Submit to Competitions

Submit to Competitions

This semester I have submitted to the Anderson Gallery Student Show, as well as VMFA.

no luck so far but there are always online publications that are happening all the time.

(I can upload a photograph of the Anderson rejection slip if needed)

Research Blog Body Language in photography

 Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida

chapter 5 is interesting dealing with how someone feels as the camera is pointed at them. The clear change in mood, and reaction. I wonder how much the individuals I have photographed were effected by my presence as a photographer. But more importantly I wonder at what degree they changed their body language for the camera, and when did they lower their guard to let me as the photographer and the camera in to their memory recollection, if at all.

Read-Body-Language

• People with crossed arms are closing themselves to social influence. Though some people just cross their arms as a habit, it may indicate that the person is (slightly) reserved, uncomfortable with their appearance, or just trying to hide something on their shirt. If their arms are crossed while their feet are shoulder width or wider apart, this is a position of toughness or authority.
• If someone rests their arms behind their neck or head, they are open to what is being discussed or just laid back in general.
• If their hands are on their hips, they might be waiting or impatient.

Reading body language is important to note while addressing these photographs. The apprehension and uneasiness is clear with some of the individuals I have photographed. Some images hide this a little better but I have noticed subtle cues such as hand gestures that create a certain window to emotions created by a memory they are recalling.

Research blog Fabrication, imagination and memory

Research blog entry regarding:  Fabrication, imagination and memory

 












---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 

fab·ri·ca·tion

–noun

the act or process of fabricating;  manufacture.

something fabricated,  especially an untruthful statement: His account of the robbery is a complete fabrication.

fab·ri·cate

–verb (used with object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.

to make by art or skill and labor; construct: The finest craftspeople fabricated this clock.

to make by assembling parts or sections.

to devise or invent (a legend, lie, etc.).

to fake; forge (a document, Signature, etc.).

 

---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------





I think it is inportant to take another look at the Zoe Beloff Artist Lecture 



I thought Beloffs lecture was fantastic. She was the best story teller we have had. Her presentation technique was like no other. 


- What was the most interesting quote of the lecture and why?
I thought it was very interesting that she mentioned in the beginning of her lecture that "everything is a reinvention of cinema" as it would seem she relates everything back to cinema, it is hard to decipher if she ment in her work or in general. 

- Using three words, define the core of the artist's practice and artwork.
unconscious, fantastical, foggy
she deals a lot with the thought of the unconscious thought
I found even her more structured and research based works to be fantastic.  
and i would say foggy rather than deceptive but her work is very unclear 

- What is the most interesting thing you learned about the artist that you did not know before?
Considering her website and beginning of her lecture was very vague. I learned everything I know about her from her lecture. I thought she was a fabulous speaker and story teller.  Her work is so interesting and the way she presents it as her work or someone else's work weather she created it or not is wonderful. I found her to be very interesting, i strive to have an imagination like hers.

- What image or artwork do you find the most compelling and powerful after hearing the artist describe it?
Being originally very confused about what her work was about I thought her ability to startle research in the  real world and invented worlds to be fascinating and admirable. I am still slightly unclear as to how much was made up  which could cause an illegitimacy in her work that is based in reality. I found the work about Albert Grass to be very interesting and confusing.

- Do you have any new questions in regards to the artist?
I am going to look up everything she mentioned to see what is real and what is fictitious. 

Question 1:

It seems that your work deals with personal thought and it is said that you focus on the unconscious. Do you impose your opinion in your work or have your subjects create their own?

this question doesn't even make sense now that i have heard her lecture. like i said before her website directed me in a very different angle to her work.

Question 2: 

Your work branches into a variety of media, what benefits do you feel video has that still can not achieve? 

I really enjoyed her answer and was glad to hear it. Beloff said the stories and ideas shape the medium she uses to create. In the work that she created where she made a stage and projected a 3D image onto the stages was described as a simulation of a illusion emphasized by the way it was filmed and presented. 

 

 ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 

Her use of manipulation and directing behind the scenes is important to notice as my current work, and some past works have similar elements. 

This is the first time I had been truly exposed to lies within art. They had tricked me into thinking something that wasn't true. I was upset, how could they. But this was not the first time, and I’m sure not the last. Art is a manipulation its just how far an artist is willing to take it, and how much they are willing to tell you about it. 

The ideas of fabrication and truth in art, particularly the work I am creating now has strong emphasis on real, unreal, false reality, and self manipulated reality. The viewer is never or rarely welcomed into the idea of truth in this work, because what is to say our memory is accurate, or the individual being photographed was truthfully recalling the memory. There are so many factors that could skew truth, I want to leave the viewer puzzled about their own truth in memory recall. As well as encounter with the visual documentation of the collaboration I will be representing. 

Research blog Titles in photography

Definition:
Title is the name of an artwork.
However, if the artist did not title the artwork, it often goes by the name Untitled. 
Pronunciation: tahyt-l 
Also Known As: Name
Entitling art: Influence of title information on understanding and appreciation of paintings
^aFaculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
^bDepartment of History and Cultural Sciences, Special Research Division Aesthetics, Freie Universität Berlin, Altensteinstr, 2-4, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Received 21 September 2004;  
revised 17 August 2005;  
accepted 18 August 2005.  
Available online 11 November 2005. 

Abstract

There is evidence that presenting titles together with artworks affects their processing. We investigated whether elaborative and descriptive titles change the appreciation and understanding of paintings. Under long presentation times (90 s) in Experiment 1, testing representative and abstract paintings, elaborative titles increased the understanding of abstract paintings but not their appreciation. In order to test predictions concerning the time course of understanding and aesthetic appreciation [Leder, H., Belke, B., Oeberst, A., & Augustin, D. (2004). A model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments. British Journal of Psychology, 95(4), 489–508] in Experiment 2, abstract paintings were presented under two presentation times. For short presentation times (1 s), descriptive titles increased the understanding more than elaborative titles, whereas for medium presentation times (10 s), elaborative titles increased the understanding more than descriptive titles. Thus, with artworks a presentation time of around 10 s might be needed, to assign a meaning beyond the mere description. Only at medium presentation times did the participants with more art knowledge have a better understanding of the paintings than participants with less art knowledge. Thus, it seems that art knowledge becomes significant, if there is sufficient time to assign a meaning and the present studies reveal the importance of considering the time course in aesthetic appreciation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 Reasons to Title Your Art

by Alyson Stanfield on June 14, 2010

Have you become lazy when it comes to naming your art?
Are you stuck on Untitled or a lame numbering system for a series (Green Mountain #1, Green Mountain #2, etc.)?
It’s time for better titles for your art! Here are five reasons why1. Titles help you distinguish among numerous works.
Titled works are easier to find and to file in organizing systems. They’re also easier for you to talk about and refer people to. The more unique each title is, the better. If you have a series of numbers, you might forget how Green Mountain #1 is different from Green Mountain #5.

2. Titles make it easier for reviewers and critics to write about your art.

It’s difficult to write about untitled art because readers have to be clear about which artwork is being discussed. When faced with untitled art, the writer must spend hunks of text describing which untitled work she’s referring to.
3. Intriguing titles are cause for contemplation.
Untitled or loosely titled works allow the viewer more freedom to interpret, but most people need and want guidance. An interesting title might be enough for a viewer to stop, think, and look back at the art.
4. Titles look great in books.
Imagine all of the titled artwork in the index of a book about your art.
5. Search engines find titles.
If you Google “dumb campers,” the second item that comes up (after video results) is my About page. Do I have anything on ArtBizCoach.com about people who aren’t so savvy in the wilderness? Nope. But I do own a painting with that title, which appears in my online bio. Google found it.
[Caveat: You have to make sure the title appears with the art in order for this to work with search engines. This advice may seem obvious, but I find non-credited art on artists’ websites and blogs all of the time.]
FINAL WORD: There are no guidelines for titling your art. You can select any title you choose. Just remember that your work will have to live with the title for the rest of its life.
Are your titles working for you? Do they help people relate to your art? Do they at least cause viewers to stop and think, “Hmmm . . . I wonder what that means”?
Titles don’t have to say everything, but they should say something. Have fun with them!


 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT TO MY WORK:

I think it is important to understand the use of titles aiding in the conceptual ideas supporting a photograph or body of work. At one of my individual meetings we had talked about the importance and direction I could go with my titling of the individual images. One direction we had talked about was going in a personal direction, with naming the individuals. I don't know how a name will allow people to approach the images and individuals in a more emotional sympathetic way. The other was addressing how scientific I have become in my capturing of the images. I think I would like to mix both ways of entitling of the work. As apart of the work i was keeping memory journals from my experience with the individual i was collaborating with. From these journals i would like to pull out the title of each work. I am thinking titles that act as a window into the experience. maybe a phrase or sentence from the collaboration.

Visiting Artist Trevor Paglen #4

Visiting Artist Trevor Paglen

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 at 2:00 – 4:00pm at Grace Street Theater

The Department of Photography and Film presents Trevor Paglen, an artist, writer, and experimental geographer, whose work deliberately blurs lines between social science, contemporary art, journalism, and other disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to see and interpret the world around us. 

Paglen's visual work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern, London; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; the 2008 Taipei Biennial; the 2009 Istanbul Biennial, and has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters,Aperture, and Art Forum.

His lecture is on Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 at 2:00 – 4:00pm at Grace Street Theater.

Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer whose work deliberately blurs lines between social science, contemporary art, journalism, and other disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to see and interpret the world around us.

Paglen's visual work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern, London; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; the 2008 Taipei Biennial; the 2009 Istanbul Biennial, and has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Aperture, and Art Forum.

---------------------------

Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes is Trevor Paglen's long-awaited first photographic monograph.

Social scientist, artist, writer and provocateur, Paglen has been exploring the secret activities of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies--the "black world"--for the last eight years, publishing, speaking and making astonishing photographs.

As an artist, Paglen is interested in the idea of photography as truth-telling, but his pictures often stop short of traditional ideas of documentation. In the series Limit Telephotography, for example, he employs high-end optical systems to photograph top-secret governmental sites; and in The Other Night Sky, he uses the data of amateur satellite watchers to track and photograph classified spacecraft in Earth's orbit. In other works Paglen transforms documents such as passports, flight data and aliases of CIA operatives into art objects.

Rebecca Solnit contributes a searing essay that traces this history of clandestine military activity on the American landscape. 

Questions I have for the artist:

Your work seems to be about truth and objectifying political and governmental driven opporations what input do you as the artist face? how opinionated to you get?
Well judging on his lectrue and how I felt every word was driping with emotional opinion I found the factural evidence to be clearly stated. 

what is the reason to create this work?
is this even art? I really don't want to get into the entire idea of what is art, but is lists and finding cover up names or oporations art? or is this just a fancy way of presenting obsession? more questions than answers were sparked by this lecture. I wasn't too impressed. 

artist lecture Laurel Nakadate #3

The Department of Photography and Film presents artist Laurel Nakadate, a photographer, video artist and performance artist whose work addresses voyeurism, loneliness, the manipulative power of the camera, and the urge to connect with others. 

Nakadate has had nine solo exhibitions and participated in group shows at numerous galleries and museums throughout the world, including the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid; the Berkeley Art Museum, California; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City; the Getty Center, Los Angeles; the Asia Society, New York; and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; among other institutions.
http://alalalalive.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/laurel-nakadate-the-standard-hotel-downtown-la/

Her lecture is on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 4:00 – 6:00pm at Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Center .

What a fantastic lecture. I admire her and her work so much. I think her work is so bold and confrontational in a subtle and passive way. 


Questions for her:

I am a little confused by her website, i wonder where I can find her films? Her images are confusing if they are still or from a moving media.
She didn't really address where to locate and view her films.

I wish I could read more about her work, The information she offers in the title is interesting to me, I find that titles usually don't aid but in this case with very little other information given I find myself hanging on to the titles more? is this limit of information on your website intentional? 
The artist lecture was very informational and helped me understand the logic and function behind most of her work. 

Reminder to myself

Remember:

Task 1 
Midterm Critique

Scheduled  for 3/07, 3/09.  Time slots for critique will be assigned by 2/21.  All students are required to be present on both critique days.

All students are required at least 3 prints (min size 13 x19) and working artist statement. Also, please remember to post on the critique blog whenever you have an individual meeting or present to the class. when you post on the critique blog the subject heading should be your full name/meeting date.


Task 2 
Due: a list of panel duties

Email instructor a list of duties you have performed up to this point for your exhibition panel. Please list each duty individually and give a description of what was done. There should not be any excuse -- such as "I have not had anything to do yet" or "I am confused about initiatives/goals". Send this email to instructor and all of the members of your panel. The subject heading should be "Last Name, ______Panel Accomplishments" and your fellow panel members must be copied or it will not be graded. All panel members must approve of your list of accomplishments for you to receive any credit.

Task 3 
Due: Production Discs/Notebooks/Jumpdrives

Production Discs/Notebooks/Jumpdrives (raw unedited images and edited images) must be submitted to me  for a critique grade. 

The material should be organized by weekly folders
 
1/24

1/31
2/7
2/14
2/21
2/28
 
the folders should be reflective of a directed production flow that represents the results of individual meetings and your individual research. This material should be submitted on a DVD/CD, a jump drive dedicated to Senior Portfolio, or a traditional binder with contact sheets.