Rosemary Trockel’s 2008 exhibition at the Donald Young gallery is an encasing and display of remnants from people who have, for an unspecified but implied reason, left them behind. Entitled “Favorite Things”, she presents the viewer with framed collages, installations, and sculptures that are divided between two of the three gallery rooms, with two stray sculptures placed in the hallway.
The first room of the gallery contains a number of framed collages and two installation pieces. The space between each work is large enough so that each stands independently; each is a self-contained, isolated piece, successfully translating Trockel’s perception of it as representative of a singular person, concept, or thing. The only exception to this independence is the pair of installation pieces that occupy the floor of the room. I on my sofa, a piece whose placement gave me the impression that it was the first piece that I should look at, is an excessively geometric couch-like structure, on top of which is placed a framed collage much like the ones that hang on the walls surrounding it; this particular collage, however, depicts a face, albeit one composed of materials that in no way resemble a human face. I on my sofa calls attention to each piece’s reflection of a person, but more so, it provides a stark contrast to landscapian shroud of my mother, the other installation in the room. Although the base structure of landscapian closely resembles that of I on my sofa, it differs in its lack of upright planes. Rectangular portions of the surface protrude from the flat base with the exception of a rectangular area in the center of it, on top of which rests a black cloth. landscapian, even in the absense of the unnerving face that characterized I on my sofa, holds a larger sense of tragedy in it’s resemblance of a grave. Its gloomy and quiet atmosphere draws attention to the liveliness of the collages that line the walls around it.
The collages in this room consist principally of found objects, although one would not consider them simply “ready-mades”. Within each piece, which is displayed in a frame and under a sheet of glass, the found objects are combined with a variety of other substances to create the finished work. What the objects have in common is an origination from the home, or, indoor, familiar spaces that Trockel inadvertedly admits to being drawn towards. In an interview displayed at the gallery entrance, she reveals that she had “suffered from a case of agoraphobia that more or less defined [her] life[. It was a time during which she] could leave [her] apartment only with great effort” [1]. Her collages give the viewer the impression that their production grew out of first finding and choosing these found objects. Initially, the use of exclusively inherently domestic objects is a point of debate. The use of things found in the home gives her pieces a more craft-based process; they seem to have been made by someone putting together what they could find, much like one would do in making a scrapbook. Regardless of whether or not the person or connection is blatantly depicted in the piece, a ghost of these things is immediately detectable. On the other hand, if the viewer has knowledge of Trockel’s earlier bout with agoraphobia, the exclusively home-drawn objects cause him to wonder whether her condition crippled her in her artistic choices; Did she avoid choosing other objects intentionally, or because she herself was restricted to indoor, enclosed environments?
Another thought-provoking aspect of “Favorite Things” is Trockel’s decision to not only frame the collages contained in the first room, but also encase them with plexi-glass. Initially, her insistence on keeping these images restrained to a frame rather than displaying them as installations is a point of criticism, particularly on She is Dead 3; the actual presence of the objects would have given more of an impression of a previous human presence that was taken from the artist. If the actual abandoned clothes of She is Dead 3 were placed on an installed couch, they might have seemed more like memorials, tributes, or even gravestones. Being in the same vicinity as the possessions of someone who passed on would perhaps invoke greater feeling in the viewer. The fact that they are constrained to the frame and a canvas carries certain implications of a “window” in the art community, whereas installations, with their penetration into a real-world environment, connect more aptly with the viewer by defying the expectation for them to be illusionary. However, the frame/plexiglass makes the viewer feel so far removed from their contained objects that he quickly realizes that such a dissonance-heavy choice was intentional. As one looks at the pieces, he is occupied only with Trockel’s connection with the people to whom she is paying tribute. It causes curiosity, and at first, alienation and frustration; unless he had the opportunity to speak to Trockel personally and she was completely open about her work, the intimacy contained in the collages remains a vague, blurred object. The viewer can sense that this “vague, blurred object” has intricacies, an outline, details, but all of these remain elusive to anyone but Trockel.
At the end of the hallway that leads to the entrance of the second room of the exhibition are two pieces: Dessert 1 and Pot. Although an observer could think of many significantly different ideas in comparing these two, what remains constant among them is a theme of deception. Firstly, each is titled in such a way that causes the viewer to think critically about them. With its desert-like color scheme, the similarity of the title of Dessert 1 to the word “desert” causes the viewer to investigate the title in more depth. The piece is a glob of shiny ceramic material that appears to be exploding away from a flat, circular imprint in the center of it. Pot the piece that rests on the ground before it, is a glob of the same material that surrounds the flat portion of Dessert 1. The two works are spaced in a way that implies that the material of Pot was once a part of Dessert 1, and that whatever made the imprint on Dessert 1 caused the material of Pot to fall away from it.
