In order to explore my essay on who owns the authorship of art in a practical sense, I will look initially at re-appropriating peers work, primarily through collecting and re-using print off-cuts and handmade texture which are no longer needed. I will use mainly collage to explore the colour and shapes used by others to challenge who the actual author of a body of work is through looking at existing shapes and colours. This will help to develop my discussion on who is the creator and who is the author of an image, and to what extent this can be shared. I will be using a lot of mixed materials, as it will be what I can source and re use within my work, but I imagine I will be heavily influenced by what traditional print items I can collect, before perhaps turing these into my own 'authored' prints. I will be heavily influenced by Barthes, who is a firm believer in shared authorship, and that work has a life beyond the artist who creates it. I will also explore more the theories of both Storey and Foucalt who have conflicting views that art must be reflective of the ideologies of its audience, and that the ideologies of the audience are constructed by the artist.
Monday, 30 January 2017
Thursday, 26 January 2017
Study Task 5- Initial Ideas
LINE: A long, narrow mark or band, or path left by moving point
SHAPE: The external form, contours, or outline of someone or something
COLOUR: The hue and visual tone of an object or shape
TEXTURE: The feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or a substance
COLLAGE: a collection or combination of various ephemera
Examples used in Illustration:
SHAPE: The external form, contours, or outline of someone or something
COLOUR: The hue and visual tone of an object or shape
TEXTURE: The feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or a substance
COLLAGE: a collection or combination of various ephemera
Examples used in Illustration:
 |
| Line- Ryan Gillett |
 |
| Shape- Anna Kövecses |
 |
| Colour- Misato Suzuki |
 |
| Texture- Gavin Garcia |
 |
| Collage- Rocio Montoya |
Politics, Society, Culture, History, Technology and Aesthetics all influence art in their own way. I would like to focus on culture, and secondarily on aesthetics, as the reappropriation of others work embodies the entirety of the art culture, simply by questioning the definition of 'owning' an aesthetic.
Initial visual responses:
Cop2 Draft essay
Through working on this essay I've really been able to develop what areas of authorship interest me, and how to tackle them. I initially was worried it was too big of a subject and that I didn't have much knowledge about it, but by following the leads that interested me the most, I was able to create an essay which I find interesting and think will form a strong base for my practical work.
Friday, 20 January 2017
Essay Plan
Throughout my essay, I will discuss and explore the complexities of authorship and interactivity within art and design. I will also look at the thesis that they are one and the same, and cannot be separated. I wish to explore this further, as the role of visual communicators relies heavily on the interpretation and interactivity of its intended audience. Because authorship is actually within most everyday items, the audience should want to learn more about what role this plays in their life, and to what extent they have the power in the relationship.
The first thing the audience will want to learn will be what authorship entails, as it will likely be a new subject to them. The reader will need to know the common perceptions that art is what someone takes responsibility for, and authorship is the practice of attaching a name to every artefact (Beöthy, 2013). My audience will then want to learn more about what being the author means, and how the author is the centre and origin of the work (Allen, 2003 p.73), as well as being referred to as the creator, but not the life, of their work (Barthes, 1968 p.52)
The audience will then probably want to learn more about the history of authorship, and how it became a lot more abstract as a concept after the 1960’s where there was a shift in the sole determinacy of art (Beöthy, 2013) (Rock, 1996). I will then discuss the complexities of interpretation of artwork, and whether this has always been based solely on the ideologies of the author (Foucalt, 1979 p.159) or whether over time, this ‘aura’ has decayed to leave the meaning up the the audience (Storey, 2008 p.69)
The next thing my audience will want to read about will be authorship in art, especially in reference to the understanding and personal acceptance of art through shared ‘common knowledge’ (Storey, 2008) (Silverman, 1983 p.27). This will begin a discussion about Middleton’s question ‘at what point does the audience have an impact on the meaning of art?’ through exploring whether the entire meaning and feelings evoked are universally the creation of the author or artists (O’toole, 2011 p.11) or whether the meaning is only implied, and interpreted differently to each individual (Althusser, 1969 p.67). This will then develop into understanding the philosophical views on authorial power (Landow, 1992 p.90) and how this can manifest itself into a division of labour (Marx, 1970 p.109), especially within interactive art.
