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Week 11 - Class Activity

To create a wearable artwork based on desire.

Stemming from the word “bubble” that came out of our associated words challenge, we decided to explore the conflicting desires to be seen and understood immediately, but also not wanting to expose or reveal too much of ourselves. Here, we attempted to convey these contradictory urges through a transparent plastic shirt with plastic flowers of varying opacity placed all over it, along with a few bubbles of air. 

designed by @yukamochizukiunsw , @fearoftheabyss, & sandra.

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Research A3

https://passengerart.com/2013/06/28/putting-the-cult-back-in-culture-marina-abramovics-new-world-order/ → Putting the “Cult” Back in Culture: Power and Performance in Marina Abramović’s New World Order

This article explores the many performance works of Marina Abramović. Here are a few excerpts from the article (link below):

“Powerful appeal of idol worship, the widespread and desperate need for attention, and the ever-expanding cult of celebrity, as present in the art world as in any other entertainment industry.” The Artist is Present, MOMA, 2010

“There was a cultish atmosphere to the whole thing that was generated more by the crowd than by their charismatic leader.” → Winter Garden Theatre as Abramović described the “Marina Abramović Institute” she intended to open in order to educate everyone in the “Marina Abramović Method”, during which participants would “engage in a series of long-durational activities: fasting; sleeping in communal quarters; walking for hours at a time; standing barefoot in the snow; functioning only in slow motion or in hyper-speed;” etc.

“By engaging in these long-durational activities and experiments, she suggests, we can reclaim time from our techno-controlled accelerated society and perhaps transcend the perils and pain of contemporary life. She says she is attempting to build a new form of consciousness, a new form of culture, a new community.”

Marina Abramović’s works reflect ideas of desire for attention, recognition and the value placed in social influence. Her performance work/lecture during which she spoke similarly to that of a person trying to start her own cult, with the building of an institute and minimum 6 hours worth of activities for anyone who visited the site, as well as describing a utopic future based on transcention from the “perils and pain of contemporary life”.

The fact that this might even be considered plausible is due to Marina’s enormous reach in the social world as a successful artist, there’s a powerful market structured around her because she is influential and popular.

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Research A3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpMVXWGtkVw (video) → Andrea Fraser’s Official Welcome (2001/2003) → In this work Andrea Fraser takes on the persona of the artist and the curator in a performance piece that satirises the conventions of formal art events, emphasising the exaggerated praise given to artist’s work by critics and curators, and the arrogance or false modesty offered by artists in return.

Official Welcome is about “The profound ambivalence that’s haunted so much 20th century art and particularly avant-garde traditions - the kind of love-hate relationship that artists have with art, its institutions, and the people who support them.” - Fraser (2012)

Our event will be a performance work that uses satire and personas that our group will undertake to emphasise the ways in which our desires within a contemporary society is a collective cult of self-obsession.

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Research A3

Artworks about Religion/Research (Petra):

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/28290/1/the-groundbreaking-artists-challenging-religion-through-art → The groundbreaking artists challenging religion through art - Dazed (source)

Andres Serrano - Piss Christ (1987)

Many people condemned this work as a display of disrespect, but is a work that was created by a Christian man who wished to explore how society has devalued the symbol of the cross and the image of Christ.

“The image aimed to represent how society has cheapened the image of christ and the hypocrisy of followers who twist his words to fit their own purpose.”

For our assessment 3, our work aims to present warped desires through the event of an opening ceremony of a cult. This in no way is supposed to place religion and cult practices on the same level. We are trying to find the balance between using themes of cult practices in a satirical manner which is not misinterpreted as being equated to religion.

Works surrounding religion are vulnerable to being criticised by those who practice that faith. While it is the job of the artist to have good intent, they must also deliver it in a way that does not intentionally cause distress or insult. There will always be people who are offended by or misinterpret a work, but the artist must try to minimize that chance - especially if they are not part of the religion they present in their work - by doing research.

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ADAD1002 A3 - initial research by PETRA

Sun 14 Oct RESEARCH on BAPTISM:

Baptism is practiced in several different ways. Aspersion is the sprinkling of water on the head, and effusion is the pouring of water over the head. Immersion in relation to baptism used to refer to any form of dipping, whether the body is put completely under water or is only partly dipped in water; so it can be total or partial. This term is also used for when water is poured over someone standing in water, without submersion of the person. Submersion

—> maybe we can play on the word or change the word “baptism” or “baptizein”, since there seems to be heavy emphasis on what it means in Greek (dip, plunge).

There’s literally a whole section on wikipedia dedicated to different derived nouns from “baptise”

Meaning: Baptism is considered to be a form of rebirth, with a lot of symbolism involving themes of purification, vulnerability(?), removing the old/sinful self and then replacing it with good/truth/etc.

