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[orchid-cs]

#ON ADVERTISING

Years of painting and sculpture stand under the spotlight of gaze-theorist.

John Berger, in his essays “Ways of Seeing” discussed the way in which art has been traditionally created: “The ideal spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman designed to flatter him.”

According to Berger this has ever since shaped the relations between men and women in the sense that: “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

Furthermore, Berger inquired into the ability of a group of people to look upon another without restrictions. (Specific example: Men and Women.)

// The gaze

Going back before the 20th century, the gaze was discussed within its medium: therefore early critics’ analysis did not extend the canvas itself.

However, regarding contemporary art criticism, the gaze is considered a tool of communication & transmitter of information about both the viewer and the viewed. The gaze can exceed the medium and contain social indications, either than just a function within the work itself creating a link between art form and social theory. Berger discusses how the gaze is in fact a tool to look into the way the privileged and the prevailing choose to see the world, how gender, sexual difference and marginalization of oppressed people are constructed also directly connected with the representation of all of the above.

“In short, the gaze is about who controls representation.”

Michel Foucault in “Las Meninas” explores how the spectator himself becomes the subject of the painting, as he remains a spectator gazing at the painting, concluding so that no gaze is stable, but relays in an interchange of roles constantly.

// Advertisement beyond 1972

Berger examines how “Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable.” The main purpose of publicity and advertising is to impose dissatisfaction into the spectator with his present way of life, by suggesting that if he buys what it is being offered his life will improve. The main aims and concept of advertising to nowaday have not changed much, creating so want and desires that would not exist otherwise, by creating a sense of false needs. There’s a massive list of products that are consumed today, that would not exist without the advertising such as: cigarettes, mouthwash, cosmetics, supplement medicine, soft drinks, etc. Print ads and broadcast ads display a narrative where purchasing the product leads to the object of desire, a promise of sexual success by becoming more attractive to a partner or making it easier to keep one. The right choice of shampoo or chewing gum got the partner; the right choice of moisturizer kept him interested. Later on 1980s advertisers came to the realization that the old scenarios lost their influence in an audience overwhelmed by advertising which started to become cynical and sceptic. KITSCH ART & CULTURE No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition. – Writer, Milan Kundera Kitsch propaganda has been the ultimate tool for a large group of dictators in history and nowadays as well, to assure their absolute authority. It started with the concept of “Cult of Personality” which emerged in Soviet Union by Stalin in 1929. Media of the time (press) portrayed and presented Stalin an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, concluding in his image being ubiquitous. But later on the recent years: - Muammar Gaddafi the leader of Libya was referred to as “the kitsch dictator”, - Saddam Husein’s design of monuments in the same stalinist spirit. - Al-Qaeda propaganda uses images of sunrises, Eden like images and even gothic images of skulls and bones. This attraction for kitsch is highly related to a phenomenon of deculturation, as an emerged term in sociology sciences related with the effects of colonialism and loss of culture. Nowadays kitsch is also highly related with technology as well. Social media is a pure example of how individuals are able to redefine themselves without being confronted with the culture of the other, and also having an infinite access on the pop culture making it more easily accessible than ever by following some well-defined social standards & artificial intelligence algorithms on which books, films, or what to access based on previous choices. Advertisers on the other hand are both manipulator and manipulated because they must interject their product into an ongoing system of signs. Their effect depends on extending a set of cultural associations. Clearly advertising is participating in a much larger cultural discourse where fat is viewed as ugly and aging as repulsive, but more importantly, where personal empowerment is expressed in terms of controlling ones’ body image. Thus human agency can be summed up in Nike’s slogan “Just Do It!” The problem for scholars critical of the effects of consumerism and who advocate change is how to get their students to interrogate the chains of assumptions in the rhetoric of personal empowerment.

____________________________________ References: Berger, J. “Ways of Seeing”, Chapter 7 https://www.ways-of-seeing.com/ch7 [Accessed: March 1,2018] Foucault,M. “Las Meninas” [Accessed: March 1,2018]

[orchid-cs]

Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange” film-sound analysis

STANLEY KUBRICK Stanley Kubrick was Born in New York City on July 26, 1928, where he worked as a photographer for Lookmagazine to later explore filmmaking in the 1950s directing so some of the cult movies on the cinema’s history, including Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) etc.  Kubrick is well-known for its elegant juxtaposition of sound in his masterpieces as well as what is referred to as ‘diegetic sound’ (sound which presence is implied off screen by actions which include voices, laughs, distant sounds of objects in the story etc.).

“Kubrick really understood the rhythmic impact of two images coming together. He also had an extraordinary feel for the pace or tempo, a musical term, of a given scene.” (Scorcesse, M.)

#A clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange (1971) starts in its opening scene with the Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, creating a contradiction of order that pervades society therefore listing so a number of issues the movie directs, such as violence, sexual-desire, order, ‘panopticon and panopticism’, Foucault, perception, politics, and furthermore. Kubrick is a real master in implementing a fourth dimension in his movies, by an exquisite choice of classic music (including original one as well as new synthesised versions). The choice of specifically using Henry Purcell, Ludwig van Beethoven, Gioachino Rossini, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Edward Elgar’s music, comes as a result of adding up to Kubrick’s main theme which is the idea of: a society of control vs. a society of freedom. What makes it even more extraordinary is the use of a ‘synthesiser’ version of the original symphony as played by Wendy Carlos.

