Week 13: Review questions

Early part of class:

1)      How does Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Rex lead into the Dada movement?

Jarry’s play was written before the Dada movement was really started.  It is important as a precursor because it is a satire about the people in government.  Dada artists wanted to make a point with their works.  It was a reaction to the onset of modernism, WWI and industry.  Ubu Rex’s mockery of individuals in charge has Dada under tones to it.

Middle part of class:

2)      Why did Oupilo artists use constraints, formulas, or algorithms to create their works?

This question is important because it examines the principles of the Oulipo movement.  Oulipo artists were both mathematicians and writers, so they understood the importance of acknowledging that there are many things to be written.  By using constraints, formulas, or algorithms, Oulipo artists were constantly able to write.  Constraints also gave these artists new creative stimulation.

Most recent part of class:

3)      How does performance art fit into the fluxus movement and have ties to Dada?

Performance art is important because it was seen in Dada with the outlandish lifestyle of the baroness, but it also made a reemergence in the Fluxus movement.  Ray Johnson hitting a box with a belt is performance art, as well as Bogg’s bills and his bartering to exchange them for goods and services.  It is important to consider how performance art relates to relational aesthetics.

Week 11: Networks and Relationships

“The medium, or process, of our time – electric technology – is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal lives” (McLuhan 7).

Our generation has developed into a very technology savvy generation that technology has become embedded in our personal lives and in the television shows we watch.  The show Reba is filled with the characters using technology.  The younger daughter, Kyra, is constantly seen with a cell phone in her hand and when Reba takes it away from her as punishment you would think the world was coming to an end.  By television using technology in it, it sends the message that everyone should be doing it (especially relevant to young kids who want to be part of the technology craze).

Take a walk down Hartford… What do you see?  Most students are using their cell phones or Ipods.  Technology can “remove” people from whatever situation they are in by giving them somewhat of an alternate reality – conversations with others via text messages.  Also, technology has become our best friend because it keeps us in close contact with our friends and family.  The days of handwritten, personal letters or greeting cards have practically vanished.  Because of texting shorthand, most personal messages can be written in a 160 character text.  Epic poems expressing how a person feels about another person or situation are no longer relevant because everyone wants their information shorter and faster. 

Because of the age of technology, I wonder how Ray Johnson would have conducted his mail art process.  Could he have been a graphic artist?  Since it is so easy to send and receive email, Johnson could have created digital art to email around to his friends to collaborate on.  The drawback to instantly sharing, however, is that once another individual has the work that is sent, you cannot get it back – they can retain a copy forever.  This would have been detrimental to Johnson’s other art form – negotiation.  Johnson’s tactics for negotiating a purchase could be hindered by multiple people having a partially completed piece of his final work.

As seen throughout history, technology will always be evolving, and as technology evolves society changes with it.  As Mr. Walt Disney says, “There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.” 

Week 10: Sons and Daughters of Dada

“Fluxus artists have consistently described their work, particularly the objects they produce, as performative” (Higgins 25).

Ray Johnson, a Neo-Dada or Fluxus artist, is credited as being the father of mail art.  Although he didn’t invent it, he was extremely aggressive about moving art through his network.  The act of not being the sole producer of an artwork is performative because it takes the collaboration of others to complete it.  The recipient of Johnson’s mail art was to decide to carryout, or perform, the instructions enclosed with the art.  Instructions included “Please send to…”, “Please add to and return,”  “Please add to and send to…”, or even “Do not send to…”.  By completing Johnson’s instructions, each recipient contributed to Johnson’s performative mail art.

Johnson also designed his life as somewhat of a collaborative work.  No one person is able to accurately retell the life story of Johnson because he allowed his friends to only see so much of his life and personality.  As his friends and family collaborate in the documentary How to Draw a Bunny, the life and work of Ray Johnson is illuminated.  Because the life and death of Johnson were surrounded in mystery, his life can be viewed as a performative piece of art. 

Ray Johnson staged his death as his final performance, a mystery revolving around the number 13.  He committed suicide on January 13, 1995 at the age of 67 (6+7=13).  Johnson checked into a motel, room 247 (2+4+7=13), and then was seen jumping into Sag Harbor and swimming out to sea.  After his body washed up on shore, his apartment was found to have hundreds of his collages carefully displayed throughout his apartment. 

Week 9: Restrictions and Obstructions

The Surrealist and Oulipo movements are significantly different.  Surrealist artists created their art, whether it was literature or paintings, by tapping into their subconscious and attempting to portray it.  By utilizing the subconscious, surrealist artists often had bouts of creative blocks where they were unable to tap their subconscious.  Oulipo stands for Ouvroir de litterature potentielle, or the workshop of potential literature.  Oulipo artists create their works based on systematic techniques or mathematical problems.  Constraints or restrictions also dictate Oulipo artists’ writing.

