Visual Culture: Andrea

Public pictures are showing us the alternative life, the dream we want to dream and the future we want to become. These advertisements are everywhere, they reach to us on every corner and even when we are not looking at them actively, they still stay on a back of our mind and projects in our dreams. 

Berger is connecting public pictures with an envy. This emotion wasn’t present in the ancestors of public pictures, which are, according to Berger, oil paintings. Oil paintings are representing elegancy and power of its objects and owners, the most valuable characteristics of its time. What are these characteristics now in a world covered with advertising? I think it is beauty, as it was always, Berger calls it glamour. He says glamour is more than luxury, but on the ads there two goes hand in hand. And it is money the most. Thanks to money all these people can live their alternative lives inspired by advertisements. The money brings quite a pressure on a public and the anxiety. The think is, that these who can’t afford it are those who don’t want to be glamour. But who is that? It may go as far as to become nobody, just because of choice to not go the way linked by ads. Berger is using an example of manliness, where man who can’t afford glamour is automatically categorized as unwealthy and his face is deleted. He becomes nothing. 

When Berger compared public pictures to oil painting, he commented that the similarities are in using many of the same references and celebrating the same think. If we look at the oil paint and at an advertisement we find the same poses, gestures, objects, signs of love and symbols of prestige. And it is a prestige what owners of oil paintings wanted to reflect. These people wanted to show their wealth and their power. An in this we can see the biggest different between the oil painting and public pictures according to Berger. He describes the advertisement showing what we want to have, what we want to achieve, but what we haven’t have yet. It makes us feel that if we buy the object our life will be different, better, we will be living the dream we didn’t know we want to. The different between oil paintings and advertisement are in a purpose and in an effect. Berger is commenting the references of advertising and oil paintings. Art is not direct, it is not personal by itself but the public pictures seams to be very personal, are they the art?

So how does the ad work? It is selling common object, nothing special, no dream, no alternative life. To gain that, it needs to add something exotic some context what makes the object personal. Berger is remarked that this context can’t associate with fear or another negative emotion and that the personality of a context has a limit. 

I agreed with Berger in a description, how advertisements are disconnected from the reality. The example of a magazine, where one picture belonging to a starving immigrant child was followed by picture of drink what makes you feel the perfect way, showed a huge disconnection. It must have had some kind of self-reflection on the reader to see a pain and then being offered such an easy way to perfect life. It must have brought a suspicion. But Berger explained that by distance. He said that the reality of other people is not connected to us, on the other hand, the offer of an alternative life, the dream, is supposed to happen to us. We can see, Berger feels it is not alright this disconnection between reality and future offer, that these two words are missing a communication. He said: “The culture is mad.”

I wouldn’t say there is a big difference in an advertising at his time and today. The values didn’t change so much and the models, objects, gestures, poses neither. One different I see in lighting and technology in general. Today these public pictures are using all possible ways to catch you eye and keep its contain in your mind as for long as possible. I may add a hope, that this trend will stop and advertising will focus more on a quality then quantity and it will relate more to the reality and to the true values of humans and it will gain again the fame of its ancestors, oil painting, so we are surrounded by art and not just by design. 

Art history:  Theo

In a post world war society it is understandable that painting has a different expression. An over simplification that art lost its naturalistic nature to replicate its surroundings because of one collective trauma. Because of the many reasons the wars broke out, theirs is many factors involved why art is how it is. Mass-production, industrialisation, the invasion of the camera, the advancement in technology, a better standard of living, advertisement and capitalism. Music redefined by John Cage performed on television inform of an audience, not only funny in its bizarre act but serious reflection what music is built out from (Everything has its first time, 2018). Performances from Yoko Ono, in the ‘Cut piece’ she gives the spectator power to cut pieces from here cloths and hair, Objectifying here self and makes a study of how far people are willing to expose her (vabethany, 2013). Ideas from Yves Kline plays on the obscured of the nature of society with hummer hi pattered his own colour blue and redefine ownership (MoMA, 2006). Action painting from the Gutai group focus on engaging the body, fore example Kazuo Shiraga how half naked in ‘challenge to the mud’ forming the clay into its composition with his body. (The art story, 2015) A giant like Andy Warhol capturing the consumer culture, preforming different nonsense opinions, explanations for his art (Moderna museet 2008). Or Ben F. Laposky an engineer in the for front of computer since making computer generated art already in the early 1950th (Compart, 2016). Use of new media as Wolf Vostell distorted or decollage video, installations with technology in the context as art, making life into art (Tais Bielsa Rey, 2015). 