In 1968 a Moog synthesiser was a quite unknown instrument for the time, until Wendy Carlos would remake a whole new version of Johann Sebastian Bach's six "Brandenburg Concertos”  and turn it into the most influential Electronic/classical recording of all time, destroying so the separation and distinctive borders between classical and synthesised music. Her work winning three Grammys later on sent an important comment on the world, by marking so a new era where synthesiser started being considered a real instrument and no more just a bizarre tool used to make unusual robotic sounds. At the same time Dolby had long trying to fight Hollywood’s conservative attitude towards new technology, by stating that noise reduction could have a huge impact. It was Rachel Elkind, together with Wendy Carlos that managed to fix a meeting between Ioan Allen (Dolby Studios) and Kubrick to discuss Dolby’s innovative ideas. Kubrick accepted to be the experiment on these new technologies, not knowing he would shape the further sound design of Hollywood productions.

The film industry noticed the  impact the sound had on a Clockwork, therefore the use of Dolby technology became the standard. Jumping back on the storyline:

Quite Shakespeare-like, Alex – who is also the narrator – uses made up words to introduce us to his “droogs”. There are four of them including Alex, and they are all in white clothes. So far, we are seeing and hearing arbitrary and extraordinary things and words, a total challenging of concepts of normality, order, language (therefore perception) and society. This distorted language and setting meets perfectly with the synthesiser version of Purcell – the distortion of harmony, melody and order. The narrator tells the audience that the kind of drugged milk they drink gives them the energy they need for the good old “ultra-violence”. By ultra-violence, Alex means rape and violence, which he and his “droogies” are so fascinated by. This power to commit acts of violence comes from the breasts of a woman (like a mother figure), but both the milk (drug) and the mother figure (nude, posing seductively) is tainted just like the way something just as pure as classical music is tainted with a synthesiser. Moving forward to another scene the gang are seen to approach a “HOME” where a married couple depicting sophistication and order live, for some more violence. By the time they ring the doorbell the first notes of Beethoven’s 5th symphony’s emerge by giving so the message that something is about to happen (furthermore the movie reveals, Beethoven as a depiction of an alarm for another violent event about to happen) What happens next is pure acts of violence and rape, where they tie and beat up the old man and force him to watch the rape of his wife, while right at this moment Carlos’ synthesised version of Purcell emerges and starts playing again, throwing the audience again in disorder, apathy and lack of humanity. Back on Korova Milk Bar which seems to be this reflecting symbolic environment where the movie goes back and forth for more ‘hidden’ symbolic and metaphorical messages and where Alex embraces his role as the narrator, the focus jumps this time to the characters around the room, who make Alex and the rest of the gang look unfit for the place with their bowties and suits. At this exact moment a woman starts singing Beethoven symphony 9 right after Purcell came to an end. As he enters the apartment building, a different synthesiser version of Purcell is heard while Alex still whistles along. And as soon as that different version is heard, the camera turns to an art piece where  are penises drawn or scratched on nearly every depiction of man, and there are many other drawings on the actual art piece that make fun of the painting. This childish mocking and degrading of art is also the continuity of disorder, violence and sex motives of the film. In this case, Purcell’s different synthesiser version somehow refers more to the disruption of art and perception, and not mainly to physical violence and rape. Purcell is the holistic account of the film. As Alex enters the apartment, what is heard is another synthesiser version of Purcell, to right away show around drawn penises turned to art pieces, and drawings of them on top of real art pieces and so on, to a hysterical extent. The comment Kubrick is trying to make in this scene, is just a further depiction of disruption, disorder and mocking chaos. 

“Purcell is the holistic account of the film.” (Bali, S.)

What depicts the heaviest symbolism of all scenes after the audience have have been involved in the roller-coaster of sound switch from classical to synthesised/distorted understanding finally what each one represents in this spiral of order and disorder, is Alex entering his room, giving us the first private approach, in a moment when the transition from Purcell’s “disorder” into the original version of Beethoven’s Symphony 9 happens.

What is definitely not expected in this scene is the tidiness in Alex’s room which does not fit with the image portrayed so long into the movie of him, but the order found in his surrounding now justifies Beethoven’s Symphony 9. What the order in his room is trying to depict is what was forced and the influence educated by his parents, since in this scene we also find out he still lives in his parent’s house.

The parallelism is given in the sense of Alex’s parents disrupting his inner/real nature in the same way that Kubrick uses synthesiser to distort Purcell. Alex is given as a representation of a new shaping in society, destroying so violently an imposed order by society, by the same matter that Carlos new understanding of music breaks the barrier of the untouchable classical music.

However, what one can state is also that Alex never really commits the acts of violence while Symphony 9 plays, but instead he just imagines them.

The Guillame Tell’s overture on the other hand fits the next scene perfectly as if it was made for it.

“It seemed to me a good way to satirise what had become the fairly common use of slow-motion to solemnise this sort of thing, and turn it into ‘art’. The Guillaume Tell’s Overture also seemed a good musical joke to counter the standard Bach accompaniment.” (Kubrick, S.)

Next, the film takes another turn and the scenery changes, as Alex is imprisioned for fourteen years. An above point of view is given of the prison while Guillaume Tell’s overture / opera is playing non-diegetically to glorify Alex’s fight against authority and make the audience sympathise him a bit.

This is however the first very obvious reference of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon.                   

Panopticon is an architectural project for a prison, drawings of which were published on 1791 by Jeremy Bentham. The prison consists of a circular architecture, where cells are placed on the external wall facing the main central tower, where that main point would keep the surrounding cells constantly under surveillance without the prisoners knowing when they would be watched.

