An Art of Missing Parts

            This article discussed the aesthetic of art works that missing parts and focused on artist Robert Gober. His art works involved the term of uncanny, which has strange sense of seeing oneself of revisiting the crime that is oneself. Move on, the article based on the uncanny term go into see the definition of illusion, “an illusion more real than a framed image: a hyperrealism that borders on the hallucinated or the fantasmatic”. So the illusion makes the imagination space more open to the world. And also it can apply to the surrealism art, that more effectively than any other artist. Gober enlarge Surrealism’s aesthetic of identity and uncanny space.

           

            From French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche’s opinion, she has rethought all the primal fantasies as seductions- not as literal assaults but as “enigmatic signifiers” received from the other. The words of “Primal Fantasies” from early philosopher thought that they thinking Art involved in primal fantasies and they are confound rather than found identity. I think from the earlier discussed that if art missing one part or more then it makes the piece existing in the uncanny place or environment. Pulse, with the primal fantasies of confound that the word of “enigmatic signifiers” came out.

            “Enigmatic signifiers” are from our conscious perception. This kind of object is very attractive since it has the enigmatic characteristic. For instance, the signifier is the “maternal breast, which the infant sees as an entity in its own right.” It can see from this point of view is either the art missed part itself is a small space or because the art missed one or some parts then it made the art piece more hallucination of the uncanny space.

The Invisible Environment: The Future of an Erosion

           In this article, it discussed the short history of the development of new media art that forms and turns into many different medias.  For example, from propaganda communication to electronic television, and then turning into video art. Followed by the computer-driven, data can be processed very rapidly and we move literally into the world of pattern recognition.

           

            Computer as artistic programing that provides the new environment, which is the environment is the contents as work of art.  It discussed in the article of that the role of art in the past has been not so much the making of environments as making of counter-environments or anti-environments.

            The example that the author gives to us is past turning into invisible. “One overall consideration for our time is to consider how, in the past, the environment was invisible in its operation upon us. New media are new environment. One related consideration is that anti-environments, or counter-environment created by the artist, are indispensable means of becoming aware of the environment, in which we live and of the environment we create for ourselves technically.”  This is like we are existed in the new word that we created, so after those new environment goes to past, the space of we created the new environment is disappeared and become to invisible. That is why we are followed with technology innovation that always discover new media and to create to a new environment.

            I think John Cage’s “Silence” example is the best example to explain the invisible space. He explains: “the silence consists of all the unintended noise of the environment. All the things that are going on all the time in any environment, but thing that were never programmed or intended - that is silence”. The un-programmed things are like the inactive elements that hiding in the behind and formed to be the invisible environment.

Camera vision as modernist metaphor by Moholy-nagy

Moholy’s new vision is a very interesting theory. It addressed the role art could play in the renewal of perception as formulated Russian Literary critics, and solves photography’s crisis in definition and direction by constructing a new language and iconography of seeing. 

Street Drain is an artistic tour force. He do refer what lies beyond, through the way in which the competitions extend to and beyond the edges of the picture frame. At the same time our seeing focused and our experience of the work is controlled. However Street Drain is more than a provocation to examine the beauty to be found everywhere and anywhere. Materials in the image take on qualities that are the opposite of those we would normally assign to them. The aerial view acquired specific relevance in Moholy’s work. With further research, I particularly recommend this photographer’s works, which are a interesting interpretation of the aerial view.

Bernhard Lang is a Germany photographer, unlike other aerial view photographers who are keen on city and architecture look, he enjoyed shooting beach and people.

The Aesthetics of Critical Habitats by Emily Apter

Through this reading, the author, Emily Apter has tried to critique the relationship between media and environment through the work of various contemporary artists who have different agenda, mediums and aesthetic ideologies but share a common will to raise concern towards the rise of critical habitats globally.

