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Dream exhibition

Have the pole sculpture in the middle so you can walk around it. Thinking about shape; square I think would be good but also I could play in the panopticon and do a hexagon (is that too on the nose lol) screens I’m think at least 4-6 can have multiple sizes which is good. Some things to question is how are the installed up in photomedia with drilling in to the floor/ceiling as I can do walls as most of them are moveable so won’t be stable enough? As well as sizing of poles and making sure it’s possible within the timeframe? Should probably have a backup idea lol

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Exhibition ideas

Blue film/ projection blue (internet blue) this back end colour could be interesting way to add more to this layout, instead of having this blank kinda white clean walls incorporating colour some how could be cool.

Some other ways of having video presented - poles create a walkway in a way maybe having a sort of labyrinth/maze feel to them. This kinda backend code mess that people don't see of algorithms?

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Lit review part two

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Live surveillance

Having a live aspect in my exhibition is something I was interested in adding. After testing a few options I do believe I've found the easiest way of making it live stream to my laptop which then can be accessed by a screen.

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Audio transcript

I have finally had success! I have a working AI transcriber that will take an audio file and turn it into text, it will only work picking up well annunciated words but will try to figure it out sometimes

Here is a snippet of a conversation happening at a cafe on the 28/04/24

"I don't say Rosie, right? What? No Rosie eyes. Literally. The problem is, when I type rose, I I gotta actually put in the fancy e, don't I? Like, on Twitter? Because otherwise, I'm just getting, like, Rose. Oh, yeah. Rosie? Rosie? Uh-huh. Right? Right? Hey, my man. Everything okay, my man? You do not say that in everyday life. Why are you working all the slack? I don't know what to do. Like, it's coming up. Bruises are ringing. Did it just crash again? Show the space. I see. Who's that? See who she's seeing? Something else. I see. Yeah. Take off. Maybe she died and they replaced her. She says it's pretty, like, kinda monolittish She's hanging out with Pharrell. Yeah. So maybe she's gonna be like CL where she just hangs out with famous people. She is the one who's, like, would smash the best internationally. There's gonna be one that just hangs out with famous people that makes me sick. Yeah. I think she maybe she got her eyes enlarged or something. Still huge. At what time period were these allegations? What's her for you? What's her for you? That's her very recent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because she went to the Oscars after party with sunglasses on. Oh. And then, like, a few weeks, like, a month after after that. Because in the 18th April, she's just wearing glasses glasses. She's looking great, though. Like her hair is looking so much prettier. I feel like I feel like it's just bad photo editing. It what about this one? Can you zoom into her face? I think it's It's maybe it's like a little bit of puffiness. It's like her eyebrows look weird. And her eyes look puffier. But they don't look like she's gotten more they haven't, like, added my eyelid with, like, in the tent. They do look slightly bigger. She looks like Something very subtle that she does. Like, Julie. Julie from Twice? No. From Momoland. Julie, Dewey, the blonde one with the details. Oh. Oh. I don't know. I've never seen her name. The crazy one."

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Crit notes

- two charming typos

- contained framed, slightly more objective language

- three highview points

- have you hacked surveillance?

- distant, authoritarian, creepy

- godlike omnipresent

- close

- logic to stacking

- text seems like intrusive thoughts

- good overload

- amp creepiness with more screens

- humanising AI

- the jumpiness is working

- more is more in this situntia

- amp up the screens to amp up the ideas

- graphic elements

- that's how the robot would justify the world

- wording feels robotic but moments of slippage of text between robot and human

- disembodied camera movement

- the way the camera operates could be pushed, robotic movements

- AI collating human sounding things about being in a human environment

- the text could be used to describe image with AI

- record people on the bus

- MELTDOWN instagram

- some of them are a bit cheesy ina away you don't what them to be cheesy

- ask AI about the images

- timestamps and dates could be added

- elements of it seem a bit mission impossible

- contrast is to clear

- get into spy mode

- different angles of the same space

- usually more shots of the same place at the same time

- access one area from different camera at the same time

- don't know if romanticise is the right word

- the monitors are a good way to go for you

- does the security guard get surveilled

- looking at self

- panopticism

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LIT REVIEW 2

IN DEFENSE OF THE POOR IMAGE – HITO STEYERL 

Hito Steyerl essay In Defence of the Poor Image written in 2009 is an influential essay that examines the concept of the ‘Poor Image’. Conceptualising the form of digital culture and contemporary art, Steryel is a prominent artist and thinker who engages within exploring the provocative world of technology, globalisation and political activism.

