Art and Science

Art would not exist without science. Would science exist without art? I think the two subject areas depend heavily on one another. Painters benefit from studying optics just as musicians can improve their vocals through studying sound waves. Could science remain a subject matter without the presence of art? After completing the readings I explored the science and art combination.

David Peat, who has authored over twenty books on popular science, stated that “It is generally argued that, historically, art and science arouse out of the same ground, or that a time existed when they were not considered to be distinct pursuits(Peat.)” After this time the European countries began recognizing the artist with a notion of “genius”, at this time art and science began to separate in to two fields of study (Peat.) However, while art and science may have become separate and distinct ares today, it is also true that artists have always shown an interest in science and technology(Peat.)

Peat argues that science has little dependence on art. Peat said “the interaction between art and science flows in one direction, that artists become interested in science, its methods and concepts, and incorporate them in loose ways within their own work, but that science gains little to nothing from art.” Does science need art in order to flourish? As an artist, I am constantly seeking inspiration from the outside world. I was taught that science was about observing, identifying, describing and experimenting the world(Science.) Without science’s presence as a form of inspiration, I think art would suffer. I would be interested to hear art from a scientific perspective. Do scientists need art?




Peat, David. "Ideas on Art and Science." N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar 2010. .


"Science." Dictionary.com. Random House, 2010. Web. 22 Mar 2010. .

Piccinini's Young Family

Science is an issue that is omnipresent in today's society, yet hardly an issue I consider an immediate avenue for artistic expression. Aside from the exploration of Freudian psychoanalysis by 20th century artists, most of the ideas presented this week were new to me. I found the questions raised in the text, such as "What responsibility do humans have when they intervene in nature?"(262) to be especially intriguing. The text used Patricia Piccinini's work as a possible reaction to a question of this nature. Piccinini's work is both, technically, boundlessly impressive and horrifying at the same time. "The Young Family" is a bizarre combination of "human eyes and flesh...., primate arms, hands, and snout, floppy ears, and a stubby tail of uncertain animal origins."(264). The look on the mother's face is unnerving, its distressed, tired eyes looking back allows the viewer to create an imagined sense of emotional turmoil.

This emotional response of Piccinini's creature brings back to mind the question of the responsibility humans have for their intervention and also questions about the rights of the resulting consequences. Piccinini's work shows some the possible consequences of combining genes to create neverbeforeseen humanlike animals. If these animals had the ability to communicate on a truly human level and could function in society, would they be accepted as equals? Something this extraordinary immediately dwarfs race and gender issues in my mind. Its difficult to imagine such a thing, and certainly the controversy would be enormous. Obviously animals are not granted the same rights as human, but at what point can a distinction be made between species? How can you justify limiting the rights of animal that is part human, and mentally capable of everything a human is? Just as its been established (somewhat) that varied race and gender identities are not wrong, can it be wrong to not be fully human? It would be even more difficult to determine the point at which these hybrid animals could be comparable to humans. Either way, the problem isn't an impossibility and Piccinini's work offers a startling glimpse of what may be ahead.

image:

http://beinart.org/modules/Word-Press/2007/05/06/patricia-piccininis-anthropomorphic-sculpture/

McDaniel, Craig and Jean Robertson. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2010. 233-270.

The first half of Notes on Surface: Toward a Genealogy of Flatness, David Joselit’s essay fails to connect and explain any semblance of a theory, opinion or stance. Nor does he emphasize or reason the change of Modern and Postmodern aesthetic values,. Instead Joselit throws together the works of Jackson Pollock, Jasper Jones, David Hammons and Kara Walker, the theorizes of Fredric Jameson, Clement Greenberg, Michel Faucault, Earnesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and key worlds such as psychological depth, stereotype, flatness, expressive containment, identification and articulation. His goal of tracking the ‘genealogy of flatness’ falls flat and is instead lost in an all-encompassing assemblage of contradictory and disorganized art, ideas and linguistics.