What Michel Foucault did later in 1975 was apply this architectural design to develop it further and apply it as a theory to modern society, in his book Discipline and Punish. “Knowledge linked to power, not only assumes the authority of 'the truth' but has the power to make itself true.” (Foucaul, M.)

Furthermore, Foucault discusses that a constant surveillance of society becomes part of the observed’s nature to a certain point that the observed becomes on its own an apparatus of surveilling himself. Regarding Alex’s time in the prison, he dedicates it to reading the Bible and imagining all sort of controversial scenes of whipping Jesus while Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade: the Sea and Sinbad’s Ship plays as the soundtrack. However all the flow of his imagination is interrupted by the priest of the prison. For the first time in the film we hear the term Ludovico Treatment, which apparently was a form of therapy, while Alex requests from the priest to be used on him. Right here, we have another reference and example of Foucault’s theory, on how Alex himself depicts an eagerness to be treated. During the whole film, Kubrick seems to mock England’s authority, by overdramatising everything from the acting to the sound use to a level that it almost becomes a parody, and this is enforced even more when the Minister of the Interior of England pays a visit to the prison to inspect furthermore the order. Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 is Kubricks choice for this particular scene, which takes the mockery of England’s authority to another level, stating the obvious.

Furthermore, one of the most uncomfortable/controversial moments of the movie emerges: Alex’s treatment. During his treatment Alex is given a paralysis drug in order for him to remain static while he is forced to watch various depictions of violence and rape in the screen. At the moment Hitler appears and concentrations camps, distorted Wendy Carlos’ version of Beethoven’s symphony 9 emerges once again, diegetically. At this particular moment the audience is already been trained through the movie that that is the main trigger for disorder and that this symphony remains precious and untouched to Alex. Alex requires the interruption of the treatment while yelling “It’s a sin! He did no harm to anyone! Beethoven just wrote music!”

As for Foucault’s relation to the sound use of Kubrick, it gets its explanation and becomes more obvious by this particular moment.

Explaining the symbolisms: The “panopticon” prison and Ludovico Treatment Facility are references to the observing society. Alex - the antithesis of society has finally reached what Foucault argued as the peak where the observed makes a natural habit of his own surveillance. Beethoven - on the other hand is a representative of Alex’s nature, the real him, what makes him the unfit for the society and what they ware aiming to treat and change about him. His awareness of him destroying his own true self is what triggers him to beg them to stop. the Guillaume Tell – depicting the oppression of revolt as Alex is taken to the prison/panopticon.

By the ending of the treatment, the Minister of the Interior organises a presentation of Alex, which does indeed ring a bell, reminding one of modern society governments showcasing their authority and control with each success, but what draws really the attention here is the phrase “Observe all” a direct reference to panopticism.

The emerge of another overly theatrical scene of mockery where someone shames and violates Alex to the point of licking his shoe, accompanied in the mean time by musical non-diegetic sounds, presents a changed Alex disgusted by it all. His disgust grows bigger when they put a woman only wearing underpants in front of him, where the idea of bare breasts emphasises the disgust he feels. However on this particular moment a non-diegetic synthesized version of Purcell emerges to depict the sexual desires of Alex, but however he does not respond to that desire anymore. Regarding his return home, he shortly after arriving finds out someone replaced him in his room, and his parents do not want anything to do with him anymore. As we empathically feel Alex’s sadness the Guillaume Tell’s overture starts playing non-diegetically, depicting once more since the prison scene the oppression of revolt and the winning of authority. Lately, Purcell emerges once more when Alex get confronted by Dim and George (his used to be droogs), at this moment they try to drown him and hit him with a truncheon, but however the interesting element here is that the truncheon sound starts interacting by distorting the music on each hit, and since Purcell depicts Alex, we get a portrayal of a weaker Alex. The movie seems to be taking a circular curve, turning back to the places which are already fmiliar for the audience such as the home where Alex raped a wife in front of her husband,  for Alex to find out the writer is crippled and his wife died. Alex relaxes taking a bath and joining for dinner while the writer drugs him. The writer, mr. Alexander, is in fact part of a party which is strongly against the Ludovico treatment method, considering it highly inhumane. What the whole plan consists is on making Alex suicide in order to show how dangerous and unbenefitable the treatment is, but also to benefit on the scandal to replace the actual government.

Beethoven’s 9th symphony emerges once more ripping Alex off his humanity, and since the version playing it’s the synthesized/sitorted one, it is depicting the corruption of the party, who hypocritically are against inhumanity but are at the same time sacrificing Alex.

Next is a vibrant version of Purcell playing while Alex wakes up to find his parents present in the hospital, regarding an accident, of him throwing himself from the window. However this version of Purcell depicts also the change in Alex, following tests done by a psychiatrist. However since Alex mentions dreams he had about someone interacting with his brain, one can fairly suggest that another treatment has taken place this time without any consent. What follows later, is a visit from the Minister of the Interior who recites his prepare speech and continues by making Alex knee to his power.

The movie ends with a pair of gigantic speakers playing the finale of the original version of Beethoven Symphony 9 while Alex smiles in relief while he is dro wn back in his imagination of raping and the society applauding him. However, one will forget the crimes of Alex and instead be cheered on the side of the ruling party, while he himself becomes a tool of propaganda and bows down to authority.

