Site-Specific Art

Response to the reading Introduction: Site Specifics
From the book Site-Specific Art by Nick Kayr

In this reading, the idea of 'site' as 'place' is explored. A preoccupation lies with deconstructing the term 'place' with regards to movement and temporal change. Much effort is spent in defining what 'place' is NOT. Mention of Auge's notion of non-place sums up this philosophical writing - "...as Auge describes it...non-place is defined...in relation to place, even as that relationship is one of displacement." (11)

Things, spaces, and their order are all dependent on relationships and interaction.

"Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed... identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten." Auge (11)

As Kayr is focused on the traveller's movement through space, his traveller's eye can be compared to the art audience eye. The traveller's movement has "also a parallel movement of the landscape which he catches only in partial glimpses...and, literally recomposed in the account he gives them...constructs a fictional relationship between gaze and landscape" as the viewer gazes upon art.

The most valuable ideas I extracted regarding site-specificity is related to Kayr's discussion of de Certeau's idea of "'place' as an ordered and ordering system realised in spatial practices."(4)
SPACE = practised place = place of USE
Example: language space = text
So does art space = the object?
Site-specific art includes location space as part of its USE, thus:
site-specific art space = object + location

Q: Do temporal forces make everything perishable?
Q: What has more bearing on a place - the subjectivity of the traveller or the relationships that define the space?
Q: Does art space = the object, or it's geographical and temporal place?

Installation Art Considered

Response to the class reading: INTRODUCTION the museum problem by Graham Coulter-Smith
http://www.installationart.net/Chapter1Introduction/introduction01.html
http://308spring.blogspot.com

Walter de Maria's, Earth Room, first executed in the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich, 1968. De Maria filled the gallery with soil to a depth of 56cm (22 inches)
Pictured here is The New York Earth Room, 1977
http://www.earthroom.org/

In this reading, the roots of installation art are traced back to the 'tansgressive aesthetics' of Dada and Surrealism which also inspired radical avante garde art of the 1960's.

The ideas and values of these artforms emphasize issues of immersion and deconstruction of traditionalism. Walter de Maria's Earth Room models these concerns addressed in the reading:
Involvement between the viewer & the art by engagement of multiple senses. (2)
Activates the viewer to think. (2)
Uses non-traditional material. (2)
Integrates art with life-praxis, read personal account linked below. (4)
'Plays' with the institutional identity of the art gallery by transforming the space. (4)

Coulter-Smith argues that transgression or deconstruction are embodied by other movements, avante garde of early-mid 20th century and contemporary decontructive art respectively. A shift of meaning from transgression towards the idea of 'play' is credited to Jacques Derrida(1981) "who also introduce the term 'decontruction' into cultural theory." (4)

"Most installation artists play with that fabric[of the art gallery/museum] rather than trying to genuinely critique it...transgression has become a civilised activity to be protected and preserved by the art museum...installation art graphically illustrates the gallery-bound and socially segregated character of fine art at the turn of the millenium." Does this artform deconstruct deconstructionism? Coulter-Smith identifies the separation of art from life as a problem for deconstructive art to overcome. (5)

To read a personal account of The New York Earth Room go here:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~aam259/text/earthrm.html

SMP Midterm Critiques

The SMP Projects that most interested me at this midterm critique were Jeannie's figurative sculptures and Ashley's collections.

Jeannie greatly shifted scale and texture this semester. Revised from life-size objects that hinted at human identity to smaller, 2'-3' female figures, she abandoned surface adornment for the innate texture of the materials she used, plaster coating wire superstructure and where the figures are 'wounded' we see that structure along with new materials appearing as insides bursting, oozing or gushing out. The pain of these figures is more immediate than last semester's sculptures, and movement is more evident in these new figures as well. Whereas last semester's sculptures offered the impression of evolution or rather devolution and disintegration over years, the new figures' struggles appear to culminate in action now, as we observe.

Ashley's collections are an intriguing diversion from last semester's embroidered portraits. She reworked the autobiographical content, from portraits of acquaintances using fabric from her mother's collection, she now presents portraits of collected items of her mother and father(spoons and oil cans respectively.) While her people portraits last semester increased greatly in size from one critique to the next, this new work presents the aspect of size in a new way that leads one to question its consideration. The spoons collection presents actual-size spoons. The oil can collection shows miniature portraits, and the button collection contains many individual buttons portrayed larger than life - 3"-4"(?) each contained in their own paper handmade shadowbox. The button collection brought to mind the fetishism behind the idea of collecting, and the careful attention people can ehibit with regards to these fetishes. I also got a small feeling of the artist fetishing her own labor, which may or may not be a layer of meaning behind the familial context of her collections of embroidered portraits.

After the considerable developmental advances these artists and the others have made over the school year I am intrigued to see the final exhibition.

Skillshare: Papermaking

Hannah and I presented the very basics of paper/pulp making from recycled paper, on the small scale. Here are the supplies & materials we used and the basic steps we demonstrated.

**Using a congealing substance helps with working with pulp sculpture, and I had forgotten that very important point in class(sorry!). Poor hippies like me use cooked flour paste, but we made due by adding two handfuls of Claycrete papier mache.


REMEMBER: The quality of your product reflects the quality of the materials. You can use an acid removing additive to help adjust for the use of recycled/unknown material, but be sure to research well any additive you use or mix.


Supplies:
Blender (dedicated to pulp, not to be used for food ever again)
iron
large, shallow tub (plastic sweater box)
screen frames & screen shapes*
tons of newspaper
2 felt soakers per sheet of paper
Materials:
paper scraps
hot water
flour(for pulp)
Optional Ideas:
natural fibers (onion skins, dryer lint)
construction paper (or dyes)
dried flowers or flat objects/paper shapes
laser printed photo (or ink-jet if you want to get funky)
*small shapes cut from screen make shaped pulp decoration
toothpicks (to make beads)

Demonstration Steps:
Prepare drying table for paper or armature for pulp sculpture.
Prepare pulp slurry, thin for paper or thick with added congelant for sculpture.
Dredge the papermaking screen and sculpt beads or sculptural forms.
Drying the paper or sculpture.

