Steven Meisel

Bruno Dayan

※Lecture11, Fran Allison※

‘Take more resk, value the exchange and time in working.’

-Fran Allison

This Tuesday, we had a presentation about collaborative art practices from our school’s lecturer who also a jeweler, Fran Allison. Allison was trained in London and also joined a collaborative art practice group ‘Workshop6’. When she was in university, she went to worked in a design company between her two degrees. In her own practice, she likes to work with metals. She made jewelry work about balance and home in her ealier work. In her current practice, she moved from house to garden. She also like to explore what the material can do. It was very interesting to hear that she likes to make a perfect structure and distroy them.

It is true that we are all collaborate in some way. Such as music, dancing or working etc. The collaboration is a group of people to create something. People will occupy themselves in doing what they are confident with and get a part of the group. Nowdays, it is a very common thing to see lots artist will choose to work collaboratively. Such as ‘Workshop 6’, the one that Allison has introduced in her presentation. It is consisted of a large group of people. They work together but they also have their individual studio. Everyone in that group has their own job to do. Some are bright to do the finance and some are happy to organize and systemize the equipment and materials for use.

I think the strength of working in collaboration with others is can gain a greater resources, recognition and reward when encountering finite resources competition. Everyone has their own taste and aesthetic standard. When we working collaboratively, we can receive many informations such as opinions, feelings and ideas which we might never think of. This would help me extend my field of development in my individual practice to some levels. Making an artwork is always about the ideas. Working collaboratively is a way to get more ideas from others to develope our own notion and skills. I would like to work as collaboration with others if I have a chance. It would be fun and I’m sure we will learn alot from each other. As an art student, it is always gonna be learning from others.

Lecture 10,Eldon Booth

In Eldon Booth’s presentation, he introduced us the idea of documentary film and fictional film. At the beginning, he showed us his ealier work. It was video about an old man and a teenager’s life. He took this video in a documentary style. Docmentary film is a visual expressions to ducument the reality. So in his film, he had the low quality of frame to make it seems like old video. He keep the idea of illusion of reality in this work. He used hand held camera technique, natural lighting, documentary style and nature sound which was captured at that time. He used montage to make this video. He used these footage of this old man and this teenager’s life to create a completely different story which I think is very interesting because thses people were not living like that. He took this film in one take to make the viewers think its the truth. Eldon said he is not ‘only creating the fictional (story)’ but also ‘creating fictional reality and settings’. I think this work is very successful on the idea of the fact of film by the way he made this video.

Gus Van Sant made a film ‘Elephan’ in 1999 which was based on a true story that happened in Columbine High School but presented in a more fictional way. He used high quality cameras to take this film which blurred the truth of this event. The speed of the movie was very slow and it kept repeating the same chapter by different angles and viewings. The camera follows the characters to show their own school life and also make the viewers to pay attention to the environment of the school. It helped us to understand the events at Columbine High School because the people who the cameras followed by were groups of people around the school. They let the viewers understand the reason why that two students started shooting people around the school very clearly. It is very interesting to see most scene of the movie, the camera was behind the character’s back but at the end, when that two students went into the school and started to shoot people. I felt sad and surprised when Alex shooted the people very ruthless. He also killed partner at the end. So I think in this film, the repeatition, pace and the quality of the picture make us feel this is fiction. The truth of the event became blurry and for this reason this movie is very successful.

Lecture 7,BEPEN BHANA

In the 7th week of the second semester, we had a presentation from our lecturer Bepen Bhana. He showed us an episode of The Apprentice UK and also introduced some artists.

What issues does this episode raise about the relationship between art and commerce? For my opinion, art can be commercialized but commerce cannot be artistically. In The Apprentice UK, the photographs and paintings had become a commercial product. They use artwork to make money. Even though this ‘product’ is not like an artwork as paintings or photographs, I still can see there is an art in it. For example, a car, will you consider a car as an artwork? For me, the answer is yes. Even though it is a machinery product, it still needs to be designed aesthetically. Its shapes and the colour match are very important. The very famous pop art artist Andy Warhol is a very good example. His work was very commercialized. He also called his studio the Factory. His artwork like the Campbell’s Soup Cans and the screen prints of the celebrities were mass-produced and became commodity for sale.

What stereotypes does this episode present about the art world and the business world? The two teams in The Apprentice UK used their different methods to sale their products. Their sales methods showed the art world is different from the business world. The woman in the team, which was selling the Lips, she used a very soft way to sell the work which was a very sensible for me as an art student. She asked a lot of questions about the story behind the paintings. But at the end she did not sell any. In the other team, which was selling the Fish and Horses, sold many of the work. When they were having the meetings with two artists, all they asked was the numbers. They thought over what the customers want and always carry the calculator with them which I think they treat the artwork is not an artwork but as a production.  In the consumers’ point of view, an artwork is like a decoration for their space. Most consumers just want to buy something nice into their bedroom or living room or wherever to look good.