As a conclusion, Purcell and Beethoven are the holistic accounts of the movie. The music choice of Kubrick is creating indeed paradoxes and contradictions of being outlandish, disturbing  and at times comforting. What the electronic sounds of Carlos’ synthesizer did was giving the movie it’s 4th dimension of atmosphere. Therefore the music was integral to the story. The comforting order scenes were given by the original classics while the disturbing violent ones were alerted by Carlos’ treatment of the originals by distorting them making these scenes even more controversial. Lastly, Kubrick’s genius treatment of implementing the panopticism theory to explain governmental surveillance and how we suppress instincts due to a panopticon surveillance, adds up as the strongest comment on his film, ending it with a strong statement of control and authority as we observe Alex bow down and accept becoming a tool of propaganda for the leading party. ___________________________________________________ #REFERENCES

Scorcesse, M. Available at: http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/filmmusic/scoring.php Accessed: [ 11 April 2018] Macris, A. The Immobilised Body: Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange Accessed: [11 April 2018] Foucault, M. (1995) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Accessed: [11 April 2018]

#Bibliography

Foucault, M. (1995) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage McDougal, Stuart Y. (2003) Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 125. Google Books. Google Inc. Web. 21 May 2016. .

Ciment,M. (2003) Kubrick: The Definitive Edition 

Burgess,A. (1988) A Clockwork Orange (Harmondsworth: Penguin,)

Polan, D. (1989) “Jack and Gilles: Reflections on Deleuze’s Cinema of Ideas”, Art and Text, vol. 34 , pp. 23-30 Barr, Ch. (1972) “Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange and the Critics”, Screen, vol. 13, no. 2 Duncan, P. (2003). Stanley Kubrick: The Complete Films.  McDougal, Stuart Y. (7 July 2003). Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange Volkmann, M. (16 October 2006). "A Clockwork Orange" in the Context of Subculture Powrie, P. and Stilwell, R. (2017). Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film. London. McQuiston, K. (2013). We'll Meet Again: Musical Design in the Films of Stanley Kubrick. p.Chapter 7   Musical Dialectics and the More Troublesome Beethoven. Geselowitz, M. (2016). The Masterpiece Behind the Music in A Clockwork Orange - IEEE - The Institute. [online] Theinstitute.ieee.org. Available at: http://theinstitute.ieee.org/tech-history/technology-history/the-masterpiece-behind-the-music-in-a-clockwork-orange [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018]. #LIST OF IMAGES: fig.1, McDonald, N. Meet Wendy Carlos: Godmother of Electronic Music and Badass Trans Woman. [image] Available at: https://thump.vice.com/en_ca/article/53agdb/meet-wendy-carlos-godmother-of-electronic-music-and-badass-trans-woman [Accessed 5 May 2018]. fig.2, [image] Available at: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d7/53/f7/d753f70524fa077121006012de3ecbce--a-clockwork-orange-prison.jpg [Accessed 5 May 2018]. fig.3 Bentham, J. , panopticon. [image] Available at: http://www.ethics.org.au/on-ethics/blog/july-2017/explainer-the-panopticon [Accessed 5 May 2018].

[orchid-cs]

#White Cube, once more

In the essay “Context as Content”, O’Doherty brings to attention the famous art installations by Marcel Duchamp, 1,200 Coal Bags (1938) and Mile of String (1942), pointing that Duchamp was indeed a pioneer in transforming the gallery space into the primary material altered by art.

“Designed to accommodate the prejudices and enhance the self-image of the upper middle classes” the white cube comes to attention as a result of a consumerist approach to art. Therefore, the gallery space itself becomes the mark of some revolutionary, radical artistic gestures during the 70’s. The last essay “The Gallery as Gesture” on the other hand brings to attention and discussion a wide range of comments and manipulations made on the gallery space, in other words gestures that comment on both the art within and also to a wider concept, commenting on the elements such as the street, business, money etc, of which the gallery is the content. Such example to further elaborate such notion is Yves Klein’s Galerie Iris Clert exhibition The Void.

The concept behind this exhibitions was merely simple: Klein emptied the Gallery except for a single display case by painting it in a shiny white monochrome color and later on calling it a piece of art. “Recently my work with color has led me, in spite of myself, to search little by little, with some assistance (from the observer, from the translator), for the realization of matter, and I have decided to end the battle. My paintings are now invisible and I would like to show them in a clear and positive manner, in my next Parisian exhibition at Iris Clert’s." However for Klein himself the empty gallery did not represent an artwork, but the emptiness and the void created by the whole atmosphere. The Void, represented a public act, an event for masses to participate in. Counting further examples of these gestures, such as Marcel Duchamp’s Urinal (Fountain), The wrapping of the entire Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art in tarpaulin in 1969, etc. all these gestures share a common sense of their understanding of the gallery space as a void full of this content that once was property of art. All in all, it was nothing but a reaction to the bourgeois, commercial, consumerist attitude towards art, that triggered artists into making works which were not intended to last and also existed in the outside of the walls of an exhibition space and could not be acquired, therefore, bringing the problematics together with social and political questions. VR TECHNOLOGY EMERGED, WHAT’S WITH ARTS THOUGH?

Virtual reality technology has developed and evolved into a very accelerated speed, but such technology is also finally intertwining with the art world. The new generation of artists are producing virtual reality artworks, some of which now find space of even displaying and exhibiting in galleries, challenging so the whole concept of the White Cube of O’Doherty.  Such development opened a totally new way of exhibiting artworks for museums and galleries by creating augmented realities and immersive environments. Google has teamed up with a wide range of museums to create walk-through experiences, and also a stream of 3D imagery found on the Dulwich Picture Gallery (London), BOZAR (Brussels), Museum de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro and the Robben Island Museum in Cape Town.

