Abstracting Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility (USA: Harvard College, 2008)

In The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility, Walter Benjamin is exploring the impact of reproduction on the tradition of art. Specifically focusing on the impact of film, Benjamin seeks to deconstruct film as a cultural product with the capacity to transform our understanding and relationship to traditional art values. Benjamin’s critique is essentially a Marxist analysis as he looks for the moment in the material world where Marxist idealism is made manifest.

Benjamin beings his essay pledging allegiance to a Marxist perspective and subsequently aligns the developmental tendencies of artistic production in unison with the politics of aesthetics. He goes onto describe the possibility of reproduction from the woodcut to the lithograph and finally to its ultimate manifestation in film. Through this Benjamin questions the impact of reproduction on the authenticity of an artwork claiming that through reproduction the aura surrounding a work of art is degraded and subsequently emancipated. Investigating the tradition of art Benjamin considers the role of cult value and the exhibition value of artworks as they are assimilated into models of mass distribution. Further models of authenticity are reviewed as the relationship between the viewer/ author are challenged as modes of production evolve and art is freed from place and ritual challenging traditional bourgeois structures of power.

Key concepts central to this essay include:
1. The Aura of an Artwork – Refers to the sense of wonderment or awe in the presence of the original work of art. This also includes the unique characteristics including historical qualities relating to the idea of tradition, lineage of ownership.
2. Cult/ Exhibition Value – Cult value refers to the value assigned to the artist and the aura surrounding a work of art. Exhibition value is that which sees the transformation of the work of art in its artistic function in relation to its ability to be exhibited. Benjamin’s argument is that by using technological means of reproduction we are creating a new means of production which alters both the traditional relationship between the cult/ exhibition value of art.

Benjamin does not employ any specific content analysis (interviews etc) but rather traces significant changes in perception as a result of technical reproducibility of images and its consequent effect of artistic functions within a cultural context. Though he sites various authors to quantify his argument, this essay seems to be more a lineage of thought. By deconstructing the superstructure of meaning in relation to cinema (from a historical perspective of linear development in terms of the role of imagery in society) Benjamin concludes that technology ultimately pulls the image out of history and thus democratizes it.

The way in which this essay is written Benjamin’s viewpoint seems somewhat ambiguous. It is difficult to assign his moral position which consequently made it difficult for me to define my own position.

Walter Benjamin and the The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility has been extremely influential in the field of cultural/ media theory. This essay is fundamental to the understanding of the current field of enquiry and has given me a solid understanding of the theoretical perspective on which media theory is based.

Abstracting 'Art and Fear'

Paul Virilio, Art and Fear (London, England: Continuum, 2006).

Art and Fear, written by Paul Virilio, is composed of two essays ‘Pitiless Art and ‘Silence on Trail’. In these essays Virilio explores the position of contemporary art in the wake of Auschwitz and the implications of war on artistic sensibility and modes of perception. Based on a model of destruction, Virilio discusses the relationship between the aesthetic repercussions of war and the evaluation of what he coins ‘the ethical dilemma of silence’. As a continuum to discussions centered on ‘the aesthetics of disappearance’ Virilio makes connection between the desolation of modern times (as a result of the horror of human violence) and the aesthetics of disappearance in representative art. Employing theories of philosophy and modern art Virilio seeks to identify and deconstruct the manifestation of the ‘pitiful’ work of art in the 20th Century.

Virilo begins his essay by offering the reader a brief sketch of artists and pivotal art movements beginning post Auschwitz and draws parallels between the dehumanizing aspects of war, particularly the potential for mass genocide to the subsequent aesthetic tendencies in contemporary art. Virilio goes on to explore this ‘balance of terror’ and the inclination of 20th Century art as it anticipates humanities own destruction. Virlio deems that the popularization of terrorism through the mass media and new technologies results in the ‘pitiless’ artist or author adopting a mode of assimilation and regurgitation of academicism that ultimately seeks to attack symbols, signs and the very essence of meaning.

Virilio makes claim that the decline of representation in modern art results in the emergence of a ‘presentative’ art – namely artworks that are able to be known without any reflective of cognitive process. Virlio’s arguments are extremely politically charged as he continually aligns the decline of representation in contemporary art to the decline of a representative democracy in favor of a virtual democracy ruled by public opinion and dictated by the media. Ultimately Virilio aligns this trend of representative disappearance with Fascism.

