Thursday 15 May 2014

Craft vs Design

"One axiom has it that the machine is the predestined enemy of art. The hour has finally come to discredit such ready-made ideas. The machine can propagate beautiful designs, intelligently thought-out and logically conditioned to facilitate multiplication. It will become an important factor in raising the level of public taste. Through the machine, a unique concept can, when sufficiently inspired, popularise endlessly the joy of pure form, while preventing the distribution of a multitude of inept creations whose sole claim to being works of art stems from the presumable difficulty or skill involved in making them by hand." Siegfried Bing, 1895

Definition of axiom: "a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.



I'm not sure exactly if money can be counted as art, but when I read this quote I thought of how money is mass produced and made so that no one should be able to fake it, but it does happen more often than you think about 300 in one million for Pound sterling are counterfeited. 
The Royal Mint.pngI knew that the Royal Mint produced England's coins but I wasn't quite sure who printed the notes we use, I found out that they are produced using a printing process by the Bank of England and seven retail banks. 
- a retail bank is a bank who deals directly with the consumers rather than corporations or other banks.

I don't know exactly how money is made, but what I do know is that machines are heavily involved in the process, using printing plates and special ink and paper. But they still need people to run them, design them, fix them when they break down, etc. So it is a kind of two way street, people use machines to make art but the machines need people to make them.

photoshop artistsThe most obvious ways I can think of people using machines for art is; artists using software on a computer such as; Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop or on a simpler level Paint. They may not be a machine on their own but they make up part of the machines operation, so I think that it would still count. You can create some really interesting images using Photoshop. I found some pieces by 'An Artist' particularly interesting. I'm not sure if it is a man or  oman but some of their work reminded me of M.C. Escher's work especially this piece of the paintings within a painting which reminds me of Escher's hands drawings each other.

When Bing wrote this he wouldn't have been surrounded my machines like we are today, so in today's society art from machines is more readily accepted, by 1895 there were a lot of inventions but only a few that could be classed as a way of producing art including; photography, sewing machines, comic books, cinematograph (moving images). This link gives a list of Victorian era inventions; http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/homework/victorians/inventiotimeline.html, which gives you an insight into what machines Bing could have been referring to.

I looked into what would be considered public taste in 1895 and found this article on the instigation of public taste; http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/12th-july-2002/14/the-artists-who-instigated-a-revolution-in-public-, but I can't find any actual information on 'public taste' of that era. So I think the next best thing would be to look at artworks from that time or what would have been considered the height of fashion, and then compare it to the modern day public taste and see how it has changed or in fact if it has changed at all, because despite 129 years passing, technology being developed and fashions changing drastically, every ten years it seems; us in our modern day are re-adopting past fashions and pieces of artwork that are hundreds of years old and more valuable than some people's houses. This is obviously a change because when the paintings were first created they may not have sold well or would have only sold for a small sum of money, but as time has gone on, like wine, they have gotten better with time - and more valuable. 

Bing says that "It will become an important factor in raising the level of public taste," but I'm not sure if that is something that you can determine, I think it changed the way people express public taste but I don't think you can say it raised the level of public taste. I think like most things it has just been adapted over the years and as with most things is mainly influenced by the 'elite' - eg. celebrities. 

But no matter how much machines can be made to use art, there will always be people there behind the machine, operating it, designing and making it, fixing it, inputting data etc. And as always there will be a vast amount of people producing art without machines and I'd like to think that that will never change.

Monday 28 April 2014

Group Presentation

Me, Sophie, Aimée and Lauren worked together to make this power point presentation.
We chose to work on 'taste', because it was a subject we all found interesting and had formed our own opinions about it.

