Art Today

Today’s art world should mean something significant, personal, political, or otherwise.


...Also, I haven't done the post for Art Encounters, I missed the shows, my fault, so no need to look for it.

Journal Reading #2: The Wrong Note

Perusing the Frieze Online front page, I noticed a an image that seemed vaguely familiar. It showed the rear end of a blue jeaned man with a red handkerchief in his back pocket. Upon further research, I found it to be the album cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA." Under this was the caption, "How Western pop music is being used as ‘touchless torture’ by the American military." Piquing my interest, I proceeded to click on the link. The article went on to describe how the American military has recently developed a new tactic of torturing inmates without the use of physical force at such places as Guantanamo Bay, Iraqi andAfghani prisons, and CIA military interment camps around the world. The method involved playing American pop, rock, and heavy metal at loud volumes repeatedly, with the content of the music often being offensive and attempting to shock the victims into submission. A British Muslim by the name of Shafiq Rasul, detained for some two years, tells the story of being subjected to Eminem's "Kim," and blaring heavy metal for hours with strobe lights flashing. Another detainee, Haj Ali, the infamous man of Abu Graib forced to stand naked with a black bag over his head, was purported to have been subjected to an ear-splitting rendition of David Gray’s "Babylon." When it was played for him later upon his release, he tore the earphones from his head and started sobbing uncontrollably.

Songs such as Dope’s "Die Motherfucker Die," Deicide’s "Fuck Your God," Bruce Springsteen’s "Born in the USA," Rage Against the Machine’s "Bulls on Parade," the Bee Gees’ "Stayin’ Alive," and Barney the purple dinosaur’s "I Love You" have been played to intimidate and break US-held prisoners. In addition, the very intense Metallica ’s "Enter Sandman" and Drowning Pool’s "Bodies" have been played. These two bands and some right-wing politicians have laughed at the idea of music being torture. They lambaste the "liberals" for "pampering" the prisoners. The only kind of torture these politicians can appreciate is the physical. Yet I find this to be a huge mistake in the comprehension of what real torture is. The author goes on to make several points that I agree with wholeheartedly. Quoting Napolean , the author writes, "‘There are but two powers in the world: the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind." The body may heal, scars may fade with time, but the mind can be broken and damaged, never returning to what it was before. This is why the psychological torture of detainees is just as damaging, if not more, than the physical. Torture being unacceptable non withstanding , many of the detainees subjected to this punishment are innocent. It may be hard to imagine, but music played at deafening volumes over and over can extremely detrimental effect. America has only dug itself deeper into the hole known as "evil" with this act, and it doesn't take a stretch of imagination to see where this country is headed.

Act/React

Milwaukee’s Art Museum is truly a world class institution. It is a great place to see extremely talented up and coming and influential artists in a local setting. This blog will attempt to describe and compare the works of Camille Utterback’s “Untitled 5” and Daniel Rozin’s “Snow Mirror.”

Camille’s work consists of a vertical screen on the wall in front of the viewer, and a floor mat that tracks the users bodily movements from a camera attached to the ceiling. When left alone for a long period of time, the screen slowly fades to white in the absence of human presence. When the camera does pick up movement on the mat, the screen in front of the user displays those movements in several different ways. A thin, red line follows the precise movement of the user around the mat, while black zigzags indicate the relative presence of the user at any one time. If the user leaves the range of the camera and steps off the mat, the black zigzags disappear and the solitary red line is left. The line is then dotted by little black spots. Now this is where the display gets interesting. If another user or the same user steps back on to the mat, the black spots are broken up into hundreds of tiny splotches wherever the new user is present. When the new user moves into a different area of the mat, these little splotches attempt to make their way back to the red line, leaving behind a smeared trail of their passing. If many users are participating in this work of art, the result can be a very beautiful 2 dimensional piece of abstract art. One is reminded of a floral pattern upon viewing this work when many users are present.

The other work of interactive art viewed was a piece by Daniel Rozin. He had several installments in this exhibit, but one of the most interesting was a piece entitled “Snow Mirror.” This title reflects exactly the workings of the piece of art. If the viewer stands outside the view of the camera, he or she is shown a background of mountains with snow falling. If the user were to stand in front of this screen, a camera would pick up the movements and describe it on the screen in front the user. The result is a 2 tone image of the user in which they seem to be constantly falling apart into little pieces of snow and being re-displayed anew upon the screen. The effect of this is very meditational. The user is transported to a different time, place or universe.

When comparing these two works, the first difference that comes to mind is that Rozin's piece is much more instantaneously responsive to each movement of the user. Hence the "mirror" in the name. In Utterback's piece, the artwork is responsive, but it may take a while for the user to figure out the "rules" of the piece. Moving a certain way doesn't necessitate a certain exact response every time. In addition to this, Utterback's work gives the user more of an "ownership" feel when compared to "Snow Mirror." This is due to the fact that the piece is more of a palette with rules than a traditional concept of art. The user truly feels that they created the work together with the help of the original artist. "Snow Mirror" seems more like traditional art in this way, yet still responding to the user's input.

These are just two of the many exceptional pieces of artwork displayed at the Milwaukee Museum of Art’s Act React showcase. Many more can be found there, and the sum of the parts make up the whole, so as to make the users part of the artwork themselves.

Field Reports, Part II: Surveying Arts Journals

My choice for the art journal that I'm going to follow is Frieze On Line. The link is as follows:

http://www.cinema-scope.com/

I chose this art journal because it is well respected and I also wanted to get a non-American view of art, so I chose this London-based company. I hope to greatly benefit from readings of it and hope to focus on what good art really is.

Field Reports, Part I: Art Encounters

When looking at Chan's "Baghdad In No Particular Order," and comparing it to another of his works, "Waiting for Godot in New Orleans," several key elements stand out to the astute observer. The first of these is that as an artist, Chan seems to be somewhat 'allergic' to taking a frontal role in the development and ownership of his art pieces. As was seen in "Baghdad In No Particular Order," the presence of a 'director' or 'organizer' of the piece seemed to be nonexistent. At times it seemed as if the viewer was there experiencing Baghdad himself, as opposed to watching someone else experience it. This was contributed to by the fact that Chan was never seen talking on camera, his voice was never heard during the whole film, and by the fact that Chan had several other people filming, who were relatives and acquaintances of the families in Baghdad. This all leads to the fact that Chan cares more about the art and the message than he does about recognition, which is a very admirable trait in this field.

One can compare Chan's "Baghdad In No Particular Order" to "Waiting for Godot in New Orleans" thusly as well. Chan never seemed to be the forefront of the operation, he was always behind the scenes giving his ideas to people and helping them rebuild the community of New Orleans, in such ways as subtly placing signs on the streets containing the first three lines of Samuel Beckett's play, and creating a "Shadow Fund," which donated all of its earnings to struggling families in New Orleans.

Both of Chan's pieces help shed light on controversial issues, whether it is the mishandling of the post Katrina wreckage, in which families could relate to Samuel Beckett's play by seemingly always to be waiting for help, guidance or shelter, or the quagmire in Iraq, where thousands of families have been destroyed by our involvement. The pieces never seem to directly attack any particular entity or lay blame, only describing events as they unfold, and in documenting these people, Chan seems only to want to be able to understand what it is like to be a family affected by disaster, to empathize with them, and to try to allow the viewer to do the same.