Together, these two sculptures set up both the visual and the conceptual transition present in proceeding from the first room of the gallery to the second room. This room contains a series of sculptures, two of which appear to mimic Dessert 1; these are accordingly entitled Dessert 2 and Dessert 3. Both sculptures, hung on the wall at eye level, repeat the thought process introduced by Dessert 1; the imprint on each piece acts as an index, indicating that something caused its uncharacteristic presence on the naturally erratic, landscape-like surface of the material. Each ones placement at a general eye-level draws the viewer to look at the flattened, reflective surface in the center, only to find that he is again faced with a blurred image. However, in the case of these sculptures, the image presented is simply a blurred reflection of the viewer rather than a mental image of what preceded the creation of the collages in the first room. Trockel successfully shows her Dessert sculptures as manifestations of the aftermath that follows losing a loved one both through the imprint on the piece reflecting the emotional imprint caused by this experience, and also through the blurry reflective surface of the imprint mirroring the process of introspection and self-evaluation involved in it.
The other three pieces in the second room separate themselves slightly from the dessert pieces. While the dessert sculptures are hung on the left wall, less savage than others, dream tank, and kiss my aura are randomly spaced on the floor-space, less savage being the only one that touches the wall across from them. Each piece has a presence unlike those in Trockel’s collages; they represent the feelings one experiences as he goes through a loss, and are a part of the reflections he sees in the dessert sculptures. Dream tank consists of an opaque cup resting on top of a flimsy box-shaped surface. The instability of the surface under the cup connotes deterioration and abandonment. Although the placement of the cup on a table rather than in a sink implies that it would be filled, it is empty. Both the cup and box appear to be left-behind by someone who has no intention of returning them. In dream tank, Trockel expresses the actual feelings of crushed expectancy associated with losing a previously frequently present part of one’s life. Kiss my aura, placed directly in the implied path from dream tank to less savage than others, gives the viewer a feeling that an invisible barrier exists around the statue, and there is a level of hesitance in approaching it too closely. The final piece of the exhibition, less savage then others, holds themes that resemble those of dream tank; the piece, consisting of a table holding a mannequin head that is wrapped in an unfinished handcrafted hat, also implies unintentional abandonment.
The entirety of Rosemary Trockel’s “Favorite Things” exhibition conveys the tragedy of losing a loved one through the personal items left behind. She highlights the clothing and items that once belonged to the person as a trigger of his memory; the proof or remnants of his existence are the only thing left, and he is simply a ghost that haunts them. This use of remnants in conjunction with the lack of specificity in Trockel’s pieces shows that the trials in the aftermath of such a loss are universal, while at the same time remaining complex and personal.
[1] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_41/ai_98918662/print
*jep205
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Quote and Comments.
"A man with no art background can be just as moved by Picasso’s Old Guitarist as a professor of art theory who has been immersed in the art world for years. While the man with no background may not be capable of expressing his connection to the painting, his unarticulated opinion is just as valid as the opinion of the professor.
Somewhere, people lost sight of that." - Delineate, Rachel Aherin
(comments made to Rachel Aherin, Rachel Bergman, and Hannah Dean)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Four Master Tropes
Irony/Dialectic : Keith Obadike's "Blackness for Sale" (http://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html)
\Synecdoche/Reduction : Stephen Charlton's "Three Sails"
Metonymy/Reduction: Michelangelo Buonarroti's "Mary Magdalen Contemplating the Crown of Thorns"
Metaphor/Perspective : Georgia O'Keeffe's "Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills"
Monday, March 3, 2008
Elevation
Elevation Magazine
Format: Elevation will be a 150 page quarterly magazine based in New York City, but covering material from all areas of the United States.
Distribution: Elevation will be sold at all popular newsstands. There will also be a homepage containing previews of the issue and special offers on subscriptions.
Departments:
Advertising – Advertisements for the magazine will range anywhere from high-fashion clothing to up and coming music venues to sports tournaments.
Interviews – Elevation will interview various icons of popular culture, including young artists, celebrities, musicians, writers, and more.
Critical Essays: Each issue will include essays done by well-established art critics that focus on various aspects of culture. Contributors will be asked to focus on dissecting and analyzing pop culture in an artistic context and relate it to various fields.
Fan-fare: Readers will have until the 15th of every third month to mail in works of their own. Works can be anything from critical essays to works of art to a website containing music samples.
Art: Only exhibits and galleries through which some level of connection to pop-culture can be drawn will be highlighted in Elevation, but the magazine will contain advertisements of a wide range of other exhibits.
Contributors
Takashi Murakami, a contemporary Japanese artist known for blurring high and low art in a style he has dubbed “superflat”.
Clement Greenberg, an American critic closely associated with modern art in the United States.
Grace Mirabella, former Vogue editor for 17 years. Currently on staff as artistic director.
Ryan Schreiber, founder and owner of Pitchfork Media, a popular online music review website.
Annie Liebovitz, a highly-reverred American portrait photographer closely associated with Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.
Editors Note
To present you with Elevation, I will begin my first editors note by admitting something that is probably considered shameful in the art community: upon my first confrontation with Edouard Manet’s “Olympia”, an undeniable staple of any art enthusiasts education and background, I tilted my head in confusion and inquired as to what the “big deal” was about the painting. “Everything is so flat,” I thought, “and he didn’t even bother trying to hide the outlines around the figures.” What I lacked was the historical context surrounding the work; I had no idea that Manet painted the piece in such a way intentionally in order to comment on traditional ideas and processes of painting that had been upheld for hundreds of years. Although I can now look back fondly at my naiveté, I cringe when I remember that my mistaken thinking was in no way unique; most people who are not familiar with the art community, but are still curious about it, harbor the same misconceptions. I have watched far too many infatuations with art wane and eventually extinguish at the realization that there are legions of well-versed art historians who will always have a “greater”, seemingly unapproachable knowledge, and thus appreciation, of art. I can’t blame them for letting their interest fade. Most of their attempts at art appreciation is focused on institutionalized, century-old pieces that require an extensive understanding of art history and context; they are, as most thing in what is considered “high art”, inaccessible. By recontextualizing “low culture” in this magazine, I hope to revive a generation’s infatuation with artistic culture and nurture it into a passionate, lifelong commitment.
Elevation will provide an in-depth analysis of what traditionally goes overlooked in modern life; that is, in the tradition of artists such as Andy Warhol and David Hockey, it will spotlight aspects of what is considered “frivolous” pop culture, employing the same critical thought used in the observance of highly revered objects of art history. Far too many times I have found myself in a post-lecture conversation with someone who deems close analytical reading of a historically significant text pointless, reasoning that what critics had interpreted from the text could not have possibly been what the author intended; many great minds have been lost to that sort of thinking. In its publishing interpretations and critical opinions of exclusively popular culture, a topic that lacks a definite source or “intentions”, Elevation will raise topics that many feel deserve closer and more deliberate thought to a status previously reserved only for institutionally praised works of art.
Within each issues, well-known authors, critics, and icons will contribute writings that pertain to topics of popular culture. Cultural posts such as fashion, music, style trends, customs, language, and landmarks will be closely analyzed both visually and objectively. Also included in each issue will be interviews with people that the staff of Elevation feel best represent the ideals and hopes of the culture of the current young generation (ages 18-24). In addition to this, user-generated content will be accepted and integrated into the magazines, the contribution of which will be made possible by tri-monthly deadlines for the readers themselves. Through the combination of these vital components of the magazine, I hope to create a forum in which young adults who believe that there is merit in studying what is normally written off as entertainment can express and share their theories.
Format: Elevation will be a 150 page quarterly magazine based in New York City, but covering material from all areas of the United States.
Distribution: Elevation will be sold at all popular newsstands. There will also be a homepage containing previews of the issue and special offers on subscriptions.
Departments:
Advertising – Advertisements for the magazine will range anywhere from high-fashion clothing to up and coming music venues to sports tournaments.
Interviews – Elevation will interview various icons of popular culture, including young artists, celebrities, musicians, writers, and more.
Critical Essays: Each issue will include essays done by well-established art critics that focus on various aspects of culture. Contributors will be asked to focus on dissecting and analyzing pop culture in an artistic context and relate it to various fields.
Fan-fare: Readers will have until the 15th of every third month to mail in works of their own. Works can be anything from critical essays to works of art to a website containing music samples.
Art: Only exhibits and galleries through which some level of connection to pop-culture can be drawn will be highlighted in Elevation, but the magazine will contain advertisements of a wide range of other exhibits.
Contributors
Takashi Murakami, a contemporary Japanese artist known for blurring high and low art in a style he has dubbed “superflat”.
Clement Greenberg, an American critic closely associated with modern art in the United States.
Grace Mirabella, former Vogue editor for 17 years. Currently on staff as artistic director.
Ryan Schreiber, founder and owner of Pitchfork Media, a popular online music review website.
Annie Liebovitz, a highly-reverred American portrait photographer closely associated with Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.
Editors Note
To present you with Elevation, I will begin my first editors note by admitting something that is probably considered shameful in the art community: upon my first confrontation with Edouard Manet’s “Olympia”, an undeniable staple of any art enthusiasts education and background, I tilted my head in confusion and inquired as to what the “big deal” was about the painting. “Everything is so flat,” I thought, “and he didn’t even bother trying to hide the outlines around the figures.” What I lacked was the historical context surrounding the work; I had no idea that Manet painted the piece in such a way intentionally in order to comment on traditional ideas and processes of painting that had been upheld for hundreds of years. Although I can now look back fondly at my naiveté, I cringe when I remember that my mistaken thinking was in no way unique; most people who are not familiar with the art community, but are still curious about it, harbor the same misconceptions. I have watched far too many infatuations with art wane and eventually extinguish at the realization that there are legions of well-versed art historians who will always have a “greater”, seemingly unapproachable knowledge, and thus appreciation, of art. I can’t blame them for letting their interest fade. Most of their attempts at art appreciation is focused on institutionalized, century-old pieces that require an extensive understanding of art history and context; they are, as most thing in what is considered “high art”, inaccessible. By recontextualizing “low culture” in this magazine, I hope to revive a generation’s infatuation with artistic culture and nurture it into a passionate, lifelong commitment.
Elevation will provide an in-depth analysis of what traditionally goes overlooked in modern life; that is, in the tradition of artists such as Andy Warhol and David Hockey, it will spotlight aspects of what is considered “frivolous” pop culture, employing the same critical thought used in the observance of highly revered objects of art history. Far too many times I have found myself in a post-lecture conversation with someone who deems close analytical reading of a historically significant text pointless, reasoning that what critics had interpreted from the text could not have possibly been what the author intended; many great minds have been lost to that sort of thinking. In its publishing interpretations and critical opinions of exclusively popular culture, a topic that lacks a definite source or “intentions”, Elevation will raise topics that many feel deserve closer and more deliberate thought to a status previously reserved only for institutionally praised works of art.
Within each issues, well-known authors, critics, and icons will contribute writings that pertain to topics of popular culture. Cultural posts such as fashion, music, style trends, customs, language, and landmarks will be closely analyzed both visually and objectively. Also included in each issue will be interviews with people that the staff of Elevation feel best represent the ideals and hopes of the culture of the current young generation (ages 18-24). In addition to this, user-generated content will be accepted and integrated into the magazines, the contribution of which will be made possible by tri-monthly deadlines for the readers themselves. Through the combination of these vital components of the magazine, I hope to create a forum in which young adults who believe that there is merit in studying what is normally written off as entertainment can express and share their theories.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Mark Wallinger - The Human Figure in Motion
As I near the end of my car-ride to the Donald Young Gallery, I feel a fleeting vague familiarity with the area. It is not until I see a parking lot that charges nine dollars for use that I am certain that I have indeed been here before, and as I approach the gallery, I realize that I had seen another exhibit there a few months ago.
I begin with this anecdote for a reason: my observing the Donald Young Gallery when a different artist's work had been displayed gave me the insight of comparison during my recent venture there. Currently, the gallery features an exhibit from Mark Wallinger, a British contemporary artist known for working with themes of social class, religion, and belief. His most well-known piece, “Ecco Homo”, described as “a life-size sculpture of Christ that occupied the 'Fourth Plinth' in London's Trafalgar Square in 1999” [1], reveals his work in this gallery as a departure from what he was previously known for. The completed work he reveals at the Donald Young Gallery show’s Wallinger’s exploration of a completely different and new array of concepts and themes. The exhibit, entitled "The Human Figure in Motion", consists of three different pieces, each of which takes up one of the three total rooms in the gallery.
Upon entering the gallery, the viewer is immediately confronted with the first component of the exhibit. This piece, entitled “The Human Figure in Space”, holds an importance aptly established by both the closeness of its title to that of the exhibit, and its forefront placement. Wallinger covered three of the four walls with a black surface, then defined measurements of the space by weaving a grid on top of it with over three miles of white kite string. The final wall, located to the right from the entrance, is simply a large mirror. The creation of the piece was born out of Wallingers study of Eadweard Muybridge, a 19th century photographer who photographed people moving in front of a black wall marked off with white string. However, Wallinger’s “The Human Figure in Space” improves upon Muybridge’s work in its subtlety; initially, the viewer could find himself uncertain about whether the room is even part of the exhibit. It is only after fully entering the room and looking straight into the mirror that any uncertainty is erased. It immerses the viewer in a virtual Alberti screen, a tool used by artists to aid them in translating three-dimensional figures into a two-dimensional format accurately.
The second room, entitled “Landscape with Fall of Icarus”, contained five equally-sized video screens placed upon five equally-sized pedestals. Wallinger placed the pedestals in a slightly arched semi-circle formation in such a way that they take up most of the space of the room. Each screen displays a different video of a person in some sort of struggle: a man struggling with a parachute, a man on a zipline above a lake of mud, a man attempting to cross a lake of mud on merely two thick ropes, a man resisting a pull towards a body of water, and lastly, a man trying to remain grounded while flying a kite. These “have been slowed to an analytical stop frame, a tenth of real time, and seesaw back and forth in an endless cycle” [2].
The final piece in the exhibit is located directly across from “Landscape with Fall of Icarus”. A work nominated for the 2007 Turner Prize, “Sleeper” is a 154 minute video showing Wallinger wearing a bear costume as he wanders, alone, around Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie at night. A few stray pedestrians stop and observe the “bear” as he crawls, hides behind pillars, throws up his arms in frustration, sleeps, and more. The piece equates the unwarranted isolation and the uneasiness of surveillance experienced by imprisoned animals to the condition of modern humans, a comparison which forces the viewer to ponder captivity’s tendency to take forms other than an assumed claustrophobic space encircled by vertical bars. However, the piece has multiple connotations. Along with isolation and captivity, it highlights “politics, humor, nationalism, duality, modernism and Berlin’s troubled past.”[3]
The fact that each piece occupies an entire room reflects its integration into the space itself; the room and the display within it, rather than only the display, becomes the piece. Each is a specific environment that immerses the gallery patron into the thoughts, theories, and conclusions of Mark Wallinger’s work. Furthermore, each piece forces you to somehow interact with the space of the room. “The Human Figure in Space” requires you to observe your placement among the white lines of the grid, “Landscape with all of Icarus” requires you to move yourself as you move your focus from screen to screen, and “Sleeper” evokes feelings of discomfort as you become conscious of your similar circumstance of being in an entrapped space (in this case, the dark viewing room). The acknowledgement of this aspect of Wallinger’s exhibit is something that, although recognizable to a new gallery patron, was accelerated and magnified by my previous experience in the same gallery. Wallinger’s ability to immerse the viewer in each of his pieces, along with a silence inherent to the gallery space, is something that makes “The Human Figure in Motion” insightful, refreshing, and quite successful.
[1] http://www.whitechapel.org/content.php?page_id=547
[2] http://www.donaldyoung.com/wallinger/wallinger_pr_2007.html
[3] http://www.donaldyoung.com/wallinger/wallinger_pr_2007.html
*jep205
I begin with this anecdote for a reason: my observing the Donald Young Gallery when a different artist's work had been displayed gave me the insight of comparison during my recent venture there. Currently, the gallery features an exhibit from Mark Wallinger, a British contemporary artist known for working with themes of social class, religion, and belief. His most well-known piece, “Ecco Homo”, described as “a life-size sculpture of Christ that occupied the 'Fourth Plinth' in London's Trafalgar Square in 1999” [1], reveals his work in this gallery as a departure from what he was previously known for. The completed work he reveals at the Donald Young Gallery show’s Wallinger’s exploration of a completely different and new array of concepts and themes. The exhibit, entitled "The Human Figure in Motion", consists of three different pieces, each of which takes up one of the three total rooms in the gallery.
Upon entering the gallery, the viewer is immediately confronted with the first component of the exhibit. This piece, entitled “The Human Figure in Space”, holds an importance aptly established by both the closeness of its title to that of the exhibit, and its forefront placement. Wallinger covered three of the four walls with a black surface, then defined measurements of the space by weaving a grid on top of it with over three miles of white kite string. The final wall, located to the right from the entrance, is simply a large mirror. The creation of the piece was born out of Wallingers study of Eadweard Muybridge, a 19th century photographer who photographed people moving in front of a black wall marked off with white string. However, Wallinger’s “The Human Figure in Space” improves upon Muybridge’s work in its subtlety; initially, the viewer could find himself uncertain about whether the room is even part of the exhibit. It is only after fully entering the room and looking straight into the mirror that any uncertainty is erased. It immerses the viewer in a virtual Alberti screen, a tool used by artists to aid them in translating three-dimensional figures into a two-dimensional format accurately.