Text: Baptisms involve some kind of statement by the person doing the baptising and candidate (usually repeating words or responding to what was said)

Apparel: Until the Middle Ages, most baptisms involved the candidates being naked (obviously we’re not doing that), but later changed so that the candidate was either dressed in their normal clothes or in some garment significant to the religion such as robes or a uniform.

Debaptism: It is strongly held that baptism cannot be undone and is a once-in-a-lifetime event that can neither be repeated nor undone.

Other non-christian initiation ceremonies:

Miyamairi - Shinto rite of passage in Japan for newborns involving a shrine priest praying for the health and happiness of babies when they’re one month old.

In Ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures, they had an initiation focused on death and introduction to a new life, the greeks fostering escapism (the body as a prison from which one needs to escape by trying to induce a close-to-death like state) and the Egyptians believing that death brought more life than a “new” life could. (For both life and the afterlife depended on the condition of offerings, either directly to the deities through the Pharaoh or to gods when for the deceased)

Artworks about Religion:

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/28290/1/the-groundbreaking-artists-challenging-religion-through-art → The groundbreaking artists challenging religion through art

https://passengerart.com/2013/06/28/putting-the-cult-back-in-culture-marina-abramovics-new-world-order/ → Putting the “Cult” Back in Culture: Power and Performance in Marina Abramović’s New World Order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsD638deCto → Black Mass Performance

About the work: Our artwork/performance is inspired by the Bacchanalia, but what is it saying about the event? Is this a parody or a contemporary interpretation of the event? How do we portray it so that it doesn’t offend people who are religious? What is the point?

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ADAD1002 A3 - final idea

Group: YUKA MOCHIZUKI, SANDRA THOMSON, PETRA WARR

Wed 10 Oct - we worked on narrowing down all our ideas into creating our own religion. We aren’t sure what kind of religion but it will be somewhat of a community which shares a similar VALUES. We aren’t sure on what values too.

Our thought process for final idea:

Since we decided on what event we are doing in regards to VALUE, we tried to come up with what our 10 minutes of presentation should be, that is, an act of baptism and a opening ceremony for the class.

We have not yet to decide on the shared value or the method of baptism so we each wrote some personal notes on personal weird values as well as methods of baptism. We did this without discussing with each other since we believe if we come up with ideas on our own, then reading what others has written, new ideas may be stimulated or some sort of development on existing ones.

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ADAD1002 A3 - brainstorm

Group: YUKA MOCHIZUKI, SANDRA THOMSON, PETRA WARR

Brainstorming for a potential event:

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ASSESSMENT 2 - MAJOR PROJECT & CONCEPT STATEMENT

Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the ‘human’ and the environment?

For assessment 2 I wanted to work on a project that expanded on the ideas from my poster design: portraying the damage done to the Great Barrier Reef - in fact, all reefs - through striking visual representation. I wanted to focus on perspective and how the human often perceives or rather doesn’t perceive the damage they cause.

Coral reefs are only ever observed when sought out. It is impossible for someone to comprehend the damage caused to entire ecosystems when they are submerged in the ocean, and aren’t visible to people who don’t work or live near those environments.

In my poster, I tried to convey this perspective through use of colour against white, with some commentary on the damage caused by tourism with a camera-style frame. However, this approach came off as more obtuse and vague, failing to capture the ideas I wanted to explore. So for this project I decided to create more depth by incorporating various elements that would all come together to create a more sophisticated product and convey a more compelling message.

This was inspired by my research into Ken Yonetani, who favoured having the material that is used in an artwork reflect the message being conveyed within it, as seen in his own Great Barrier Reef inspired work Sweet Barrier Reef.

My major project is a photo series book depicting the different ways in which coral reefs are damaged. In order to oppose the common misconceptions about the deterioration of coral reefs, I used fruits as the subject of my work. Through substituting coral with organic objects that are far more common in everyday life, the audience is able to consider the harm inflicted upon the reefs. The comparison of each subject over time allows comparison of change - the pages in the book are even formatted so that the start and end of each cycle are visible at the same time.

This book is a compilation of different triggers of coral decay and death: changes in salinity, low tide/exposure, oxygen starvation, solar irradiance, increased water temperature and ocean acidification caused by increased CO2 levels.

I experimented with portraying these causes and more with different materials, some of the projects that did not succeed include the UV light, decreased temperature and dry ice experiments. I describe them as unsuccessful purely because they resulted in little to no visual change within the available timeframe given for each experiment. Given time and more resources however, I think this project could develop to include interesting visual displays of the triggers I was unable to show for this assessment.

My decision to include multiple different causes was in part inspired by Courtney Mattison, who described in response to her work how she wanted to inspire curiosity in her viewers. By displaying several different methods of destruction within the work, I hope to inform and interest the audience.

Mattison also described in relation to Our Changing Seas III, another coral reef inspired work, how the process of creating a work is also important for the final product. I took this in a different direction from her meticulous building process, instead embodying and embracing “process” by displaying the decay of a subject over time.

