task 1
Terminal Bar (2002) Film. made by: Stefan nadelman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfWBbZBqYjo

task 2
Bourx (2017) instagram. Available from: www.instagram.com/p/BZZkT7dhYtS/?taken-by=bourx (accessed 18/10/17) E-Gallery.

E. Blincoe (2017) Available from: www.emilyblincoe.com/blog/2017/2/3/on-a-saturday (accessed 18/10/17) Blog/Website

task 3
(keep your friends close and your enemies closer)
Rodchenko, A (1922) manifesto of the constructivists group IN: 100 artists manifestos from the futurists to the stuckists Danchev, A penguin classics.

task 4
Sakimichan Deviant art.
Available from: https://sakimichan.deviantart.com/gallery/ (Accessed 15/11/17)
E-Gallery

task 5

1st image
https://weburbanist.com/2011/03/02/got-it-covered-10-amazingly-artistic-vinyl-album-covers/  (accessed 20/11/17)

2nd image:
http://www.retrocards.co.uk/prodshow/AP1042___Oz_Number_3__Magazine_Cover_1960s__30x40cm_Art_Print_/AP1042-oz-no3-mona-lisa-magazine-cover-1960s.html (accessed 26/11/17)

3rd image:
https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18498023/ (accessed 26/11/17)

task 6:

1st image:
Lei Xue
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/03/smashed-porcelain-cans-lei-xue/ (accessed 05/12/17)

2nd image;
Sandy Skoglund Revenge of the goldfish
https://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/242/zoom.html (accessed 05/12/17)

3rd image:
vaporwave
available from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/137852438572630178/ (accessed 05/12/17)

quote:
Beauchamp, Scott (August 18, 2016). What Happened to Vapourwave
Available from http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a47793/what-happened-to-vaporwave/
(accessed: 05/12/17)

task 7:

1 st image: Sachin teng available from:

https://mondotees.com/products/castlevania-iii-regular-poster?variant=43993963470

2nd image:
katsuhira otomo available from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/305541155944910248/ (accessed: 06/12/17)

3rd image:
Tyler Jacobson available from: http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/volos-guide-to-monsters

I won’t lie and say I had great fun with these tasks, the lectures were plenty interesting, but the sheer amount of dread/stress I experienced whenever I was given a new task that I felt I would never complete is comparable only to the time I had to have teeth out at the dentist and they came at my mouth with a needle, with only half as much crying and none of the escape attempts.

I do think it’s important to learn about the art/artists that came before us and the reasons behind art movements especially out of your own personal field of interest, I learnt  (and this may sound naive) that in trying social times art becomes a way for the public to get their opinions out or to escape from the tragedies of life, I always knew that young artists used their art to vent but its a bit more surreal when I see 18 million (rough estimate) pieces of art in the past protesting war and in the present protesting Americas new president or racism and sexism often all three at the same time.
However I don’t think I have need for this in my own art maybe I’m stupid for not being more interested in politics and even if I was I wouldn’t want it to leak into my art for me it would be like seeing a pretty flower with ‘RACISM IS BAD’ stamped on the petals, which honestly sounds like something ‘banksy’ would do, It’s very possible I’ll change my mind one day.
Maybe I haven’t learnt quite as much as I should have art history has never really interested me especially when the art in question doesn’t really appeal to me, apologies to at least half  the art I looked at for these tasks.

If I took anything away from these lectures and into my studio practice I would say, an appreciation of variety. It’s easy to look at a piece of art and say what you don’t like about it but its hard to look at a piece of art (one you specifically don’t like) and say what you like about it/whats objectively good about it past your initial judgement, I think i leaned that lesson trying to critique art ‘in relation to my interests’ that I would never normally look at and give a second thought, I would like to think I’ve taken this developed skill into my crit sessions where I might not necessarily like the art of my peers but I can see the objective good within it.

It’s been a truly enlightening experience, I’m not sure its worth the lessons learned but I enjoyed it for the most part, saying that though if I ever have to do this again I will be sure to keep better time because I expect most of my stress could have been saved doing these tasks at least in the same week I received them and not 3 days before deadline. Boo to me for making my own life hard.

This poster by Sachin Teng is gorgeous. It’s a screen printed poster for the 1989 Konami game ‘Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse’. The cold grey-scale combined with the intense pinks is just perfect for the sombre tone of the poster, the brighter colours almost draw you away from the horrible cursed tendrils squeezing their way out of the figures face, and the expression, to me it leaves some questions ‘is this a curse that Dracula’s put a curse on something?’ or ‘is this a curse on Dracula himself?’, its a focused yet strangely neutral expression.

‘Akira’ 1988, is an animated classic among ‘ghost in the shell’, ‘perfect blue’ and ‘paprika’ and the poster is no different the text at the bottom spelling out Akira and then splashed over with the same words in Japanese it gives a certain power to the name or if you didn’t know the overlay also says Akira it would look disrespectful or dismissive.
The lack of shadows and scenery (sans bike) gives it an almost religious look combined with the pose of the figure they could either be staring at the bike making a decision or walking purposely mind already made up, ready to do the hard thing, save the world or something.

My third and final image is the cover of a dungeons and dragons book (plus the full piece of art) ‘Volos’ guide to monsters’. This is one of those paintings where you can physically feel the Photoshop brushes the artist (Tyler Jacobson) used. it’s also the type of picture that tells more story the longer you look at it, the giant in the front has a helmet next to him that he presumably removed to talk to the human, he has his and up stopping one of his companions with a huge knife from doing something, the human is holding a huge book ‘presumably the guide to monsters’ there’s a massive pair of scissors stabbed onto the ground next to the human, what happened before that calm we see now? probably something intense.
I also like how the human is red creating a clearer divide between him and the giants who are a pale bluish grey very nice contrast.

refer to bibliography for references

I’ve actually seen this image around a lot, I chose it because it interests me to no end as well as representing a sort of post modern bitterness. you could read this image in many different ways, something like nothing is precious or it could be a comment on cultural appropriation.
The very fact that the cans are even crushed instead of pristine creates a thrilling visual dissonance between the form of the can and the look of the Ming vase style decoration.

I initially selected this piece because of course I loved the colours the contrast between the relatively flat room scene and the tone shifting fish really caught my eye, upon closer inspection I see a boy sitting awake on the bed with a woman asleep behind him, I’ve read a couple interpretations of sexual awakenings and homosexual metaphors or even child abuse, but when I looked at it before reading those I saw a boy (I didn’t notice the woman) who woke up from a nightmare in reality the room is pitch black but in his head its full of the things he might have seen while asleep. A drowning dream I expect.

The final image is a vaporwave inspired piece. Emerging in 2010’s as “an obsession with ’80s and ’90s consumer culture”Beauchamp (August 18, 2016) , vapourwave is a movement of deconstruction. It takes recognisable elements of 80’s/90’s culture and mixes it into something new, yet nostalgic. In the image above the Domino’s Pizza advert is contrasted against an illustration of a roman statue. The statue is luxuriating in eating grapes which ties in with food, but also shows how vapid averts are. Adverts will try to sell you an idea of yourself rather than the product itself and I feel like this is ironically dramatized in the image. Vapourwave had the key elements of 80’s/90’s pop culture down so well that the movement changed into more paint-by-numbers aesthetic. Find old media, chop it up, slap on an old TV grain and a pink gradient. I think eventually the movement got lost and became the thing it originally was commentating on.

refer to bibliography for references.

The images I’ve chosen are among some of the most tame of the bunch, not for any lack of spoons on my part to put more than one naked lady on my blog but almost none of the images from the assigned era appealed to me anyway and i’ve always found illustrated depictions of women through the lense of the male gaze to be mildly grotesque.

I chose my first image based purely on aesthetics, it has a sense of style that feels at home in my modern brain, this and a couple of the other illustrated ‘Parliment’ covers by Overton Loyd were easily my favourite images, I love his playful inked lineart and the bright but not obnoxious use of extreme colours.

My second image feels like either juvenile scribblings or a high art piece derived from modern meme culture you’ve got chaotic elements what would now be considered badly done Photoshop and the defacing of an iconic image the only thing missing is the ‘#relatable’ caption,now that i look closer though i see that the mona lisa is actually saying ”love me im an ugly failure” which would be considered extremely relatable to the teens who make memes. that strangely easy translation into modern culture is probably the main reason I like it aside from the pleasing colours.

My third and final image is an eye catching poster both in terms of colour and subject matter especially) and I don’t mean to be repetitive but) to my modern brain you don’t really see women with their entire chest out on posters or public media especially not with the lady in such a confident pose, it seems to me like its not really supposed to be erotic but they just put a naked lady on there because they could , or maybe I just have different standards of eroticism via instant access thanks to the internet.
Either way with these things its almost always colour first and foremost that grabs my attention although the coding on this blog seems to dull everything down, the original picture is much more crisp and vibrant.

refer to bibliography for references.