Exploring the notion of ‘Terminal Art’ Virilio speaks of the nihilism of contemporary technology and the consumer fascination with ‘terrorist voyeurism’ -namely the tendency and desire to view and record the tortured body .Virilio views this morbid lure with the tortured body before the apparatus as the ultimate manifestation of aesthetic perspectives built on a model of war which is then subsequently manipulated by the mass media and ‘the vision of excess’. The elimination of nature in art is replaced by the alignment of science and art. Virilio perceives the body as the new frontier for quasi artistic/ scientific interrogation which permits biology a new artistic expressionism. Thus cloning becomes a form of extreme art. Virilio questions the consequences of this ‘scientific expression’ as it enjoys the privilege of a freedom usually relegated to artistic expression – expressionism without any limits, moral or ethical.

In the second essay ‘Silence on Trial’ Virlio extends the discussion of the audio- visual explosion and its ramifications of the image synchronized with sound. Tracking the development of the moving image and film, Virilio explores the nature of simulacrum and how our sense of ‘exposure time’ has been altered due to the development of film. Virilio tracks the evolution of conceptual art amidst the backdrop of a ‘noisy mass media’ and how the manipulation of media into propaganda seeks to silence the masses. The essence of this essay relies on the following quote ‘everything that remains silent is deemed to consent’ or ‘whoever says nothing is deemed to consent’. Virilo investigates how the cloning of images and the continual erasure of lines between art forms results in a total art or a global art that places emphasis purely on the communicative aspect of art resulting in the destruction of the traditional nature of art. Virilio perceives this shift and development of a new art and equates it with a new perceptual reality based on media domination which relies on the conditioning reflex of a mass media – the media of hate.

The key concepts employed by Virilio and central to this work as follows:
1. The Aesthetics of Disappearance - A term used to describe the trend in contemporary art in the wake of Auschwitz which seeks to eliminate the human body or traces of representation in favor of abstraction. Virilio also equates this tendency to the preference of virtual realties or virtual dominance over a real presence.
2. Pitiless/ Pitiful Work of Art – Contemporary art which lacks the quality of pity and is severe to the highest degree.
3. Terrorism/ Total War – The popularization of terrorism by the mass media which results in the conditioning of perspectives derived from a model of war. Virilio refers to total war in regards to the mass media as being the new virtual battlefield.
4. Representative art v’s Presentative art- The claim that the demise of representation in contemporary art is aligned to a political agenda. The shift from artworks that embody symbolic meaning to works that are dictated by public opinion and require little cognitive process.
5. Terminal Art – Contemporary trend which favors the mobility of humanities decline – specifically in relation to the tortured body before technological apparatus.
6. Extreme Art – The melding of art and science which sees the expansion of scientific expression to encompass the freedom of possibilities usually relegated to artistic expression.

Art and Fear is the result of a talk given by Virilio and was subsequently developed into text. Virilio’s research methods are not immediately apparent; there are no obvious research methods in terms of quantifiable data (interviews etc) as Virilo is essentially elaborating on a discourse which has its basis in media theory and cultural analysis. Virilio uses the model of Auschwitz as an aesthetic possibility for the foundation of his argument and cites various artists and theorists to further elaborate his case. When reading Art and Fear one is thoroughly convinced of Virlio’s claim. His use of language and the way he relates key concepts to his core theme is both compelling and insightful (though at times a little disturbing).

Perhaps one of the biggest limitations of Art and Fear is Virilio’s assumption of prior knowledge of the reader. At times his terms and ideas are quite dense and are difficult to absorb, especially if one does not already have a thorough knowledge of the subject matter, namely a perspective of art history or of cultural, post-structural theory. Though Virilio uses a host of examples to illustrate his argument, they tend to be somewhat narrow in terms of their intellectual specificity and those outside the field of enquiry may find it difficult to digest.

Paul Virilo is a contemporary theorist writing on one of the most pressing concerns facing humanity today in terms of information exchange and the consequences of the excesses of mass media. Building on the intellectual discussions instigated by Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, it is difficult to ascertain the impact of Virilio as his theories are so present in the ‘now’. There is no safe distance at which one can reflect on his contributions to the field as he is in the process of redefining it.

The History of my Intellectual Develeopment

Intellectual Autobiography

A history of my Brain: tracking the development in intellectual thought.

Art has always appeared to me as the perfect tool for communication and education. Not only does art challenge our perceptions on seeing, artworks are a medium for expression that simultaneously extends beyond the word while also inspiring discussion and debate.

My current practice is based in collage and painting, which is informed by counter culture, street art and graffiti. The research I intend to undertake at the New School will be underpinned by the study of iconography within these subcultures through the interpretation of symbols and images. By reordering text, imagery and iconic references, I seek to question how language is used to convey meaning and a sense of place.

My future vision is to:
A) Create artistic works using a number of contemporary mediums such as sound and moving images to deconstruct and explore links between expression, communication and culture.
B) Further my investigation into Art Education practices with the aim to develop projects examining notions of communication and language within a global community. I envision this will embody a cultural and artistic exchange between continents utilizing the advent of new technology.

My Goals are:
1) To develop and maintain my current artistic practice.
2) To increase my capacity for discussion surrounding contemporary issues in the arts and related fields – arts education, etc.
3) To create and sustain partnerships that will facilitate international networking and creative exchanges.
4) To develop a clear professional profile.

HOW DID I GET HERE:
Institutions as a place of continuous journey
All roads lead to media studies.

ART AND THEORY- University of South Australia 1998-2001
In 2001 I completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the University of South Australia majoring in painting and art theory. The University of South Australia placed heavy theoretical emphasis on the Australian landscape and the relationship of the body to the landscape - our relationship to the land as seen through colonial eyes. This investigation included the notion of the landscape as ‘sublime’ verging on terror, an unknown a terrifying wilderness; a land that doesn’t want us, that is hostile and possessed with spirit. The introduction of the ‘frame’ further reiterated that the Australian landscape was originally perceived though English painting tradition and was vastly different to Aboriginal representations of the land; the mythology of the land verses the mythology of man. During this time we were introduced to simiology – sign systems and modes of representation that contribute and draw on myth and meaning. The theoretical component of this degree was extremely challenging and continued through the duration of the course. Perhaps the biggest theoretical revolution came when studying a semester of Post Modern theory. Before this class I didn’t know that there was theories to describe what was happening in society, I was so relieved that these things that I intuitively felt were real. This introduction to what I coin ‘the rupture of meaning’ has fueled my investigations into language and meaning up to the present day.

Running parallel to the theoretical component of my degree, much attention was paid to the practical, material application of visual art. I chose to focus on life drawing and painting, working directly from life and particularly using models. During this the emphasis of my investigation was on mark making, personal calligraphy (in drawing) and the materiality of painting itself. I was interested in conjuring emotional responses from the viewer and using the medium of paint to evoke emotion particularly through mark making.

At this time I was also investigating ‘The Gaze’ and self-portraiture as modes of communication. Really I was just learning how to paint and possessed a tendency toward mixed media, particularly collage, text and text as a means of expressing ‘the inexpressible’. I wanted to develop my own vocabulary specific to me by taking known symbols and structures of communication and juxtaposing disparate things against themselves to create something other. During this time I drew inspiration from the natural surrounds and specific hues of the Australian landscape. I was particularly interested in the human body, organic forms in nature, patterns and repetitions, shadows of leaves etc.

CULTURE SHOCK: Colorado State University 2000



Studying at Colorado State University really opened my eyes to world of cultural possibilities. In the eight months I spent at CSU I discovered jazz and the beat poets changing my way of thinking forever. After reading Jack Karoacs - On the Road and Dharma Bums my Literary interests became wider as I began to conceive of an American culture beyond the mainstream. Beat poetry opened up my mind to the idea of a natural rhythm being omitted from a place, the ‘beat’ of the streets. During this period I was drawing a lot on the subconscious in art in the form of automatic drawing and writing as a mode of unlocking a realm of my creative self. Collage also played an important role in my art making and has since become one of my main artistic mediums. Running parallel to my formal study at CSU I was exploring other means of expression. As I had an abundance of emotions while encountering a new culture and being so far away from home I began making a series of fliers that I anonymously posted around the CSU campus. This started out with the text ‘I feel too much’ repeated with various images incorporated into each successive flier. I was interested in bridging the gap between private emotional states within a public space. Although my work was much more low tech, I was directly influenced by Jenny Holzer by using text to interrupt or cause an intervention in a shared space.

THE ART OF PLAY – Garfield Art Squad
Colorado State University offered a semester long Arts Education program where students developed and ran after school workshops for underprivileged kids at Garfield elementary. Based on the model developed by Tim Rollins and the Kids of Survival (Bronx, New York City) the program aimed to engage children in developing critical analytical skills (reading, writing, analysis and self reflection) through an art-based syllabus collaboratively developed by a group of 5 students from the university. Being involved in this program was integral to the course of my professional and artistic life. Not only did I learn about Tim Rollins and the KOS (who I later came to work with in New York City years later) my interaction with the kids from Garfield taught me a very important lesson about the necessity of ‘play’ in art making. My university life had, up to this point, strangled me with the theoretical component of art. I was literally theorizing my art to death but when I saw the kids making art, their zeal and unbound creative energy – totally engaged in the making, the creation of art, something in me changed. I was transformed back to when making art was fun, to the necessity of making art for arts sake – to explore and experiment.

FINISHING SCHOOL AND THE ROAD TO REAL LEARNING – Clifford Frith.



I met Clifford Frith, an English artist born in 1929 in the last days at the University of South Australia in 2001. Wandering around the lofty (but empty) studios, Clifford (having give an artists talk to 2nd year students) found me and engaged in a serious dialogue regarding my current series of paintings. He promptly queried whether my artworks were ‘finished’ and told me that I did not properly understand what constituted the discipline of painting stating - ‘it’s not coloring between the lines’. As he took me under his wing and became my mentor and friend, Clifford’s unyielding desire for quality and passion for artistic thought and production challenged me tremendously. Clifford knew everything about painting and set upon showing me all the tricks a master of his accomplished history had to teach. Over the period of two years I diligently attended Clifford’s weekly life drawing class and spent time (sometimes weeks at a time) working in his private studio overlooking the ocean (which provided him with the majority of his inspiration). Clifford’s ability to explain and teach methods and principles of drawing painting far exceeded any formal training I received at University SA. Clifford generously allowed me to watch him work while I simultaneously worked along side him. This first hand experience vastly broadened by scope and insight into the skills, materials and techniques, giving me more opportunity for creative expression. Far beyond the material aspects of painting, Clifford taught me the necessity of being dedicated to ones work. His unyielding commitment and love for his art, his knowledge of form and color, composition and material laid a solid for foundation for the study I undertook at the New York Studio School (2003-2006).

PUBLIC AND COMMUNITY ARTS
Art Alley


City Sites is a program was developed by Carclew Youth Arts Centre to employ young artists to complete public art briefs requested by various businesses around the city of Adelaide. In the year of 2000 I was commissioned (in conjunction with three other artists) to fulfill a design brief to create public art in a street named ‘Art Alley’ in the centre of the business district. The aim was to create interactive public art that encouraged people not only to explore the area physically but also to ask questions about the historical origin of the area. The creative development and execution of this project was extremely interesting as working with a group of artists (coming from different backgrounds and disciplines) was both challenging and rewarding.


THE AUSTRALIAN FESTIVAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE– aka Come Out



Interpreting words and making projects
The importance of unifying symbols that give meaning for communities
The Mandala.
The Australian Festival for Young People aka – Come Out is a biannual arts festival which showcases art from all disciplines for, by and with young people aged 3-18. Established in 1974 in conjunction with the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, Come Out was designed for students to ‘come out’ of school and experience the arts and is unique in its commitment to arts education. Working as an arts education assistant for Come Out 2003 enabled me to develop rich and meaningful artistic projects within schools and local communities. Working closely with the artistic director I was encouraged to interpret the festival theme ‘The ripple effect’ to create relevant projects, accompanying syllabus and professional development workshops for teachers. An extremely fulfilling project that I created ‘Journey to the Center' with the mandala’ involved over 1000 students creating mandalas that reflected their inner worlds, hopes and fears. Gyuto monks of Tibet – teachers’ workshop exploring the cultural significance of the mandala, sand mandala – and body as mandala. Teachers took this information and the accompanying resource material exploring the mandala in non-traditional art subjects such as math, English and social studies. Having reinterpreted the theme in the classroom the resulting artworks were showcased in professional exhibition and on line. The reach of this project was immense and the resulting artworks and community involvement was touching and relevant including environmental mandalas and mandalas in the community.

NEW YORK CITY



The New York Studio School 2003 - 2006:
The New York Studio School of drawing, painting and sculpture was founded to specifically to foster the development of abstract expressionism and aimed to rebel against academia. I came to the NYSS in the summer of 2003 to take part in the schools prestigious drawing and painting marathons developed by the schools dean Graham Nickson. The marathon is as the name suggests. Working for up to ten hours a day in the studio or out in the landscape, NYSS marathons are designed to push students to work beyond their comfort-zone. Students worked from elaborately staged model set-ups, developing drawing and paintings from direct observation and from the imagination. The demanding, unorthodox assignments and challenging critiques pushed hard against established perceptual models and formulaic modes of working. Material concerns, form conventions, plastic expression and critical/ historical constructs were questioned, rethought, and reformed through group discussions and analytical dialogue. Having completed the summer marathon, I undertook a two-year Masters degree at the school where I was exposed to a wealth of information concerning the development of painting to contemporary practice. The schools axiom that ‘drawing is indispensable to seeing’ and that painting is a poetic equivalent became a strong point for much of my investigations.