Here are the slides along with our notes;

•Taste is a persons tendency to like or be interested in something. Its also the ability to recognize what is of good quality or of a high aesthetic standard. - Oxford Dictionary
•Aspects of taste can be universal but also individual. Patterns of choice are influenced by cultural habits as well as personal preferences.
We must remember that taste is always changing. This can be based on the fact our mind sets are constantly evolving, as well as our day to day surroundings that influence our taste to like and dislike something are continually developing – taste is internal and external
•Social groups develop their own ideas of taste, therefore creating their own style and taste
•Everyone has their own opinion of taste. Socially it refers to a person’s choice/preference and is usually affected by personal experience and cultural influence.
•But it can be affected by others :-
-People with ‘power’ – art critics, celebrities, etc – they can set trends and influence people’s opinions
-Page 3 girls – bad taste – Katy Price – Jordan – is it still bad taste if it is a celebrity?
-Accessory pets – Paris Hilton – people see her carrying around a Chihuahua in her bag and copy her – others see it as bad taste – using the dog as an accessory


•Everyone has their own ideas of good and bad taste.
Lauren – no such thing as good/bad taste – everyone thinks that everyone else’s idea of taste is wrong.
Sybella – everyone is entitled to their own opinion on taste but they shouldn’t ridicule others for not liking the same things
•Good taste – the taste of the majority/any social group – something is collectively decided to be in good taste
•In addition to “good taste”, there is also the taste of a particular individual. Aesthetic judgments of many others fails to create one certain agreement because not everyone's view on taste would settle with other opinions: they would have different taste in music, art, fashion, appearance, etc. – bad taste is equally someone else's good taste
•What is seen as good taste to one person is seen as bad taste to the next

Our interpretation of what Pablo Picasso is saying is that good taste is safety, and if you choose to explore beyond the safety net of society without the fear of judgment, then what would appear to be bad taste to some, would appear creative and interesting to people that accept the difference
•Good taste is plain and ordinary – the ‘norm’
-It doesn’t like change/expressiveness
•Therefore bad taste is exciting and different
- Allows people to be themselves/express themselves freely

There have been debates about what makes something aesthetically pleasing to the eye…
•Again, these opinions boil down to the fact that everyone has their own views on beauty
•Kant theorises that taste is aesthetic in that it can simply be how something makes you feel as a pose to the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses (cognition). As he says taste does not have to be logical but also how pleasing it is to the senses on a basic level based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions
•I believe that this is one aspect of taste but also that other factors can determine why things are considered good or bad taste
•Kant – claims that there is a genuine good taste but it can’t be identified through knowledge from observation/experimentation – empirical evidence
•Taste is both personal and beyond reasoning and therefore disputing over matters of taste never reaches any universality
•Our preferences even on generally liked things do not justify our judgements

Certain piercings
•‘bing’
•‘loud’ clothing

Cultural tastes?
-Traditional dress
-‘Deforming’ the body

Extravagant hair dos
•‘trackies’

•Art gallery – ‘traditional’ taste
•Grayson Perry – not to everyone’s taste – both his work and himself – controversial
•Make up/fake tan
•Fashion
•Advertising
•Diamantes – bling
•Art – different styles

Fat controller– his name in the US; Sir Topham Hatt, is now being used in the UK – not pc to use word ‘fat’ – does this make is bad taste – we grew up calling him the fat controller so are we to be judged when we get it wrong now
•Used to say ‘that’s bad taste’ now its ‘oh no that’s not PC’

•Over time everything changes – eras in art – fashion trends – fads, scoobies + bay blades –
•Vintage + retro + antique – they go out of fashion but years later they are back in – taste changing? Or revisiting past tastes?
•Different socio-economic groups or classes have different tastes
In society taste is an empirical category
The Sociology Of Taste
Jukka Gronow
Taste is something that is different to everyone which is influenced by their ethnic origin, class, beliefs, social group, status, etc.
•In different periods if time their were different laws. Some laws being that only people or higher classes could wear certain clothing


•Hierarchy
•Burberry is a good example of how lower-class copy upper-class in fashion
•Fashion from the upper classes- upper class running middle class fashion!
-Manners suggest taste
-Upper class want to show themselves as different from those with a lower status
-People want to copy higher classes so they too appear of a higher class
•Upper class people don’t need themselves to appear more upper class so they sometimes wear normal clothes
•Some non Upper Class people make more of an effort to wear upper class taste to prove to others they are of a higher class
•Upper class taste is threatened because of it being more accessible to the middle class
- It starts to lose its function to differentiate

•Over consumption!
•Greed – humans will always want more than what they have
•The era of mass consumption marks yet another new kind of consumption and taste pattern
•Beginning from the 18th century, this period can be characterized by increase in consumption and birth of fashion, that cannot be accurately explained only by social status
•Taste also could be seen as a competition as well as greed. People could think that having good taste is a race to buy items first so they are ahead of everyone else

