This is a porcelain doll that I made in ceramics class a year ago. She has a movable head and a… er… removable fetus…
Everything was assembled before firing so while you can rotate the head, it can never be removed.
#paganrevival
(via notforked)
Source: yuumei.deviantart.com
Source: artincanada
“There is no line between art and pornography. You can make art of anything. You can make an experimental movie with that candle or with this tape recorder. You can make a piece of art with a cat drinking milk. You can make a piece of art with people having sex. There is no line. Anything that is shot or reproduced in an unusual way is considered artistic or experimental.” - Gaspar Noe
I just wanted to point out, before we lionize this quote too much, the little part that I’ve bolded.
Strangely, Noe says anything unsual is considered artistic—not that anything unusual is art.
He’s not making an ontological claim: he’s making a perceptual claim. Moreover, it’s an external perceptual claim. Nowhere here is he saying that anything may be art, but that, somewhere—not in him—something unusual may be perceived as being “artistic”, something somewhat less than ‘art’ proper. So you see, he’s actually expressing a kind of reservation, and without the entirety of his opinion available, it’s difficult to totalize his position on the matter.
But from this, it seems as if he’s in fact quite disappointed with the (public?) perception, or appreciation, of art these days; there’s no note of celebration or revel in what he’s saying: it’s more of a lament to him, it seems, that something bordering on the pornographic may be perceived as art.
And who can’t help but notice how douchey he looks in this photograph? Now there’s an aesthetic statement I’d adjust.
Source: fuckyeahdirectors
Rejecting Materiality for the “Authentically Digital,” Or a Note about Windows 8 New Logo
Certain corners of the web seem to be all aflame, debating the aesthetic merits of the updated Windows 8 logo. Some, like Venture Beat, deem it ugly, denouncing it as as Microsoft’s “Gap Moment” and declaring that it looks like it was made in “MS Paint.” Others aren’t sure what to make of the new, Pentagram-approved design. If Michael Beirut and Paula Scher are behind it, it can’t be all that bad, right? I enjoy its minimalism and think it does a nice job of conjuring up the Metro UI of Windows 8. I do, however, hate the non-font font that is Segoe UI. It reminds me of a knock off helvetica, akin to a “brada” or “jucci” bag. Debates about whether it looks like a window or a flag aside, there’s something else about the logo I’d like to focus on: it’s representation of the “authentically digital.”
On a Windows Team blog post, Principal Designer of User Experience Sam Moreau wrote that the new Metro inspired logo not only invoked the new Metro UI of Windows 8 but also represented the “authentically digital”:
“It was important that the new logo carries our Metro principle of being “Authentically Digital”. By that, we mean it does not try to emulate faux-industrial design characteristics such as materiality (glass, wood, plastic, etc.). It has motion – aligning with the fast and fluid style you’ll find throughout Windows 8.”
There is something intriguing to me about rejecting design characteristics that invoke materiality for something that conjures motion and fluidity. It suggests that it is possible to reject the materiality of the device hardware from the operating system. As a marketing ploy, it’s actually quite clever, especially given that Windows 8 is being positioned as a game changer of an operating system that combines platforms, apps and hardware. And what I’ve seen of the fluidity of Windows 8 across multiple devices, it’s enough for me to think that this approach might actually resonate with consumers. It’s slick and minimalist enough to get people thinking a little more about the system rather than the device. But is it enough to get people to fetishsize the system over the device? Let’s face it, no company has cornered the market on commodity fetishism quite like Apple has.
Now in full disclosure, I work as a global search account planner and strategist for an agency that handles Microsoft’s commericial and consumer accounts. I work with our sister agencies to plan media strategy for all of Microsoft’s major business units and yes, I’m working on Windows 8 planning (don’t ask for any information because I will not provide any; I’m disclosing my client relationship because it’s the ethical thing to do). Even more disclosure, I am a user of Apple products. Disclosure out of the way, this phrase “authentically digital” has haunted most of my planning documents. It’s sort of rubbed me the wrong way, mostly because years of critical theory have trained me to cringe every time I hear the word “authentic.” Moreau’s post is as close to a definition of the phrase as I have seen yet.
But can anything be truly authentic when it comes to discussing digital anything? Moreover, can we conceive of anything digital without the materiality of the devices that allow entry points and access? Personally speaking, I can’t have a conversation about the digital web without talking about the devices that allow me access or how my environmental context shapes my use of the devices which then shapes my digital access and experiences. Arguably the metaphors of materiality (e.g., space,borders, boundaries, etc) have allowed theorists and casual observers alike a language to discuss the complexities of the internet, digital ecosystems, software, etc. Will the phrase “authentically digital” resonate, will it become a way to demarcate digital experiences? If it is the turning point for the ‘authentically digital’ then what will become inauthentic, the falsely digital?
