Tag Archives: Task 3

Task 3 Part 14 Nikki S.Lee

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Nikki S. Lee’s Part (14) photograph, 2002, shows a woman in the back seat of a car, dressed well with careful make up, with a male arm around her shoulders. The body of the man is out of the frame of the image, leaving a large gap of bare car seat between the woman and the unseen body of the man. The woman is sitting stiffly, slightly turned away from the man and seemingly looking out of the window of the car with a solemn expression.

The image seems to be about the woman’s resignation to her lack of control in the situation. The seemingly  unwelcome arm across her shoulders shows the owner of the arm has dominance over  her and control of the situation, while her solemn expression and stiff posture shows a resignation to the arrangement. The lack of identity of the male figure could show that it is unimportant as if control of the woman belongs to more than one person: that she is generally owned by someone else. It could also suggest that his control is a defining feature of their interaction as his expression or even appearance in removed.  The image appears very still as if the situation is not going to change.

Lee’s parts project looks at the clichĂ© of photographs of couples . Brittany Capenter explains how Lee  arranges photographs of couples and cuts the printed images removing the significant other to create ambiguity of intentions and emotions in the image. The hidden narratives that emerge through the removal of the identities cause the viewer to engage with image fully to work out what is being shown in the scenarios presented.

Carpenter  B. (2013) Fluid Identities: The “Parts” and “Projects” of Nikki Lee, Broad Strokes,  National Museum Of Women In The Arts, Available from:  https://nmwa.org/blog [Accessed 3/12/17]

The Integrity of Indie

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Why could you say that the “Indie” game scene is not a new thing? Has the term indie become meaningless?
Being only twenty-one years old, the term “indie” only entered my sphere of awareness when I was about ten, and it was being applied to music. I didn’t know what it meant, all I knew was that it felt edgy and a little exclusive. I carried that attitude with me when I discovered that the term “indie” was also applied to video games, and I started scarfing down titles like Super Meat Boy, Journey, and later, games like Oxenfree and Stardew Valley. It took time for me to learn the true meaning of indie in the gaming sense, which was actually about small, independent teams making (generally) low budget games. It no longer referred to the style or content of the game, but rather the way it was made.
It followed, therefore, that indie games were not a thing that popped up in the late 2000’s, but rather is a scene that has existed since the 1960’s, when video games first started being made.
Logically, this makes perfect sense. Before the games industry was an industry, it’s inherently misinformed to assume that vast teams and high budgets were being thrown at the creation of games. Spacewar! for example, was a game predominantly designed and programmed by Steve Russell, with help and in collaboration with only a handful of people in 1962. If, like me, you’ve never heard of the game Spacewar! before, a better example might be Asteroids. Created in 1979, it was designed by Lyle Rains, and programmed by Ed Logg and his co-worker Dominic Walsh while working at Atari. The game has been changed and adapted since, and now there’s barely a person on the planet who hasn’t at least heard of it, but at it’s core it was an indie game, designed by a select few for an ever-expanding market.

Now, bearing in mind that indie games have technically existed since the 1960’s, it’s worth re-examining whether the term “indie” has any real relevance or meaning today. Despite the industry now being massive and full of big-wig companies like Bethesda, Ubisoft, EA, and Naughty Dog, there are indie games being produced all the time. As I previously mentioned, Stardew Valley was designed by one individual, Eric Barone, and was initially just an experiment to build on his own game design skills, and has now become a game available on almost every platform imaginable.

Ori and the Blind Forest, whilst being published by Microsoft Studios, was developed by Moon Studios, a small team of developers. My opinion of these games is that they are both wonderful, immersive, well made pieces, that have stuck with me in ways that certain AAA titles never could. So I believe that the term “indie” is far from meaningless, in fact, indie designers and the indie games community should be nurtured so it can continue to thrive, in order to provide games to gamers that were not made because they had to be, but because their developers wanted them to be.