But Joselit is able to redeem himself in the latter part of his essay, in which he comes to a focused conclusion of the analysis and articulation of psychological and optical flatness in relation to one another in 20^th century definition modern and postmodern art. He explained “flatness may serve as a powerful metaphor for the price we pay in transforming ourselves into images- a compulsory self-spectacularization which is the necessary condition of entering the public sphere in the world of capitalism”. Joselit takes apart the idea of form, flatness and depth in order to create a new language to validate that “within them, the psychological, the optical and the political are intricately interwoven.” No longer is there a separation between such aesthetics and entities but a new language derived to be able to characterize and explain; identity as form, form as identity, the conscious and unconscious, the articulator and the articulated, identity defined only by context, the similarities of modern and postmodern ideas and art. The emphasis of historical and political context incorporated into the form of a piece of art to provoke identity and meaning is exemplary of how, and why “the language of political theory approaches the idiom of art criticism”.

Joselit, David. " Notes on Surface : Towards a Genelogy of Flatness". Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya, Kocur and Simon Leung. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 2005. pp 292-308.

eh?

I found Juli Carson's essay "1989" to be one of the more challenging of the assigned readings. Mostly based around the controversy caused by Richard Serra's Tilted Arc controversy in 1989, Carson explores the significance of a work of art and its relationship with its space. I found it interesting when she pointed out the similarities in the arguments of Serra and Frank Lloyd Wright about site specificity in art: "This belief in a closed dialog between two things - a work and its site - is consistent in both Serra's and Wright's defense of their respective projects, regardless of the intellectual divergences of their claims. Which is to say, each claim harmonically privileges one side of this dialogue - the position of the speaking subject in the space of the work, who (which) first identifies a site then enters it."(Kocur 338). This shows an interesting relationship between two artists who greatly differ from one another, perhaps adding legitimacy to Serra's argument that work would be destroyed if moved.

Moving from the descriptive element of her essay of the events that took place surrounding the "destruction" of Serra's Tilted Arc is a more in-depth exploration of meaning incorporating Derrida's philosophy concerning the relationship of the signifier and signified. This is where trouble set in. I have an understanding of this from class, but I am baffled by Carson's use of it in her argument. Her inclusion of Plato's writing and how they pertained to Derrida further muddled the problem. I can't say I see a problem with Serra's argument that the piece is destroyed if its moved out of context, though Carson claims Serra contradicts himself: "At the core of Serra's dilemma is thus the contradiction of presence that Jacques Derrida writes about in his critique of logocentrism." (Kocur 332). Perhaps someone can respond with an explanation of this line of logic, or better yet, have it explained in class, but I couldn't really fish out any meaning in the remainder of the essay.

image:


http://www.xcp.bfn.org/tiltedarc.jpg

Juli Carson. “1989.” Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 331-343.

Number 11, 1952

Jackson Pollock was known for his drip paintings. His style can be thought of as messy: throwing and splashing his materials onto the canvas. He has said that “the method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement” (Joselit 295). By illustrating his feelings, Pollock would simply use art to explain or emphasize his beliefs to the viewer. For Pollock, simple clarification does not do him justice. His goal is to give a deliberate and exact manifestation of both his conscious and his unconscious feelings. He uses his technique as an emotional outlet. His entire body and mind take part in the process. Pollock allows his body to let loose in the making of his work, giving over to his unconscious mind so that those feelings can take over and be the artist.

In Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952 Pollock’s feet prints can be seen on the canvas from where he walked while completing the piece. To complete his piece, he would lay down the blank canvas on the floor and then begin the process of dripping, pouring, or splashing the paint or other materials onto the canvas. His entire physical body would be involved, and the procedure would look like somewhat of a performance (NGA). Joselit says that “the rhythmic actions which Pollock’s body registers in paint pivot on a disciplinary beat of repetition” (298). For Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952, Pollock’s body movement mirrors the way that the paint has fallen onto the canvas, whether in splashes or has been dripped. Because of the physicality of the work, the viewer can almost image the artist creating the piece. Each “stroke” is shown, like a dance on the canvas.

