ravinli0826-blog

[ravinli0826-blog]

Talia Smith is an artist, writer and curator originally from Auckland, NZ. Her practice involves photography, video and installation to explore diverse ideas such as memory, nature, culture, genealogy and heritage. She is passionate about the Earth and the landscape, particularly given her upbringing in New Zealand where the Maori culture greatly emphasizes the importance of a cultures past and place of origin. Such a rich background helps Smith appreciate her homeland and past much more, and this unique perspective on society helps to amplify the messages that she communicates in her works.

The native peoples of New Zealand view their landscape as sacred, a view that Smith shares. She believes that when you stand on a certain piece of land, by reminiscing and thinking deeply about the possible past events that may have unfolded there, you can appreciate the powerful connection between body and land. Smith likes to question the influence of colonialism on native people such as the Maori and Australian Aboriginals and insists that they should pay attention to misappropriation and speak up about it. Smith is a creative artist who respects cultural heritage, and as she has continued to present more curations, she is creating more opportunities for indigenous people and exposing their rich heritage.

Smith left New Zealand at the age of twenty-nine, breaking a sacred connection between herself and the land she was raised upon. Despite this, Smith has stated that she suffers nostalgic pain from reminders of her homeland, insisting on maintaining a long-distance relationship with her ‘Whenua’ - land. The fear of potentially forgetting some of these memories has encouraged Smith to use art as a tool to keep these memories refreshed. One of her long videos attempts to make sense of the emotional and physical distance brought about by time – between the past, present and the future. Smith used video art as a medium to express the nostalgia she feels for her homeland, and to try to retain the memories that are becoming less and less clear as time and distance increase between herself and her home. Photography is a way of keeping memories fresh in the mind, however, as time passes, certain details of the memory may fade. Smiths experimentation in other forms of art such as video, is an attempt to further strengthen these memories even more than what simple photography can.

[ravinli0826-blog]

Anna Pogossova is a very creative artist with work that has many different approaches and influences. Her art spans many different disciplines, from very abstract, intrapersonal exhibitions, to more mainstream commercial photography. Pogossova experiments with many different mediums, including painting, sculpture, and more prominently photography. She gained her education at a professional art school and has since exhibited a lot of explorative art that seeks inspiration from such things as myths, dreams and fantasy. Pogossova also enjoys overlaying her work with her own likes and interests – particularly pop-culture and classic art. For example, some of Pogossova’s stilllife art is often based on a previous dream she experienced, and in other works they are the restoration of a scene from a classical oil painting with her own personal touch. Nevertheless, Pogossova’s work is often always detached quite significantly from reality, leaving her audience to ponder her intentions.

Despite their very abstract nature, Pogossova’s ‘dream restoration’ works are generally created in a straight forward manner. Before doing any work, she tries to identify the theme and logic of the dream in a way that can be presented visually. She often overlays materials with interesting photographic scenes to portray her thinking and constantly improve her imagination. At the same time, narrating a dream gives her a unique space in which she can continue to develop her own aesthetic language.

Alongside dreams, Pogossova has a deep appreciation for classical oil painting and this is evident in many of her works. The influence of classical oil painting is far-reaching across the world. For modern photographers like Anna, classical oil paintings are a great source for inspiration. Many old paintings are shrouded in myth which makes for indelible, inspirational material. Pogossova has demonstrated that todays artists need not turn their backs on these aged works. They are not just an aesthetic of the times. Classical art can be used to restore the fantasy of art in peoples minds as they once were. Pogossova has taken advantage of these old materials, combining them with scene production and merging them into art with a new vision. Perhaps Pogossova’s approach could be defined as a new category of art – modern-classicism? Personally, her innovation and visual imaging techniques have high aesthetic value.

[ravinli0826-blog]

Amrita Hepi is a choreographer and dancer from the Bundjulung (Aus) and Ngapuhi (NZ) territories. She has been labelled a dance activist, who uses dance and movement as a platform to express her views and what she feels strongly about. Her mission as an artist is to push the barriers of intersectionality in form and make work that garners multiple access points through allegories.

Hepi argues that such an art form as dance can be fun but is also very compatible in using the body as a form of communicative language. Many of Hepi’s installations and performances demonstrate a mixture of contemporary pop culture and Australian Aboriginal culture. Her performances are very rich in aesthetic appearance as well as in physical movement. Many of her performances are comparable to interactive installations – they are very artistic, immersive and full of interesting cultural dialogue. Hepi enjoys adding variation to each different location she performs as she has said that the difference between the location of the performance and the stage has a great affect on the audience's feelings.

In her work: “This ______ may not protect you, but at the time is enough to know that it exists”, Hepi used an inflexible space and an inflatable material to create an internal stage on sand. This concept takes the form of a semi-sculpture and semi-performance, bringing the audience into the wrapped interior perspective to experience the subjective space being occupied.