Over consumption!
•Greed – humans will always want more than what they have
•The era of mass consumption marks yet another new kind of consumption and taste pattern
•Beginning from the 18th century, this period can be characterized by increase in consumption and birth of fashion, that cannot be accurately explained only by social status
•Taste also could be seen as a competition as well as greed. People could think that having good taste is a race to buy items first so they are ahead of everyone else

We grew up with different things to older + younger generations
Parent’s taste can influence your tastes but you still develop your own style/taste
Friends and teachers can also influence tastes

Sunday 27 April 2014

Archiving and Conservation; The Order of Things

The Archive
- store - storage + shop
- stuff out of sight - people can't see it

"Monument Men" - new film out

The Canon
- body of work we expect people to know about

Why Conserve? - cultural significance?
- our history - social context - the way forward is knowing what came before
What to conserve?
What does it say about us?

Damien Hurst - Medicine Cabinet 
 like the Wunderkammer
- Archive of transit from life to death 
 - his mother's medicine

Charles Mereweather
could say 
- historical knowledge + ways of remembering stored + passed through word of mouth
- the winners write history

Archival Aesthetic
- social commentary - civilisation
                                    - archaeology
- human/emotional qualities - memory
-formal qualities - classification

Jacques Derrida Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression
Analy retentive - childhood development phases
Libido - drive to create
Thanatos - drive to die
JD says - drive to archive is to drive death away
too much archiving going on

The Saatchi Gallery - "warehouse"

Taste
- aesthetic - looks good
- sociological
- economic
- anthropological - concept
drawing distinctions between things

Brian Eno
Brian Sewell - modernist art critic
- he thinks he has taste and the public don't

Mona Lisa's Smile
Grayson Perry - tapestrys - identifying different makers of taste

Aesthetics - same image it is less beautiful in a different context

Lady Gaga - meat dress
- to accept an award - good/bad taste?
                                            BAD!!!
Liz Hurley Versachi dress
- slightly risky but classy + good taste
    - because of the name associated with it "natural" good taste thing
Chelsea Healey - would in still be in good taste - she's not 'posh'
2nd pic - she didn't care about good/bad taste
dress made to look like a swan - including a head and neck

Grayson Perry - We've found the body of your child
- looks historical - looks like Perry is telling a story of people walking - writing on it no good taste

Antiques Road Show - Bernard Leach pot - ugly green + orange

Hong Kong tycoon
Steven Fry's talk - giving back the Elgen marbles - in British Museum
British Empire - lot of stuff collected what happens at the end?

Bernard Leach - spiritual practice of making things by hand - would show in the finished product 
- his work more than a physical object

Oscar Wilde - Ted Noten tries to be cynical
workshop in Amsterdam vending machine
 -€5 for a ring - not precious
- cheap metal/plastic dipped in red and signed
- be aware of what you're buying

Economics
- Ted Noten rings worth nothing in use exchange values - coins used - become proxy for value

supply and demand
scarcely effects price
- economics what you chose to do with the scarce resource money

guy in China wearing mask - air not clean enough to breath - sued their local council
people sold air above their  building

I Do nail polish - $55,000

JRK's b'day. M Manroe's dress

Picasso + Pollack

Carey Young + Massimo Strpi
 - piece in the "Disclaimer: Value"
Radio4 Freeze Art Fair - people investing rather than buying what they like

Collectable Toys
"Gatekeeping" - a theory in 1950's
looking at food that is put onto the family table - mother is the gatekeeper
 - she decides what is good enough to make it onto the table
media gatekeeping - don't tell you what to think just what to think about - negative with small positive at the end

Kurt Lewin - first person to use the term gatekeeping
- gatekeeper in social system decides what commodities enter the system
tutors are gatekeepers - choose what is important
- political - individuals/institutions control access to power
- media has to contend with social media
                                                   \ people argued don't have gk


Ji Lee Google Me
















Chris Collier Open Exhibitions
research should use work that has passed peer review - work in journals have been peer reviewed - 3 people have looked at it

C Collier - open selection not one person picking and choosing what is good enough