Not all but the majority of the artiest above have painting as un outcome from the actions that they preform. If it is prints by Warhol, the use of a specific colour made by Kline or a dance like action on a canvas by Shiraga, we would not question if someone called the result of that a painting. 

The evolution of art, why we recognise Mark Rothko with big colour filed paintings as a great artiest or even Lucio Fontana how make a single cut through a blank canvas (Tate, 2009). Its about the idea what is explored the combination of colour that alter your mind by Rothko or the divisive nature of painting and blueing the two diminutional nature of painting, opening a third by a cut as Fontana. Looking at art becomes thinking and as long the surfer of looking will suit on a canvas, painting will be an appropriate medium to put on that canvas. Is this true for our time where many of us spend time in front of screens, glowing beams of light forming an image that is in constant altering. Fluxes, fluctuation. Un belie cheered by the artiest named above how belong tho the art group Fluxes. They believe as the name suggest Flux, the world is in constant moving something that always change when it is defined. But moving display screens and fixed paint on canvas… is the one more relevant than the other? 

I don’t know, sorry if I waste your time… 

but what do I think? 

Eeeh, yhea I hope Painting is still relevant and I think its a great tool for exploring your own thoughts. It makes you think, if you are willing. Also as long as people are willing to by art to merely decorate there home there’s argument fore painting to be relevant.

 

sources:

Everything has its first time, (2018) John Cage preforms Water walk on “I’ve Got a Secret,” Feb 24th 1960 Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o68sG69ADNA Accessed: 25 may 2019 

vabethany, (2013) Yoko Ono – Cut Piece (1965) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYJ3dPwa2tI Accessed: 26 may 2019  

MoMA, (2006) Yves Kline, Blue monochrome 1961 Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80103 Accessed: 26 may 2019

The art story, (2015) The Gutai Group Movement Overview and Analysis Available at:https://www.theartstory.org/movement-gutai.htm Accessed: 26 may 2019

Moderna museet (2008) Andy Warhol, andra röster, andra rum. Available at: https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/sv/utstallningar/andy-warhol-andra-roster-andra-rum/ Accessed: 26 may 2019

Compart (2016) Ben F. Laposky. Available at: http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/agent/253 Accessed: 26 may 2019 

Tais Bielsa Rey (2015) Vostell happening (English subtitles). Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdlEWVELdXg Accessed: 26 may 2019

Tate (2009) Spatial concept, Waiting. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fontana-spatial-concept-waiting-t00694 Accessed: 26 may 219

Visual Culture: Andrea

I dreamt about an ice cream. It was a nice dream, so I woke up with a good feeling, that today will be a great day. This feeling was enhanced by the silence, that was coming from my night table. No alarm. That was the nice part but then I got a compulsion to reach to my phone and check messenger, I messages and email. I cannot. I realize that the idea to hide my phone already at the evening was very prescient. As always, my first steps went to bathroom. Still half sleeping I fought with a need to scroll on Instagram, as I do every morning on this exact place. I prepared my breakfast, that was easy, as I followed my routine with one hack – is microwave a technical equipment? 

“But then stove is as well, and I can’t really make a fire in the middle of flat to heat my oats” my thoughts followed a path to a result that microwave is alright, since I have decided to live this day inside of my cave and not in a forest. 

It would be much easier out in a forest, prepared, living another lifestyle from A to Z. But here, in city, in a little flat, surrounded by technology, for today hidden, it didn’t feel easy at all. 

“I can do it, I am just still sleepy, this will be fine…” I encouraged myself and continued with my morning routine. 

Now the hard part it looks like will be to find some program. I could go out and run, train, I could play Berimbau, but I need to study. That will be hard because everything is in my computer and I can touch it today. 

I went to store for some food, paid in cash and hopefully using metro is not too big cheating, but like I said, life in the modern city is connected with technology very tightly. 

Painting was a very grateful activity, I just needed my brushes, canvas and colours. 

Evening was one of the more difficult part, because we are at home used to watch movies but luckily, we are also very well equipped by board games so one road of Ticket to Ride and Terra Mystica made a full evening. It would be perfect if I didn’t loose in both. 

