fa172-spring2018-epekel-blog

[fa172-spring2018-epekel-blog]

PRESENTATIONS

My group chose the movie called "Fight Club" and try to explain why it has a postmodernist approach. This movement reflects today's world's insecurities about their identity. And movies with this approach, try to destroy audience's suspension of belief. These movies' main characters are usually people who are alienated from society. We can see the main character is just like that in Fight Club.

One of the group made a presentation about women's role in art and talkes about why men were more important in art and then it becomes nearly equal and now, finally women have their parts as much as they deserved. They talkes about Frida Kahlo. And I admire her and her art works. That's why it took my attention.

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WEEK 13

Multimedia appeals to all senses and composed extreme states of subjective experience.This extreme states is to increase knowledge, to transform consciousness and done by individual choices.

First we see the computers to make some calculations but today, we use computer for everything in daily life.

The five characteristics about multimedia: integration, interactivity, hypermedia, immersion, non-linear/ multi-linear narrative.

Without the we cannot use Multimedia.

The most different is the Immersion, I think, because in daily life when we immerge something, we just pay our attention to that and do not care about anything else. Just like when we watch a movie.

And we start to see the word "user" not audience, but we are all users now.

This is the first computer mouse.

Vannevar Bush is an important person who realized free association. It means to come up with the something without thinking.

Marinetti thinks that film is the supreme art because it combines all the forms of art, Moving images and sound...

With Multimedia the understanding changes and the audience becomes participants.

In 1970s Architecture Machine Group created media room where objects on a screen could be moved around by pointing. Which I found different too because I was not expect that the technology in that time would let this kind of room work.

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WEEK 12

REAR WINDOW

Throughout the movie, the main character Jeffrey is watching others, his neighbors. As an audience we are too.

We talked about Primary and Secondary Indentification. First we identifying ourselves with the camera and then with the character.

As we start to get to know Jeffrey, two words come up, Scopophilia and Voyeurism.

Scopophilia means to take pleasure from watching someone when they are naked etc.

Voyeurism means to take pleasure in observing something private.

When Jeffrey realise that someone else is watching him too, his voyeurism ends but not ours. We are still watching them because we are unvisible.

In the movie we can see different types of genres. Muder mystery with Thorwald or domestic comedy with the couple with a dog.

For Jeffrey, watching his neighbors is like watching TV. When he gets bored he switches to other window just like changing the channel.

The name of the movie, Rear Window represents the lens of the camera, film as window of the world. Rear Window is not just a metaphor for film but also for TV.

The director of the movie Alfred Hitchcock was always appear in his movies. It is almost like his signature.

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WEEK 11

In 19th century there were two different opinions on photography. One group says that photography is art and the other group says that it is not. When we look at 20th century, the same split in opinion happens for cinema. Because of it is an technological and mechanical process, some people says that it cannot be considered as art. But actually the only difference is that cinema is using art and science together.

The 1st movie show called Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat by the Lumière Brothers is a silent realistic documentary. Next to screen there were pianos.

A Trip to the Moon is another science fiction movie. It is a fantastic movie that mix reality and fantasy together. Also it seem a little ridiculous when you watch it in this century.

When we talked about Plato's Cave and shadows, I already knew the allegory from my English class this year. So I knew that people in the cave thought that shadows are the reality.

In movies, we except the world that cameramen is showing us. And we identify ourselves with the characters and events in the movies. Watching movies are like excepting someone else's point of view. Also we talked about how watching movies are similar to dreaming. Because we need a dark, silent place for both of them.

And the movie called Truman Show, I watched it 3 or 4 years ago and it was nothing like the other movies that I have watched. Truman thinks that he lives a normal life but actually his whole life is a setup and watching by everyone.

Then we talked about the similarities and differences between Television and Cinema. They are both moving images for sure but they have different size. For example, television is repetitive but movies are memorable.

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WEEK 10

This week we talked about photography. Photography actually means writing with light. The development of photography shows us how Western minds started to see things in different ways.

All of the Renaissance artists are trying to show the perfect and idealize world. It shows us how the world should be.

But in this painting from  Baroque, this time instead of an idealized world, we can see a selective portion of the subject. It is more close to the idea of capturing moment. The word selective becomes important. And it also has the visual balanca with colors in it.

Impressionists were trying to do the same thing actually. They were trying to capture the moment by make us feel the movement of an object. Light is so important for Impressionists.

Since the idea of documenting something gain importance, it makes us get closer to the invention of photography. Camera Obscura used to select a composition. So the artists started to use these devices which shows us that they move away from the idealized world.

This is the first picture of a living person.

In 19th century we see other types of cameras which can reveal motion that can not be seen with the human eye.

Photography may seems like it is objective because it shows us the real view. But still because of it is controlled by the photographer it is subjective.

[fa172-spring2018-epekel-blog]

Blade Runner

In the movie called Blade Runner we can easily observe some Post Modern hints. Science and technology are questioned and shown that they are failed. Blurring the differences between the real and artificial, between the human and replicants.

The movie has a Post Modern aesthetic by mixing texts and images.

The movie happened in the future but intermingling with past.

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WEEK 7

Postmodernism means after Modernism.

It firstly used in Architecture by using modern and traditional elements together.

And shows the image and reality together in the artwork.

The contrast between Modernism and Post Modernism is that they are flat and depthless.