Constraints or restrictions can be creatively stimulating and produce beautiful results.  As seen in this picture of a hibiscus bonsai, restrictions during growth created an artistic and charming plant.  Restrictions in writing can be creatively stimulating.  When restricting a story, the author is forced to recreate the story around the new conditions.  It has been both overwhelming and exciting to set restrictions on my mundane short story.  Each imposed restraint creates a new and, hopefully, better version of the original story.

The Five Obstructions utilizes Oulipo’s constraints and restrictions to recreate the film The Perfect Human.   Lars von Trier establishes constraints for Jorgen Leth, the filmmaker of The Perfect Human.  After each restriction was established, Leth felt overwhelmed or worried about how to recreate his original film; however, once he began working under the constraints, he was able to create great renditions.  In my opinion, Lars was quite harsh on Leth about the Bombay obstruction.  I thought that Leth created a beautiful version of the original.  I liked that the people were visible in the background, but were somewhat distorted by the plastic sheeting.  To me, it gave the film an us versus them theme, or perfect versus imperfect, by not allowing the extras to be clearly seen.  Leth was extremely successful in each obstruction and seemed to thrive on recreating his original film.

Week 7: Text for Project 2

Lira and Peso            

Main Narrative:

I watched the kitten run around the house.  She jumped into the window sill to watch the birds at the feeder.  After jumping at the window in an apparent attempt to attack the birds, she gave up.  Instead, she entertains herself by becoming an acrobat on the rungs of the kitchen chairs.  I walk past her, catching her attention, so she gives chase biting my toes.  I pick her up to try to subdue her, but she wriggles free and her frenzy continues.

Variation 1 (List):

Crinkle ball. Untied shoelaces.  Blinds cord.  Window sill.  Chirping birds.  Tucker’s ear. Electric cords. Hanging tie. Doorstop.  Scratching post. Peso’s tail.  Backpack straps. Bed skirt. Jingle ball. Toy mouse.  Scott’s fingers. Chair rungs. Toy mouse.  Leather couch. Dog toy.  Amanda’s toes.  Coffee table.  Keyboard keys.  Cat tree.  Nap time.

Variation 2 (Lira’s Perspective):

Nosey birds, I’ll show them what’s up.  Bang. Dang!  Stupid window.  Guess it is time to find something else to play with.  Ooo… the rungs of the chair look like fun if I jump on them.  Weee!  Swinging around the rungs as I fall is an intense ride.  Ha, she thinks she can walk by me without playing with me, so I will bite her toes!  Ahh…Don’t hold me down!  Let go! Don’t ever grab me like that again.

 

Week 6: Magic and the Margins

“My sight is still excellent although I use spectacles for reading, when I read, which I practically never do.  True, rheumatics have bent my skeleton somewhat.  …  The fact that I have no teeth and never could wear dentures does not in any way discomfort me, I don’t have to bite anybody and there are all sorts of soft edible foods easy to procure and digestible to the stomach” (pg. 3).  “Indeed I do have a short grey beard which conventional people would find repulsive.  Personally I find it rather gallant” (pg. 5).

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington



Weirdness or qualities outside the norms of society can be interpreted as magic or witchcraft.  Marian’s appearance exemplifies the attributes possessed by individuals with magic power.  She is kind of misshapen, somewhat isolated from others, and doesn’t follow the norms of society. 

One aspect of a person that can deem them magic or a witch is the age of a person or the defiance of a life threatening illness.   Marian seems to defy death at the age of 92 when her son’s family feels that she should be better off dead.  Despite her mangled body and speech impediment, most likely as a result having no teeth, Marian believe she gets along well for her age.  Her family believes that she has become senile when, in fact, she seems to be quite sharp for her age.  Because of this perception of her, the family tries to keep her isolated and sends her away to an old folks home, which proves to be anything but normal. 

Marian’s hearing disability creates the outlet for her magical experiences with the hearing trumpet.  Up until Marian receives the hearing trumpet from Carmella, her life seems pretty ordinary.  Afterwards, however, her life is turned upside down (both because of the trumpet and because of her family’s decision to move her out). 

Week 5: Objects of Desire

Excerpt from Unica Zürn’s Dark Spring, pages 112-3:

She takes the ball of sealing wax into her hand and thinks about the fact that nobody knows what it contains.  When they find her body in the morning, they will wonder what the meaning of this ball may be.  …  Perhaps they will want to bury her wearing her amulet around her neck.

Painting by Scott Siedman @ http://www.eroticpaintingsparadise.com/

Throughout Dark Spring Zürn, the unnamed female is infatuated with the idea of discovering sex and pleasure.  She has found that every time she experiences a sexual high that it is fleeting, but she desires to prolong the experience.  Because each encounter is so brief, she is left feeling let down and somewhat empty. 

