Response to "Death of the Author" and John Cage

In this essay, Barthes demonstrates that an author is not simply a person but a socially and historically constituted subject instead. I agree with this because is part of history and isn't just a normal person in the street that won't be remembered. The author is someone that is socially and historically constituted because that author would be remember as a part of something bigger than being just one person.

I wish that the sounds and the reading of the stories would go well together. There were hardly any sounds at the beginning and it just felt like noise and could be done without them.

Hip, hip, hurrah!

Walter Benjamin

The invention of the camera completely altered the way humanity saw the world and everything in it. The uniqueness of every painting (or aura) is said to be diminished with every reproduction of its original. However, I see it differently. With every reproduction the meaning of the piece fragments and multiple new ones are born. Is it in your living room? Your bedroom? Your office? Wherever they may land, the context of the piece changes to the atmosphere of it's new home. A million new insights of the piece are created, expanding the size of the aura exponentially. And because millions of reproductions can be made of the original, this places much more significance to the original itself. It is the starting point, the authentic piece. Thus the meaning of the original piece itself is altered as a result of mechanical reproduction and in my opinion, expanding it's aura exponentially. It not only still contains it's original message but new ones have been applied to it and its reproductions.

Benjamin promotes the emancipation of art production. He wishes for the masses to become a sort of dilettante, eliminating the gap between academic classes, and in a way taking away any authoritative power an art piece might hold.

"Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer."

On Walter Benjamin's much cited article

I think this concept of the aura and authority of artists being destroyed by technology and the abilities of mass distribution is a valid one. So do a lot of other serious thinkers when it comes to this widely regarded piece. There is no centralized place to view unique works of art and as a result, it brings down the mystery and the value of art as a whole. However, there was one thing that Benjamin wasn't counting on, and that was the arbitrary effects of the speculative market on maintaining that aura. It persists to this day.

It seems to me that any time something new is coming out people freak about how different it's going to make things. The thing that I've seen so far is how yes, minor things change, but in reality it seems like all the major things stay the same. I think people in the time this article was written were far more utopian that people are now. This might just be the people I hang around, but it seems to me as though people are more pragmatic than they used to be. I really don't think the role of art with the inclusion of new forms of technology is going to change in giant structural ways. I think the changes that occur will seem massive at first, but really when we look back at the time period we're in people will be able to just label it like they've labeled everything else. It might just be me, but it seems like things tend to come in circles. I feel as though with new mediums that pieces are being demonstrated with are just going through their abstract phase of the circle. Maybe if Hollywood wasn't making so many formulaic remakes this wouldn't be the case. It seems like art always has to be rebelling from what the main flow of things are showing.

Response to "work of art..."

    Benjamin's discussion about cinematography and its relevance to the audience sticks out most to me. He makes a good point mentioning how in a movie, you cannot (or are not meant to) see the lighting and other equipment used to film. While this is expected in a movie, it also takes away from the realism and piece as whole and makes it more superficial. Watching something in theater, the presence of stage equipments adds an extra awareness of what is happening.
     I thought it was interesting how Benjamin mentioned that film is like a better version of looking at yourself in the mirror; how it's transportable and a way to show yourself to the masses. He also compares a magician to a surgeon, a painter to a cinematographer. I understand the comparison between surgeon and cinematographer, as both delve into their subject, however I don't see how painting doesn't do the same. While the artist cannot physically go into the painting, the medium used still has a tactile quality and has the ability to interact and touch the artist, therefore giving a "real" quality to it as well. But I guess I see what he's saying if you're going to get really technical...

Shawna Murray's response to Technological Reproducibility

I can understand how he explains art forms to come from ritualism to politics even though it leaves me with an empty feeling inside my head. To be honest I wish all art forms didn't become what it is now, but then again with cultural changes and upbringings with technology, all of our processes within our minds become obviously different and we think about enormously different things then what they did when art forms were for spiritual and religious purposes.

Signers Suitcase (Sleeping)

Scorpion King Dumbell's Christmas Ham

This was saying a lot. "just as the entire mode of existence of human collectives changes over long historical periods, so too does their mode of perception." There are a lot of good quotes that I had to stop and dwell on. It is going to take technology a long time to come up with the equation that explains why man needs and makes art.

"A man climbs a mountain because it is there. An artist makes a work of art because it is not there." -Carl Andre.