Bibliography:

http://www.kenandjuliayonetani.com/sweet_barrier_reef.html https://creators.vice.com/en_au/article/ez59ja/dying-coral-reef-installation-mimics-life https://mission-blue.org/2014/05/art-brings-the-coral-reef-crisis-above-the-surface/

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Ocean acidification (pt. 3/3)

After I used acid to erode the shells, I got some pictures of what the shells looked like under a microscope. I printed out all of the images (around 20) onto translucent paper, since I was interested in possibly using them as a filter of some form in my project. It really emphasises the level of damage by being able to see through a shell which is already so fragile, so mimicking that with translucent paper has a hopefully just a just as strong effect.

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Ocean acidification (pt. 2/3)

When using dry ice turned out to take too long (and require more dry ice than I thought), I used a stronger acid mixed with water so that the effect would be more visible. After a couple hours (see last 3 images), the shells were varying degrees of translucent, the last one having formed a hole in the centre. 

Fun fact: the text beneath the shells in two of the last 3 images is actually a paper about ocean acidification.

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Ocean acidification (pt. 1/3)

I wouldn’t be able to show how ocean acidification affects fruits, so I decided to use some shells I collected to show how over time ocean acidification erodes shells away. I used dry ice (aka carbon dioxide, which can acidify water over time) on the shells, but ended up not having enough dry ice/time to get a proper reaction. I did, however, manage to get a reaction when using a stronger acid that acted faster I will show in the next post. 

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Changes in Salinity

This process is actually based off a science experiment my dad told me about. The fresh water inside a cucumber will filter out if placed in a solution that has salt in it, causing the cucumber to slowly shrivel up. Unfortunately the change isn’t as obvious as I thought it’d be, but it’s still visible, so I’ll be adding this to my photo series as well. 

I actually started this experiment almost a week ago, but didn’t post it until today because I wanted to give it as much time as possible to visibly change before posting with results.

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Exposure/Low tide (vs oxygen starvation)

To explore exposure, I cut a lemon in half - placing one in a sealed container and one exposed to the open air, with the intent of comparing the two after a few days. What happened instead was that while the exposed half did dry out as expected, the sealed away half still deteriorated in the form of bruising around the edges. This side ended up responding to a prompt I hadn’t intended to explore: oxygen starvation. While the dried-out half still implies oxygen starvation, linked to the visual of suffocation, the sealed-off half shows it in an equally visually interesting way.

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UV light experiment

I wanted to try exploring the way colour is drained from organic materials through use of UV light, which has a side effect of breaking down the bonds that hold colour in certain materials. However, I didn’t have access to the UV light I was using for long enough for this effect to be visible. 

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Increased water temperature

I peeled a mandarin and heated it, photographing the change over time. I chose a mandarin since it holds a lot of liquid, and the way it is effectively bleeding out because of the heat is an added visually striking benefit, since my intent is to show the damaging effects of these methods. (see previous post for more context)

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Solar irradiance 

I decided to make a photo series based off the different causes of coral bleaching and death. In this case, I took an apple and placed it in the dark (in a box) for several days. My hope is that through this photo series and can convey in a more visually striking way how these causes effect the reef. The reef is something that people don’t see unless they go out of their way to see it. By linking the damage caused to organic objects (such as fruit) that are common in our lives, it brings that damage to light. 

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Research - Causes

I did some research about the different causes of coral bleaching and death - and then ideas of visuals/brainstorming. 

Increased water temperature (global warming) and Reduced water temperature --> visual: burning, melting or cold/drying out

Oxygen Starvation --> visual: suffocation 

Increased Solar Irradiance (Photosynthetically active radiation and ultraviolet light) --> use of fluorescent paint that glows under ultraviolet light, use of multiple lights (can use shadow and/or perspective)

Increased sedimentation (silt runoff) --> link to research about sugarcane fields in work by Ken Yonetani

Changes in Salinity --> visual: salt or salt-based materials/foods/spices(?)

Herbicides --> visual: weeds, dying plants (brown, shrivelled, decay), spray bottle, chemical

Low tide/exposure --> visual: drying out, suffocation (again)

Cyanide fishing (method by which some use to stun and catch fish) --> visual: empty reef, frozen/stunned fish w/ decaying environment 

Elevated seal levels (less sunlight) --> visual: drowning, lack of light (use of shadow or filters)

Pollutants (specifically sunscreen ingredients that are non biodegradable and wash off the skin in the ocean) --> sunscreen bottle/contents, 

Ocean acidification (elevated levels of CO2 caused by air pollution) --> visual: dark clouds/smoke spreading through air, light projection with dark filter(?), smoke bleeds into water like black ink

Oil or other chemical spills --> visual: spreading (sick) coloured stain like ink through water.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching