Artist Summaries Flashcards
Michael Cook: main media, concepts
Michael Cook: work examples
Stelarc: media, concepts
- technology, mechanical/industrial materials
- performance works
Post-humanist concept on the insignificance/frailty of the human form
Stelarc works
- Suspensions (1970s-2012)
- Blender (2005)
- Reclining Stickman (2023)
- The Third Ear (1996-)
Suspensions (Stelarc)
A series of performance works from
The Third Ear (Ongoing sculptural work by Stelarc) (1996-)
Blender (2005)
- Collaborative work by Nina Sellars and Stelarc combining biological and mechanical matter to replicate a functional human stomach.
- Ethical debate over use of biomaterial
- Discussion of what ‘art’ is: can the human body be art?
- Merges two fields of art and science: pushes boundaries of what is considered ‘alive’
Suspensions (1970s-2012)
Series of performance works by Stelarc: the limits of the human body and mind: suspending the body from ‘terra firma’: frees the mind.
Done with meat hooks in various positions (later) vs originally done with rope (earlier works)
In front of live audience, often combined with sculptural components (e.g. third ear)
Reclining Stickman (2023, industrial materials)
Relies on audience to control his body/relinquish autonomy: subvert PASSIVE role of the audience, entrusts
- industrial materials, amplified mechanical sounds
Adrien M and Claire B Materials + Concepts
French digital artists
- strong inspiration from nature and human relationship with it: reconstruct this relationship through technology
- unique experiences reveal more about intricate emotions and dreams: inspire appreciation of beauty of the world.
- combination of organic and non-organic shapes creates reality grounded in technology, yet is somewhat natural.
- strong interest in dynamic and motion
Adrien M and Claire B artworks
- En Amour
- Le Mouvement de l’air
- Un Point C’est tout
4.XYZT Abstract Landscapes - Mirages and Miracles
En Amour (2024)
Part of a larger series called ‘rituals’. Desire to reconnect the audience with the beauty and peace of the world contrasting rising violence and corruption.
Natural imagery, cool tone: CALM
Mimic relationship with nature and environment, audience’s participation: become “Actors within a silent choreography”
Soundscape also important: immersive, collaboration with orchestra
XZYT Abstract Landscapes
(2011/2015) 10 immersive installations
- engages audience to interact with responsive landscapes to understand relationship with their world around them: reconsider potentially harmful acts on environment
Visually simplistic, projected white lines on glass (removes complex forms of the natural world to create a simplified and safe landscape.)
- like Phillip Beesley: landscape interacts with the individual.
Mirages and Miracles
2017, use of handheld technology to reveal hidden digital later: inspires us to look beyond, encourage individual exploration of the work.
Relationship between known and unknown: digital aspect REVEALS the secrets of the world.
Combines sculptural elements with digital
Le Mouvement de L’air
2015, choreographed performance with digital projection
Synthesised fluid and kinetic movements of dancers with impactful digital displays (carefully planned animations with adaptive and spontaneous movement by motion sensors).
Celebrates beauty of human body and dreamlike reality of achieving freedom: simple white lines show harmony and purity
Removing physical and emotional boundaries.
Live music performace
Un Point C’est tout
2011, Performance and digital projection
Collaborative work exploring relationship between mind and senses
Contrast between white text and dark background: textual elements (Struct. frame) allow for simplistic communication of concept
- dynamic animations and interactions with artist
Subjective Framework Questions
What do you see and feel?
The intent of the artist? How do they want the audience to react?
How do they covey personal, imaginative, etc. experiences?
- Are there ant personal connections?