How long will authenticity be important when technology builds on it self fast enough to prove most "important things" not so important in the wake of the new adoption of ideas. just like the readings said, inventions progress exponentially; each idea leads to more advanced and revised ideas, and all this information is building and the woodcut was yesterdays lithograph, which was yesterdays camera lens, which was yesterdays mind reading satellite. Everything will be tested by time, and art is getting really funny! look at this little car pushing around the chairs! http://youtu.be/Vhp8LD3y3Lc

Response to "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

I agree with the statement of when he said about Marx and the capitalist mode was at its infancy. Also, that the transformation was slowly proceeding and it took over half a century for the conditions to be manifested. I also agree with that the work of art been reproducible, that it was made by human and can be copied also.

Medea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_id0MME4kUA&feature=feedrec_grec_index

Sloane's Response to: Line Describing a Cone and Related Films

Anthony McCall's examination of the presentation and structure of film and video works unveils yet again the subjective nature of art. McCall aims to blur the distinction between time based works (film, video, dance) with "temporal" works (painting, sculpture). He does this by creating spaces in which the viewer does not interact with his films in a conventional sense. Rather than watching the films on a wall while they are project from behind, McCall sets up spaces in which the viewer is surrounded by the actual projected light. This creates a scenario where a film is being screened but it is also participating as a three-dimensional element in an overall installation of light. Because these works fall into the realm of both sculpture and film, McCall comes to the conclusion that his work sits right on the threshold of what is to be considered time-based art, and non time-based art.

While I fell this is a valid conclusion, his examination begs the question of, what can truly be considered non time-based art. When McCall produced his final piece of this series Long Film from Ambient Light. He comments on how "The shifts that occurred within it, ... were too gradual to see happening." Sculpture, and painting based works also go through changes which are impossible to perceive over short amounts of time. There is a deterioration, or change in shape that happens naturally and gradually over time. There for I feel, particularly when considering his final piece, it should be considered to be in the realm of "non-time based work" or that the distinction between both realms be dismissed.

-Sloane

Shawna Murray's response to Line Describing a Cone

Trying to convey an artistic feeling through technicalities and projectors I find it an interesting way to display it. The artist was thinking not only of the way the projector was portraying the light but also how the room was. All aspects of the room were just as important as the next, even regarding a piece of wall vs. the light the projector shows. When considering installations for art pieces, this article almost seems like the right piece of reading for a first timer within the installation process such as myself if I was to do one.

Lines and Cones and Stuff

I think it's interesting how much thought goes into the purity of this artwork. Also it's interesting to me to think about how the philosophy of this piece is so debated over. I read the article before watching what the pieces actually looked like in motion, and I was very much wondering what the big deal was. Especially when they were questioning how pure the artwork needed to be for it to still be considered the original. I can understand that the philosophy behind an artwork is an important part of why people like it, but sometimes I also think that people just think things because they're cool and haven't been done before. I was on the side of being less purist before watching the videos that Evan(I think Evan) posted. After watching the works of art in motion I was even less purist. I don't care if he uses film or digital because it seems like the philosophy behind the piece is not pushed forward by the medium as much as it's pushed forward by the idea that this film is taking up a 3D space.

Line Describing A Cone

     I like in the article where McCall talks about time affecting perception on art. He mentions how most traditional art has a "perceivable beginning and end, with boundaries..." An interesting point, as his artworks repeat and last for hours on end. It's not something you see everyday, to go into an exhibit and have a completely different reaction to it depending on the time of day. McCall's article kind of corresponds with our previous reading, about an infant's eye, free of bias or personal experience.
     While I find this all interesting and a good way to stretch your brain, I also disagree with mocking traditional art for its "boundaries" or "perceivable beginning and end." Everyone experiences are in their own way, and this could include something as stationary as a statue or painting. This article seems to go with the concept that art doesn't have to be pretty or appealing, or pleasing to the eye. To an extent I understand that idea, as the idea or meaning of an artwork is incredibly important. However I personally appreciate traditional art forms that are aesthetically pleasing. These videos are great to open up your mind and expand your horizons, but sometimes they're extremely difficult to relate to or understand.

On Anthony McCall's Line Describing a Cone and Other Films

Our latest reading had us examining the work of Anthony McCall's work with light projection, which is a distinct departure from the content of even our most abstract of films. The premise of the work is to treat the light from the projector as a quasi-sculptural object in an installed space (though there are other ways to distribute this piece and a museum setting, as McCall writes, is only one of many). The light itself, projected though either fog, smoke or heavy dust particles, is at once a film , a sculpture, and a performance.

McCall, in the reading available here in the August archives of the blog, clinically details the many variables that are in play when performing the piece. The relationship with film is a curious one, as it does not code light information onto a flat surface and instead, due to its changing and ephemeral nature, encourages the audience to interact with it.