Steyerl's interdisciplinary practice encompasses a wide range of mediums, including video essays, installations, performances, and writings. Her work often blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction, combining personal narratives with broader socio-political analysis. She frequently employs experimental editing techniques, archival footage, and found imagery to interrogate the complexities of contemporary visual culture and the impact of digital technologies on society.[1]

In the 21st century we have so much access to technology, with the advancement in artificial intelligence, smartphones and digital cameras, even with the amateurish edge everyone can create and share images online. This acceleration creates deterioration, Steryel explains that the proliferation of these technologies has democratised the production. Having these mass data pools ready for download transforms quality in accessibility. Challenging the previously established structures it enables the people outside of the art domain to engage with image-making process.

The idea of being a more downgraded copy or low-resolution(lo-fi) of an original higher quality allows it to have its own personality in the digital age. “Poor images are poor because they are not assigned any value within the class society of images - their status as illicit or degraded grants them exemption from its criteria.”[2] She argues the notion that the Poor images are dismissed as an inferior form of high resolution but will allow it to possess their own allure and charm. We as that artist can reflect the material surroundings in which it lives in allows us to capture more realistic lived in experiences. 

"But the economy of poor images is about more than just downloads: you can keep the files, watch them again, even reedit or improve them if you think necessary"[3] This sense of being able annotate and rearrange the found emphasises the hybrid nature of poor images,   which are often the result of remixing, sampling, and recontextualising existing visual materials. This hybridity opens up new possibilities for artistic expression and cultural production, challenging conventional notions of artistic authorship and authenticity.

With Steryel’s idea of deconstructing/re-editing the image it allows us to have authorship over the work, this idea of making new forms of creativity, by combing elements in new/ unexpected ways to challenge traditional notion of originality. You don’t need to have original material created from scratch you use these ideas that are already around you and redirect with your own form of thinking.[4]

In an older text (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media by Jay David Bolter, he refers to the process in which media will imitate and transform. The reinterpretation of repurposing existing media content allows the artist to take the aesthetics and practices within the new technological or cultural context of the found or taken, while simultaneously creating their own authorship from it. Steryel and Bolter both talk about the pros and cons of how accessible content is within our world. The internet is works as a massive archive of everything and anything, but with how fast the internet moves we also lose, content gets pushed to the back once a new and improved version is released. 

Bolter writes about how the concept of how old media talks to new media, that it takes form the old to improve the new “Moreover, they suggest that all prior media have refashioned previous media in similar ways: photography remediating painting; film remediating live theatre and photography; television remediating film, vaudeville, and radio; and so forth”[5]

Conceptually talking about remediation is suggests that the media forms are constantly influenced by building upon the previous works, this ensures that the content will have a continuous cycle of taking and borrowing. This emphasises the interconnectedness and intertextuality of how media forums work. Remediation acknowledges the persistent presence of older media within new media environments and the ways in which they shape our understanding and experience of contemporary media. 

This mixing and hybridity that Bolter talks about comes from representing one medium in another medium (for example an painting as a video etc), the difference between what Steyerl and Bolter is the concept of enhancing. Remediation isn't merely copying or reproducing content from one medium to another; it often involves transforming or enhancing the original content in some way, when Steyerl can be seeing going in the opposite direction.

Contemporary Artist Petra Cortright who plays with the exploration of the internet, digital aesthetics and the crossroads between technological experience and art. Her work involves the concept of digital deconstructions, where she manipulates and reinterprets digital imagery, typically sourced from online platforms, into new forms of visual expression.[6]

The way both Steryel and Bolter talk about how we have the power to take and remake, Cortright plays on this, her digital deconstruction will harnesses digital tools and techniques to dismantle and reconstruct visual elements, often sourced from the internet. This exploration reflects a deep engagement with the digital landscape and an understanding of its possibilities for artistic expression. Cortright will incorporate elements such in glitch art, pixelation and low-resolution, to create a work which uses the visual language of the online world. In Steryel’s essay she tells us we are able to do this because of how free the online world is, so Cortright not only reflects the digital culture but also critiques the ways in which images circulate and transform within online spaces.