Then I will begin to discuss authorship within everyday life through design. This will begin with the audience reading about how the authors sole role is to give stability and visibility to the work (Allen, 2003 p.73-74) (Storey, 2008 p.75), whilst considering which relationship to the work is more important and needed (Althusser, 1969 p.113). This will develop into a discussion about the reliance on the audience to fulfil its purpose through common liminal spaces (Macdonald, 2013), and whether the author, or creator, only initiates the item (Irvin, 2005), which then takes on its own life (Barthes, 1968 p.52-3). I will then look at the possibility of uniqueness and authorship co existing (Marx, 1970 p.109) and whether authorship is better hidden behind high demand, mass produced products and labels (Miles, 1998).
Finally, I will consider how authorship may have changed so much over time that nothing can ever belong to one person, as ideas cannot be copyrighted, and communication belongs only as an intangible relationship between humans (Rock, 1996) and one cannot communicate with oneself. Before looking at how authorship could be seen as only ever shared, if not in its intended form, then as a new item for a new purpose entirely (Rock, 1996).
The first thing the audience will want to learn will be what authorship entails, as it will likely be a new subject to them. The reader will need to know the common perceptions that art is what someone takes responsibility for, and authorship is the practice of attaching a name to every artefact (Beöthy, 2013). My audience will then want to learn more about what being the author means, and how the author is the centre and origin of the work (Allen, 2003 p.73), as well as being referred to as the creator, but not the life, of their work (Barthes, 1968 p.52)
The audience will then probably want to learn more about the history of authorship, and how it became a lot more abstract as a concept after the 1960’s where there was a shift in the sole determinacy of art (Beöthy, 2013) (Rock, 1996). I will then discuss the complexities of interpretation of artwork, and whether this has always been based solely on the ideologies of the author (Foucalt, 1979 p.159) or whether over time, this ‘aura’ has decayed to leave the meaning up the the audience (Storey, 2008 p.69)
The next thing my audience will want to read about will be authorship in art, especially in reference to the understanding and personal acceptance of art through shared ‘common knowledge’ (Storey, 2008) (Silverman, 1983 p.27). This will begin a discussion about Middleton’s question ‘at what point does the audience have an impact on the meaning of art?’ through exploring whether the entire meaning and feelings evoked are universally the creation of the author or artists (O’toole, 2011 p.11) or whether the meaning is only implied, and interpreted differently to each individual (Althusser, 1969 p.67). This will then develop into understanding the philosophical views on authorial power (Landow, 1992 p.90) and how this can manifest itself into a division of labour (Marx, 1970 p.109), especially within interactive art.
Then I will begin to discuss authorship within everyday life through design. This will begin with the audience reading about how the authors sole role is to give stability and visibility to the work (Allen, 2003 p.73-74) (Storey, 2008 p.75), whilst considering which relationship to the work is more important and needed (Althusser, 1969 p.113). This will develop into a discussion about the reliance on the audience to fulfil its purpose through common liminal spaces (Macdonald, 2013), and whether the author, or creator, only initiates the item (Irvin, 2005), which then takes on its own life (Barthes, 1968 p.52-3). I will then look at the possibility of uniqueness and authorship co existing (Marx, 1970 p.109) and whether authorship is better hidden behind high demand, mass produced products and labels (Miles, 1998).
Finally, I will consider how authorship may have changed so much over time that nothing can ever belong to one person, as ideas cannot be copyrighted, and communication belongs only as an intangible relationship between humans (Rock, 1996) and one cannot communicate with oneself. Before looking at how authorship could be seen as only ever shared, if not in its intended form, then as a new item for a new purpose entirely (Rock, 1996).