Hepi likes to explore the relationship between human and society and express her feelings about this era in the form of performance. Hepi has strong views on the structure of society, the changing of Australian Aboriginal culture after colonialism, and the immoral occupation of land. Questioning the solidification of class, she is not only a performance artist, but also a social observer, expressing her views and stories with her body, her actions, and her customised stage.

[ravinli0826-blog]

In Jonathan's work, we see super-realistic digital work based on the creators' perception of the world. Jonathan has used science and technology to manipulate nature and reality, presenting it in a peculiar and very dreamlike manner. He is very discerned by genetic diversity and the aesthetics of his works. The unique combination of colour and object in his work is very interesting – such as that seen in his work containing red mountains combined with coloured leaves. His photography suggests that creativity and technology should be intertwined and he has tried to bring more exposure and popularity to this form of art through¬ the techniques possible with modern technology and digital software.

The messages that Jonathan's works portray are extremely strong. He jumps freely from the real natural environment to the virtual world. His work demonstrates a questioning of the unity of the world, where he uses a combination of space, still objects, geometry, the human body, plant fibres, and colour to allow his audience to see the world through his eyes. Compared with the techniques of other artists, his awareness and particular focuses in photography are very unique. What he does is to promote technology software. Through Jonathan’s creative process, the results are often unexpected and surprising.

The development of science and technology has led to the transformation of many fields and Photography is no exception. People used traditional photography as a tool to record facts and reality. They used it to create the closest thing possible to a moment frozen in time. As time has progressed however, it has become more evident that people are no longer satisfied with the standard realism provided by the traditional photograph. Instead, we are beginning to see a greater prevalence of surrealism in photography, brought about by the use of digital technology. The invention of the computer simulator allowed one to simulate any scene, light, object, or angle. What followed was the trend of digitally manipulated art, where the limits of the technology are continually tested to their limits. As a member of this wave, Jonathan has shown what he believes to be new possibilities for visual effects through new mediums, contributing to the birth of a new era of art. I am looking forward to the novelty of the future art form.

[ravinli0826-blog]

Derek is a photographer who specializes in fashion photography and fine art photography. Although he has worked in this industry for 30 years, he still maintains a curiosity about the world and continues to seek inspiration for how he can approach photography in different ways. His greatest motivation is to create rich work that spans many different fields: from architecture and people to scenery and fashion. Derek has a white background and grew up in New Zealand. He is of an unrestrained character. He appears casual and frank, but one thing he remains adamant about: his home is New Zealand. It has always been his inspiration. He tells people; his favorite thing is not to make any plans but to simply jump into his car, bring a large format camera, and go to any strange or familiar environment to find a connection with the world through his camera lens.

In most of Derek’s works, we see simple unaltered and unprepared scenes as they exist naturally. Derek describes his work in a unique way: Instead of committing time in a photography studio to develop some sort of prepared and thought out composition, he would rather travel to some strange place to collect inspiration from the world as it exists at the present moment. This results in photography that features many things that most people would simply ignore and overlook -  rusty iron shovels, abandoned tires, and strange local townspeople. Derek’s photography appears to show little concern for content. Rather, he finds an appreciation for how photography can portray the world in its unspoiled state. Photography may be a means for him to satisfy his own curiosity about the world. When people ask him about the meaning of his works, his answer is always very frank – “I just liked the window of this building, or the look of the ground, or the messiness of this straw, so I took a picture of it”. This is different from the conceptual creation of most of the artists we are familiar with. Despite Derek’s seemingly thoughtless approach to photography, he has a great ability to bring out the best in any situation. His photography makes great use of bright colors and is composed in a way that still engages the viewer with curiosity and appreciation. His photos always have a soul.

Derek’s photography shows that he likes to question the world. They show that he believes although we might think otherwise, if we actually try, human beings have the wisdom and confidence to understand the world. Whether a photograph has interesting content or no content, people generally have a predetermined opinion when it comes to observing photography and using it to understand the world’s specific parts. As a photography student at an academic school, Derek’s work allows me to start thinking. If we spend more time to explore the philosophical motives and conceptual ideas behind photography, we can better understand the social and cultural backgrounds to create a story. Through Derek’s approach, we can create photography with greater visual enjoyment and an appreciation for the often overlooked. Whether or not this approach will improve photography or create problems in our understanding of it, is something worth thinking about.

[ravinli0826-blog]

James Tylor’s work combines a rich cultural background with social phenomena. Tylor has a unique approach to symbolizing his artwork with cultural features. Most of his works use digital photographs of landscapes, which are then retouched through physical means, such as post-painting, hand-coloring and tearing of the photograph itself. All of Tylor’s photographic dissections are based on his historical and cultural connections, of which he has many, including Nunga, Maori, and European.

