It seems hard to believe that it was just six weeks ago that I wrote the introductory post for this blog. At that time, I had never heard of Jeff Koons or Louis Althusser, had sampled Marx only in an economic sense forty years ago, and knew little more about Freud than is common knowledge.
I did have a reasonable knowledge of early photography which helped at various points, particularly for the penultimate exercise, but this course has already increased the depth of my knowledge.
Reading most of Howells and Negreiros' Visual Culture before commencing the course gave me some idea of what to expect and has been invaluable both for direct input into exercises and to help locate other sources. More intangibly, reading the book set my expectations as to both content and methodology for the course. Perhaps as as sign of increased confidence in my own ability to locate sources I did not use the book at all for the Assignment, finding the New Media chapter quite weak compared to others. I am surprised that the course does not appear to include some of the topics covered by H&N, notably Panofsky and Fry (or perhaps they are included in later chapters and I have missed). The reading notes on the book have been included in the blog now.
The two aims I have for this course - broadening my knowledge and refining my methodology to suit a more academic subject - have certainly been met so far. I was pleased that my understanding Greenberg's article on Modern Art was better than I anticipated and that gave confidence once commencing the more substantive exercises.
The articles by Fenichel and Freud were not easy reading and one had to rely to a degree on other interpretations of their articles. But the core concepts of scoptophilic instinct and devouring are ones that should always be in the background of one's mind when studying visual culture. It is useful also to understand the concept of base and superstructure as enunciated by Karl Marx, albeit in my view that the dialectic is too simple to explain much in modern society.
Althusser's article is very hard going. At one point when Althusser writes on p322 of the course reader that "it [the Absolute subject] subjects the subject to the Subject..." I was whimsically reminded of Major Major Major Major, a character from Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22. To be candid, I am less convinced of the relevance of this article, but remain open to revisiting as knowledge and understanding develop.
In Art as a Commodity we moved on to applying some theory (in this case by Mirzeoeff) to some practical cases, as evidenced by Jeff Koons. I have to admit a) to not having heard of him before; b) to realising quickly that I probably should have done. (Since doing that exercise I have asked several friends, work colleagues and family members whether they have heard of Koons with only one positive response so far; one wonders whether the arts should not be more newsworthy as $58.1m for a model of a toy balloon dog seems like news to me.)
I deliberately spent more time on Photography: the new reality as it is my "specialist subject". I got a lot out of the research on constructivism (one section of Gerry Badger's book Genius of Photography was perfect for this exercise) and wrote fairly extensively on the sometimes tense relationship between photography and painting. Not sure whether my attempt at annotation is quite right. There appears to be some protocol around this practice that I may have missed.
The exercise on flâneur was another good example of linking the work in UVC with photography as it provided both an insight into an important topic and an opportunity to discuss Atget's work.
When studying the two photography modules I got into the habit of reading ahead as it was often important to take opportunities when out on one exercise or assignment, or simply out with the camera, to take images that might be useful for later exercises or assignments. It may have been a mistake to apply the same logic to UVC as I had absolutely no idea six weeks ago how I was going to even identify three new media artists let alone comment on their work. This slightly spooked me but confidence rose once my wife helped me realise that my internet searching was too narrow ("examples of visual artists who have been influenced by new media" doesn't work in Google) and therefore had to revert to the original internet activity of "surfing". The power of contemporary search algorithms means that surfing the internet waves in order to see what rolls in is less in vogue than in early internet days but it is a vital tool for this course.
The Assignment is longer than the 1,000 words recommended. I found it necessary to write more (particularly for Höch as explained) because it seemed to me that the choice of media was not merely (or even) an objective decision but a reflection of where the artists had come from in life; the implication in the assignment that the artist had a choice between traditional visual art and new media is not quite how it works in practice. Biographical background is therefore essential and to include that as well as a discussion on a work or works of the artist in 333 words proved too much of a challenge.