“It’s not about waiting for hours for this moment of inspiration to strike, It’s about showing up and getting started” Neimann, C (2017 ts.17:20)

In my experience as a consumer of media authenticity is something you can seemingly feel with some 6th sense. Especially when you are familiar with the creator usually there’s some feeling of joy or passion in the work where you get the impression the creator had fun while making it , you may not be right but surely authenticity is decided by the consumer not the maker.
I personally consider the artist ‘Sakimichan’ to be inauthentic because they always seem to paint in the exact same style and only characters from popular media at the time, I’m assuming to be more marketable for more supporters on Patreon which isn’t really a bad thing necessarily, but it doesn’t seem very fun.

As a creator some of my best work happens when I’m just doodling on a scrap bit of paper while I’m supposed to be doing something else, I think this is probably because I wasn’t expecting anything to come out so when something does happen it exceeds my nonexistent expectations, does that make it more authentic because it was basically an accident? in my opinion no but it might look that way to an outsider so who’s to say.

I don’t think authenticity is something you can make and call it authentic its always decided by a third party in regards to art, it really is just a concept, just like you could never say when something is truly finished.

(refer to bibliography for source)

”Technology is – the mortal enemy of art” Rodchenko (1922 pg. 220)

I’m not 100% sure what he means by that however I disagree, I’m probably biased since I consider myself a ‘digital’ artist but in the modern age we’re in technology is how most if not all artists get their start, posting their artwork on social media. You could say that having so much art at your fingertips over saturates the market but again I disagree, I think that not only doe sit inspire new artists but it raises the bar somewhat giving artists like me inspiration and goals e.g ‘wow I really want to be as good as this artist’ or ‘I really like this artists style’ and so on.

You also must consider what technology has done for art in terms of equipment, things like graphics tablet allow for a higher quality of art whether you think having the infinite ability to make mistakes with virtually no consequences equates to laziness is up to you, however you could say such things about computers vs typewriters or Polaroid vs the digital camera.

I personally would like to believe that technology has led art into an interesting and experimental age where any person can access an online gallery and every artist would have an audience. I think there is a reason that all the ‘greatest’ artists died only for their art to become popular years later, so to my modern ear saying that technology is the mortal enemy of art sounds somewhat foolish.

The first image I’ve chosen is a digitally illustrated piece by bourx on Instagram, to me its appeal is in its simplicity everything in it is minimal, shading, scenery, colour pallet even line art.
It has a slight fuzzy feel to it like it came off a VHS tape or something it softens that overall feel of the picture making it more aesthetically pleasing.
I later found out this effect is created by copying the line art layer blurring it ans setting it to a slightly different colour under the original, simple but effective much like the overall image.
It contrasts nicely in its artificiality with my second chosen image a bath full of all natural fruits and other paraphernalia.

I took this from Emily Blincoe’s blog, which is full of artsy photography like this one.
I chose this one on particular because it shares some of its appeal with the first image the soft look of both the scene and the milky water,both images passively tell a story, both subject to interpretation.
The most similar element in my personal opinion would be the sense of aesthetic, not in the traditional sense but more in the genre that the word aesthetic has become, something artsy and probably meaningless that looks nice, I would even go so far as to say these image are both a part of my aesthetic despite them representing vastly different areas of my interest, I like the colours, the look and the feel. each image presents a minor mystery, to me at least.

sources:
1st image https://www.instagram.com/p/BZZkT7dhYtS/?taken-by=bourx
2nd image http://www.emilyblincoe.com/blog/2017/2/3/on-a-saturday

The 20 minute short film Terminal Bar is comprised of a series of stills heavily edited and narrated over to create a narrative. Each incredible picture taken over the course of ten years we most likely didn’t even see them all during those 20 minutes.
Sometimes a picture would fade into another using a shared scene within the 2 photographs creating the illusion of film, I didn’t even notice till the second time I watched.

The narrator changes depending on who wrote the article the text is being lifted from, either that or different voices were used to convey different narrative tone from scene to scene.
The music like the narrators was used throughout the film both for tone and story telling for example when Nadelman said about turning the jukebox off the music stopped making both me and presumably the patrons of the bar sad to see it go. I also noticed the music changed when the bar ‘went gay’ the music became more upbeat and the accompanying images showed the bar goers happy as well.

It was especially interesting to hear what Nadelman had to say about the individuals in the photos, as nice as they were to look at it gave you a real feel for who went to the bar and what it was like. Even with the newspaper clipping I don’t think the short film would have been nearly as enjoyable without the little anecdotes.

Overall a very charming film almost makes me with there was a book made of all the pictures each with their own short story.