Simple? Definitely. But sometimes the most eloquent works are. Modern artists had been using smooth, simple and solid forms for years before this series of films. This, in my opinion, is a quirky, fun change in media for the tradition. It begs some new questions, such as how an audience is supposed to have a relationship with a piece in a museum. All elements that we'll need to be considering for our second project.

Metaphors and Kino-eye

I really have no idea how to use this website so I hope this post is in the right place... :)

Metaphors
I dont know if anyone else got this feeling but Metaphors on Vision seemed very negative. It mentioned things like "never going back" and "loss of innocents", as if we will never see the true world and all it's color and beauty because of our eyes. Though it was mostly good and interesting info and truths, it was a little over dramatic and categorized artists too loosly (into one big pile of trying to "reach" god) . Its ideas and metaphors were at times spot-on and then near the end it seemed to lighten up and lift our hopes. It said we (this generation ) have new medias and topics to work with, as well as the old themes.

Kino-eye
I dont know what is wrong here but Kino-eye seemed to be also very negative! It was telling us what has been over done then flat-out saying these things are unnecessary and should "never needed or should ever be on screen. Things have been done, i understand but to say we should never again use cinema to show any of these topics again feels like a little much. it read as if i was listening to the teachings of a cult. Again this writing had some great ideas and wonderful thoughts but felt a little intense.

I hope I understood this reading, though somehow I doubt it...

This reading brought to mind several artists for various reasons. The first being Richard Sarah, second, Bas Jan Ader, and third and most relevant, Olafur Eliasson.

The Anthony McCall piece spoke to me in a way that was full of emotion, and completely void of it; the calm before the storm, if you will. The vortex of light before you die. And when McCall came up with the idea on the sail boat in 1973, it reminded me of this artists, Bas Jan Ader, who sent out post cards to all of his friends and family. On the card was of a picture of him crying that read "I'm too sad to tell you." The greatest part about this person was that in 1975, "as part of his project, In Search of the Miraculous, Ader set out from Cape Cod in a tiny yacht for a two-month voyage across the Atlantic. His boat capsized and he was never seen again."

I thought of Richard Sarah because of how he conceives of his sculptures is very similar to the way McCall created the Between You and I piece, using drawings techniques to create something with light. The same way Sarah uses drawings to create huge metal sculptures.

Third, and more obviously, Olafur Eliasson really plays with light and trickery of the retina. His show at the Dallas Museum of Art was unreal. I spent hours in that exhibition and I could see how McCalls pieces will for sure put you in a trance. You are already in a designated space for art, which I usually define as "Holy Sanctuary of Art", or "Museums," and being able to go to this designated refuge and transcend into a vortex of light would be... not too much less than an enlightening experience.

Line Describing a Cone

I’m glad that Mike posted the video because it gave me a better idea what the reader was describing. I like that this artwork is interactive and that the experience of the viewer is different each time it is seen.  Depending on where one is standing and how many people are viewing it, the experience is different and I agree with the artist when he says, “The film exist only in the present, the moment of projection.,” which is cool because it’s ever changing, which to me makes it timeless. With most of the film we’ve watched , they’ve dealt with issues that are going on and in the future they will be come historical videos and the only way you’ll be able to discuss them is by talking about what events were happening at that time where as them projection doesn’t have a narrative and therefore you can’t put it in a discussion of what’s going on here because it is always changing and interactive.

Metaphors of Vision and Kino-eye

Metaphors of Vision places great importance of what the human eye sees.

Brakhage writes, “Elimination of all fear is in sight –which mist be aimed for.” He‘s saying that through sight we gain knowledge and understanding, therefore there’s no fear of the unknown. Brakhage writes, “Imagine a world before the ‘beginning was the word.”  The reader is trying to get the audience to try and imagine things by not classifying and generalizing which is a hard thing to do. 

I think the The Kino-eye counters that and suggest that humans are imperfect and this manmade creation: the camera, is a perfect tool that capture reality better than the human can see it. When I first began reading the Kino-eye, I agreed with the writer and what he was saying made since to me. However when Vertov says, “I am the kino-eye, I create a man more perfect than Adam,” I immediately took this as arrogance and didn’t want to listen anymore.  I then realized that he was speaking in the voice of the camera and was less offended but still question people’s want for perfectness. Is it silly of me to think that because I know nothing is absolutely perfect, so why strive for it? I find it unsettling, some people’s desire for “perfection”.  There is beauty in what is natural.