One of the most intriguing works I personally found fascinating is that of Rachel Rossin, an artist who uses the medium of painting and virtual reality projects. On her work “Man Mask”, you find yourself in a “Call of Duty” game kind of scenery, but with a touch of distortion from the artist. Rossin transformed the game’s soldiers into this translucent shades while a woman singing and reciting mantra of happiness and  peace appears.

A still from Rachel Rossin’s “Man Mask.” CreditNew Museum But furthermore, what works well as a medium for game designers may not be equally applicable for the fine artists, for whom the medium it is supposed to be tool of a larger concept in the final product. The greatest lesson modernism ever preached was: “Art is more than mere illusion, and it gains further meaning by pushing media to the limits of their capabilities.” The real challenge is how to implement virtual reality, (a medium with no limits, able to imitate life itself as well as create a parallel one) and make it a powerful medium of more complexity because it would indeed be a pity if we waste such wander. _____________________ REFERENCES: O’Doherty, B. (1986) Inside the White Cube. Farago, J. (2017) Virtual Reality Has Arrived in the Art World. Now What? Accessed: [28 March ,2018] Available at:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/virtual-reality-has-arrived-in-the-art-world-now-what.html

[orchid-cs]

#Inside The White Cube

The work is isolated from everything that would detract from its own evaluation of itself. This gives the space a presence possessed by other spaces where conventions are preserved through the repetition of a closed system of values. So powerful are the perceptual fields of force within this chamber that, once outside it, art can lapse into secular status. conversely, things become art in a space where powerful ideas about art focus on them.' (O'Doherty, Pg.14) 'A gallery is constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval church. The outside must not come in, so windows are usually sealed off... In this context a standing ashtray becomes almost a sacred object.' (pg.15) O’Doherty makes an obvious reference to medieval church architecture, by bringing to attention a connection between a religious space and an art gallery space, where the connection lays in the strict rules of honouring what both these spaces contain inside, respectively in this case God and Art. A church is a place detached from the outside, it’s a temple which does not have distractions from the content it holds, which effect the gallery similarly tried to imitate. A gallery is a space where one can not be a prey of distractions either, embracing the presentation of the art.

“…the outside world must not come in” (pg.15) In the 19th century paintings were a medium which covered walls  and almost created the effect of a wallpaper, frames were overcrowded almost overlapping, and there wasn’t much space spared to create such thing as distance which barely existed. There was a logical rule of placing the bigger ones on the top because they could be viewed even from far away and placing smaller ones on the bottom to have the accessibility of approaching closer. 'Each picture was seen as a self contained entity, totally isolated from its close neighbour by a heavy frame around and a complete perspective system within' (O’Doherty, B. pg.16). Paintings in the 19th century used heavy overloaded frames. While the painting itself was already surrounded by the attention drawing frame there were also a whole crowd of such painting surrounding this one as well,  therefore it was difficult for one to engage into focusing and concentrating in one artwork at the time. This pushed people to start thinking of the effect that would be created if the frame was to be removed, what effect it would have. Invention of photography brought the first changes in the way of exhibiting an artwork. Photography was the first medium to move away from the use of the overloaded frames and developed to being mounted on board, making so the subject more inviting. Furthermore, regarding the function of the white cube, he looks up deeper into Modernism and in the end of 19th century and early 20th century focusing on the problem of exhibiting art in a gallery. According to O’Doherty the gallery space turned into a white cube, to give the strong aesthetic  force of modifying any work, but also make it pop bringing all attention to it creating so a space of contending ideologies, as he noted ““The wall, the context of the art, had become rich in a content it subtly donated to the art.” There were examples that reflected this theory such as William Anastasi’s famous series of photos, where he photographed the walls of the New York Dwan Gallery and exhibited this photos on the same walls he photographed.

                  William Anastasi, Dwan Gallery New York “The Eye and the Spectator” He discussed such problem of the individual eye that makes a separation of itself from the body to engage into the flat surface of the modernist easel painting.  Furthermore O’Doherty makes a separation of the viewer into The Eye “the disembodied faculty that relates exclusively to formal visual means” and the Spectator the “attenuated and bleached-out life of the self for which the Eye goes forth and which, in the meantime, does nothing else” (O’Doherty, p9.) Elaborating to a further extent, the Spectator is a representation of a mass ready to “swallow” everything offered, revealing so a thoughtless examination making moreover no attempt to “look behind the scenes”. However, on the contrary the Eye represents aesthetic liability and an intelligence in being able to examine conceptually. 

[orchid-cs]

#Avant-garde & Kitsch

Analysis of the  ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’, by Clement Greenberg

Avant-garde and Kitsch are two distinctive notions of art, that came up on the period when there were no factors that had influenced art so far that would not be questioned, as a result raising for the first time in decades the question of what was acceptable art. Therefore in 1939, the Marxist critic Clement Greenberg would publish the famous essay appearing in Partisan Review, discussing the contrast and the choice between ‘Avant-garde & Kitsch’. On explaining the significance of the avant-garde tradition, his definition of avant-garde was a demand for a “ superior consciousness” which occurs simultaneously with a disclosure of modern thinking. Therefore this would lead in the creation of art for art’s sake, and in avant-garde artists ( Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Pollock, Kandinsky, etc.) finding their main inspiration within their medium. However, as a Marxist Greenberg pointed some issues regarding the avant-garde culture by noting that “ This culture contains within itself some of the very Alexandrianism it seeks to overcome.” By that he meant that artists rely on capitalism and sponsors, making the artist depended on bourgeois, and a contradiction of the artistic ‘freedom’ relying on these elites. “…the avant-garde itself, already sensing the danger, is becoming more and more timid every day that passes. Academicism and commercialism are appearing in the strangest places. This can mean only one thing: that the avant-garde is becoming unsure of the audience it depends on — the rich and the cultivated.” (Greenberg, C.) Avant-garde came to attention as abstract art. However, abstract art such as Pollock’s action paintings, seemed less shaped and effortless, being considered a mishmash of splatted paint,  or lacking of the factors that had made a piece of art, art so far.