The second room, entitled “Landscape with Fall of Icarus”, contained five equally-sized video screens placed upon five equally-sized pedestals. Wallinger placed the pedestals in a slightly arched semi-circle formation in such a way that they take up most of the space of the room. Each screen displays a different video of a person in some sort of struggle: a man struggling with a parachute, a man on a zipline above a lake of mud, a man attempting to cross a lake of mud on merely two thick ropes, a man resisting a pull towards a body of water, and lastly, a man trying to remain grounded while flying a kite. These “have been slowed to an analytical stop frame, a tenth of real time, and seesaw back and forth in an endless cycle” [2].
The final piece in the exhibit is located directly across from “Landscape with Fall of Icarus”. A work nominated for the 2007 Turner Prize, “Sleeper” is a 154 minute video showing Wallinger wearing a bear costume as he wanders, alone, around Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie at night. A few stray pedestrians stop and observe the “bear” as he crawls, hides behind pillars, throws up his arms in frustration, sleeps, and more. The piece equates the unwarranted isolation and the uneasiness of surveillance experienced by imprisoned animals to the condition of modern humans, a comparison which forces the viewer to ponder captivity’s tendency to take forms other than an assumed claustrophobic space encircled by vertical bars. However, the piece has multiple connotations. Along with isolation and captivity, it highlights “politics, humor, nationalism, duality, modernism and Berlin’s troubled past.”[3]
The fact that each piece occupies an entire room reflects its integration into the space itself; the room and the display within it, rather than only the display, becomes the piece. Each is a specific environment that immerses the gallery patron into the thoughts, theories, and conclusions of Mark Wallinger’s work. Furthermore, each piece forces you to somehow interact with the space of the room. “The Human Figure in Space” requires you to observe your placement among the white lines of the grid, “Landscape with all of Icarus” requires you to move yourself as you move your focus from screen to screen, and “Sleeper” evokes feelings of discomfort as you become conscious of your similar circumstance of being in an entrapped space (in this case, the dark viewing room). The acknowledgement of this aspect of Wallinger’s exhibit is something that, although recognizable to a new gallery patron, was accelerated and magnified by my previous experience in the same gallery. Wallinger’s ability to immerse the viewer in each of his pieces, along with a silence inherent to the gallery space, is something that makes “The Human Figure in Motion” insightful, refreshing, and quite successful.
[1] http://www.whitechapel.org/content.php?page_id=547
[2] http://www.donaldyoung.com/wallinger/wallinger_pr_2007.html
[3] http://www.donaldyoung.com/wallinger/wallinger_pr_2007.html
*jep205
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Photograph Analysis
The photograph I see before me, in the simplest sense, is an image of a man walking on a sidewalk/road that leads to a pier/dock and beach scenery. The photograph was taken from behind the man. In the picture, he is the component that is closest to the viewer, taking up a good portion of the right area of the frame. Although his face remains unseen, I can tell that his gaze is directed subtly to the right, as if he is surveying the vast scenery that extends in front of him. The hooded sweatshirt he is wearing, along with the presence of modern-looking street lights and a well-constructed/paved road that extends away from the viewer on the mans left side, implies that this photograph was taken within the past 20 years.
The scenery that the male subject is surveying appears to be somewhat far into the distance (no more than half a mile). Because of his placement on the sidewalk, which accompanies a road that is clearly headed towards this distance, I assume that he was in the process of walking toward the scenery. Another aspect of the man that implies this is his body being angled slightly forward. The scenery is undeniably coastal, with the horizon of the water and sand visible on the right and a very populated pier at the end of the road on the left. The massive size of the beach implies that this photograph was taken on the west coast. Something that also gives me this impression, however, is that the man in the photo is wearing a hooded sweatshirt. On a beach on the east coast, one would rarely need to wear a hoodie; during the summer it would be too hot, during the winter too cold. His donning a hooded sweatshirt, and the facts that the sun is out and that there is a lack of snow on the ground, gives me the impression that this photo was taken during the winter in California.
Something that is also poignant in this picture is the glaring sun. Radiating from the upper left area of the photo, the light from the sun obscures a good portion of the upper left area of the picture. Assuming that I am correct in the impression of this as the west coast, I can figure out to some extent what time it was at the time the photo was taken. The sun rises in the east, and because this is the west coast, it appears that the sun is heading west. However, it is still fairly high in the sky, so I believe that the photograph was taken sometime in the early afternoon--perhaps between noon and 2 PM.
