#readymade magazine

[alienorchids]

Dir en grey in READY MADE Vol. 1, 1998

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted’s Opinionated, Non-Consensus Guide to the 1990s

The Fatima Mansions

The 1990s. Some of us lived through them. A few formed our musical selves during this pivotal decade. We watched hip hop emerge and swell to vast commercial proportions. We wondered what indie meant…and if it meant anything at all. We pondered whether lo-fi was charming, or just made it harder to hear the flaws. And mostly we listened to records that moved us, a few of which turn up on the decade-defining consensus lists, but most of which don’t. Here are a few albums that made us who we are. We chose one each and refused to put them in numerical order (they’re alphabetical by artist). Feel free to add your own in the comments. Everybody’s 1990s were different, after all.

Contributors include Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Andrew Forell, Bryon Hayes, Christian Carey, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers and Justin Cober-Lake.

Bark Psychosis — Hex (Circa/Caroline)

Perhaps most famous for prompting music writer Simon Reynolds to coin the term “post rock,” Hex by Bark Psychosis still sounds oddly timeless — and certainly unlike many bands who would come to be described by the phrase. While legions of post-rock bands would emerge during the late 1990s and early 2000s with a lamentable dependence on dramatic shifts in dynamics, Bark Psychosis used rock instrumentation in more subtle and unique ways. Hex has more in common with bands such as Talk Talk and The Blue Nile, who prized atmosphere and texture over more direct songcraft. As a result, the album’s seven tracks take a long time to go nowhere, elegantly prowling around in the shadows like a stray cat. While Graham Sutton is far from a conventional singer, his disaffected vocals sound right at home in these ink-black, urban expanses. “Absent Friend” is perhaps the album’s most dub-influenced track, dappled with melodica and pinned to terra firma by a stubbornly simplistic bassline. “Fingerspit” is an eerie jazz nightmare, as if the players in some subterranean club have forgotten to play their instruments, so instead resort to hammering away at a single chord. The band’s commitment to maintaining a desolate tone makes the moments of levity all the more gorgeous, such as the woodwind textures on “A Street Scene” and “Eyes and Smiles.” The magnificent instrumental closer, “Pendulum Man,” eventually delivers some lasting reprieve from the gloom.

Tim Clarke  

The Bevis Frond — Son of Walter (Flydaddy/Reissued on Light in the Attic)

Son Of Walter by Bevis Frond

Already a decade into his run as the Bevis Frond, Nick Salomon pulled back from the full-band, studio-produced aesthetic that culminated in New River Head. He recorded Son of Walter by himself, at home, but “bedroom pop” this is not. It sprawls. It rears. It rages. It surges in inexorable waves on the strength of spiralling guitar solos and delicate, folk-derived melodies. From the opening blare of fuzz in “Plastic Elvis,” through the wistful jangle of “Goodnight from the Band,” I love every song on this album. Sure there are highlights, the blistered, caterwauling romance of “Red Hair,” the Neil-Young-into-Jimi fireblast of “Barking or False Point Blues,” the lilting, surprisingly earwormy chorus of “Raining on TV,” but it’s really all good. As a young mom in the late 1990s, I found solace in spidery “Forgiven” about a love sanded down by life (“She’s always…exhausted”). The tune is worn down to a thread but still lovely, and it leads right into the black hole swirl of “All Hope Is Going Without You.” Spare beauty and psychedelic overload, cheek by jowl and wonderful.

Jennifer Kelly

 The Fatima Mansions — Valhalla Avenue (Kitchenware)

On The Fatima Mansions’ 1992 album Valhalla Avenue, songwriter Cathal Coughlan (who passed this last May), sets his sights on corruption, religious extremism and human stupidity like Flann O’Brien’s furious younger brother. Moving between a Scott Walker croon and the coruscating intensity of a barroom preacher with Ministry on the jukebox, Coughlan and his bandmates create moments of poetic beauty (“North Atlantic Wind,” “Purple Window”) and maelstroms of indignant chaos (“1000%,” “Go Home Bible Mike). The fierce irreverence of their musical juxtapositions — lounge, industrial, sampling — and their no-fucks-given attitude remains singular today and Coughlin’s intense romanticism, mordant wit, political satire and apocalyptic imagery marks him as one of great lyricists of his time. Valhalla Avenue spent a week at the low end of British album charts, was not released in America and made nary a dent in Australia. Thanks to an Irish workmate in Germany who ceremoniously presented me a cassette of their early singles “Only Losers Take the Bus” and “Blues for Ceausescu”, Valhalla Avenue is still on regular rotation round here.