My Masters thesis, a collection of thoughts and voices from the teachers that have inspired me, resulted into a correlation between sight and knowledge and the interpretation that occurs between the two. Through this investigation I was questioning how the creative impulse works in relation to a mechanical inclination and that occurs between intention and discovery in making a work of art. I am interested in how the aesthetic sense functions with the rational mind. In order to make clears my terminology, I am referring to the ‘aesthetic sense’, as the intuitive or irrational impulses that are at work in the act of creation in contrast to the ‘rational mind’ which is more aligned with analyzing and implementing specific knowledge of historical canons. The common thread, which unites this tow-sided coin, is the use of language as a foundation for expression.

The body of work that resulted from this investigation was a series of large figurative oil paintings that explore the idea of reflection. The notion of reflection has both philosophical connotations and practical ramifications in my work. The use of mirrors enables me to explore the notion of space. The reflection is not a physical space, but a mirrored reality, where objects are flattened and reversed. Here reality is reflected. A mirror maybe defined as ‘something that gives a true picture of something else’. A mirror, like a canvas, is a surface capable of reflection that gives form to a virtual image. This line of enquiry is still relevant to my investigations today.

NYC MENTORS

Ophrah Shemesh - the commitment to the two dimension.
http://www.wirtzgallery.com/exhibitions/2003/2003_04/shemesh/shemesh_2003_1.html



Nick Carone – Exploring Planes of Consciousness
http://www.artezine.com/issues/20041101/carone.html



Arleen Schloss

I met Arleen Schloss over the internet when I was looking for a place to live while Studying at the New York Studio School. Arleen is a unique and dedicated artist integral to the NY underground art movement from the 70’s onwards and has since become one of my most pivotal mentors. Upon meeting Schloss I was immediately liberated conceptually as she encouraged me to explore art as pure expression. Schloss believes that art making ‘extends beyond the medium’ and is dedicated to interdisciplinary, experimental and collaborative research. Arleen is an artist whose work has manifested itself in a number of different forms. She began working as a painter and a teacher and then moved into the realm of live performance using recorded and live sound, live video projections and lasers. Her research in to linguistics, communication, alphabet poetics and sound phenomenon focuses on social and creative concerns engaging the participation of the interactive viewer/performer. Perhaps the most important thing Arleen has taught me is the validity of being an artist and that to be an artist is not only about producing, but a way of thinking, a way of life beyond any specialized medium. Arleen is also an avid document-er both of her own work and that of her peers. Having seen the extensive archive that Arleen has collected over the years has made me aware of the necessity to record and capture important creative events and occasions – in essence – keeping track of history.



Tim Rollins and the Kid of Survival

In July 2003 I worked with Tim Rollins and the Kids of Survival in order to gain more insight into this innovative and exciting art education program. I attended several workshops in Rollins Chelsea studio (situated in the heart of the gallery district in New York) where, in my capacity as a volunteer, I assisted Rollins while he worked with kids from the surrounding community. In the program in which I was involved, kids aged 5 years to ten were brought into the studio and asked to respond to a piece of classical music. After hearing the piece a group discussion followed regarding what sensations and associations the music evoked in the children. Rollins then proceeded to share images of the galaxy, exploding stars and other visuals that indicated a moment of creation or an explosion of energy. The element of play was an integral feature of the workshop. Rollins made it apparent that stress was definitely not part of the equation and that creativity is the result of a free exchange between information and ideas.



Art Around the Park and the Howl Festival

The Howl! Festival is a week-long artist festival celebrating the counter culture of the East Village. In my capacity as a volunteer project coordinator, I successfully organized Art Around the Park, a live-action painting event that has to be seen to be believed. Imagine a 900 foot long, eight foot high ribbon of blank canvas stretched along two sides of Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Add over 100 artists, gallons of paint, sculptural material of every description and you get – Art Around the Park. Working on assigned sections of the canvas, artists from all over New York transformed the massive swath of white space into a riotous explosion of color and creativity amongst the musical backdrop of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. This was an amazing opportunity to get involved with a community dedicated to the preservation of its artistic links with history.




New York City Streets:
I began making collages in the first months during my time in New York City. I wanted to convey my experience in this new place and found it increasingly difficult to categorize what I was feeling in this intense and dense environment. I became increasingly interested in language and how imagery, text and symbols convey meaning.
My collages are directly informed by counter culture, street art and graffiti. I use the street as my primary resource for creative inspiration and collected all materials used directly from the walls of New York. I took routine trips into the concrete jungle collecting weathered street art, photographing graffiti and studying the surface of things. I then reassembled the material into a kind of visual diary that not only mapped my movements through the city but my feelings associated with those journeys. The format of the works became integral to the work as I began to think about each piece as a frame representing a still from a movie. The works usually have several components that are read sequentially from left to right.