In the excerpt, Zürn’s unnamed female has collected several items (a strand of hair and a small photograph) from the object of her desire, an older man at the pool whom she watches and fantasizes about.  Because pleasure is so brief, she decides that she is going to die at the peak of her delight, which was gaining these objects. 

The strand of hair is extremely important because it is a physical piece of her desire.  She seemed to realize that she was never going to be able to have sexual relations with the man, so the hair somewhat replaces the phallus.  The hair is hidden in the ball of sealing wax because she doesn’t want to share her obsession with the man. 

Death with the man’s hair around her neck symbolizes that she is taking him to the grave with her.  To her there can be no greater pleasure because her brother already took away her first experience with sex and it was a disappointment because she felt there was nothing left to experience.  Death is the only other thing she has left to experience.  By having the hair around her neck in the grave means that she will always have that pleasure with her. 

Week 4: Desire, Transgression, Originality

"I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence." 

~ Man Ray

(Published in Man Ray Photographer: 1981)

Man Ray is commonly associated with rayographs, which are photographic images created by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing it to light.  Raygraphs were originally called photograms, but he renamed them after himself. 

This piece of art is one of Man Ray’s rayographs named “Kiss,” which he created in 1922 in Paris. 

“Kiss,” to me, is an interesting rayograph because of the technique used to create them.  Many rayographs are black and white because of the methods used to create them where the objects are placed directly on the paper, which creates a void where the paper is not exposed to light.  “Kiss” contains multiple shades of gray, which creates a feeling that Man Ray used multiple layers to create this photo. 

Man Ray’s family was in the textile/garment industry, which showed up throughout his artwork.  Because his family’s occupation is evident in some of his other works, I speculate about its influence in “Kiss.”    The layers of gray in this picture cause me to question whether or not Man Ray experiented with different types of fabrics.  The figure on the left doesn't have hard, defined lines; instead, he/she is somewhat bushy like frayed edges of fabric.  The fabric could be a loose knit fabric, which would allow some light through creating the grayscale figure.  The split in the photo combined with the points each figure has suggests that these are not two individuals engaging in a kiss, rather fabric or some other material which Man Ray can manipulate to create his photo.
  

This photograph qualifies as Dada or surrealism because it does against classic depictions of love.  The hands on the figures' heads are interesting because of the way the light exposed them.  Are there hands in the figures' heads or are the figures placing their hand on the other in a passionate embrace?  The photo doesn't answer this question and because of that "Kiss" pushes the photo into the surreal. 



Week 3: Poets, Performance, and Identity

Breton was a French writer and founder of surrealism.  Despite the fact that many people believe that Breton coined the term “surrealism,” it was actually coined by Apollinaire.  As the founder of surrealism, he took the liberty of deciding who was and was not a surrealist artist by denouncing them in his writing.  Because Breton was so involved in the direction of the surrealism movement, he was in contact with and recruited many surrealist artists, such as Salvador Dali, Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, René Crevel, Michel Leiris, Benjamin Péret, Antonin Artaud, and Robert Desnos.

Breton’s poem “Freedom of Love” is a poem all about his wife.  His descriptions of his wife are fitting with surrealist ideas of creating an element of surprise with “unexpected juxtapositions and the use of non sequiturs” (newworldencyclopedia.org).  The descriptions in this poem are extremely surreal if taken at face value because how could anyone have “eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing.”  This line, as well as every other line, in the poem can be interpreted many different ways depending on the reader’s background knowledge.  The visual art created by reading this poem is quite similar to Dali or Picasso’s paintings, where the viewer gets beautifully distorted perspective of the object at hand. 

In “Less Time,” Breton contemplates mortality and the value of living a full life.  Surrealism is evident in this poem within the first few lines. 

“Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything, there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some others; I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept them.” (Excerpt from Breton's "Less Time")

Breton compares stones (an object that would be extremely difficult to place a number on) to his fingers (which should be a total of 10) to create an illusion that he is truly able to quantify stones as he considers death and who will miss him.  Breton had experienced rejection by various people throughout his life, so I wonder if the plants that he talks about in this excerpt are those who rejected his works (pamphlets).  The metaphor of his rejecters as plants seems fitting because they simply need to grow in his works to be able to accept him.

Project 1: Explained

This poem was originally a poem that I found by typing in “poems that don’t make sense” into a Google search.  After reading through some, I found one that talked about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky – I was sold!  I had to remove their names because I used the N+7 website to distort the whole poem.  Each stanza was entered into the website individually and decided which changes I liked the most.  After changing each stanza, I reread the poem line by line.  If I didn’t like a line or specific word in a line, I reentered that into the N+7 website to find a different way to say it.  For some words, I used a thesaurus to find a similar word and then entered that word into the website to generate new words.  The title was generated using a random phrase generator. 