Andrew Forell  

  Flying Saucer Attack — Further (Domino / Drag City)  

Flying Saucer Attack was the flagship band of that other 1990s Bristol scene, the one that didn’t revolve around trip hop.  David Pearce and his friends favored a blend of coruscating noise, delicate drones, and airy folk over downtempo hip hop beats. With its DIY aesthetic, FSA championed home recording and a “less is more” attitude to music-making, paralleling that of contemporary acts such as Windy & Carl.  Further was the band’s sophomore release and stripped away much of the razor wire-laced bombast of its debut.  FSA, which at the time was a loose collective centered around Pearce and then-girlfriend Rachel Brook, began to incorporate more acoustic guitar into their songs, and took a measured approach to noise and feedback.  Pearce allowed his deep and resonant voice to drift above the misty haze of the music; Brook uncharacteristically emits rays of vocal sunshine on “Still Point”.  The resulting album is one of raw grace, a careful balancing act between tranquility and chaos.  Further is as bleary and beautiful as its cover art, and it stood out elegantly amidst the various frayed threads of 1990s underground music.

Bryon Hayes 

John Hiatt — Walk On (Capitol)

John Hiatt’s 1995 recording Walk On is an under sung masterpiece. Two collaborators that he would continue to keep in his band, until they were purloined for more lucrative gigs, multi-instrumentalist David Immerglück and bassist Davey Farragher, join drummer Michael Urbano and several backing vocalists, Bonnie Raitt noteworthy among them, to support Hiatt and supply versatile arrangements. “Cry Love,” “You Must Go,” and the title track provide a kick-off of catchy singles. Deeper in the release, Raitt and Hiatt duet on “I Can’t Wait,” a song that, if there were any justice, would have charted higher. Hiatt is prescient about the endless investigations and rise of militia groups during the second term of the Clinton administration in “Shredding the Document” “Native Son,” and “Wrote it Down and Burned It.” A hidden track hearkens back to the height of CD distribution. 

Christian Carey

 Peter Jefferies — The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World (Xpressway/Ajax/De Stijl)

In retrospect, the musicians who joined forces to form the Xpressway collective can be recognized as aesthetic game-changers. Not only did they unleash the forces of sonic resistance in their native New Zealand, raising clouds of gilded splinters as they pushed against the grain; they issued a permission-granting challenge to every subsequent wave of refuseniks determined to freely fuse noise, rock, and anything else at hand. But their success was by no means a given when Peter Jefferies made The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World on borrowed gear in a drafty old house on the edge of a container port at the end of the southern winter of 1989. At the time, the Xpressway crew were just the losers who were left behind when Flying Nun Records chased the brass ring north. Jefferies, like Alastair Galbraith, the Dead C, Peter Gutteridge, David Mitchell and the Terminals, had given Flying Nun some great music, and subsequently found himself ignored. A gifted multi-instrumentalist, singer, and sound recorder, he became the scene’s four-track documentarian, and he called on key associates to help make what he then felt might be his last testament. On Last Great Challenge he synthesized Cale-derived balladry, early Ubu rock, and post-This Heat sound manipulation into a singular statement of intent and reproach so acute that it, and everyone associated with it, could not be ignored. The album, which has been issued by three different labels, is currently out of print, but not that hard to find. It remains a stern condemnation of every lazy record out there that can’t be bothered to reach past the sky.

Bill Meyer  

 Nausea — Extinction (Profane Existence)

More and more, metal is moving out of its subgenre-specific silos and beyond its backward-gazing obsessions with hidebound traditions. But from its start, crust was a hybrid form, combining the politically motivated anti-aesthetic of anarcho-punk with metal’s swaggering muscle. It makes some sense, then, that this influential American crust record emerged from the Lower East Side, where hardcore punk was already cross-pollinating with metal; see Cause for Alarm (1986), the second LP by Agnostic Front, a band dominated by Roger Miret, then husband of Nausea’s singer Amy Miret, nee Keim. By the time Nausea made Extinction, its only LP, Al Long had joined the band, filling out the dual-vocal, female-male attack in a nod to Crass. And while “punk” usually follows the word crust in discussions of the style, Extinction is crucially informed by metal: “Butchers” owes much to Motörhead; “Clutches” rumbles like early Saint Vitus; the opening minutes of “Blackened Dove” could be from a Witchfinder General record. For this reviewer, “Inherit the Wasteland” is the key song, full of dystopian dread, replete with an enormous breakdown section and Vic Venom’s enthusiastic shredding. It’s an unhappy, unstoppable blast. Other metal and metal-adjacent sub-sub- and microgenres had formed by 1990: goregrind was already a thing, and the Slap a Ham crew was busily birthing powerviolence. Bandana thrash was just over the horizon. But few of those modish musical notions have had the substance (grimy, grotty and grave as it might be) and staying power of crust. Exhibit A: Extinction. It still stinks up the joint.