                                     Blue, Poles  Jackson Pollock The opposite concept of avant-garde is the concept of ‘Kitsch’. Differently from avant-garde which was associated with the elite-class, on the contrary kitsch is associated with the masses, meaning its audience was associated not with intellectuals or critics of art, but the masses looking for some sort of pop culture, diverse, but not thinking-demanding art. —kitsch, as defined by Greenberg:“…popular, commercial art and literature with their chromeotypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc…” If avant-garde presents unconsciousness, on contrary kitsch is a representative of conscious, making it effortless to come to an understanding and meaning of an artwork, while its subject relies simply to the looks, leaving no room for deeper interpretation. Avant-garde is beauty in purpose and on a deeper matter of thinking and technique, while Kitsch imitates the effect of art becoming so an accidental beauty. Greenberg’s concerns laid in the issue of what was becoming termed “academic art” and how kitsch was cultivating an insensibility, by being a product of formulas and fake sensation, demanding in return nothing but money. Historical factor that contributed to Kitsch was the industrial revolution, making Kitsch a product of it. The masses, proletariat class were given fake art, kitsch, which used an unsatisfactory imitation of authentic culture. According to Greenberg, despotic regimes were not embracing avant-garde art due to the tactic that the government propaganda would not be efficient using avant-garde art as a tool to disperse it, because of the public's low possibility of understanding, therefore he considered the avant-garde culture to be essentially critical and unfitting as a propaganda tool by stating:  “It is for this reason that the avant-garde is outlawed, and not so much because a superior culture is inherently a more critical culture”. (Greenberg, C.) EXAMPLES OF KITSCH AND AVANT-GARDE - Avant-Garde - 

                           Raoul HausmannThe Art Critic 1919–20 One of the avant-garde movements is also Dadaism, which came as a result of World War I, and was an opposition of cultural, political factors that Dadaists thought had lead to World War I in the first place and intended to provoke a shock or outrageous, rule-breaking response. And indeed such movement opened the door to many future art. A wellknown founder of the Berlin Dada group was Raoul Hausmann who used the medium of satirical collage to depict political issues and protest. The collage portrays an art critic who has a banknote on the back of his neck, depicting corruption and the control of capitalist force. The words on the back of the figure are Hausmann’s poem, which are also pasted in Berlin’s wall. - Kitsch - 

                            Red Ballon Dog, Jeff Koons “I believe in advertisement and media completely” (Koons, J.) Jeff Koons is a pop-culture artist, exploring the theme of pleasure as in relation with taste, celebrity and commerce.What draws ones attention regarding his materials is the seductive commercial component they own, such as a luxury shine, chromium, etc. “Red balloon dog”, is part of his ‘Celebration’ series, consisting in a wide range of sculptures celebrating the festive-consumerist culture, including objects such as balloons, easter eggs, party hats etc. Red balloon dog draws one attention with the bright red shiny smooth surface, taking the element of kitsch in a sphere of high art even though the sincerity of the work remains unclear.  Kitsch and politics in the world nowadays No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition. – Writer, Milan Kundera Kitsch propaganda has been the ultimate tool for a large group of dictators in history and nowadays as well, to assure their absolute authority. It started with the concept of “Cult of Personality” which emerged in Soviet Union by Stalin in 1929. Media of the time (press) portrayed and presented Stalin an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, concluding in his image being ubiquitous.  But later on the recent years: - Muammar Gaddafi the leader of Libya was referred to as “the kitsch dictator”, - Saddam Husein’s design of monuments in the same stalinist spirit. - Al-Qaeda propaganda uses images of sunrises, Eden like images and even gothic images of skulls and bones. This attraction for kitsch is highly related to a phenomenon of deculturation, as an emerged term in sociology sciences related with the effects of colonialism and loss of culture. Nowadays kitsch is also highly related with technology as well. Social media is a pure example of how individuals are able to redefine themselves without being confronted with the culture of the other, and also having an infinite access on the pop culture making it more easily accessible than ever by following some well-defined social standards & artificial intelligence algorithms on which books, films, or what to access based on previous choices.

[orchid-cs]

#7Theorists, #7SummarisedIdeas

1. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) The German philosopher Nietzsche provided one of the most influential themes with a great importance and influence to Postmodernism and Poststructuralism, taking in observation and bringing in attention two poles in the Greek tragedy the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Apollonian represents order, beauty seen as static and well defined, and also clearly marked borders while on the other hand Dionysian represents the opposite, lack of marked borders, rebellion to being defined and excess. The first one stands for objectively oriented while the second is deeply subjective. Nietzsche locates the appreciation of arts to come from self-determination on finding a meaning into relaying in arts to improve current state of life. What mostly shaped the theory of Postmodernism and developed the critical studies about it, were his questioning of the verity in between power and knowledge.