I’m very enjoying watching this episode of The Apprentice UK and it very influence me.  It showed the relation and difference between art and business very evidently. Also influenced my practice and art future. They showed me another way of looking at artwork as a businessman or consumers.

Lecture9, Richard Orjis

This Tuesday, we had a very interesting lecture with a great photographor who also a lecturer in our school. Richard Orjis had a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Auckland University of Technology and also had a Master degree of Fine Arts in Elam school of Fine Arts,University of Auckland. His photographs are dominate by black background. The colour of black gives people the feeling of death, mysterious, contemplative, heavy and tainted etc. In the colour plate, black has all the colours but become invisitble and black sucks all the colours unlike the white colour pushes the subject forward. This point reflects Richard’s interest which is to make images that something can’t really see and talking about something is not talking about. And he also interested in life and death. Not only by using the black background to express the feeling but also using the flowers and candles.

In earlier of his career, he was an artist of photograph. Latter, he worked for a magazine. That was a big shift from art to a more commercial world. So what is the relationship between ‘High Culture’ and ‘Popular Culture’? For my understanding of popular culture, it means habitude, high fashion clothing design, food, entertainment and various bases of lifeway. Things on television, magazines and shopping mall etc. “High Culture’ is the opposite of popular culture. Only small amount of people appreciate these cultures and entertainment. Such as classical music, fine art etc. The so-called ‘Popular Culture’ just a temporary thing. Any culture is the beginning of ‘Popular Culture’. It comes from time, practice and experience of the public. It ultimately tend towards ‘High Culture’ and away from the public. ‘High Culture’ become no more than a thing which is getting unfit to the reality and away from people’s living patterns and style bit by bit. Like some old painting, they are just the portrayal of some situation at that time. As yet these paintings become valuable. From ‘Popular Culture’ to ‘High Culture’, from ‘High Culture’ to wither away. However, this is a kind of metabolism in the society. So ‘Popular Culture’ and ‘High Culture’ can not be saperate entirely. High Culture is kept from people and society’s practice and experience. In other words, Popular Culture is searching for the ‘High Culture’.

How does art operate in relation to these forms of expression? Popular art is like a mass-produce, created by a mass of media such as T-shirts and magazines etc. High art like paintings, there are no mass-produce. They are only one which is the original. It worths much more value of price and be cherished more than popular art.

In my opinion, the value of the art is not depends the price but on our personal favor. A more cheaper bracelet could be valued for me than a more expensive one because of my personal favor.

Lecture 8,Rebecca Hobbs

This Tuesday, we had a presentation from our excellent lecturer Rebecca Ann Hobbs. She is a photographer and film maker. She believes ‘art should fit into your world, not you fit into the art world’ which I think it is very true too. For the interest of photography, she likes to capture the frozen moment from a movement. On the other hand, she also love making moving images because she loves the feeling of making things from nothing and it is more playful.

Different people have their own way to approach their development of ideas. My approach would be looking at artist models and the contemporary art works. My past four years in high school, looking at artist models has became a habit for me to research and develope concepts and ideas. Because finding the artist models was part of our assignment and we also talk about it during the class. For me, to develope my work via artist models is pretty helpful in my practice.

In Rebecca’s presentation, she had underlined the word ‘research’. This word took a big part in every of her project. Before that, she needs a starting point which is the hardest thing to do, as she said. I think this is very true because every time I start a new project in my practice, I always have many ideas flowing around my head which I don’t know how and where do start. So I will note down my ideas and start researching. In my moving image practice, I made a music video. Since I have the commitment to this idea, I looked at many different kind of moving images which were related to my idea(music video) such as music video websites, music drama or even some funny video etc. What is the role of research? Well, for me, I like to do the research through the internet,magazines and libraries but I prefer internet the most and magazine goes to second because it is faster and easy to find things which is similar to my ideas or the contextual history of my ideas. As I mentioned before, I will research for things what is similar or related to my ideas. Since I’v got all those information, I will start analyse them-what/why do I like or dislike them and start experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t.

Sometimes I make work of what influenced me in my daily life and also by other people’s work. Sometimes I will have an idea behind my work but sometimes it comes after the finished work. I think this is called the intuition.

In my studio practice, most of my work are about nature, femininity and fashion. So in the moving images brief, I decided to make a music video about femininity and nature. I wanted to show off the beauty of the woman and nature.

Where do I find the ‘X factor’ if you ask, I would say it comes from experiment and the process of making. When doing my research for the music video, firstly I adverted to the story they wanted to tell and secondly I looked at the visual effects they had used. But when I actually making this video, I started to realise it is different from what I thought. Many things I haven’t thought about such as the lighting, camera angles and movements and also need to consider the places to shoot and the weather. So the experimentation after the research and evaluation is very important . I think these elements are very influential for my project which is also the ‘X factor’.