Jonathan Shaw

 Readymade — The Dramatic Balanced By (No Records)

By 1997 shoegaze had ebbed back significantly from whatever high tide mark it had attained, and nobody was particularly looking towards Vancouver for it, if they were looking at all. And yet out of what sounds like a combo of ennui, political unrest, movies (particularly, from the cover on down, Mean Streets), “taking speed in Germany,” drum machines, insomnia, rain, power grids, airports, four-track recorders, windows, and urban sprawl, enigmatic trio Readymade created one of the great lost epics of the era and genre. They didn’t stop here, absorbing members of the sadly even more obscure Pipedream and producing two excellent, gleaming and ambiguous records in the next decade, but only on The Dramatic Balanced By was their rougher, fuzzier, more expansive side given free reign. The result, whether the craggier, more anthemic likes of “Bloomsbury Boxcutter” and “Dreamt I Fled,” the crepuscular trudge of “Following a Typewriter to Sleep,” or the mournfully lambent “Hamburg,” holds together as a great example of the kind of record that forms its own world, one you can get lost in. That record climaxes with “Head Falls to Shoulder,” one of the most overwhelming storms of sound and feeling anyone was making in 1997. The band may be long gone in 2022 (although blessedly for anyone wanting to check them out, all three LPs can be streamed), but their expansive opus of city-bound alienation endures.

Ian Mathers

 Spaceheads — Spaceheads (Dark Beloved Cloud)

Spaceheads by Spaceheads

On first listen, Spaceheads' self-titled 1995 album can feel like a throwaway. The record contains a fair bit of silliness and didn't come about as a deeply theorized piece of art. Trumpeter Andy Diagram and percussionist Richard Harrison had been playing in various jazz bands together when they started recording some duo improvisations and playing with the tapes. Early release Ho! Fat Wallet sounds as indebted to 1980s hip hop as anything, and its mix of brass and beats would still make for great backing tracks. Spaceheads followed with a weird twist on, well, just about everything. It can sit not uncomfortably on an EDM shelf, but that term doesn't accurately capture what they were doing. Stretches of the album are funky without being funk or industrial without being industrial. Some moments are abstract enough to be almost incoherent while others could play in a Hollywood soundtrack; “Down in Outer Space” sequencing into “Joyriding” provides all of that in a short burst. Spaceheads sound like a group that could have been any number of things or that could have floundered with pointless fiddling and experimentation. Instead, they pursued the only thing they seem to have any interest in being: exactly themselves. In doing so, they created an album with quirks and surprises that continue to provide as much joy and listening pleasure as anything going on around them (whatever that field might be).

Justin Cober-Lake

[blessedrestlessness]

[luxe-pauvre]

But of course they do in real life as well; we interpret peoples’ consumer choices in our day-to-day interactions far more than we do in fiction, and what we look for are signs of ideological affiliation. As our politics become only more tribal, what we eat, what we wear, what we drive all become signifiers, readymade symbols that advertise our identity. Imagine somebody who drives a Ford pickup, enjoys a Coors with his Chick-fil-A as compared to a woman who owns a Subaru with a radio tuned to NPR on her way to Trader Joe’s. You know exactly who these people are, or at least who they’re supposed to be. Often this has little to do with class in any traditional socio-economic sense, as “lifestyle usurped the more traditional class markers of income, and even education and occupation,” as Lizabeth Cohen explains in A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Cohen asks you to predict the different sorts of people who would buy a “Cadillac over a Chevrolet, a ranch house instead of a Cape Cod, The New Yorker over True Story magazine,” and you immediately understand her point. It speaks to something deterministic in the American psyche since the type of ice cream we buy predicts who we’ll vote for, though I offer no appraisal on this one way or the other, just the observation. And politics is only one vestige of this, obviously, consumer choices are instrumental in the formation of identity within and across races, genders, sexualities, and religions as well. We shop, therefore we are.

Ed Simon, Tripping the Late Capitalist Sublime

[tepot]

"The Museum: A New Social Sculpture" by Simon Wu in Spike Art Magazine 75 Spring 2023

Some have called this the "reparative turn," which has called on institutions to atone for current and historical grievances perpetrated by museums and society more broadly. Writing about documenta fifteen, curated by the Indonesian collective ruangrupa, New York Times art critic Jason Farago described how the show "militated against its own viewing," focusing on work-shops, social gatherings, and "vibing" over visual art: "The real work of the show was not the stuff on the walls but the hanging out around it." Farago continued that this was connected to a larger shift away from aesthetics and toward various forms of social practice observable in museums, art schools, and magazines. Similarly, art historian Barry Schwabsky, writing in 2022 for The Nation, described the recession of the "aesthetic regime," or a turn away from art as a matter of form to increasingly privilege its ethical content. "What if today we are witnessing a return to a time when art is valued for its social utility, its edifying effect on the viewer," he wrote, "more than for its aesthetic valence?"

[...] In 1996, the curator Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term "relational aesthetics" to describe a growing tendency among practitioners to use social scenarios as materials for their art. There were temporary bars (Jorge Pardo's at K21, Dusseldorf; Michael Lin's at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Liam Gillick's at Whitechapel Gallery, London), reading lounges (Apolonija Sustersi's at Kustverein Munchen, or the changing "Le Salon" program at Palais de Tokyo), and pad thai (Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled 1992 (Free) at 303 Gallery in New York), all of which used social situations as readymade performances of sorts. Throughout the 2000s, artists like Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, and Theaster Gates expanded these ideas into sprawling, multi-year projects that came to resemble libraries and community centers. From its inception, relational aesthetics inspired fierce debates over the relationships between utility, art, and civic duty. What did it mean to assess and experience that verged on social services according to ethical as well as aesthetic metrics?

Perhaps we have come to see the museum itself as a big, unwieldy project of relational aesthetics. When I go to a museum now, I want to know: Who sits on the board? What are their investments? Is the staff trying to unionize? What are its ties to both police and local communities? To think of the museum as a kind of collaborative social performance is to imbue its operations with both formal mutability and symbolic potential, positioning all those involved as "artists" engaged in its collective reshaping. This is not to just say that the museum is a work of art, or that it can escape the criticism that "good ethics" make for "bad art" endemic to relational aesthetics. It is more to say that perhaps those aspects that always felt concrete and immovable are feeling more unmoored than ever.

[tladb]

Name dropping Robert Rauschenberg 2 : Breakout of the Midjourney style melange.

Robert Rauschenberg developed many different techniques within an overall mixed media framework. Here a five images using different style prompts generate by Perplexity.ai to broaden the range of Rauschenberg inspired images.

Combine Art with Found Objects

Australian Landscape with the style of a dynamic artwork blending painting and sculpture, incorporating found objects like newspapers, fabric, and everyday items. Use a mix of bold colors and textures to create a collage-like effect, reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg's Combines --ar 3:2

Abstract Expressionism with Red Dominance

Australian Landscape with the style of an abstract painting with a dominant red color palette. Integrate layers of paint with gestural brushstrokes and collage elements such as comic strips and patterned fabrics, inspired by Rauschenberg's Red Paintings --ar 3:2

Monochromatic Minimalism

an Australian Landscape style by Generate a minimalist artwork using monochromatic white or black surfaces. Employ textured grounds with subtle elements like wrinkled newspaper or pebbles pressed into the pigment, echoing Rauschenberg's White and Black paintings --ar 3:2

Silkscreen and Photographic Imagery

Australian Landscape with the style of a vibrant artwork using silkscreen techniques to apply photographic images from magazines and newspapers. Combine these images with gestural oil paint strokes and bright colors, reflecting Rauschenberg’s silkscreen paintings from the 1960 — ar 3:2

Transfer Drawings with Mixed Media

Australian Landscape with the style of an ethereal drawing using solvent transfer techniques to combine hand-drawn elements with readymade texts and images from glossy magazines. Layer these elements to create a poetic and fragmented narrative, inspired by Rauschenberg's transfer drawing --ar 3:2

[amysguan]

In Bourriaud’s “Postproduction,” he gives an overview of post production techniques and how they redefine already produced forms, which adds an almost philosophical spin on how we produce meaning, ownership, and the limits of art. In Gergel’s “From Here On,” he describes how the internet has altered our visual landscape, and how image appropriation interacts with the idea of post production to generate new forms of art that transform existing photographs. Both authors bring up questions on what defines art and reference the Dadaist movement, drawing parallels with pieces such as Duchamp’s readymades.

I found it interesting how the distinction between art and non-art can separate pieces from being appreciable and even ethical. For example, as mentioned in the Gergel piece, Pavel Maria Smejkal appropriates photojournalistic images and erases the subject, perhaps as a commentary on the erasure of history. Here, the emptiness is stark, evident, and creates an almost self-aware indication of post production, and the fundamental nature of the piece serves to generate some sort of artistic meaning and commentary. This contrasts the 1982 National Geographic cover photo scandal, where it wasn’t evident that the edited cover photo was serving as a mere graphic instead of a photo journalistic documentation. The misalignment in perception between the “artist” and audience generated kickback and trust/ethics concerns. Furthermore, the inclusion of the edited image within the main magazine section, which was clearly understood to be photo journalistic in nature, made the editing seem even more unethical, as mirrored in the response at the time and the comment section. This contrast between the two instances of editing point to the importance of understanding intention – even if a work may not seem like art, the understanding that it is can be critical to its reception (and how ethical it is), as in the case with readymades – and the emphasis we place on making a distinction between photography as a technology to document and photography as a medium for expression and artistic appropriation.

[k00290860]

Disrupt Project Week 6 -

20/11/23

Artist Research:

John Stezaker

John Stezaker was born in England in 1949, and currently lives and works in London. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in the 1960s, and has since taught at Central Saint Martins School of Art, Goldsmiths College, and the Royal College of Art.

Stezaker is one of the leading artists in modern photographic collage and appropriation. Employing vintage photographs, old Hollywood film stills, travel postcards and other printed matter, Stezaker creates seductive and fascinating small-format collages that bear qualities of Surrealism, Dada, and found art. In referring to the large compendium of images he has collected, Stezaker asserts that the images “find him,” not the other way around. With surgical-like precision, Stezaker excises, overlays and conjoins distinct images to create new personalities, landscapes and scenes.

His work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.

In his Marriage series, Stezaker focuses on the concept of portraiture, both as art historical genre and public identity. Using publicity shots of classic film stars, Stezaker splices and overlaps famous faces, creating hybrid ‘icons’ that dissociate the familiar to create sensations of the uncanny. Coupling male and female identity into unified characters, Stezaker points to a disjointed harmony, where the irreconciliation of difference both complements and detracts from the whole.

His stark juxtapositions portraying a sense of self identity through the lenses of various different eyes compels any fellow artist to just sit and take in the message he is trying to show.

[abigailampoma]

John Stezaker

A british artist named John Stezaker studied at Slade school of Art and made work regarding in collage. In his collages, he uses images in books, magazines and postcards and uses then as “readymades”. In his work he challenges himself and does a different approach to dominate in pop art in collage, where it is very cheeky as one of his work he uses dapper suited men and Hollywood stars and merged them together with postcards with other faces.

[rachaelokeeffe]

John Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’.

[alienorchids]

Dir en grey in READY MADE Vol. 1, 1998

[shamelessrabbithole]

I give a pass to Noel for not blocking out the comments. They've admitted that Noel isn't social media savvy .

Cam knows how it works

BUT if he block out the problematic comments, then who's going to stroke his ego?

The ego on Cam is no joke. When he did his interview with 1883 magazine, there was a part that stood out for me. He mentioned having a readymade audience for any project he does next, whether he chooses to write it or direct it. He just has to be selective about the project.

This isn’t exactly true. He has a FANBASE. That’s not the same as people willing to support him unconditionally. They may like the games he voices, but those are largely gamers and Star Wars fans.

If his audience could always be counted on, no matter the project, then Shattered would have been a success. It earned under $500k worldwide.

[old-school-new-body-review2023]

Old School New Body PDF Download by Steve & Becky Holman

Obesity has become a common trait among the middle-aged. Statistics by the CDC show that between the ages of 39 – 59, more than 40% of persons are obese. Most people will try to avoid owning up to that fact, but at this age, we’re all a bit out of shape and have started looking old! If you’re already in your 40s but can’t balance your weight, it can create several health issues such as joint pain, diabetes, hypertension, and many others. But now, you need not be worried about your fitness issues, you can have a readymade guide to help you overcome your obesity and make you feel younger again through minimal equipment. There are many fitness programs in the market nowadays. Choosing the right program is essential to get the desired shape without difficulty. Old School New Body is a fitness guide that helps you lose fat and improve your body shape in a few weeks. Old School New Body is perfectly suitable for both the fitness beginner and the experienced one.

Old School New Body, is a training system that is directed towards getting a healthier body mass and slowed aging. It is based on the principle that real efficiency lies in short, hard sessions of exercise rather than longer workout sessions. The product's author worked as editor-in-chief at Ironman magazine, allowing him to peer into the anti-aging experts' secret routines. It made it easy for Steve and Becky Holman to pick many tips, tricks, and strategies to reverse the aging process. Steve Holman has trained with the best fitness trainee in the world for over thirty years. It comes with all the workout and exercise routines you could ask for, along with nutritional information to help you follow a proper diet. The basic principle behind the exercises is to use moderate weight to achieve a resistance focused or high fatigue workout. Using moderate weights while exercising produces less joint stress and is especially beneficial for persons over 40. In addition to the exercise, the program also includes some very detailed but easy to follow nutrition guidelines.