Being a digital media artist myself, it was obvious for me to get attracted to the works of John Klima. It was in fact inspiring to see how he connects the virtual space to the real space consistently by building large scale electro-mechanical installations. Through one of his installations named Ecosystem, Klima shows the translation of real-time currency fluctuations into the flight patterns of flock of birds. While many people find the relation of the interface as an arbitrary one, the co-relation is in fact meaningful that shows the impact of long-distance financial transactions on remote ecologies. Klima uses the media environment not only as a site for tracking data on its way to environmental damage, but also as a medium of information transfer that is casually implicated in the damage. Another work called ‘Go Fish’ uses a weird but somewhat effective way for the user to see a visible conversion of data that emphasizes the fact of our natural habitat becoming critically endangered. He does not believe in celebrating the art, rather uses the visual form to extend the reach of environmental activism to common people. 

Apter also talks about the work of the artist named Andreas Gursky who is known to make neuromatic blowups with the use of nature to counterfoil the virtual environment. Through his works like The Tokyo Exchange, Gursky blurs the distinction between ecological habitat and ontological habitus. For me, it somehow pushes my thoughts to an imaginary world where technological advances have wiped out humankind. I believe, it is important for us to remind ourselves to use the new forms of media to make meaningful contributions towards development of humanity rather then concentrating on making our lives slaves of mechanization.

The next artist that made an impact on my thoughts was William Kentridge, who worked to transform the traditional genre of landscape painting into a medium of geopolitical critique. He also made films using his charcoal drawings that draw attention to the devastated area south of Johannesburg with mine dumps and slime dams, pylons and power cables. One of the most important connections that he is trying to draw through his artwork is that of ecology and civil rights. It makes me both perplexed and sad to see, that the aftereffects of our so-called technological and economical advances have been affecting our existence since time immemorial. Through his work named Mea Culpa, he tries to visually document the devastating impact of global military technologies on the human. Apter also mentions the poetic works of John Kinsella who uses geo-poetics to stage panic, fear and anxiety of the Aboriginals, who are being forced to displace to further the mining interests of the government.

While these artists have varied concerns in relation to different parts of the world, their works of art practice are contributing collectively and potentially to a similar cause. The concern that Emily Apter has been trying to highlight about the critical habitats is definitely a global one that affects each and every person of the world, irrespective of their region, origin or religion. Although artists cannot bring about a tactile change directly through their practice, but they have an immense power to reach out to the common people of the world, the power to unite them, the power to ignite the belief into the hearts of everyone to come together, resisting the trap of a myopic and self-enclosed regionalism.

Heterotopia and the City - Of other spaces by Michel Foucault

In reading, Of other spaces, a transcript of a lecture by Michel Foucault, I started to think of heterotopias in relation to painting.  Although the concept of heterotopia is intended to inform urban renewal, it has helped me think about painting in a much more complex way. 

Just as there is a history of space given by Foucault (space of localization, extension, and emplacements), there is a history of the space explored within painting.  This concept is informed by the time, space and place in which it was created.  For example, the Baroque period was influenced by the Catholicism’s response to the Protestant Reformation.  Space within the painting was affected in many different ways through exaggerated lighting, movement, iconography, emotional expressions and gestures.  This type of aesthetic was supposed to reflect the representational values decided on by the Council of Trent.  The cultural, political, and religious space the artist thrives in influences the utilization of space within the painting itself. 

The place in which the painting sits also effects the perceptions of the architectural space, and even acts as an existential catalyst within the painting itself.  A painting that is first experienced in a cramped space of a cluttered studio will certainly be perceived differently than if it were viewed for the first time in an established gallery.  A painting hanging on the wall in the living room has a different presence than if it were in the hallway of a major corporation.  But conversely, the space in which the painting now sits is also affected.  The room will feel different if a painting is hanging on the wall, dialoging with the architecture and the objects within the space.  