Images I will be looking at:
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| Yayoi Kusama (2014) Obliteration Room |
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| Walker Evans (1936) Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife/ Sherrie Levine (1981) After Walker Evans |
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| Vincent van Gogh (1889) The Starry Night |
Wednesday, 18 January 2017
Essay quotes
Authorship over interactivity? Do you need to sacrifice one for the other?
Eames chairs- Function with authorship- rip off ones
Can’t copyright an idea- is authorship unable to be copied?
Is the author the paint manufacturer or the artists or the audience?
Who owns packaging- designer? But want it to be accessable, so audience? Or is it used (Given purpose) by the product? Or is it joint authorship?
Art’s purpose is to be inclusive and interpreted by people- thinking of liminal spaces- can it exist without interactivity?
‘Art is what someone takes responsibility for’- Beöthy
‘Practice of attaching a name to every artefact’- Beöthy
‘The author is posited as the centre of the work: the origin of all the works meaning’ – Allen pg.73
‘the Author is supposed to feed the book, i.e., he lives before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it; he has the same relation of antecedence with his work that a father sustains with his child’ – Barthes pg.52 *** (Allen pg.74)
‘The meaning of the word ‘author’ has shifted significantly through history and has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last 40 years’ – Rock
‘Shift in the late 1960’s from the notion of the artist as being the sole determinant of the meaning of an artwork to the notion that the audience brings their own interpretation’ – Beöthy
‘The ‘aura’ of a text or practice is its sense of ‘authenticity’, ‘authority’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘distance’’- Storey pg.69
‘The decay of the aura detaches the text or practice from the authority and rituals of tradition. It opens them to plurality of reinterpretation, freeing them to be used in other contexts, for other purposes’ – Storey, pg.69
‘of ‘mechanical reproduction’, his view that is begins with the process of a move from an ‘auratic’ culture to a ‘democratic’ culture in which meaning is no longer seen as unique, but open to question, open to use and mobilisation’ – Storey pg.69
‘the author is… the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning’ – Foucalt pg.159
From a shared understanding, ‘common knowledge’- Storey (2008)
‘The connotative sign consists of both parts of the denotative sign as well as the additional meaning or meanings which they have helped to generate’- Silverman pg.27
‘That is to say, an artist has at his or her disposal various devices for engaging our attention, drawing us into the world of the painting, and colouring our view of that world’ – O’toole pg.11
‘However much our ultimate interpretations may differ, I want to claim that the responses evoked in us by the systems of this function are virtually universal’ – O’toole pg.11
Middleton- 1990 at what point does the audience have an impact on the meaning of art?
‘A text is structured as much by what is absent (what is not said) as by what is present (what is said)’ – Althusser pg.67 *** Storey pg.72
‘One clear sign of such transference of authorial power appears in the readers abilities to choose his or her way through the metatext, to annotate texts written by others, and to create links between documents written by others’ – Landow pg.90
‘The exclusive concentration of artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression in the broad mass which is bound up with this, is a consequence of division of labour’ – Marx pg.109
‘In reducing the autonomy of the text, hypertext reduces the autonomy of the author’ – Landow pg.90
‘the author is also that figure towards which all reading should direct itself’- Allen pg.73
‘the author thus gives stability and order to the work’ – Allen pg.74
‘making explicit what is implicit in the text, to make audible that which is merely a whisper’ – Storey pg.75
‘a social formation consists of three practices: the economic, the political and the ideological. The relationship between the base and the superstructure is not one of expression, i.e. the superstructure being and expression or passive reflection of the base, but rather the superstructure is seen as necessary to the existence of the base.’ – Althusser pg.113 *** Storey pg.71
Macdonald- 2013 Common liminal spaces- require movement in them to fulfil their purpose
‘We know now that a text consists not of a line of words, releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God), but of a multi dimensional space in which are married and contested several writings, none of which is original: the text is a fabric of quotations, resulting from a thousand sources of culture’ Barthes pg.52-3*** (Allen pg. 76)
‘Creator is only ‘past’ of image, no longer have any control over it’ - Macdonald
Creating a ‘pass the parcel effect to design and art’- Irvin
‘here too the difference between “human” and “unique” labour amounts to sheer nonsense’ – Marx pg.109
‘Can authorship and appropriation exist together?’- Irvin
‘mass taste could be educated to accept mass-produced products’ - Miles
‘illustrated the significance that designer labels played in young peoples lives’ - Miles
‘Authorship may suggest new approaches to the issue of the design process in a profession traditionally associated more with communication rather than the origination of the message’ - Rock
‘The earliest definitions are not associated with writing per se, but rather denote ‘the person who originates or gives existence to anything’’ - Rock
O’toole, M. (2011) The Language of Displayed Art, 2nd ed, Oxon: Routledge
Althusser, L. (1969) For Marx, London: Allen Lane
Marx, K. (1970) The German Ideology, London: Lawrence and Wishart
Rock, M. (1996) The Designer as Author, Eye no. 20 vol. 5 1996
Landow, G.P. (1992) Reconfiguring the Author in ‘Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology’, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press
Miles, S. (1998) Consumerism as a way of life, Oxford: Sage
Barthes, R. (1968) The Death of the Author, London: Fontana
Allen, G. (2003) Roland Barthes- Routledge Critial thinkers, London: Routledge
Foucalt, M. (1979) Textual Strategies:Perspectves in Post-Structuralist Critisism, New York: Cornell University Press
Storey, J. (2008) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, 5th ed, London: Pearson
Middleton, D. & Edwards, D. (1990) Collective Remembering, London: Sage Publications
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Lidwell, W., Holden, K. & Butler, J. (2010) Universal Principals of Design, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers
Brent Plate, S. (2002) Religion, Art, and Visual Culture- A Cross-Cultural Reader, New York: Palgrave
Silverman, K. (1983) The Subject of Semiotics, Oxford University Press: New York
John Berger / Ways of Seeing, Episode 4 (1972) [video] BBC4, available: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY>. [12/01/17]
Internet:
Beöthy, B. (2013) Internet
MacDondald, L. (2013) Internet
Irvin, S. (2005) Internet
Eames chairs- Function with authorship- rip off ones
Can’t copyright an idea- is authorship unable to be copied?
Is the author the paint manufacturer or the artists or the audience?
Who owns packaging- designer? But want it to be accessable, so audience? Or is it used (Given purpose) by the product? Or is it joint authorship?
Art’s purpose is to be inclusive and interpreted by people- thinking of liminal spaces- can it exist without interactivity?
‘Art is what someone takes responsibility for’- Beöthy
‘Practice of attaching a name to every artefact’- Beöthy
‘The author is posited as the centre of the work: the origin of all the works meaning’ – Allen pg.73
‘the Author is supposed to feed the book, i.e., he lives before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it; he has the same relation of antecedence with his work that a father sustains with his child’ – Barthes pg.52 *** (Allen pg.74)
‘The meaning of the word ‘author’ has shifted significantly through history and has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last 40 years’ – Rock
‘Shift in the late 1960’s from the notion of the artist as being the sole determinant of the meaning of an artwork to the notion that the audience brings their own interpretation’ – Beöthy
‘The ‘aura’ of a text or practice is its sense of ‘authenticity’, ‘authority’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘distance’’- Storey pg.69
‘The decay of the aura detaches the text or practice from the authority and rituals of tradition. It opens them to plurality of reinterpretation, freeing them to be used in other contexts, for other purposes’ – Storey, pg.69
‘of ‘mechanical reproduction’, his view that is begins with the process of a move from an ‘auratic’ culture to a ‘democratic’ culture in which meaning is no longer seen as unique, but open to question, open to use and mobilisation’ – Storey pg.69
‘the author is… the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning’ – Foucalt pg.159
From a shared understanding, ‘common knowledge’- Storey (2008)
‘The connotative sign consists of both parts of the denotative sign as well as the additional meaning or meanings which they have helped to generate’- Silverman pg.27
‘That is to say, an artist has at his or her disposal various devices for engaging our attention, drawing us into the world of the painting, and colouring our view of that world’ – O’toole pg.11
‘However much our ultimate interpretations may differ, I want to claim that the responses evoked in us by the systems of this function are virtually universal’ – O’toole pg.11
Middleton- 1990 at what point does the audience have an impact on the meaning of art?
‘A text is structured as much by what is absent (what is not said) as by what is present (what is said)’ – Althusser pg.67 *** Storey pg.72
‘One clear sign of such transference of authorial power appears in the readers abilities to choose his or her way through the metatext, to annotate texts written by others, and to create links between documents written by others’ – Landow pg.90
‘The exclusive concentration of artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression in the broad mass which is bound up with this, is a consequence of division of labour’ – Marx pg.109
‘In reducing the autonomy of the text, hypertext reduces the autonomy of the author’ – Landow pg.90
‘the author is also that figure towards which all reading should direct itself’- Allen pg.73
‘the author thus gives stability and order to the work’ – Allen pg.74
‘making explicit what is implicit in the text, to make audible that which is merely a whisper’ – Storey pg.75
‘a social formation consists of three practices: the economic, the political and the ideological. The relationship between the base and the superstructure is not one of expression, i.e. the superstructure being and expression or passive reflection of the base, but rather the superstructure is seen as necessary to the existence of the base.’ – Althusser pg.113 *** Storey pg.71
Macdonald- 2013 Common liminal spaces- require movement in them to fulfil their purpose
‘We know now that a text consists not of a line of words, releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God), but of a multi dimensional space in which are married and contested several writings, none of which is original: the text is a fabric of quotations, resulting from a thousand sources of culture’ Barthes pg.52-3*** (Allen pg. 76)
‘Creator is only ‘past’ of image, no longer have any control over it’ - Macdonald
Creating a ‘pass the parcel effect to design and art’- Irvin
‘here too the difference between “human” and “unique” labour amounts to sheer nonsense’ – Marx pg.109
‘Can authorship and appropriation exist together?’- Irvin
‘mass taste could be educated to accept mass-produced products’ - Miles
‘illustrated the significance that designer labels played in young peoples lives’ - Miles
‘Authorship may suggest new approaches to the issue of the design process in a profession traditionally associated more with communication rather than the origination of the message’ - Rock
‘The earliest definitions are not associated with writing per se, but rather denote ‘the person who originates or gives existence to anything’’ - Rock
O’toole, M. (2011) The Language of Displayed Art, 2nd ed, Oxon: Routledge
Althusser, L. (1969) For Marx, London: Allen Lane
Marx, K. (1970) The German Ideology, London: Lawrence and Wishart
Rock, M. (1996) The Designer as Author, Eye no. 20 vol. 5 1996
Landow, G.P. (1992) Reconfiguring the Author in ‘Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology’, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press
Miles, S. (1998) Consumerism as a way of life, Oxford: Sage
Barthes, R. (1968) The Death of the Author, London: Fontana
Allen, G. (2003) Roland Barthes- Routledge Critial thinkers, London: Routledge
Foucalt, M. (1979) Textual Strategies:Perspectves in Post-Structuralist Critisism, New York: Cornell University Press
Storey, J. (2008) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, 5th ed, London: Pearson
Middleton, D. & Edwards, D. (1990) Collective Remembering, London: Sage Publications
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Lidwell, W., Holden, K. & Butler, J. (2010) Universal Principals of Design, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers
Brent Plate, S. (2002) Religion, Art, and Visual Culture- A Cross-Cultural Reader, New York: Palgrave
Silverman, K. (1983) The Subject of Semiotics, Oxford University Press: New York
John Berger / Ways of Seeing, Episode 4 (1972) [video] BBC4, available: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY>. [12/01/17]
Internet:
Beöthy, B. (2013) Internet
MacDondald, L. (2013) Internet
Irvin, S. (2005) Internet
Tuesday, 17 January 2017
Study Task 7- Post Christmas Review
OUIL501 Context of Practice
Post Christmas Review
What is the main subject area / question the illustrator is looking into?
Who is the artist?
What are the strengths in how they have responded to this subject area?
(Breadth of research? Criticality of image analysis? Effective Triangulation?)
- Parody
- lots to explore
- hallways- house/home
- Deachamp
- Photography- viewing as they view
What could they look at to develop?
Desert Island disks- Damien Hirst - Shock of art –Francis Bacon
Yayori Kusama - circle stickers
Bottacheli- copies - Ask Sammy!
Photo of photo portrait
-BBC- Dahli, Gilbert and George- is art personality- Artist is ‘2000 etc’
-What artists do all day
And 3 areas that could be developed further:
Narrow down
Choosing art- belong to modern culture- mona lisa
Stored art- changes over time, are printed versions better?
Is art art if it’s not seen?
What are the next steps with the research project, practical and theoretical?
(Is a more experimental approach required? Do they need to find more imagery? Is there a particular practical focus they should continue with? Be Honest, Critical and Helpful as to how this project can grow from this point.)
Essay map
Gather quotes
Research other factors
Rationale- why am I doing what I’m doing?
I found this session incredibly helpful, as I was able to reflect on my current research, as well as getting other peoples opinions and personal views on my subject, as it really broadened my ideas about which avenues to pursue, as well as introducing new ideas and sources.
Post Christmas Review
What is the main subject area / question the illustrator is looking into?
Who is the artist?
What are the strengths in how they have responded to this subject area?
(Breadth of research? Criticality of image analysis? Effective Triangulation?)
- Parody
- lots to explore
- hallways- house/home
- Deachamp
- Photography- viewing as they view
What could they look at to develop?
Desert Island disks- Damien Hirst - Shock of art –Francis Bacon
Yayori Kusama - circle stickers
Bottacheli- copies - Ask Sammy!
Photo of photo portrait
-BBC- Dahli, Gilbert and George- is art personality- Artist is ‘2000 etc’
-What artists do all day
And 3 areas that could be developed further:
Narrow down
Choosing art- belong to modern culture- mona lisa
Stored art- changes over time, are printed versions better?
Is art art if it’s not seen?
What are the next steps with the research project, practical and theoretical?
(Is a more experimental approach required? Do they need to find more imagery? Is there a particular practical focus they should continue with? Be Honest, Critical and Helpful as to how this project can grow from this point.)
Essay map
Gather quotes
Research other factors
Rationale- why am I doing what I’m doing?
I found this session incredibly helpful, as I was able to reflect on my current research, as well as getting other peoples opinions and personal views on my subject, as it really broadened my ideas about which avenues to pursue, as well as introducing new ideas and sources.
Monday, 9 January 2017
Time Management
- For all of my projects, I have found using a physical planner really useful, as I have been able to visually plan out all my time to ensure I get everything done on time
- I also find it scares me a bit to see my days reduced to small colour coded squares, which I think ensures I don't waste time
- What I didn't expect was to be really ill for over a week during the Christmas holidays, which has really impacted on my responsive briefs, as I have only made small starts, and was counting on the Christmas holidays to complete them, but I couldn't really leave bed for that time! I suppose this has taught me to factor in unexpected events and allow excess time
- I do still have a lot of time before responsive hand in though, so I will try to get what I can done for the final crit, then continue working after
- I'm really pleased with how my time management has ensured I stayed up to date with Process and Production and that I'm not rushing at the end to get everything completed
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