2. Jacques Lacan

Lacan is influenced by Surrealism therefore his theory lies in the belief that the subject is dependent on three orders: Symbolic, The Imaginary, and the Real,  on the subject of normal developmental stages of infancy, where:

The Symbolic is the development of language,

The Imaginary is is such idea of reality that one forms by seeing or observing their-self as an object, referred to as ‘The Mirror Stage’.

Lastly, the Real is what is still present left from our pre- developing-language selves and what Lacan suggests creates the subconscious.

According to Lacan, we should approach art from two perspectives such as recognising our desire in what we are looking at and to focus our attention on the understanding of the text rather than on the psychology of the author.

3. Julia Kristeva (1941 - present) Kristeva, moved forward from pre-defined Structuralist theories and notions to arguing the social, cultural phenomena as “in process”. She elaborated further on the concept of “intertextuality” (every text is a descendant of a previous one, signifying systems), meaning the new combined text becomes even more contextualised than the roots from where it came from, leaving it in the readers hand to find the meaning or message. The idea of not existing of such thing as ‘created in a cultural vacuum’ but everything was indeed created relaying in previous and past references, challenges Modernists ideas on originality and uniqueness of thought and individuality of artistic expression. Furthermore, the concept of the abject is explained and referred to as a dominant theme of Postmodernism, where abject stands for anything that goes against the structuralist, pre defined socially accepted rules. She describes the act of self-protection from the horror as “loathing” that provokes “ vomiting or retching” that turns her away from the scene of disgust.

4. Gilles Deleuze (1925 - 1995) - a french philosopher who showed a better acceptance  and optimism towards systematic thinking than the rest of Poststructuralists, also furthermore less scepticism of empiricism, embracing so creativity in the sense of social life, politics, etc. The only thing he rejected was every form of rationalism and transcendentalism. He noted “philosophy must constitute itself as the theory of what we are doing and not as a theory of what there is.” He shared in common with philosophers of past (Lucretis, Hume, Nietzsche etc.)  the aim towards the thinking of cultivation of joy, critique of negativity and denunciation of power.

5. Fredric Jameson (1934 - present) - a Marxist critic of Postmodernism. His point of view depicted new corporate capitalism, colonising the the culture industry. Alongside with other Neo-Marxists his beliefs are that traditional Marxist-Leninist theory is as only a small margin focused on historical materialism and economic production. He strongly avoids Modernist Formalism which creates a cult of the artist by isolating him from cultural context. Culture constrains the individual creative subject.

6. Jean Baudrillard (1929 - present) Baudrillard took in consideration the media, especially television as another important area of investigation of Postmodernism, therefore looking into a diversity of cultural phenomenas making his writings a collage of linguistics, philosophy, sociology, political theory and science fiction. He is well-known about his concepts of “simulation”, “simulacrum” and “hyperreality”, where simulation is a copy of a copy that has changed path from the original to the level of not even being considering a copy anymore. Furthermore on simulacrum, he declares that the language is no longer connected to reality and that media produced images became more reality than reality itself (TV news became entertainment while entertainment is the subject of news). He brought to attention the sense of panic that comes with the living in a simulated world, therefore “hyperreality” reassures one of reality. 7. Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) Jacques Derrida’s theory had a key importance for the later Poststructuralism theory that emerged.  The French philosopher and critic Derrida  presented the concept of Deconstruction as a method of interpretation that is based on ambiguity. Elaborating further this consists in allowing meaning of a text to represent strongly opposite ideas that cause interfering of such. He relayed on quite similar ideas of systems of Structuralism by noting that meanings exist before being shaped by language, but however these meanings come from another concept such as Differance. “To Differ”, this concept suggests that meaning itself comes from the difference a word has from the rest. ____________________________ References: Barrett, T. (2008). Why Is That Art? Aesthetics and Criticism of Contemporary Art.

[orchid-cs]

Where do I stand as an artist? Who am I? Who is me? What’s myself? Contemporary-what?

As I ask myself this question at this exact moment, while trying to avoid the next existentialist crisis, the first answer to “Where do I stand as an artist”, impulsively popping in my mind would be “In the lands of confusion & uncertainty” or simply “Experimenting in process…”. Elaborating it further, one could say for sure that right now I am reaching the peak of experimentation with everything I come across, from a wide diverse spectre of different mediums and art fields, to an ocean of new visual and written information. Therefore at the same time I am also reaching the peak of learning and putting in practice such conclusions of researches and new visual or written information I approach daily. ART PATH GENESIS I will go back in time tracing my very first “artist” self, and by that I do not mean drawing a dog bigger than the house in the kinder-garden, but the very first version of me I referred to as an artist. I could definitely state that the biggest trigger I had as an inspiration source to concentrate in such direction all of a sudden, was the feminist movement. The math is really easy in fact, when you are born and raised in one of the most sexist, misogynist countries in the planet, you either obey to your society rules, or you fight it, while such thing as a neutral solution it is not a possible option. When your voice is barely heard or ignored, indeed, the solution is to find another platform to forcefully raise the voice on the cause to the levels of making it impossible to ignore. I was on the early teenage years by the time I grabbed an electric guitar and broke the myth about girls being unable to play anything more aggressive, or not qualified to do anything else either than maybe play some classical music or delicately touch a piano keyboard or a violin. On this blasphemy joined three more girls, making us the first riot grrrl/feminist band with the participation of 4 female members including a drummer, bassist, guitarist and one of the most powerful aggressive vocals I’ve personally ever heard, in Albania.