Overall, I like the poem that I came up with using these methods.  I think it is random and funny.

Project 1: Generative Systems and SPAM texts

Beauty is Cataplexed in Contemplation

I saw a glasshouse sketchbook in the trees
blowing bugbears into the slaughterhouse.
They drifted off as far as I could see.
Woman, I could give it a try.

I saw a one-legged maniac kicking a bandit.
He kicked it all weekend dressing back the stylist,
not once did he even fall.
It was purely neophyte.

I saw two naked minerals trapped in a bracket
trying to get out with all their might.
Their bollards painted white, even their coconuts.
Oh, what a funny silence.

I saw a stagehand shelf his talent.
He told me the subeditor fancied to be a rattlesnake.
To shave it off he did not fail, from bushy to skittle.
Only a foreigner would do something like that.

I saw a coward hang-glider swathing the ballad.
There was a luminary in the airplane as she ruffled his half-brother,
but he didn't neglect because he used to be a tomcat.
They skipped off they did, this lovely palliative.

I see a love of negligee stylists when I do my thoroughfare.
It makes me feel great;
Sometimes I dash, sometimes I sit-in.
It is a hemline of a love bidder than a belly straight.

Week 2: Beyond Realism

THE NUMBER

WERE IT TO EXIST

other than as a scattered hallucination of the dying

WERE IT TO BEGIN AND END           
rising only to be denied and closed off when revealed
at last                                       
by some thinly spread profusion            
               WERE IT TO BE COUNTED 

evidence of the sum however small                      
        WERE IT TO ILLUMINATE

CHANCE             

 "A Throw of the Dice Never Will Abolish Chance"

By: Stéphane Mallarmé

This poem is about a ship captain who is sinking on his boat in the middle of a horrendous storm, while attempting to find some mystic number that would save him from his inevitable death.  The number is unattainable, so Mallarmé seems to questioning why this sailor (or people in general) is looking for something to save them when it is determined by a higher power.  CHANCE is the main idea of this poem.  If by chance the sailor figures out the number, what saves him from the storm or his half-sank boat? 

Mallarmé’s poem is written in a form that can cause the reader some confusion about where to go next, but it is beautifully written so that however it is read some meaning will be gathered. The poem’s structure was an innovative way to write poetry because it defied the set forms of prose or lyrical poetry by utilizing the white space as a way to deepen the meaning of the poem.  In my selected passage, the captain and his boat are sinking, but it isn’t simply straight down, he is tossed back and forth by the waves and white space suggests a lull in the waves.  The typography evokes kind of STRONGER and softer waves crashing against the boat, while dragging it under.

“The Throw of a Dice” is an appropriate poem considering the social and political climate in and around France in the late 1800s.  The Dada movement sought to refine the “rational” thinking of the world.  This passage shows that Mallarmé disagreed with the rationalists around him because it defies the mentality that there may be something to save a person by saying that it is left all to chance.  Everything is not pre-decided and people cannot possibly calculate all outcomes of their decisions, so there much of life is left to destiny or fate.  The government made poor decisions which led to artists in that time period to explore various outlooks on life.

Week 1: Background

Art has a limited impact on the political and cultural world.  Robert Hughes in the film claimed that art would be impactful if people would open their hearts and minds to the meaning of the art.  Considering the confidence and assertiveness he had when stating that, it seems like it could be true; however, people’s viewpoints are bias based on their political and cultural ideals.  I believe that art can influence people who are not involved in government because government officials have a job to do and most prefer not to make radical movements. 

Dada, an anti-rationalist movement, emerged after the world was torn apart by WWI because artists were seeking a way to express themselves after the war.  The tremendous loss of life as a result of “rational” governments’ actions stirred feelings of hatred or animosity towards the government.  An anti-rational movement seems to rebel against the narcissism of power.  This movement gets under people's skin and shocks them - it provides a different way to view the world around them.

Alfred Jarry’s play, Ubu Rex, is a precursor to Dada theater because it is written in a way that defies authority, which is irrational to some in the general public and government.  Ubu Rex mocks high society and the defined boxes of each stage in life.  The language of this play satirizes the language of people in authority.  Pa Ubu has no redeeming qualities to him, which portrays distain for power hungry individuals. 

Jarry developed this play from the “low lifes” of Shakespeare; however, unlike Shakespeare, there is no contrast between upper and lower classes.  This essentially shows that the classes are one in the same because they act the same – each are power hungry.  This play challenges tradition because it goes against the class system built into society.