Alternatives:
- Boil plant fibers like onion skins or flower petals in water and add that to the blender or to the slurry tub.
- Construction paper dyes the water and white scrap paper while colored copy paper retains its color. These make a great combo for multiple colors.
- Dried Flowers, paper cutouts, laser-printed photos and other flat objects can be sandwiched between 2 thin layers of fresh wet paper.
- Shapes cut from screen can be dipped in the slurry and turned out to decorate a fresh wet piece of paper for a 2D composition.
USES:
Make a love letter
Cover a book
Bind your own book
Cover a frame
Make a lampshade
Make some beads
Make some art, 2D or 3D.

An excellent resource for Papermaking Beginners:

http://www.handpapermaking.org/ArticlesforBeginnersIndex.html



Also, I love Dick Blick:

http://www.dickblick.com/categories/papermaking/

Michelle Samour

From Earth ro Sky

http://www.smfa.edu/Programs_Faculty/Faculty/S/Samour_Michelle.asp

Article about Michelle Samour: SMFA Boston Faculty; Michelle Samour, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2007
http://www.fiberarts.com/article_archive/process/largestreachesoflife.asp

Visiting Artist: Chris Coleman

Chris Coleman's lecture was stimulating, and increased my interest in digital media(the dark side of the force.) He discussed three of his works and some more concepts in development, as well as aspects process of making and some driving issues and societal concerns that motivate his work. What I like about the work he showed us is that it stimulates multiple senses and the labor is evident. He descibed the making of Modern Times as years of collecting ideas, vignettes and graphics, and weaving them together and collaborating with George Cicci for sound. Thoughtful attention to detail on multiple conceptual levels results in a work that continues to engage even familiar audiences.

It is interesting how artwork, espially installation work, takes on a new life after it leaves the studio. Audience interaction and consideration changes purpose and meaning over time. Coleman told the anecdote about this regarding his work Spatiodynamics which includess a room-sized machine comprised of fans and fabric landscape, in addition to a live video feed of the landscape located in the hall outside the sculpture. To make the machine appear light, Coleman suspended it from the ceiling. As an unexpected result, some of the audience apparently lay on the floor underneath the work to observe the simulated changing landscape.

A most interesting conversation starter gleaned from Coleman's lecture is his point that we are more concerned with our "data bodies" than our "physical bodies". He suggested the choice between allowing a single change to your credit score or a slap in the face and most people would choose a slap in the face. Your face will recover, you'll put ice on it and the pain will go away. But you have no control over your credit report, part of your data body. This led to technologies such as fingerprint and retinal scans incorporating themselves into society. Hmmmm Thanks for that one, Chris Coleman.

Coleman's Site
http://www.digitalcoleman.com

Modern Times
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwWzAEbZ5g0

INtraspectrascope

Conclusion of the Marriage: Hope Chest Project
Presented at the St. Mary's College 2007 Women's Studies Colloquium: HITCHED!
Behold a divinely inane but entertaining device: look, touch and enjoy!

After much deliberation the committee decided to invest in Psyence.

For the purpose of divining our readiness for commitment, Moderne Teknologie enhances the effectiveness of our intuition.

Inquirers, place yourselves at each end of the machine looking in directly through the center. Together, grasp the lever on top to move it back and forth, turning the lens. Observe variations of perception facilitated by this progressive device.

INtraspectrascope

Sketches

Cocoon

Inspiration for the Cocoon came from several sources. The materials I had in mind when sketching mixed with ideas sparked while recently viewing work by Matthew Barney and Petah Coyne. Corrugated pipe + a large amount of hand-knitted legwarmers (overstock mukluks, passed on to me from my brother, yes I still have them after all these years) + serendipitous orange fabric + labor + spousal patience = Cocoon.

The requirements of this assignment relating to personal space immediately translated into 'afe place' for me, with ideas of warmth, comfort and detachment. This placed my focus on the effects of this work on the wearer, an engaged audience. Full experience of the Cocoon would require wearing the object to experience the limitations, struggle and solitude first hande. Movement is key to the continued development in understanding this work, and gives this sculpture ongoing energy.

The objectives of this assignment were to create an artwork designed for the human body as a wearable object and should explore the concept of personal space. We were also required to incorporate movement and to employ the object off-campus.

The final product is slightly too large for me to control easily, and so with little practice, the walls often sag when moving. The size forces the wearer to engage in movement as endurance of strength, will and patience. Understanding my natural role inside the Cocoon, and improving my technique and dexterity, became the motivation for maneuvering the heavy and cumbersome object. I also discovered a few yoga positions conducive the the environment inside the Cocoon.

The type of space and experience the Cocoon became is a changing cycle of struggle, detachment, and acceptance. If detachment is not achieved then panic ensues.

'Containment' manifests the dichotomy of security vs. trap.

Strangers' reactions were initially humurous but soon they quieted, disturbed by the confusing sight or waiting for a conclusion? This is inconsequential for the wearer who is deeply involved with the struggle of movement. I wore the Cocoon for up to an hour each time and my reactions were: absurb fun the first wearing, frustration and eventual panic the second time, and lastly determination toward comprehension.

It also really freaked out the cats.

Petah Coyne
Image Source: http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag97/dec97/sm-purch.shtml












Matthew Barney
http://www.cremaster.net/crem4.htm
Image Source: http://www.cl2000.com/media/artist/wen3.shtml