After hitting the fortieth body, most people experience rapid aging. Science shows that cellular health declines sharply without proper exercise and nutrients, leading to numerous health concerns, including obesity. Most people normalize age-related health issues. However, researchers claim that you can enjoy optimal health regardless of age if you eat healthily, sleep well, hydrate, and work out at least 90 minutes weekly. It offers a comprehensive package that includes workout regimens, meal plans, and general information to help you achieve your fitness goals. In addition to the core program, which is the foundation of the system, you’ll also receive the F4X Quick Start Guide. This program not only teaches techniques to lose weight and transform your physique, but it also helps you to regain your health and rejuvenate your body. This protocol offers a clear-cut blend of work-out routines, on which you will need to spend only 90 minutes a week in order to transform your physique. The unique F4X workout method is a proven method to make you look and feel younger, while sculpting a head-turning physique with just 90 minutes per week.  The techniques used in F4X are the exact same techniques used by Steve and Becky to get in the best shape of their lives in their 50’s. Following “Old School New Body” and the “F4X guide” will work for men and women of all ages, but they are specifically designed to help people in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and older. You’ll also get four additional bonus guides and reports covering various topics related to health and wellness.

Click here to visit the Old School New Body official website.

[viviandoanmanipulatedimage]

Artist Research

Hannah Hoch

Early Life and Background:

Born 1889 in Gotha, Germany.

Studied at Berlin School of Applied Arts, focusing on collage and photomontage.

Joined Berlin's Dada movement in the 1920s.

Innovated photomontage for social critique and challenging norms.

Influential in redefining artistic boundaries.

A prominent figure in the Dada movement.

German artist.

Active in the early 20th century.

Known for her innovative use of photomontage.

Höch's Technique - Photomontage:

Involved cutting out images from magazines, newspapers, etc.

Arranged and pasted images to create new compositions.

Juxtaposed unrelated images to deconstruct narratives.

Challenged societal norms and highlighted absurdity.

Themes in Höch's Work:

Strong feminist and political themes.

Explore gender roles, identity, consumerism, and media.

Critiqued cultural and societal constructs.

Legacy:

Influence on subsequent generations of artists.

Inspired experimentation and new ways of conveying ideas.

Left a lasting impact on modern art through her innovative approach and fearless expression.

The Dada Art Movement

Dada Art Movement: 1916 to roughly 1924

Rejection of Conventions: Dadaists aimed to break away from established artistic norms. 

Social Critique: Responding to the chaos of World War I, Dada artists sought to criticise societal complacency and challenge the values associated with the middle class.

Anti-War Protest: The movement emerged as a response to the devastation of the war, with Dadaists employing their art as a platform to protest against the futility and brutality of armed conflict.

Collage Technique: Dadaists employed the collage technique, fusing disparate elements to engender novel and unconventional compositions, subverting traditional artistic representations.

Readymades Innovation: Introducing the concept of "readymades," artists like Marcel Duchamp elevated ordinary objects into art, contesting the necessity for meticulous craftsmanship and emphasising artistic conception.

Performance and Poetry: Dadaists staged audacious performances, conducted poetry readings, and organised public events characterised by deliberate absurdity, aiming to elicit shock and provoke contemplation.

Impact on Modern Art:The precursor to Surrealism: Dada significantly influenced the Surrealist movement that succeeded it. Surrealists integrated Dadaist notions of the subconscious mind, juxtaposition of unrelated elements, and unconventional techniques into their artistic approach.

Art, R. (2020). A guide to collage. Rise Art. 

Artland. (2023). What is dadaism, dada art, or a dadaist? Artland Magazine. 

Hannah Höch | Artist Profile | NMWA. (2020, May 29). NMWA. 

[straycatboogie]

2023/07/15 English

BGM: James - Sometimes

Time flies. It's about seven days since I started reading/writing poems. I'm autistic therefore I have really a troublesome personality that gets bored easily, but it seems that creating poetry might fit me. Today I wrote another poem. I named my poetry blog a title "冰箱", this means "a fridge" in Chinese. My mind/memory is like a fridge, therefore if you open its door, you can find that there are some stuff that has already been expired. I cook those stuff to make some leftovers, and that's my creation of poetry. Yes, it is really a readymade/easy-going one. Recently I have been creating sonnets because they were easy for me to write, but I want to write more. Free verse poems, or Proses, etc... Yes, it's really an instant idea. I couldn't expect that "this year I will start writing my poems (and maybe it will goes long)". Now is the later stage of my life, but could it be my life work? I can't see completely. I just want to enrich my fridge/archive.