Kirstie Allsop
"anyone can do" making

Tim Parsons Craft Magazine 
- sociology - not just money that is capital
- in some fields of capital - a degree gives you more apital - change nothing in other fields
Fields of value
- where giving art critics power came into play
bitcoins - digital money
craft sometimes isn't about the object 
- its about the practice
makers of richness and taste change over time
- silverware used to show wealth 
- not so much any more
what we choose to archive changes

Craft vs Art

™“Textiles are the first material to touch our skin at birth and what many of us will lay upon at the moment of death. Textiles are the material that covers our bodies every day of our lives; the material we rest between each night. It is the textile that is used to staunch the flow of blood from wounds and protect us against cold and wind and excessive light. They are quite literally an inescapable presence, trailing close behind air, water and food in our list of needs and wants.” Dr Jessica Hemmings
comes from her essay 'A Vivid Vocabulary
Wikipedia definition of textiles:
  • A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands. Textiles are formed by weaving,knitting, crocheting, knotting, or pressing fibres together (felt).
Here she is obviously talking about how, we can't escape textiles, no matter what. They are a very unavoidable part of our everyday lives, they are everywhere you go - unless of course you're a nudist or live in the middle of the jungle. We wear clothes, use a towel to dry ourselves, sleep under bed sheets, sit on furniture covered in material, etc. But what makes fabrics so important? Well according to; 
The Fabric of Everyday Life: Historic Textiles from Karanis, Egypt

A virtual display based on the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology exhibition curated by Thelma K. Thomas (Fall 2001)






fabric has been a basic part of everyday life from prehistoric times. Fabrics meet a range of purposes, because it is such a 'flexible medium'; it can be wrapped around something tightly or loosely draped over another object; it can be woven to one shape, knitted so it stretches and can move with a person's body, or it can be joined together or with different materials to make new items; e.g. 'rag dolls and tents'. 

Archival Photograph: Examples of Textiles
From the exhibition: Kelsey Museum archival photo 7.2522,
showing examples of textiles found at Karanis.
The site then goes onto list ways in which fabric is used;

Hemmings mentions our 'needs and wants', this made me think of our human rights and what actually is included in them. So I looked up 'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights' and came across this; 

Article 25
so not only do we want the newest clothes/fabric decorations to keep in with the latest trends/fashion, but it is actually our right to be able to 'adequately' dress ourselves - unless of course you don't want to be clothed, even then you would still come into contact with other materials/fabrics.

But what happens when trends change and people want to get rid of all their 'outdated' or 'unfashionable' fabrics/clothes/materials. Well some people donate their clothes to charities, put them into clothes banks, or re-sell them, but other times they just get thrown away. This website; http://textilewastediversion.com/necessity-is-the-mother-of-all-invention/, talks about the ways in which throwing away textiles is actually harmful to the environment, and how banning textiles from landfills would be beneficial. It also mentions how some EU countries, who already have this landfill textile ban, have had to come up with other 'green' ways to manage the textiles waste, and by using this technology to turn waste textiles into 'sustainable raw materials', which have uses in commercial, industrial and agricultural applications, they have created new jobs.


Do we take fabrics for granted? Could you imagine living without them?? Aside from a lot of people blushing or being afraid to leave their homes, just think of all the things you wouldn't be able to do. No choosing the perfect 'pulling' outfit on a girly night out, no curtains to block the light when you're trying to sleep, no sheets to wrap up in when you're cold or feeling ill, no more beautiful decorations to brighten up your home, no way to express yourself without words...... the list goes on and on!!! On the up side you would save a hell of a lot of money not buying clothes... and shoes ;) 

Sunday 9 March 2014

Craftivism, Relational Aesthetic

Silas Marner
- The Weaver of Raveloe Parlour

Besty Greer?


- form of activism
  anti-capitalism
  environmentalism
  3rd wave feminism
- centred around craft
mostly knitting - cross-stitch introduced

Graffiti Grannies
Gorilla Gardeners

"engaged creativity"

"making a difference one person at a time"
"creativity to expand previous boundaries + enters the area of activism"
"after 9/11 rising sense of hopelessness been released"

