enormous publicity drive, 3000 people were forced to queue up, waiting to be let in to an empty room.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Klein Yves Klein Le Saut dans le Vide [Leap into the Void] (1962) Bas Jan Ader I am too sad to tell you (1970) http://www.basjanader.com/ Bas Jan Ader Fall II (1970) 16mm. 9 seconds. http://www.basjanader.com/ Office Hours Dr David (Jhave) Johnston Wed. 5-6pm Office: CMC 7089 In Synergy Lab on 7th Floor Call 3442 5726 (I will let you into area) USE THE CLOUD.: Lost or late Assignments will not be accepted without prior approval Moholy-Nagy (1920) "The illiterate of the future is the man without a camera." REVIEW What is time-based media? Étienne-Jules Marey Motion studies (1880s) “His revolutionary idea was to record several phases of movement on one photographic surface.” Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Stairs (1912) His revolutionary idea was to paint a nude as a set of robots, then quit painting and put a toilet in the gallery. Karl Sims Evolved Virtual Creatures, Evolution Simulation (1994) His revolutionary idea was to grow art using code. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8 REVIEW TECH TRAJECTORY Athanasius Kirchner – magica lanterna – 1600s Eadweard Muybridge Motion Studies (1879) 4 x 5 film camera early 1900s Sketchpad Ivan Sutherland (1963) Reactable Multi-touch sound synthesizer http://www.reactable.com/ (2005 - ) Beyond (& before) Fluxus Alternate Title SM1701. Contemporary and New Media Art Professor: David (Jhave) Johnston david.jhave.johnston --at-- cityu.edu.hk WEBSITE: http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm1701/2012_FALL/Jhave/ FIGURATIVE ECCENTRIC Joseph Cornell Defence D’Afficher Object (1939) -- collage in box FIGURATIVE ECCENTRIC Joseph Cornell Object (Roses des Vents) (1942-53) http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cornell/ FIGURATIVE IDEOLOGUE Sergei Eisenstein Battleship Potemkin (1925) -- still from film FIGURATIVE TRAUMA Francis Bacon Head VI (1949) FIGURATIVE TRAUMA Francis Bacon Self-Portrait (1971) FIGURATIVE TRAUMA Francis Bacon Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988) ABSTRACTION Jackson Pollock Number 1 (1950) ABSTRACTION Barnett Newman Adam (1951) ABSTRACTION Mark Rothko Orange and Yellow (1956) ART AS LIFE Allan Kaprow “claimed that Pollock was less important for his paintings as material objects than for the kind of choreographic approach to painting that the artist instigated.” http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/05/art/allan-kaprow-19272006 ART AS LIFE “This led Kaprow to explore a concept, close to Dada, in which intermedia performances involving groups of participants—which came to be known as “Happenings”—became a new art form.” http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/05/art/allan-kaprow-19272006 ART AS LIFE “By 1959 Kaprow was exploring a direction in art where idea and process were considered more important than the object.” http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/05/art/allan-kaprow-19272006 ART AS LIFE Allan Kaprow (1958): “I am convinced that painting is a bore. So is music and literature. What doesn’t bore me is the total destruction of ideas that have any discipline. Instead of painting, move your arms; instead of music, make noise. I’m giving up painting and all the arts by doing everything and anything.” http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/05/art/allan-kaprow-19272006 “There was no structured beginning, middle, or end, and there was no distinction or hierarchy between artist and viewer. It was the viewer’s reaction that decided the art piece, making each Happening a unique experience that cannot be replicated.” Allan Kaprow. “Happenings” (1960s) http://nazarenaluzzi.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/allan-kaprow/ Fluxus —a name taken from a Latin word meaning “to flow”—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus Fluxus George Maciunas (1963) Nam June Paik Exposition of Music-Electronic Television (1963) Nam June Paik Magnet TV (1965) Nam June Paik «Zen for Film» (1964) “In an endless loop, unexposed film runs through the projector. The resulting projected image shows a surface illuminated by a bright light, occasionally altered by the appearance of scratches and dust particles in the surface of the damaged film material. As an analogy to John Cage, who included silence as a non-sound in his music, Paik uses the emptiness of the image for his art. This a film which depicts only itself and its own material qualities, and which, as an «anti-film,» is meant to encourage viewers to oppose the flood of images from outside with one’s own interior images.” Heike Helfert on http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/zen-for-film/ Alison Knowles and James Tenney A House of Dust, a poetry project (1967) an early example of a computer generated poem, creating stanzas by working through iterations of lines with changing words from a finite vocabulary list. Situationalists The Society of the Spectacle is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.” Guy Debord (1967) In psychogeography, a dérive is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture andgeography subco nsciously direct the travellers, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience. Situationist theorist Guy Debord defines the dérive as "a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances." Homework: go home by a different route.