Helpful links:
www.stardewvalley.net
www.gamasutra.com/view/news/267563/The_4_years_of_selfimposed_crunch_that_went_into_Stardew_Valley.php
www.steamcommunity.com/app/261570/discussions/0/492379159710714117/
www.gaminghistory101.com/2012/03/19/asteroids/

Caroline Perkins: Task 3 The Image Part (14)

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This image is from a project called Part (14) which is made up of a series of self-portraits with a companion. The companion has been cropped out of most of the images, just leaving a trace of the person a suggestion that she is not alone.  This picture evokes a feeling of sadness and acceptance, as if there is nowhere else for the subject to go, that the she would rather be anywhere than where she is.   Nikki S Lee is portraying the subject with a faraway stare, gazing out of the frame, as if she has no care or love for the person who has their arm tentatively around her.   Nikki S Lee can persuade you into believing something that may or may not be true (Hamilton, 2001)  There is a tense aspect to the body language as she looks uptight, she has positioned herself far away from the person in the cab.

When Nikki was interviewed by Phil Lee for a piece in Chicago Art Journal, he questioned the apparent detachment of her gaze asked if it was intentional, she replied that it wasn’t.  “I am easily detached from things around me and maybe that inclination was what was revealed.” Lee, 2008)

Nikki S Lee

 

 

Hamilton, W. (2001). SHOPPING WITH — Nikki S. Lee; Dressing the Part Is Her Art. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/style/shopping-with-nikki-s-lee-dressing-the-part-is-her-art.html [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].

Lee, P. (2008). Indefinite “Nikkis” in a World of Hyperreality: An Interview with Nikki S. Lee. Chicago Art J 18 2008, [online] 18(Fall 2008), p.76. Available at: https://kuvisualculture.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/2f7.pdf [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].

An Opinion On Aleksandr Rodchenko’s Statement “Technology Is The Mortal Enemy Of Art”

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“Technology is the mortal enemy of art”, is a statement from Aleksandr Rodchenko as potentially implying that machines are out to destroy art because artists now “relax with technology” (Danchev , 2011 p.220) thereby negating the need for them in the first place. Although Rodchenko may not be referring to Technology in its most commonly associated form, the definition of the word is “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes” (English Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Coinciding with the fact that Rodchenko  “turned away from representational art and grasped firmly to beliefs in utility and industry” (Armstrong, 2012 p.22), this would not warrant reason to discuss Technology in a representational manner neither. Rodchenko firmly believed “art should not exist on it’s own, but serve a practical purpose” (Dorment, 2009). Which agrees with Rodchenko’s work post Representational and Abstract in style, visually using scientific use of colour, typography and composition visable in the advertisement for Red October Cookies. This knowledge was utilised in ways conveying messages in visually exciting ways, enticing them for the viewer. This is Rodchenko turning his own practice of art into a form of technology itself, that making life easier for advertisers and companies to promote anything with use of it.

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Red October Cookies Advertisement (Rodchenko, A, 1923).

To me this evidence conclusively shows that Technology is the mortal enemy of art because society consistently barrages its inhabitants with the use of art as a technology to communicate messages through advertisements, music and more. What was once art is almost entirely just a means to just communicate ideas and opinions in both objective and subjective manners, thereby “murdering” art and creating a new kind of association with the phrase (Danchev , 2011).

 

 

Danchev , A (2011) 100 Artists’ Manifestos From The Futurists to the Stuckists. United Kingdom : Penguin Modern Classics

English Oxford Dictionaries (2017) Definition Of Technology [Online] Available at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/technology  [Accessed 25/10/2017]

Armstrong, H (2012) Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field. SanFrancisco : Chronicle Books

Dorment, R (2009) ‘Rodchenko & Popva at Tate Modern – review’. The Telegraph [Online] 02 March. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/4928225/Rodchenko-and-Popova-at-Tate-Modern-review.html [Accessed 25/10/2017]

Rodchenko, A. (1923) Red October Cookies. [Online]. Available at https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1998/rodchenko/texts/graphic_design_2_jpg.html [Accessed 25/10/2017].