-1970's - 2nd wave of feminism - away from domesticity
-term craftivism -> C21st
-bring back the personal into daily lives - replace some of the mass produced
-craft as subversive - throughout history
-3rd wave feminism - language of choice + freedom - want to be respected whether they work at home or not
-craft seems less important as art - embroidery, dollies to decorate homes
-"public knitting" -men knitting on a grand scale
                          -using cranes to knit
-women didn't weave - just men - women spun - done at home
-until after the industrial revolution - done in factories
-environmentalism + sustainability
  -"bunny love" project - Eden centre
-organic fabrics, vintage, thrifted, repurposed goods
-craft - pre-capitalist - before industrialisation - everything has a "use-value"
    -a very useful tool - more expensive than stuff not useful
-now - "exchange-value" - less emphasis on time + skill - more important to make it available to the public
-DIY - resistence to capitalist nature of fashion industry
   -great British sewing
-making own clothes or buying handmade
  -protest unfair labour practices
-gap between galleries + craftivism
            wants skill /            \ focused on the 'doing'
-knitoscope
-efforts of craftivism - dependant on the internet
-"stitch for senate"
   -group of people to stitch for solider's helmets
-"knit-in"
   -group of people go to a public place and knit
   -make a point -protests - Revolutionary Knitting Circle of Calgery
-Besty Greer - away from domestic action
-Jermaine Greer - rubbish not doing anything
-The Lonely Craftivist
-politics shouldn't be involved
    -don't confuse politics + craft
-"the personal is political" - 2nd wave feminist slogan
   -Besty Greer believes
web links
-labour + product - very different
artist's product but not labour
-Robin Wood - William Morris + Craftivism
-Relational Aesthetics/Relational Art
  mode or tendency in fine art practice
- highlighted by French art critic Nicholas Bourriard
-intersubjective encounters
-perspective - viewer owns the whole painting
    -what they get from it
 -relational art began to question it
  collectively making a meaning
-Ritvit Tiravanija + Carsten Höller
     -makes food + gives it to people that come to the gallery
          -art is in the making + consuming -trace of what's left
Höller - slides at the Tate - stainless steel structure - art of participating
-Antagonism + Relational Aesthetics
   -Claire Bishop -October 04
-where is the aesthetic in relational art
-relational art produced human relations -what types of relations?
-people terrified of community where everyone knows everyone's business
-happy clappy -everything will be lovely when they get together - Bishop is questioning that

Sunday 12 January 2014

Signs of Change

post/industrialisation

agricutural society
manufacturing

slow process

North & South

work mill - moved to India/China

changes
manufacture
technological
communication
information

post industrialisation
- nation passes/dodges a phase of society
information society - knowledge economy - digital citizens

Daniel Bell

The Great Exhibition of 1851
- crystal palace - hyde park
- trade show - 'The British Way' - what Britian made
- people come from all over the world

Paris' Great Exhibition 1990
- the Eiffel Tower

- influencial - development of society
 inc. Art & Design
- lead to V+A eventually

Fordism
Henry Ford
manufacturing system - low cost goods + paid the workers decent wages - so they could buy them
(DeGrazia 2005)

Standardization
Ford doubled wages - justify paying more for non skills

Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times
 Lewis Hine 1974 - 1940
Norma Ray - film
Turner - rain steamtrain
      - captures the intrusion of industrial in the countryside

Head, Hand, Heart - arts & craft movement motto

head - creativity
hand - skill
heart - honesty

Eli Whitney - made a machine to pick seeds from cotton
- unientended consequences 
 - meant more slaves to pick cotton

James Hargreaves - spinning jenny
1856 - first synthetic dye created - by accident

Ghandi Marie

Walter Benjamin essay
'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' 1936
discusses an 'aura' possessed by an original piece of art
- lots of people have reacted to it
Duchant - Urinal
"pure" art
original piece of art has links to here it was made and where viewed
mechanical reproduction

The Slow Movement Carl Honoré
return to traditional forms of production
about trying to do everything at the right speed
quality over quantity

Miguel Adrover 2009
started with recycled fashion then changed to eco fabrics

Kate Malone

Gareth Neal
- wood core material
ghost of furniture past 
- buying the idea of the artist

Daniel Bell
                                         then
economy produces goods ------> provides services
knowledge becomes valid form of capital producing ideas - main way to grow economy

DETROIT
more value given to working with head then hands
beautiful mind

Danny Boyle - nation of ideas
Paul Romer- 
      economic growth
      which education system is best

Kevin Spacey
art + culture are critical, not only for our well being, but for the economy
        
1st second life divorce