Chinese interactive artist： The Art of Surveillance in China

It was really interesting reading this essay. First,I was surprised that American artist had made good interactive art in 1992 when I didn’t even know what TV is. Second, I was surprised by I have never heard of any interactive art from China. I can’t keep wondering, where is my position if I go back to China? What is the situation in the art form in China? So I search the term “数字媒体艺术” in 

Chinese directly translated from“Digital Media art”，I found nothing related to what I define “Digital Media Art” here, it is about the postproduction and special effects technology for TV and movie(that is what I thought I was going to study when I chose this major).Then I tried “New Media art”, still got nothing related. “ Art of Surveillance” ? There is no such a term in Chinese. Finally, I found a term called “interactive art” and found a show called “Body, Media- International interactive art exhibition”, the biggest “Digital Media art” show in China in 2007. But all the artist in this show are either not from china or Chinese who immigrated to another country. What a sad fact that is unacceptable for me!

Zhenjun Du, the very first Chinese Multimedia (the term and translation is too confused) artist who lived in Pairs (A sad face here). He made a lot of pieces really similar to the “ Shadowed by images”.

“ Cleaning” is a interactive piece Du Zhenjun made in 2002. Every time passersby talked into the hallway of the show, 4 nude men who are appear round passersby’ shadow on the flour and start cleaning. They were holding mobs, broom, vacuum and rush, kept cleaning round passersby, until passersby run out of the hallway.

This new work “Endless” projects 12 people in different nationalities, crawl in a sharp “8”. When people yell or make loud noise, they will crawl backward. And 8 in Chinese language means get rich. “ He tries to indicate that no matter what nationalities, all never stop chasing money tirelessly. 

In societies of control,  surveillance becomes decentralized, nonlocalization relations, regulating flows of people, information, goods, and weapon. But in Zhenjun Du’s works, Such surveillance technologies no longer just target individual actions or suspects, monitor their patterns of behavior, gestures, and facial expression, but also question about modern life style, equality of nationalities, the label of social hierarchy. 

Postmodernaization, or the Informatization of Production by Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri

I found this article very intriguing as it poses a question on the understanding of space in the very present terms. The author talks about how the rise of informatization of production has changed the way we value a space, product or a place as private or common.  While it is fascinating to relay this concept to our present times, it is equally interesting to understand how the complete system changed from one phase to the other.

Over the years, the succession of economic paradigms can be recognized through dominant sectors that have changed from agriculture to industrialization to finally providing services and manipulation information. The developed countries seemed to climb up this hierarchy level in the old times by relative isolation and the same is the path expected for the underdeveloped economies. But what we fail to recognize is the huge difference in global power relationships that the different countries share, giving rise to entirely incomparable situations in the economies of these societies. Moreover overall economies of the world have become a part of a global system and are so interdependent on each other that any attempt at isolation will only lead to reduction in power and will lead to poverty.

The era of postmodernization or informatization can be characterized by a shift from industry to service jobs (communication, knowledge, information etc.), especially in dominant capitalist countries. We are moving towards a new era of “Informational economy”, where the assembly line is replaced by network, transforming the forms of cooperation and communication within each productive site and among various productive sites. The labor is no more confined to a place or material rather they are free to work from anywhere at anyplace. As named by the author, this ‘immaterial labor’ tends to be in fact more dependent on social interaction and cooperation for their progress. This gave rise to a network production system that is spread across everywhere. But at the same time, this calls for the need to have a centralized management, which is shifting towards rise of global cities, or the cities of control. So, even though at one end, we boast of having a new world of social equality with the right to free speech and extreme connectivity at the snap of a finger, we have actually created new levels of inequality between the dominant countries and also outside them.

However, in this age of information revolution, there has emerged an idea of ‘commons’. We participate everyday in a productive world that is made up of communication and social networks, interactive services and common languages. We define the success of the product by its exemplary services and consumer relations rather than the act of consuming the materials itself. In fact we now live in an era that is moving towards a more radical and profound commonality and the concept of private is becoming far from real. Although the different parts of the world are evolving through different paths and we have various levels of commonality existing but what cannot be denied is that all the countries in the world are ever so dependent on each other for their success as well as survival. I wonder what would be next change of phase after the end of posmodernization. With freedom and easy access of new and advanced technology, would we be producing each product in our own homes and become more and more self-sufficient or would we be heading to a new age of humanity, where we share each of our space, material and place with each other and define a new form of community that existed never before.