Futurist Manifesto

To me, it seems that Marinetti is obviously an anarchist against Academic art and social structure in general. It seems to me that artist, creators and many people in general are always striving for the something new and different in trying to move forward. I can see where he’s coming from when he compares museums to cemeteries. People do go to cemeteries to pay there respects and remember things from the past. However, he does have a negative tone and disrespect for those great artist that set the bar pretty high. I liked that he recognizes those behind him might do the same and find it interesting that he wants it to be so. We should question art and what art is and what art is not.

Anthony McCall's pieces in action

Hi everyone. I'm sure that many of your first impulses were to look on google or youtube to see what these pieces were like. But in the case that you were up to something else and didn't sniff these out, here are a couple documentations of his pieces installed and screened with a little input by the artist.

Response to Line Describing a Cone and Related Films

I get what he was saying about the cone as being the light beam and about the projected light. I also agree with him that visibility is an issue and the picture shows a cone by the light that is going through. The picture actually shows depth and three-dimensional quality. In this picture you can see the line on the left going through to give it that quality.

Kill The Moonlight (Steve Hanft) - I'm the driver, i'm the winner.mpg

Further; Delayed Response to Metaphors on Vision

I have said for years that color is my favorite thing in this universe, (so far.) Growing up my parents were very spiritual, and from this I remember them telling me what heaven is supposed to be like, and the one thing that interested me the most was that there are colors we have never seen before. I am extremely interested in tapping into other realms and finding things I have not seen before, dreams are a great way to do this. This class is going along great with another class I have called The Supernatural: Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion, things are getting real weird around here for sure. Metaphors on Vision is so beautiful, it words things so powerfully. But the whole time I am reading it, I keep thinking about what it would be like if you were blind. The infant would still have a 'vision', just in a completely different way. When it says "... and it is an age which lives in fear and total annihilation." I can't help but to think that we are too comfortable. Going from talking about our "current times" juxtaposed with the mention of cave paintings, I can't help but to think that we have culturally created a cocoon for ourselves. That is why I try to go camping as much as I can afford to, to remind me that this is temporary and that what is most important today, has been here all along. It sounds as if Metaphors on Vision was written after a profound hallucinogenic journey.

This is a good web site for new media nonsense. http://kottke.org/tag/remix

The Korean Video We Watched

Worst annoying thing I ever saw. The video just kept going and I wanted it to stop. They probably used this video to interrogate the guys from Enron.

response to metaphors and kino eye

As far as the vision blog goes, I think what the author is saying is pretty interesting. He makes many references, particularly in the first and second paragraphs about the vision of an infant. An infant’s mind is free and un-biased; at that age we experience everything through purely instinctual manners. I think what the author’s point is that when we get older; the way we see and form opinions becomes less based upon our own perception, and more about how we THINK we should feel. Or an even more extreme case is how we are so influenced by our surroundings and media we may not even realize we are being influenced, where as an infant is free of such influences. He has a great point on trying to keep our brains free of outside influence, but then again, that’s pretty impossible.

Kino Eye: I am confused as to whether this article is meant to be an actual advertisement to create an actual “kino eye” or is merely a fantasy. Regardless, Vertov’s article makes you imagine a world unlimited to human limits. I found his paragraph referring to the kino-eye’s “most advantageous sequence” to be particularly interesting; like how see things in an unorganized way because there is so much going on, where as a film or kino eye could tape everything in order and segments that make the most sense to the viewer.

response to Metaphores in Vision and the Kino-Eye

These writings seem to me to be a call and response to each other. Brakhage being the one to call, here for an eye unfettered by the laws of manmade physics and time, while Vertove responds with an army of publishing kinoks, each one using the technology of modernity to reach beyond time and physics to bring forward a new type of visual learning and stimulation. The kino-eye of Vertov's writings describe the output, or recording genius of the artist point of view, carefully tweaked to punctuate an emotional response from its audience. The new methods of moving picture and recorded sound together become the newsreel of the new media directors who manipulate the masses with their cunning. While the undertones of Vertovs motives may seem revolutionary, they also seem to be in opposition to the futurist movement which he even names in his prose as he promises to thwart their intentions with a flood of these kino-eye responses to any action the futurist agenda may take.

Shawna Murray's response to Metaphors on Vision and Kino Eye

Metaphors on Vision:
It's interesting how he speaks of imagining a world before what we knew and what we can see, or in his terms, before "beginning was the Word", because in reality, we can't imagine it, or at least I firmly believe that since I feel as if our minds our only a piece of what God's imagination truly is. His imagination is no comparison with ours. We can only imagine what He has let us imagine with our minds to explore. It was also quite interesting how he turned the subject into involving the moving image since our culture this day and age has created "a new language" in a sense to view things with our eyes instead of with our eyes in our own imagination.