The overwhelming glare of the sun brings something else to attention. The male subject, in his avoidance of looking left, seems bothered by the sun, but he is not wearing any sunglasses. Because of this "lack of preparation," I have to wonder if the man is from somewhere other than the place shown in the photo. This would make me re-estimate my earlier speculation that the man's decision to wear a sweatshirt meant that the photo was taken during winter in California. Perhaps, instead, the photo was taken during a warmer season in California, and the man's wearing the sweatshirt is meant to further reveal his "out of place" status there.
*Jessie
Monday, January 14, 2008
Top Five
1. Technologic
Technology--that is, technology in relation to humans or humanity--is another topic that has stuck with me for a long time now. I've worked with and dissected the concept multiple times in classes and random journal writings, but I still can't stop keeping it as one of my "readily accessible" thoughts (hopefully that makes sense). I grew up and am still growing up in the ongoing age of electronic technicians constantly working to technologically/graphically "one-up" each other, so technology and its implications had always been something that I had thought about... but my preoccupation with it faded when I fled the Los Angeles coop to come to college. It was not until about a year ago that I saw something that brought my interest in it back in full force: Four adolescent girls having lunch and a "conversation" at Panera, each with one i-pod headphone in her ear. I feel like people are becoming more and more dehumanized as they become more and more occupied with technology. We're mistaken if we think that these things are a substitute for life simply because we are using them.
2. (other word for feminism)
Something that I've never quite been able to shake off of my mind is the female condition... I suppose you could say "feminism", but that word seems to come with too many social implications these days. I don't agree with the traditional "man-hating" aspects of it, and I definitely don't agree with this new wave of "lipstick feminism". Recently, there have been a series of Burger King commercials in which they take The Whopper off the menu and secretly film their customers' reactions. One of the commercials ended with two hired actors standing in front of the camera, and one of them, in reacting to the "loss of the whopper", says "Well they might as well change their name to Burger Queen". I didn't laugh--not because I was offended, but because the joke was pretty unoriginal and, well, lame. Later, however, I wondered why I had not reeled in horror at the commercials implication that something "female" is lesser than something "male". Why are women not outraged with how we're treated? And why do we think that sexual equality = general equality? As I watch girls imitate the women on shows like "Sex and the City", then cry when they don't get treated well, then refer to women who do the same thing in a derogatory way, then repeat the process, I can't help but look around frantically to see if anyone else is raising a very confused brow.
3. Selfishness
I don't believe I've ever referred to anyone other than ridiculous characters (read: tabloid celebrities) as "selfish", but I've lost track of the amount of times I've heard various people use the word to describe their friends or acquaintances. Actually, I am baffled when I observe how liberally people use the word, and that is what has made "one person calling another person selfish" my number three. Initially, I wondered what, in other peoples' minds, made someone a "selfish person". I realize now that my confusion over the usage of the word arose from a difference in definition. Initially, however, I was stuck on the general perpetuated definition of "selfish": being concerned with ones own happiness while simultaneously disregarding that of others. This definition seemed wrong to me, specifically because such a verbalization of "selfish" in such a way holds negative connotation. When I first began to think about this idea, I defined selfishness as "living for onesself", a characteristic that I thought perfectly acceptable and, well, human. I couldn't accept that doing things to make your life better was a negative thing. The problem I had with the general definition of selfishness was that it implied that doing things that make your life better is a terrible terrible thing if anyone else disagrees or has a problem with it. Something that everyone knows, but few appreciate, is that life is short... and what I've come to realize is that the people who call other people "selfish" are the same ones who's concern with other peoples' perception of them overwhelms them to the point of rejecting who they are and what they want. However, redefining "selfish" in my mind so that it was a positive thing was a fruitless effort; "selfish", no matter how much I fought against it, would always carry negative connotations for me. I had completely given up on the matter until I stumbled upon an Oscar Wilde quote that perfectly redefined the word for me and ended my frustration: "Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."
4. Regurgitation.
“It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it" (Andy Warhol). That quote captures something else that constantly stays in my mind: peoples' tendency to regurgitate dialogue that their hear in movies/television in conversations about their own personal beliefs. I am fascinated by the power that movies and television have on our actions. Why do we use these forms of media as indicators of what is "normal" behavior? Do we do so because we know that most other people are watching the same things, and thus must be forming their behavior around it? We often forget that the things we see on television and movies are only an indicator of the lives of the writers and creators of the shows/movies. I'm concerned that we're losing diversity and originality and replacing it with the comfort of "sameness".