Within my own practice I seek to take both these theories of how we can take found and made content, to deconstruct, and re-tell what we see and feel in the city of Auckland. To see how far I can take these ideas within my chosen medium, through the collection of old and new forms, I plan to create work that reflects the city that either enhances or degrades of how we see Auckland in the everyday. 

Bibliography 

Berardi, Franco “Bifo’ “Introduction” The Wretched of the Screen, 2012 

Bolter, Jay David “Remediation: Understanding New Media”, 1999

Steryel, Hito  “In Defense of the Poor Image” The Wretched of the Screen, 2012

Smith, William S. “Entering the Painted world” Art in America, jan/feb 2021

Terkessdis, Mark “The Archive of forgotten Concerns” Hito Steyerl I will Survive, 2021

[1] Franco “Bifo’ Berardi, Introduction (2012)

[2] Hito Steryel, In Defense of the Poor Image, (2009)

[3] Hito Steryel, In Defense of the Poor Image, (2009)

[4] Mark Terkessdis, The Archive of forgotten Concerns, (2021)

[5] Jay David Bolter, Remediation: Understanding New Media. (1999)

[6] William S. Smith, Entering the Painted World (2021)

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LIT REVIEW 1

CLEARING THE GROUND BY HENRI LEFEBVRE 

Henri Lefebvre's "Clearing the Ground" written in 1947 is a seminal essay in urban theory, offering profound insights into the socio-political dynamics shaping urban spaces. Lefebvre (1901–1991) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and urban theorist known for his influential contributions to Marxist thought, sociology, and the study of urban space. Born in Hagetmau, France, Lefebvre began his academic career studying philosophy before turning his attention to sociology and urban studies.[1]

In Lefebvre’s text a central theme we see is the significance of the everyday life in urban space. Through critiquing modern urban planning and advocating the reclamation of the lived in experience.[2] Lefebvre argues for the recognition of the diverse ways in which individuals inhabit and appropriate urban spaces, emphasising the importance of subjective perceptions. Under capitalist urbanisation, Lefebvre see it as a drive from profit motives, commodification of space, and the exclusion of certain social groups. He highlights the alienating effects of gentrification of the city, arguing that these processes perpetuate social inequalities and undermine the potential for truly equitable urban environments.

“The human world is not defined simply by the historical, by culture, by totality or society as a whole, or by ideological and political super-structures, It is defined by the intermediate and mediating level: everyday life.in it, the most concrete of dialectical movements can be observed: need and desire, pleasure and absence of pleasure, satisfaction and privation(frustration), fulfilment and empty spaces work and non-work.”[3]

Cities are built under capitalistic needs more than the people, meaning we lose the sense of inclusiveness and accessibility, the city becomes a hard place to love if it becomes harder to connect to. Auckland, a city known for bad public transport, expensive parking and lack of safety, falls into this category. Within the urban discourse, especially amidst ongoing debates surrounding gentrification, spatial justice, and the role of public space. Lefebvre's passionate advocacy for the right to the city resonates throughout the text, challenging us to critically interrogate existing power structures and imagine alternative futures for urban space. His emphasis on the importance of everyday life and lived experience brings a humanistic dimension to his analysis, reminding readers that cities are ultimately sites of social struggle and collective creativity.

The everyday use of the city in Lefebvre’s eyes is not seen as mundane or trivial but is a way for us to construct meaning and negotiate our existence in the urban space. When we do our routines, such as commuting, working, socialising, and leisure, we shape our perceptive of the city in our own lives, but in a rebuttal said by Lefebvre the capitalistic urbanisation tends to homogenise and commodify everyday practices, can lead to an disconnect among the people. The commercialisation of public spaces and the dominance of consumer culture can ruin the quality of everyday life.

In an essay written in 1955 Proposals for Rationally Improving the city of Paris by Lettrist International, critiqued the commodification of urban space and the spectacle of consumer culture just as Lefebvre did.  Their proposals almost with an satire edge, create situations that would disrupt the consumption of the urban environment. “The rooftops of Paris should be opened to pedestrian traffic by modifying fire-escape ladders and by constructing bridges where necessary. Public gardens should remain open at night, unlit”[4] This  almost utopian and holistic approach creates a impractical way of living. Both Lefebvre and International talk about how to make the city a city it is limited to the collective needs in favour of capitalistic rule, but in these texts we can discover what would happens if it prioritises the individual in their everyday life.