Of course, if I did write/output only, it wouldn't last long. It would end soon... so I want to do inputting. Today I borrowed Shuntaro Tanikawa's poems from the library, and after today's work I started reading one of them with Sonny Rollins' jazz. I remember that once I also had an interest in poetry, and read Hisaki Matsuura and Natsuki Ikezawa. What am I doing? An "ordinary" or "normal" 48 years old person won't get into creating poetry like this. But this is my life, so what... It seems that my co-workers and bosses are getting to learn that I am an autistic person, so some of them started showing harm to me. There are some people who show unfriendly attitude and get out when I go to the locker room with them. Indeed, once I had got hurt when I was done that kind of behavior. But today, I thought that "They are just running away from me, that's all". Running away... that's because of their mind, and not my mind. I can't judge/control that so I just have to say "Do what you want/like". And I say that's the final answer. Therefore, I need to do the practice of not caring about that too seriously. How long it lasts... I can't see.

There are some good points of writing poetry (even though my poems are terrible). One of them might be the fact that we can do it "easily", and it won't cost so highly. We don't have to buy any expensive equipment as instruments or cameras. Just we need a pen and some papers. That's the first things we have to cost. We should face the world alone with poetry. "Don't fight it, Feel it". We just grip the outside objects/subjects, and through them we try to find what are coming/flooding from our minds. Writing poems seem like a kind of action like jogging or fishing. Facing myself, or digging our wells in ourselves. What kind of poems other poets are writing? I have to read various countries' poems as China, or other Asian countries... not only European and American poems. I also want to enjoy fresher, more vivid ones within any magazines of poems. I am already 48 as I said, and health check at my workplace says that I need to care my health more. I can't live a "forever young" or "evergreen" life. "The end is coming". That's the fact I have to face. What can I do from now? This life... I threw my 20s and 30s, my young days into a gutter but can I make a great firework from now? Although, It must be a great life even though I can't make anything.

Could I write my dream down actually? What do I want to do... I want to do soon to go to the library to try to find any Chinese poetry books. I want to go to the cafe place near by my group home, and try to show my poems to the staff (Indeed, they would criticize/diss me. I want to welcome them). Can I read my poor poetry by my voice? (do I have to enrich the stock more?). I want to show my reading in the real life/situation, or any podcast... My dream increases. Of course, you may say that "Face the real" and "Try not to dream so much". But I never disturb anyone's life with these dreams, and also want to work steadily. Just with keeping on my life strictly, I try to go to the different way from now little by little. It won't make money, but that's OK. People might criticize my poems terribly, but it's ok. Today, TBH I couldn't write this journal as easily as always because I had an idea that "I am always writing the same truth of mine" and "This won't attract readers". Yes, I have that kind of insight... But today I want to confess my dream/ambition boldly. It might not be able to come true, but I want to live with them, instead of not waiting for the death quietly.

A Poem About Emotion

"I think of the courage, does it exist? Cam I make it easily like a fist? I try to say my love. I write it in the bucket list But that courage goes away in the end into the mist"

Yes, that's your confession. Why can I laugh at? I just want to hug you, and also give you a pat People have a hurtful emotion that says you're fat You shouldn't care about that at all. Let them say like that

As Physics says, everything must have its reaction They can answer to you when you do your action Our minds can't be divided so clearly, they have fraction

You can do what you want, just follow the emotion That honest feeling does work like a magic portion Never mind any harm they give to you that diss your proportion

[svetlanamirchevaworks]