Technology, new social movements, computers and globalisation are some of the properties of Post Modernism.

Modernism rejected decoration. Simplicity and being universal are important for Modernism.

There are also some new vocabulary about Post Modernism. Such as pastiche, parody and remake. Actually I was really surprised when i see the examples from some TV shows and cartoons.

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WEEK 6

This week was about Mass Media.

We saw 3 different manner. The negative, positive and mixed.

Pop Art is counted as mixed response. It is about the modern life. And also it made by skilled artists.

The difference between fine art and the popular culture is that fine art adresses to high culture and popular culture adresses to low culture.

Women is still seen as an sexual object or as an housewife to show men's desire.

And also Mass Culture has some rules;

for example, it has to be low cost, sexy and popular.

American Pop Art was a little bit different, artists appropriate images that are already exist and change it with new concepts.

And it is totally different from advertisement. For example, advertisements are cheap, mass produced and made for sell something but fine art is expensive, made by hand and made for aesthetic pleasure.

There are also some differences between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Abstract Expressionism is emotional and serious but Pop Art is not like that. It is unemotional and ironic.

Andy Warhol is one of the most famous pop artist. He used silk screen method. In America, Pop Art works were in big sizes. What he did is something we can call as repetition.

The differences between Pop Art and Avant Garde Art is that Pop Art uses themes of everyday life but Avant Garde designs objects of everyday life.

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WEEK 5

The Privilage: Creating Art

Women were always in the second plan when it's about power. They are always referred to in terms of a man. People believed that power was only for white men. Women are just objects of desire. Even there were some women artists, they've been forgotten usually.

But in 1980s, women artists started to stand against this ideology. They started to make people think about the role of women in society and art.

They made very personal art works, which you can see both creators and the subject of the work.

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WEEK 4

SURREALISM is an artistic movement which happened in 20th century. And it's not just practiced by painters, it's also practiced by film makers, photographers... The aim of this movement is to question and understand what is reality and how it's represented.

Abstraction is the main thing for Surrealism. The art works are usually illogical and figurative. We can easily see that in Salvador Dali's works.

By being irrational and unconscious Surrealists are trying to shock the viewer. Just like the icon of Surrealism, it seems like it has no meaning.

Also, women is the main object of Surrealism. The object of desire. The focus of this movement is dreams and fantasy.

In Surrealism, we can see disturbing and absurd images and some unnatural combinations. Also, there are no straight time line.

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WEEK 3

With the change in sense of reality, there are different types of reaction from artists.  That harmonious, linear relationship with one center which we saw in Renaissance, has changed into a de-centered,  fluctuating relationship.

Before Modernism, the idea of Humanism sees the human being as a conscious and logical. But Nietzsche and Freud disagreed with this idea. They thought human as unconscious and irrational.

This change also has a result in art. Dadaists, Surrealists came out. To find a universal language they try to use abstraction.

And there are different types of responses to this crisis.  Nihilists were the ones who went insane and committed suicide. (Nietzsche and Van Gogh)

Decadents were trying to relieve the pain by using drugs, alcohol or violent experience. Their works considered as extremely destructive. (Oscar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele) Gustov was one of them and he was affected by Japan art. His works had so many small details. He used golden as a color. And his landscape work was way more abstract. 

Aestheticists treated art as independent and irrational. (Symbolists)

Paul Gauguin and  Marc Chagall were the ones who escaped into past.

But the Futurists celebrated the modern world, because of the size of modern industrial society.

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The Second Week was mainly about the function of Art and Artists in Society.

We learned that the Artists have their roles as skilled worker, intellectual, entepreneur, social critic and social healer.

As skilled worker artist has to be able to solve physical and technical problems. For them the perfect and flawlwss technique is the goal. Their main weakness is that they are conservative. Dadaists are good as an example for this.

As intellectual, artists are discoverers. They think art as an educator. Their weakness is that there is a possibility that public may not understand. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci.

As entrepreneur, artists earn money by selling their works. For them art is independent from church but not free from market.

As social critic, artists think that art fights against injustice. Barbara Kruger is one of them. Their weakest point is that societies don't want to change and resist.

As social healer, artists think that art is expressing truth for better future. Artists are concerned with human relationships. Abstact Expressionists can be considered as an example.

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The first week of Fall

In Art and Culture classes, this week we started with 19th and 20th century art and also contemporary and modern art movements.

One of my favourite topic for this week was the modern art. Because it's making more sense for my way of seeing for art.

In 19th century Art has started with romantism. Romantic artists are mostly worked on the bound between human beings and nature. The mystery of the nature is really interesting for them. Realist artists are totally different from them, they are only tyring to show the real part of life, the truth and nothing more. Impressionist artists are mainly work with colors and find different methods. Post Impressionists artists such as Van Gogh, are trying to move on with the same idea as impressionist artists but they changed it a little.

In 20th century we are starting with Fouvism. In fouvism the artists are started to change the technique. With Picasso they also take the first step to Cubism. In Dadaism the only rules they have is that there is none. Surrealist artists are mainly worked on dreams. In Expressionism art is about abstract things. In Pop Art we can easily understand that that the artists are against to mass production.

Modern art usually tries to give massages about social problems. Also they are trying to give another meaning to a drawing. Frida Kahlo and Andy Warhol are some examples for Modern Art artists. And we all know this painting from Andy Warhol.