Lefebvre ask us ‘How can the everyday life be defined?’ The question is left unanswered, to attempt would be like using a ‘one-way critique’ or a single body of existing knowledge may well immobilize the qualities that define the very thing we are concerned to locate.[5] The idea of the everyday and Lefebvre's conception of space are extremely similar. Both ideas underline how much people's everyday life, ordinary experiences shape how they view the world and how they live. The routines, conversations, and behaviours people they engage with on a daily basis in how the interact with their surroundings. “In this earth they are born. If they emerge, it is because they have grown and prospered. It is at the heart of the everyday that projects become works of creativity.”[6] Lefebvre allows the artist to understand the demand and openness you will need to have to create your practice within the concept of the everyday. 

Artist Marianne Wex (1940–2020) was a German feminist artist and photographer known for her groundbreaking work in visual culture and gender studies. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Wex's art was deeply influenced by her experiences as a woman navigating patriarchal society.[7] In her work Let’s Take Back Our Space (1979) a feminist piece that showed the visual exploration of gender dynamics and power structures in public spaces.

What I find interesting is this commentary of space and how different social groups use it, In Lefebrve he talks about the difference in how certain power structures can use the city better than others, that it was made for them and Wex points them out in her work through the feminist lens. Through her photographs, she captures moments of vulnerability, discomfort, and defiance, highlighting the ways in which women navigate and resist these patriarchal structures.

Lefebvre and Wex offer profound insights into the social production of space and the dynamics of power within the urban realm, within my own work I want to see how it has evolved now in 2024. The transformation of how we surveillance the city and urban landscape. I want to play with different lenses as well, the more ridged learning of Lefebvre but also what does satire look like in the city of Auckland.

Bibliography

 

Campany, David.” Marianne Wex: Let’s Take Back Our Space” Aperture, NO.213 (2013)

 Gottdiener, M. “A Marx for Our Time: Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space.” Sociological Theory 11, no. 

1 (1993): 129–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/201984.

International, Lettrist “Proposals for Rationally Improving the city of Paris” The Everyday (1955)

Johnstone Stephen, “Introduction// Recent Art and the Everyday”, The Everyday (2008)

Lefebvre, Henri, “Clearing the ground”, The Everyday (1961)

Rodenbeck, Judith. “Between the Personal and the Political: On Marianne Wex’s Let’s Take Back Our 

Space.” ArtMargins 11, no. 1–2 (June 1, 2022): 50–80. doi:10.1162/artm_a_00319.

 

[1] M. Gottdiener A Marx for Our Time: Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space (1993)

[2] Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction (2006)

[3] Henri Lefebvre, Clearing the ground (1961)

[4] Lettrist International, Proposals for Rationally Improving the city of Paris (1955)

[5] Stephen Johnstone, Introduction// Recent Art and the Everyday ,(2008)

[6] Henri Lefebvre, Clearing the ground (1961)

[7] David Campany, Marianne Wex: Let’s Take Back Our Space, (2013)

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satire surveillance of the Shortland street x high street.

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Marianne Wex: Let’s Take Back Our Space

The German artist Marianne Wex started out as a painter before producing her photographic project Let’s Take Back Our Space, one of the great unsung works of 1970s feminist history and cultural analysis. Born in Hamburg in 1937, Wex studied at the city’s University of Fine Arts, where she later taught for seventeen years. In 1979, she published Let’s Take Back Our Space as a book, with the subtitle “Female” and “Male” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures. It is a visual survey comprised of hundreds of photographs assembled into dozens of thematic grids: Seated persons—leg and feet; arm and hand positions; standing persons—leg and feet; arm and hand positions; people sitting and laying on the ground; arm and leg positions; Egyptian, Greek, and Roman statuary; how the men of Christianity took over an old goddess gesture; the stultifying effect of the patriarchal socialization of men. And so on. The images were culled from a huge range of sources—advertisements, reportage, fashion magazines, studio portraits, the history of art—and many were taken on the streets of Hamburg by Wex, who proposes that our smallest, most unconscious gestures speak volumes about the power relations of gender in daily life.

What intrigued me about Wex's work was this sort of surveillance of people which is something I ever so slightly touched on last year but never went fully into. I plan to try incorporate this style a little more but I may need to have a discussion around ethics for this.

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Photos taken on 1/3/24