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS / CATALOGUES / ARCHIVES: SELECTED FROM THE COLLECTION, National Gallery, Sofia, 2021, ISBN: 978-954-9473-58-2 SHIFTING LAYERS. YOUNG ART AT THE MUSEUM https://sghg.bg/en/catalogs/shifting-layers-young-artat-the-museum/ POLYPHONIA, Frans Oosterhof, Motto Books 2019, ISBN: 9782940524891 book of Polyphonia exhibition, Goethe-Institut Sofia, 2017 in OPEN ART FILES, Bulgarian online art archive: Art from the early 90’s to the Present Day by Vessela Nozharova Digital Art in Bulgaria – Electronic Media, Multimedia Installations, Internet Art by Galina Dimitrova-Dimova The Art of Books, Printing and Graphic Design by Svetla Petkova ÆTHER art space: SELF-GUIDE BECOMING THE OTHER, 2018, Stuttgart INTRODUCTION TO BULGARIAN CONTEMPORARY ART 1982–2015 by Vessela Nozharova, Open Arts Foundation, ISBN: 978 619 186 435 5, p. 264-265 10 YEARS OPEN ARTS: HERE AND EVERYWHERE edition for the jubilee of Open Arts Foundation and the exhibition “HERE EVERYWHERE” curator Vladiya Mihaylova, within the framework of NIGHT/Plovdiv 2017, p. 65, 74, 78-79, 106-107 NATIONAL GALLERY, ARCHIVE 2011–2017 / Sofia Arsenal–Museum for Contemporary Art, editor Nadezhda Dzhakova, isbn 978-954-9473-33-9, p. 92 WHO LEFT?WHAT BEHIND Exhibition catalog, p. 142-145 © 2012 Pleven/Ankara, advisors - Beral Madra, Maria Vassileva, curators - Demna Dimitrova, Saliha Kasap AN ART NEWSPAPER, edited by Aaron Moulton, CLASSIFIED ADS, Special DECADE Issue/Vel.10/Nul.23, p. 52, April 1 2011, Berlin 18. STUTTGARTER FILMWINTER. Festival 13. - 16.1.2005 UNSICHTBARES. KUNST_WISSENSCHAFT. Algorithmen als Schnittstellen zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft, Internationaler Medienkunstpreis 2004, Publikationstyp Sammelband Verfasser / Herausgeber Barbara Könches und Peter Weibel (Hg.); Verlag, Ort Benteli, Bern; Jahr 2005; Sprache deutsch; Beschreibung 431 S., zahlr. Ill.; ISBN 3-7165-1395-4 INVISIBLE. ART_SCIENCE / International Media Art Award 2004; CD-ROM/DVD Jahr 2004; Sprache deutsch und englisch; Organisation / Institution ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe; Kooperationspartner SWR ; SF drs ; arte

VIPER BASEL INTERNATIONALES FESTIVAL. FÜR FILM VIDEO UND NEUE MEDIEN. GENERATIONS ON THE MOVE. 18.-22. NOVEMBER 2004. CATALOGUE. KULTUR. Viper Direction by Rebecca Picht, Annika Blunck, p. 031© 2004 Viper RADAR Connecting Europe RADAR project catalogue, Edited by Angela Vetesse © 2004 by Marsilio Editori s.p.a, Venezia - Italy ISBN 88-317-8706-3 DREAMS AND CONFLICTS, catalogue of 50th International Art Exhibition – Venice, EXTRA 50, presenting RADAR project, p. 644-645, © 2003 La Biennale di Venezia ISBN 88-317-8236-3 PUBLICATIONS IN MAGAZINES: Schloss Solitude ! Issue February, 2019, Stuttgart DRUNKEN BOAT Magazine, Issue 23 – Bulgarian Literature, Spring 2016, New York CAPITAL LIGHT / Details, about LOW TECH LAB London 2016, 22 January 2016, p.12 BRAVA CASA / Associations, about Images of the word Exhibition, December–January 2015, p.10 PROGRAMATA / Show me again, about Images of the word Exhibition, # 687, 12-18 Dec. 2014, p.11 BRAVA CASA, Design in the sky, about arch. Radina Gesheva / Mistakes in interior, July 2013, p.86-87 Richard: The Readymade Made Available, By Eriola Pira, January 15, 2014 Art Observed I New York – Richard: “First Communion of Anemic Young Girls In The Snow and other works” at Interstate Projects Through December 15th, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES, Bushwick as the Next Gallery District / Published photo from Possible Exhibitions, 8 March 2012 NYT BRAVA CASA, Artists/One more possibility, text by Lidia Manolova about Possible Exhibitions Show, March 2012, p.28-29 SOFIA LIVE, Svetlana Mircheva, About the importance of being earnest, about Possible Exhibitions, 29 Feb. 2012 LIGHT MAGAZINE, Seven hours similarity / Svetlana Mircheva about her exhibition in NY, 12 Jan. 2012 FLAVORPILL, NY, NURTUREart presents Svetlana Mircheva: POSSIBLE EXHIBITIONS, 26 Jan. 2012 SOFIA LIVE, Possible Worlds / Svetlana Mircheva opened his first solo exhibition in the US, 17 Jan. 2012 THE L MAGAZINE, Brooklyn, Editor’s Picks, January 18-31 2012/Vol.10/No. 2, p.45, Possible Exhibitions SOFIA WEEK MAGAZINE, You speak / article about Svetlana Mircheva and Random Show, #375/3-9, June 2011, p.21-22 KULTURA, By chance, article by Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva about RANDOM SHOW, Issue 20 (2638), 27 May 2011 (BG) KULTURA, BAZA awards for the third time, article by Boriana Rossa about BAZA nominated artists, Issue 28 (2601), 23 July 2010 (BG)