5. Tabloids
With the rise of reality (excuse me, "unscripted") television, I can't help but take note of the parallel rise of paparazzi and tabloid magazines and blogs. In a sense, celebrities, "the celebrity community" so to speak, have themselves become a reality show. I'm wondering where things are going to go from here.
*Jessie
Technology--that is, technology in relation to humans or humanity--is another topic that has stuck with me for a long time now. I've worked with and dissected the concept multiple times in classes and random journal writings, but I still can't stop keeping it as one of my "readily accessible" thoughts (hopefully that makes sense). I grew up and am still growing up in the ongoing age of electronic technicians constantly working to technologically/graphically "one-up" each other, so technology and its implications had always been something that I had thought about... but my preoccupation with it faded when I fled the Los Angeles coop to come to college. It was not until about a year ago that I saw something that brought my interest in it back in full force: Four adolescent girls having lunch and a "conversation" at Panera, each with one i-pod headphone in her ear. I feel like people are becoming more and more dehumanized as they become more and more occupied with technology. We're mistaken if we think that these things are a substitute for life simply because we are using them.
2. (other word for feminism)
Something that I've never quite been able to shake off of my mind is the female condition... I suppose you could say "feminism", but that word seems to come with too many social implications these days. I don't agree with the traditional "man-hating" aspects of it, and I definitely don't agree with this new wave of "lipstick feminism". Recently, there have been a series of Burger King commercials in which they take The Whopper off the menu and secretly film their customers' reactions. One of the commercials ended with two hired actors standing in front of the camera, and one of them, in reacting to the "loss of the whopper", says "Well they might as well change their name to Burger Queen". I didn't laugh--not because I was offended, but because the joke was pretty unoriginal and, well, lame. Later, however, I wondered why I had not reeled in horror at the commercials implication that something "female" is lesser than something "male". Why are women not outraged with how we're treated? And why do we think that sexual equality = general equality? As I watch girls imitate the women on shows like "Sex and the City", then cry when they don't get treated well, then refer to women who do the same thing in a derogatory way, then repeat the process, I can't help but look around frantically to see if anyone else is raising a very confused brow.
3. Selfishness
I don't believe I've ever referred to anyone other than ridiculous characters (read: tabloid celebrities) as "selfish", but I've lost track of the amount of times I've heard various people use the word to describe their friends or acquaintances. Actually, I am baffled when I observe how liberally people use the word, and that is what has made "one person calling another person selfish" my number three. Initially, I wondered what, in other peoples' minds, made someone a "selfish person". I realize now that my confusion over the usage of the word arose from a difference in definition. Initially, however, I was stuck on the general perpetuated definition of "selfish": being concerned with ones own happiness while simultaneously disregarding that of others. This definition seemed wrong to me, specifically because such a verbalization of "selfish" in such a way holds negative connotation. When I first began to think about this idea, I defined selfishness as "living for onesself", a characteristic that I thought perfectly acceptable and, well, human. I couldn't accept that doing things to make your life better was a negative thing. The problem I had with the general definition of selfishness was that it implied that doing things that make your life better is a terrible terrible thing if anyone else disagrees or has a problem with it. Something that everyone knows, but few appreciate, is that life is short... and what I've come to realize is that the people who call other people "selfish" are the same ones who's concern with other peoples' perception of them overwhelms them to the point of rejecting who they are and what they want. However, redefining "selfish" in my mind so that it was a positive thing was a fruitless effort; "selfish", no matter how much I fought against it, would always carry negative connotations for me. I had completely given up on the matter until I stumbled upon an Oscar Wilde quote that perfectly redefined the word for me and ended my frustration: "Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."
4. Regurgitation.
“It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it" (Andy Warhol). That quote captures something else that constantly stays in my mind: peoples' tendency to regurgitate dialogue that their hear in movies/television in conversations about their own personal beliefs. I am fascinated by the power that movies and television have on our actions. Why do we use these forms of media as indicators of what is "normal" behavior? Do we do so because we know that most other people are watching the same things, and thus must be forming their behavior around it? We often forget that the things we see on television and movies are only an indicator of the lives of the writers and creators of the shows/movies. I'm concerned that we're losing diversity and originality and replacing it with the comfort of "sameness".
5. Tabloids
With the rise of reality (excuse me, "unscripted") television, I can't help but take note of the parallel rise of paparazzi and tabloid magazines and blogs. In a sense, celebrities, "the celebrity community" so to speak, have themselves become a reality show. I'm wondering where things are going to go from here.
*Jessie
Sunday, January 13, 2008
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