Many of Tylor’s works present a symbolic notion of rebellion against the government. Not only do they express the helplessness that the Aboriginal people experienced during the European colonization of Australia, but they also act as a reminder to the fact that Aboriginal people continue to face injustice and the unchallenged rule of the colonialists, even today. What makes Tylor’s works so unique is his ability to completely change the meaning of an otherwise very ordinary digital photograph. For example, in “From an Untouched Landscape”, what was once just an ordinary landscape photograph, following Tylor’s own interpretation and manipulation, one can now see the bleakness of culture after it has been removed from the land. Tylor is skilled at using geometric figures and colors to express forgotten history, highlighting his strong view on long-standing cultural heritage.

In James Tylor’s view, after Australia was colonized by white people creating a radical change in demographics, so too did people’s lifestyles change. Tylor has expressed this condition in many of his works, showing through his manipulation of photographs the change from the beauty of nature to the ugliness of urbanization following colonization. His work always uses strong personal and emotional connections to communicate with the public, reminding us of the significance of Australia’s history that cannot be forgotten. Although Tylor has used the method of subtraction in his works, deleting a lot of content from the photographs, he has ironically added substantially to their meaning. The black spaces that Tylor creates in the images encourage people to consider more strongly the hidden meaning of them.

Although Tylor’s works provide a very rich perspective on the significance of a complex historical and cultural background, it is often difficult for a genre like this to penetrate in to mainstream societies. In any case, he is an artist with a great sense of racial responsibility. He uses his complex cultural background to transform otherwise ordinary images in to embodiments of historical significance.

Perhaps if work like James Tylor’s was more widespread, people would begin to consider a society with a more open mind. For instance, has the government's influence of globalization truly provided us our current freedoms? or are we unknowingly assisting in their goal for domination? Have we been deceived in believing that the Aboriginal race was hurt and suffering before the arrival of the colonisers, thus influencing us to migrate here and embrace modernization and urbanization at the expense of the Aboriginals once spiritual way of life? 

For me, coming from a country with great dictatorship and less human rights, and moving to a “democratic” country, I am impressed by James’ courage to communicate through art and to reflect and protest the government's power – a feat, which is almost impossible in China without dire consequences.

[ravinli0826-blog]

Drew's approach to design, under the influence of the modern art environment, is very unique. He applies many elements to his artworks that are unrelated to the material world. His translations of thoughts to physical objects are very provoking, such as his perspective on Childhood memories, new albums by lady gaga, and elements from the queer scene. These elements are conceptually processed in his mind and combined into touchable objects, thus becoming the physical objects with embedded memories and irresistible meaning. Drew also uses screenshots of video games to express his perspective on the world. These practices may be difficult to call painting or photography in their traditional sense, but their existence largely represents the core of postmodernism with its tendency of turning everything into a remix.

Artists are required to not be restricted by any physical form in this era and keep a heart of curiosity about the world. Just like Drew, artists can use nostalgic culture to make virtual animations to show their thinking about the world.

Drew’s very witty and funny content is combined on rough, almost nostalgic looking paper, creating a strong contrast between the subjects shown and producing a feeling rarely experienced by other forms of art – one of nostalgic curiosity. Under this strong contrast, and through the portrayal of many interesting yet sad looking gays, one could argue that Drew’s unique style of art represents a window into his hidden and lonely past. Like his work, Drew represents the much varying modern society. He acknowledges the existence of everything, and that the existence of everything makes sense. Personally, I realized that an artist should learn to talk to the world and be good at expressing his feelings with his own experiences and the joy of life. The way we explore the world can be the way we explain our world through art.

[ravinli0826-blog]

The use of AI technology in realistic digital facial recreation is laying the foundation for our future. The development of such technologies is bringing us unlimited possibilities. As Mike Seymour discussed, the face is not only to identify the difference between people, it can also create a major emotional effect. The impact of the development of this technology on people is huge. People no longer have to cross thousands of miles to interact face-to-face with the person they miss the most.

The implications for this technology are endless: The international celebrity can use their local native language to communicate with foreign fans; those who seek revenge on perhaps an unlikeable work colleague may use their face to bring great embarrassment upon them; porn sites could use the face of a celebrity to satisfy the desires of many customers; the President of the USA could unknowingly  present an irreversible political manifesto; one could even be as bold as to try and change the world – using the faces of the most influential people to do and say things that could spread a controversial message to millions around the world. We will be forced not only to protect our own images and knowledge but under the influence of such a technology, humanity will be required to have new discussions about whether people’s unique faces should be protected or not. This is because the face is the biggest clue to identifying an individual, thus making it easy for people to participate in unethical behavior using people’s faces and laying the blame on others.

These problems will arise in the not too far future, potentially creating great human rights issues and confrontation. It is a topic with an almost infinite number of both positive and negative outcomes. It can be argued that the development of this technology will not only develop unilaterally – the technology could possibly also be used to analyse whether a video or picture has undergone similar post-processing via data. Nevertheless, this technological change is a sign of our era and shows little sign of slowing down.  It is a technology that seems almost impossible to stop, given the implications it offers. It should be reminded, that what we are welcoming in may cause significant confrontation between the public on moral issues and technological problems in this digital world.