"International Paintings and Sculpture: Blue Poles." National Gallery of Australia. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. http://nga.gov.au/international/Catalogue/Detail.cfm?IRN=36334&MnuID=2&GalID=1.

"Jackson Pollock - Blue Poles: Number 11 1952." National Gallery of Victoria. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/pollock/.

Joselit, David. "Notes on Surface: Toward a Genealogy of Flatness." Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. Oxord: Blackwell, 2005. 292-308. Print.

Flatness and Depth

I found David Hammons' and Kara Walker's art work to be very interesting. They both showed depth on a flat surfuce. David did this with showing light and dark areas within his face that was oiled and pressed on paper where then materail was put to form the highlights. Kara's work was made of black cut outs on construction paper that was then placed on an all white back ground. This showed depth because the white background makes the black cut outs pop off of the wall. I also found their artwork interesting because of the stories behind them.
David's body print titled Spade (1974) "consists of an imprint of the artist's lips and nose beneath two perfectly circular rings which read as eyes" (kocur and Leung p. 301). This portrays a spade because if you cut the head in half, the two sides of the face would make up the round part on each side and the neck would make up the stem ( k and L p. 301). The paragraph later reads that "Hammons makes explicit the price we pay-in unequal measure according to our race, gender and sexuality-in having to exist as images for others, and in having to adjust to the images others have of us" (Kocur and Leung p. 301). Kara Walker, I think, also identifies with this because she can not portray her art in the manner she wants to because it affends people in the black community. They feel that her cut outs with their over exaggerated lips and hair only makes the image of the black person worse. Thom Shaw even went on to say that the works were "obviously targeted at whites" (Kocur and Leung p. 303). I wonder why they think that white people would only buy this piece of art? I also wonder why artist's can not portray art the way they want to without being kindof harrassed by it.

Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary art since 1985. 1st ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005. 300-305. Print.

Flatness

David Joselit has much to say about the cost of altering the image of the self: he sees that "flatness may serve as a powerful metaphor for the price we pay in transforming ourselves into images--a compulsory self-spectacularization which is the necessary condition of entering the public sphere in the world of late capitalism"(293). As Kristen has already pointed out, flatness works to compress a person into a stereotype. No real depth of character can be allowed in stereotype, simply a "presence and absence" (304)--a presence in the way the stereotype is all a community can engage with (i.e. all they can see) and an absence in the invisibility of the real people forced to wear the image.

I find Joselit's argument somewhat troubling. His rationale lies in the ambiguity of finding the self in images--if the creation of the self in an image is railed against as inauthentic "then where is it that we can lodge the self?" (292)--and his answer is in that same flatness of the picture plane. From the "psychological depth" (294) of Pollock's work, to Johns' (presumed) equation of skin and the picture plane--and thus a reference to Foucalt's posit that "the soul is the prison of the body" (298), to the already mentioned stereotype as seen in the work of Kara Walker and David Hammons, Joselit sees these canvases as authentic and possibly accurate representations of the innermost core of a human, of the soul. But these things cannot BE the self.

You are not what you eat. You are not what you wear. You are not what you paint. There is something so much deeper than that and the "flatness" of a picture plane, no matter how applied or perceived, will not be able to capture it. As he has said with Johns' process, it is the act of making that uncovers his version of self-image. If it is to be believed that the soul is the body's cage, then any functions or expressions of the body would have to be made within the confines of it. The soul--and iterations of it-- exists through the body's expression of it. It cannot exist but through the body. Even if we are each given a soul before our brains can process the world, it is still the process of action that allows the soul to become visible, to become known. It is because of this that I feel Joselit's argument falls flat. Ba-dum psh!

There is something that stirs us in the surface of an artwork. They allow us to connect deeper with the world around us by forcing us to focus on a single image of interest, something that reaches through our cage to move us. Will these works accurately contain a soul, a look into the inner workings of the artist, or will they only contain our own response to the piece, the artist, or both? I vote the latter.


Joselit, David. " Notes on Surface : Towards a Genelogy of Flatness". Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya, Kocur and Simon Leung. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 2005. pp 292-308.