Methodologically, I have, as explained above, learnt a lot already about the use of the internet to research artists and topics. Once one reads the fifth article on Hannah Höch (lucky there were several as there is an exhibition of her work in Whitechapel currently), one begins to see that the writer may have read the previous articles (or did those authors read his or her article?) and can see the inconsistencies that abound (for example how and whether Höch came to adopt photomontage when on holiday).
I have adopted what I think is at least acceptable referencing protocols based on the excellent OCA notes and seeing what authors themselves do.
In terms of time, I have not kept a log but consider I have spent slightly less than the 60 hours recommended for this chapter. Working three days a week means I can keep one day aside for OCA as well as working some evenings. Only five hours are recommended for part two, which seems incredible as it includes four projects and an assignment so anticipate it will be a little more than a week to complete.
In Art as a Commodity we moved on to applying some theory (in this case by Mirzeoeff) to some practical cases, as evidenced by Jeff Koons. I have to admit a) to not having heard of him before; b) to realising quickly that I probably should have done. (Since doing that exercise I have asked several friends, work colleagues and family members whether they have heard of Koons with only one positive response so far; one wonders whether the arts should not be more newsworthy as $58.1m for a model of a toy balloon dog seems like news to me.)
I deliberately spent more time on Photography: the new reality as it is my "specialist subject". I got a lot out of the research on constructivism (one section of Gerry Badger's book Genius of Photography was perfect for this exercise) and wrote fairly extensively on the sometimes tense relationship between photography and painting. Not sure whether my attempt at annotation is quite right. There appears to be some protocol around this practice that I may have missed.
The exercise on flâneur was another good example of linking the work in UVC with photography as it provided both an insight into an important topic and an opportunity to discuss Atget's work.
When studying the two photography modules I got into the habit of reading ahead as it was often important to take opportunities when out on one exercise or assignment, or simply out with the camera, to take images that might be useful for later exercises or assignments. It may have been a mistake to apply the same logic to UVC as I had absolutely no idea six weeks ago how I was going to even identify three new media artists let alone comment on their work. This slightly spooked me but confidence rose once my wife helped me realise that my internet searching was too narrow ("examples of visual artists who have been influenced by new media" doesn't work in Google) and therefore had to revert to the original internet activity of "surfing". The power of contemporary search algorithms means that surfing the internet waves in order to see what rolls in is less in vogue than in early internet days but it is a vital tool for this course.
Whatever one thinks of Wikipedia (I have avoided using information directly from Wiki because it is unattributed) it does act as a useful source of links to related topics, and it was these that helped me locate the work of Nam June Paik and Lynn Hershman Leeson. My earlier research on constructivism and Dadaism had decided me early on to discuss the work of one of the 1920s practitioners. The original intention was to discuss Rodchenko but once I researched further I came across Hannah Höch, and was fascinated with her story, and by then I had the idea of continuing a feminist theme from Leeson to Höch. Of the three I discussed, it seemed most important in her case to understand her own personal story in order to set out why she used photomontage.
The Assignment is longer than the 1,000 words recommended. I found it necessary to write more (particularly for Höch as explained) because it seemed to me that the choice of media was not merely (or even) an objective decision but a reflection of where the artists had come from in life; the implication in the assignment that the artist had a choice between traditional visual art and new media is not quite how it works in practice. Biographical background is therefore essential and to include that as well as a discussion on a work or works of the artist in 333 words proved too much of a challenge.
Methodologically, I have, as explained above, learnt a lot already about the use of the internet to research artists and topics. Once one reads the fifth article on Hannah Höch (lucky there were several as there is an exhibition of her work in Whitechapel currently), one begins to see that the writer may have read the previous articles (or did those authors read his or her article?) and can see the inconsistencies that abound (for example how and whether Höch came to adopt photomontage when on holiday).
I have adopted what I think is at least acceptable referencing protocols based on the excellent OCA notes and seeing what authors themselves do.
In terms of time, I have not kept a log but consider I have spent slightly less than the 60 hours recommended for this chapter. Working three days a week means I can keep one day aside for OCA as well as working some evenings. Only five hours are recommended for part two, which seems incredible as it includes four projects and an assignment so anticipate it will be a little more than a week to complete.
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