I’ve said it before (here?), and I’ll say it again: formalism is making a return.
But to progress with this line of questioning, we also have to ask whether “authenticity [of a subject’s relationship to form]” is even meaningful: is there anything intrinsically better or worse about about capitalizing on the formal properties of the medium in using it to communicate? Why did this tendency suddenly become unfashionable in the ’60s? And why might it again be popular now?
It’s no coincidence that the word “authenticity” is being thrown around, when we we’re in an era increasingly tired of irony and the PoMo MO. However, the answer to the question, “can we conceive of anything digital without the materiality of the devices that allow entry points and access?” is an emphatic “Yes”. Forgetting that digital refers simply to a language—and not a device—is the doorway to doubting the answer of that question. That digitality is a quality of language which is used to communicate in new, non-linguistic, graphic ways should be the first clue that there are few boundaries to what it may mean for ‘the digital’ to be “authentic”.
There is no ‘metaphor of materiality’ in the use of terms like “borders”, “space”, “boundaries” etc when (as I presume, anyway) you refer to the representation of digital graphics on electronic displays: these are not intrinsic in any way to the material world. As you note (and simultaneously contradict yourself), they provide us with a language to discuss concepts that are essentially abstract but which may be understood graphically.
Your final questions, whether the term “authentically digital” will catch on, and whether it may function to create (artificially?) the demarcation from the “inauthentically” digital, are more ambiguous but less interesting. Whether or not the term catches on, I doubt it carries the discursive weight necessary to ultimately reform perceptions enough in any way significant enough for such a demarcation to really exist, since it’s clear how frivolous and unhistorical the term has been put forth. If only now we’re questioning and advancing the “authentically digital”, it may fairly easily be put forth that we’ve already begun from the position of “inauthentic” digitality. That’s only one of the many problems with actually taking this question seriously.
But the discussion is an indicator; once Commerce starts catching on to, and disseminating some of the more peripheral, philosophic or artistic discussions (as I caught some of the auto manufacturers doing this past Thursday), you know that it will soon crack in to the public sphere and before long become understood in popular terms.
I wait.
Source: modernandmaterialthings
What do philosophers mean when they use the term Dionysian? Dionysus was the Ancient Greek God of the grape harvest and of wine. He had a festival which was marked by drunkenness and sexual excess. Sounds like quite a party. Friedrich Nietzsche used the terms “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” to represent two competing impulses in Art. Dionysian being the primitive impulse being emotional full of wild abandon and focusing on the baser instincts such as passion and lust and the Apollonian being serene, intellectual and focused on reason. He recognized that deep understanding and feeling could be obtained in a Dionysian setting. A rave might be considered a “Dionysian” event.
Err, a rave would be considered Dionysian because it features non-plastic arts (ie music), which attracts and promotes the assembly and interaction of many people; the “dithyrambic” impulses he describes are a result of the Dionysian art—the reaction to said art. A similar truism example exists for a play written by Phryinicus depicting the fall of Miletus in 494 BC, where upon the performance:
the audience burst into tears and fined him a thousand drachmas for reminding them of a disaster that was so close to home; future productions of the play were also banned. (Herodotus, The Histories, 359)
The Dyonisian element here being the depiction itself, an act of drama and (as per Greek playwriting) song. The reactions may differ wildly, reflecting the variety of content such a ‘type’ of art may depict.
“Apollonian”, or plastic art, is the visual/material/non-temporal art, such as painting, sculpting, and architecture—things which appeal to notions of proportion, mathematics, and forms which can be understood to a degree to be conforming to principles approximating a science.
Ontologically, Dionysian art is universal, where all may find and share an experience in it. Apollonian art represents the individual; it provides neither an experience, nor an emotion, but must be ‘appreciated’ in isolation from the rest of the world. To see an aspect of why this is, one notices that music, and speech (the Dionysian) are aural elements which drift and may be delivered, and thus experienced, in a profusion throughout space and time simultaneously. By contrast, the Apollonian exists in one place, disconnected from all else; having a visual-material existence, like the Natural world, it’s both ‘external’ to us, and understood only through direct enquiry and curiosity. It thus requires an active, or rational, decisive approach to appreciate it.
Source: samsaranmusing
OSSIP, S.L.Ö.F., 2008, wood, metal, iron
Exhibition at Galerie Ramakers, January 8 - February 5, 2012
(via de_buurman)
Source: iheartmyart