"From Space to Place and Back Again," David Harvey

In "from Space to Place and Back Again" David Harvey attempts an interpretation of place and space through the very opposite views of Marx and Heidegger. 

Under the Marxist analysis place and space are products of the interaction of capital and are generated through a social construct that creates differences through its dynamic. Harvey emphasized that the construction of space is always a consequence of the cognition of place according to socially constructed historical and geographical differences. These differences can be commodified and sold to a globalized tourism, and can also be "colorized" by place representation through the "cultural mass" (consisting in elements or individuals that process and influence the reception of cultural products). But this is the "happy" side of the argument, as unfortunately, in a globalized capitalist society places take the function of nodes to allow the flow of capital, with the main purpose of catching it, and of retaining it for as long as possible-therefore creating sites of resistance. By doing so, these sites of resistance generate a "tension"consisting in the "class struggle" that is a byproduct of the process of production, and an inevitable outcome of the overall capital distribution. 

Harvey emphasizes the fundamental role of the speculative element in this process, to be understood in the United States as one vast real estate venture. Here, the spatial competition between places determines the success or failure of speculative investments, the tension between these investment in place development, and the geographical mobility of other forms of capital. His discussion, centering onto the gentrified area of Baltimore (Ghilford) illustrates how this notion applies to real places. And how it generates social constructs tied to race, crime, and space. It does this by creating social economical stereotypes determining space-place perception and delineation which generate issues of racial and class division; making the town of Ghilford into a sociopolitical project and into a symbol of power struggle.

Under the Marxian logic, therefore, place construction follows a logic tied to the political economy of capital distribution and its consequent economic expansion, shift of production and so on. Which differences are created by the uneven distribution of capital. Furthermore, place is either a point on a map or a "permanence" (place that has been named). It is subject to other social processes such as configuration of social relations, material practices, or form of power. And it can be imaginary or institutionalized. Space identity, on the other hand, relates to the earlier discourse of historical and geographical differentiation and colorization. These places shape, and are identified withing a cultural politics of place, and are the result of place bond cultural movement and regional resistance. 

Harvey uses Heidegger's very opposite view to illustrate a different interpretation of place providing an escape from the rhetoric of capital. ("place based dwelling").  And it is especially under Heidegger’s phenomenological rhetoric and focus on the “dwelling” that he attempts to connect place construction with the “locus of being.” Therefore, as Heidegger stated, the dwelling is the capability to achieve a spiritual unity between humans and things by "withdrawing attention from the world market and by seeking a ways to uncover the truths of human existence phenomenologically." Dwelling according to Heidegger is like the roots of one’s homeland, establishing  a personal connection to the place.  According to Harvey, Heidegger’s”ontological excavations” have inspired a particular way of understanding the social process of place construction, which focuses on the way places are constructed in our memories through repeated encounters and complex associations. He, therefore, emphasizes how "experiences are time dependent and memory-qualified," and how place and being are inseparable because "place is the local of truth of being in nature." He, however, recognizes that our alienation from nature in contemporary society is due to the fact that our state as organisms embedded in nature is spoiled by its extension into a chain of commodity production. Place is also space tied to memory where things have happen and continue to create a cultural continuity and identity across generations. And where inhabited space constitutes a community of memories and images that can extend to geographical features serving as mnemonic pegs to which to hang the moral teaching of history. The permanence of space, and of things within them, allows the perpetuation of cultural identity; causing identity and memory to be lost, if the place is lost. Among the many cognitional processes described by Heidegger, the genius loci is the principle that tie together time past with time future while acknowledging the experience of the environment and the capacity for dwelling in the land. 

In conclusion: "while Marxism fails in his refusal to deal with the mystic qualities of places and does not arrive to a full understanding of ‘dwelling.’ Heidegger's phenomenology at the other extreme totally rejects any sense of moral responsibility beyond the world of immediate sensuous and contemplative experience. As well as any dealings with the world of commodity, money, technology, and production via any international division of labor."