Kino Eye:
Being a projectionist, this gives me an interesting viewpoint on how the recording of the camera could easily be viewed. To be honest, I found this article a bit more interesting then the first due to the fact of the "kino eye's" mysteriousness and how its original qualities are viewed by Dziga Vertov and I can easily understand how he can define the "kino eye" as the viewer sees a motion picture or a home video even and how each view is so called "perfect". I did find it kind of strange that when the "kino eye" was referring to certain things such as "I create a man more perfect then Adam." That phrase seemed a bit too far-fetched for me. The first man to ever walk the Earth that God created and the "kino eye" says it made a man greater? I get the terminology or metaphor being used but it seemed a bit strange that this article referred to the "kino eye" as creating something incredibly spectacular such as Adam with ease.

A Brief Reflection on Stan Brakhage's 'Metaphors on Vision' and Dziga Vertov's KINO-EYE

Stan Brakhage tackles semiotics and semantics a couple of years prior to Joseph Kosuth (but only in works like Mothlight [1963], not in writing), spinning a yarn in Metaphors on Vision where he at once memorializes of the art of seeing without classifying and melodramatically laments a world that has forsaken vision. He supplies that visual information in its purest form can be seen again by men as adults after they have lost the innocence of their youth and given in to classification and calcification of visual information as ideas and not as stimuli. This sort of thing comes on the heels of the death of the modernist art movement, describing his personal vision of the imperative of artists and art to educate the masses on the intricate and tricky nature of visual information. It’s still clutching at modernist pearls of a universality of pure visual stimuli in 1978, but I think Brakhage is being pretty mature about moving ahead into postmodern territory. Mostly, I appreciate his descriptions of burning and crackling film negatives – we’ve been talking a lot about the concept of death and how that relates to being filmed and photographed in class, and I think that metaphor speaks to me the most.

We also read KINO-EYE, The Writings of Dziga Vertov, which was edited by Annette Michelson and translated by Kevin O’Brien for the University of California Press in 1984. The excerpt starts with ‘The Council of Three’. Pardon me if I can’t help but roll my eyes sometimes at how young artists wanting to make a splash say that everyone is doing art wrong (in this case film). However, immediately thereafter, I sincerely and without batting an eye say that he is 100% correct that employing institutionalized art conventions on the camera (square frame, classic composition, etc.) is a critical limitation that art can subvert. It’s worth consideration when it comes to any new media that it doesn’t have to be as conventions dictate. In that sense, I have to share in Vertov’s glee in feeling free, because it really is exciting.

Response to "Metaphors On Vision" and "Kino Eye"

I think the main issue that both of these works touch is the need to transcend the barrier of the the human eye and film lens; to explore beyond the set standard into a more dynamic and experimental environment that can communicate the ineffable.

With Dziga Vertov comes the idea of the camera being superior to the human eye. I do not think though, he meant it in a sense of tangible, concrete, physical intake but rather the camera's ability to be almost omnipresent. It's ability to give the viewer one or more perspectives where our eyesight becomes limited. It even gives the conductor of said camera a godlike attribute by allowing the handler to create spaces and moments; the power to even manipulate an audience.

Even with Stan Brakhage 'Metaphors On Vision', it states, "... there is a pursuit of knowledge foreign to language and founded upon visual communication, demanding a development of the optic mind, dependent upon perception in the original and deepest sense of the word." Both these works complement each other with their central theme of transcendence. The idea is to evolve visually.

Response to "metaphors on vision" and "Kino Eye"

We would need our imagination and dreams. Where he says "But one can never go back, not even in imagination." We should accept the dream visions and day-dreams as he says in the fourth paragraph. I agree that the object of fear must be objectified but the primitive man did not have a greater understanding than us, but than of some.

I disagree that the camera is the kino-eye and isn't perfect than the human eye since it is something that you would need to work with to get the right and correct image you need. I also disagree that the camera is perfect since it has to have work done and the human eye can be improve also. The thing that a human eye can't do but a camera can is motion, but there are some faults with the camera that you would need to work around with,

Response to "The Futurist Manifesto"

When I first started to read this reading, I was already disagreeing with what Marinetti was saying. He was saying like he want to free this land from the professors and archaeologist, and he describe them as a smelly gangrene. He would then say that we should free the land from the museums, and that is something I disagree with also. Since, I have traveled to Italy and two other european countries; I have seen a few museums in all of the countries I've been to.If I wasn't able to see the paintings and sculptures they would place in the museums, then it won't give the place the history or famous works that needs to be shown.