Subject frame Key points
About the EMOTIONAL impact and relationship with the audience
- Artworks come from personal experience, dreams and imagination
EMOTION, MEMORY, EXPERIENCE
Cultural frame key points
Influenced by CULTURAL IDENTITY or particular social issues e.g. gender, race, religion, environment
The Reformation
Early 16th century religious movement
Counter-reformation
Attempt to restore the dominance of the Church: ensure its values
Reneissance
Highly balanances, harmonious: artists were approaching their subject matter separately
Baroque (Early 17th-Mid 18th century)
Highly sensual, shifting, moving: DRAMATIC and emotional
Strong tonal contrasts (light and shade: CHIASCURO): creates depth, drama, guides viewer to main objects
- Use of diagonal direction (some sense of movement)
- layering of figures creates movement
Attempt to restore dominance of church: illiterate masses moved by the DRAMA and emotion of the works
SUJECTIVE and CULTURAL frame
Major Baroque Artists
Caravaggio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Rubens
Caravaggio
Baroque Artist
- used “real” people: prostitutes, beggars, etc
- not aiming for perfection and beauty like Renaissance
- direction, obvious, dramatic imagery
- attempt to draw the viewer into the work: it is IMMEDIATE: no longer distanced
- uses strong cropping to increase drama.
Inspired by rough life
Caravaggio work examples
The Conversion on the Way to Demascus
- most intense moment of the biblical scene: fluid, dramatic realism.
The Crowning with Thorns
- Audience feels the emotion of the audience as the scene continues: teaches the audience
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Italian artist in Baroque period: sculpture, architecture
- works disrupt the ‘passive’ sculpture and break physical boundaries between the work and the environment (e.g. reach towards the audience)
- sense of intimacy, draws into scene
- dynamic composition: exaggerated contrapposto, intensity of action
e.g. Apollo and Daphne, David
FABRIC: also uses Chiaroscuro, manipulating light sources and undercut certain areas to exaggerate drama
Contrapposto
Shifting “movement”, moving out of stiff, steady motion.
Banksy media + concpets
Anonymous guerilla artists from Bristol, London using controversial tactics to make political and social commentary, using his legend status to gain media interest and raise awareness for his chosen issues.
- anti war, anti-capitalist (commodicifation of art), anti-religion: stong social activism from exposure to street art scene.
Use of pop-culture symbols to make quick comments
- nature of his wide audience means the messages behind his works must remain quick and easy to understand: uses humor, irony, text.
- spray-paint and stencils, high contrasting values (‘shadow’ or imprint on the wall): allow for quick application
- works appear on a 2d scale, outside of gallery
- influence of Blek le Rat
Banksy artworks
- Stop Sign (2023)
- Girl with Balloon (2002)
- Love is in the Bin (2018)
- The Mild, Mild West (1997)
- Dismaland
Stop Sign
2023, response to the Israel-Palestine war: 3 drones stencilled onto stop sign
Use of recognisable urban symbol: call to action for ordinary person (urgency of the red)
- simplistic design aids speed of work’s creation, as well as quickly understandable.
Girl with Balloon, Love is in the Bin
2002, 2018: performance work with anti-capitalist message
Protesting commodification of his art and the disruption of his original meaning: loss of hope and innocence.
- influence of Blek le Rat: street art is protesting
The Mild, Mild West
1997: earliest know work
- cartoonish teddy bear in the motion of throwing a Molotov cocktail, 3 police officers.
- Made free hand: imperfections and liberal gestural strokes reflect discontent
- later vandalism of the work shows debate about the nature of art.
Dismaland
Eugene Delacroix
French Romantic painting (1789-1863)
- travelling to morroco had strong influence on his work
Strongly concerned with d
Tony Oursler’s main concepts
Contemporary video and installation artist, examines the effects of technology on human psychology and loss of identity
Tony Oursler works
- L7-L5 (1984)
- Blue Transmission (2000)
- template/variant/friend/stranger (2015)
L7-L5
1984, overlapping/competing sound audios and psychadelic colours/imagery: creating an overwhelming, claustrophobic/distressing space for the audience.
- blurs virtual and physical realities: explores the fragmented sense of self as a result of the rise of technology
- science fiction imagery: a reaction to the growing popularity of the digital
Blue Transmission
2000, installation on the loss of human relationships and stable identities with the rise of the digital age
- diffractured sense of self, struggle to find an identity.
- projection of various faces and eyes, noses, etc. onto abnormal and organically shaped objects: confusion, loss of concrete self
- overlapping audio (collage)