              Premenstrual Syndrome, Athens/Greece, 2016 My very first platform was music. ( The official video-clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRdefatYgkk ) ___________________________ (Backstages of some of the moments on tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYjCxRUUQz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05z9J3Os6i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEi-m4Zb69E ) ______________________________

Punk is a subculture of anarchist, is inspired by Dadaism, elements of Pop Art, Marxism and lately touches a movement of AntiFa, being a strong genre against discrimination, and so more political issues. Punk did not happen to be a choice by us, we were diverse to extremes when it came to styles and taste and our personal identity, but one thing was in common, sharing the same battle. Punk came out naturally. We did not make punk, punk made us. Structured our beliefs furthermore.  What was going on was a lot of oestrogen, aggressive music and lyrics with the main focus on feminism, a lot of vulgarity, uncensored “shameful” words, mentioning of unacceptable behaviours coming from a girl and mentioning of actual problematics in sarcastic tones or auto-irony with a touch of a videoclip, that could pass for a video-art installation giving a bold effect and enforcing the the message we wanted to pass around.  First approach with being  considered “transgressive” & “controversial” while only being my true self. Therefore this opened a whole new understanding of things and a complete new direction of expressing and dealing with further political, social, cultural etc. issues I wanted to further discuss or direct the focus on, which did not simply include a verbal debate with someone or a group of people anymore, but actually researching and having a millions of ideas and options on how to visualise it into tons of other forms and mediums that could reach a larger audience at the same time while leaving free space for interpretation. Being a very socially awkward and anxious person when it comes to public speech or troubles of expressing and organising a thought into verbal matter, built up a lot of insecurities and brought accumulation of emotions, thoughts, opinions and so on, that later on I could only pour out freely into the platform we built for ourselves.  The moment I would approach the stage, I would transform into a confident person knowing for sure where I stand and belong, and raising my voice on the cause, breaking the chain of all insecurities and years of suppression of thought. I came to the understanding art is a very powerful tool, either you use it to aesthetically decorate a space, depict a stronger message, or make use of it to fight for a cause, is a matter of personal choice. Therefore contemporary art brought empowerment to my so precious feminist movement. Appropriation is a strong point of post-modernism. One thing that would certainly cause a tremendous, prodigious reaction is appropriating cultural heritage such as old folk songs dating thousands of years before, on the theme of arranged marriages of minors, to turn it into this outrageous punk content mocking the original content with highly aggressive sarcastic notes. This stimulates one to shake from the effect of nostalgia and come into senses. Furthermore, 21-st century is an emotionally overwhelming period to be alive, and indeed there’s a lot going on. Therefore 21-st century CONTEMPORARY ART  is a blossoming field of research, publication and exhibiting, making it an inconceivably unique field of study. The new century came along with inspiring innovative thinking, emerged from a vast of new materials and medias, a fast paced boom in the technological fields implemented in the purpose of art, new social, cultural, political factors, and a wide spectre of interaction and participation of the audience in the development of different artworks. Other discussed topics of the meantime that also played an important role for the analysis of contemporary visual culture of late 20th century and 21st century, were semiotics, feminism and post-modernism. Visual culture has has reached to become a recognised field of study, which focus relays on how the perception of images contribute in the building up of of identity, gender, and other social and political meanings and values. Its methodologies relay upon semiotics, sociology, psychoanalysis, reception theory, feminism, and the concept of the gaze. A majority of contemporary artists do not differentiate in separations such as high-art and pop art, resulting in a mixture and embracement of traditional techniques made use of to create controversial works to draw attention to a current social or political issue. Such example is Ghada Amer, who uses embroidery in canvas of naked women bodies engaged in sexual intercourse intertwined with gestural brush strokes, which depict the paradox of expression and repression of sexuality in western and islamic societies.

Lastly, after all this reflection on myself, roots, heritage, social, cultural and political factors that influenced my shape as an artist so far, WHAT MY FUTURE SELF NEEDS TO KNOW: My personal aim is to learn how to contribute furthermore not as impulsively as without any pre-thinking, pre-planing and pre-considering strategically how such contribution will coherently work with such factors as mentioned above, also, to mature to a certain artistic level without losing the “anti-conformist” approach and becoming a slave of research, but more-likely to find a fine line in between both. After all, contemporary art is tool to comment on modern-society. Make use of the so far experience, to develop it further into a metamorphosis of further more mature experience while the level of information consumed daily is in bigger amounts, in a more professional/academic approach, but yet avoid losing the main path completely.  At the same time acceptance of uncertainty, not everything needs a logical explanation, the more experimentation, the more new media, the more intertwining, the better. Explore & make use of the tools & do not let one movement hold you back from further experimentation of other stimulators of inspiration, make use of the new experimentation to implement and intertwine it with your main focus later. As a conclusion, more importantly “Let go of insecurities!, the goals is to trigger criticism and not be politely accepted.” As Sherman would say:

REFERENCES: Kamhi, M. (2018). Understanding Contemporary Art (Aristos, August 2012). Available at: https://www.aristos.org/aris-12/contemporaryart.htm [Accessed 27 Feb. 2018] Cehajic, L. (2017). Who am I, Available at: https://peisinoes.tumblr.com/post/166245190055/1-who-am-i  [Accessed 28 Feb. 2018] Robertson, J. Beginner’s Guide To Contemporary Art, Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/beginners-guide-contemporary-art1/modal/a/art-in-the-21st-century [Accessed 28 Feb. 2018] Barret, T.(2008) Why is That Art, pg.