I have to say the oddest part was the silence. No music or ringing of coming messages were frustrating from the beginning but later I felt adapted, like it would be still somewhere in me to just exist here and now and listen my own thoughts. I was thinking of meditation several times, what is much higher frequency then other days, and I am glad for it. I realize in how many situations I depend on technology – from morning alarm, to entertainment in bathroom and during every meal, when I feel bored, tired and need change subject, when I feel lonely, when I search for inspiration in moves or pictures, in cooking or even inspiration for my lifestyle. I felt somehow incapable. I realize in what all situations I am reaching for my phone – search for answer without trying to figure on it in my head, searching for way without trying to remember it from the last time, searching for when metro should come even when I know I might wait the most 5 minutes. Every time I feel like: “What should I do now?” I automatically reach for my MacBook and search for tasks and entertainment there. I am lucky I am living with two animals, cats, who lives in present and wants to enjoy every day for full and now exactly when they want to sleep and when they want to run and when to purr on my face (favourite time is 5 a.m.) and they just do it. They don’t need phone to reminded them to groom or to go out catch a mouse, they know their needs and their wishes and more importantly they go and make them true. Humans know they can’t live independent, but they choose technology above a nature and it brings a lot of weirdness in their life. In my life too and now, when I know it I want to change, I want to live at the moment and directly without any technological medium, except of microwave of course.

Visual Culture: Andrea

John Carter was supposed to be the second Avatar, full of action, fights, conflicts and conquering a planet. This movie is a quality member of Disney´s production. It is considered as one of sci-fi classics. 

Sci-fi started to have a wider base of fans in 1950s, this period is called a Golden Age of Science Fiction, but it was evolving through the beginning of movie (Hendershot, 1999). It made its characteristics also in special effects technology (Ezra, 2000). Big influence on early sci-fi movie industry has the World War II, mainly a nuclear bomb (Hendershot, 1999) and cold war with Russia (Langford, 2005). The topics of sci-fi movies were reflecting the presence, the questions and conspirations of that era. As a name, Science Fiction, suggests, this genre is based on science and its discoveries. Technical progress, battle tactics, new weapons, new ways of communication, revealed secrets, but also successes of human kind, as reaching the moon and taming the nuclear power, these inspired this remarkable style of literature, movie and life. 

The theme of universe is for Sci-fi a grateful one, because it is giving an endless space for an author´s creativity. Except of time, when a war, an unbelievable technical progress and secrets here on Earth were too strong to don’t become the main topics in Sci-fi scenarios, the universe, other planets and other alien lives are leading the stories of this genre. The important movies of 1960s and 1970s, 2001-A Space Odyssey and Star Wars, are proving the big interest in space topics. In 1980s a great television series follows, it is a very well known, Star Trek. A dark wave of universe was brought to Sci-fi fans by Alien and Terminator. These movies showed the “another” world chaotic and brought warning of how actions of presence are influencing the future, what can hit back directly to us. On this wave many movies form 1990s and 2000s continues, for example Matrix. 

John Carter was directed by Andrew Stanton (USA), it could be said, as a debut of an adult and feature movie. Stanton has had experiences with directing other, animated movies, from the most known Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Next to directing, today in his collection you can as well find Finding Dori and two episodes of Stranger Things, he is a producer, screenwriter and voice actor (MacDonald, 2019). 

When I saw John Carter for the first time, I was really impressed by the story, the way how I was pulled into an action, the serious humour, and the scenes taken on Earth, specifically in Utah, looking as from another world. 

John Carter movies starts by a nephew reading Carter’s journal after his own funeral. As the nephew reads the story is revealed to us. John Carter was a captain of US army in war with Apaches. When they killed his wife and a daughter, he has escaped to drinking. His former major tries to get him back to army because of his valuable soldier skills, but he refuses and on the run from army and attacking apaches he finds a hidden portal to another world. When Carter wakes up on Mars, alone, he has a hard time to walk. As scientists discovered, the gravity on Mars is smaller then on Earth and John finds him self easier to jump then to walk. His jumps are huge, he can reach far distances or big heights with one jump. At first, he meets with a nation of tall, 4arms beings, and thanks to their headman´s daughter he gets the ability to understand and speak their language. Soon afterwards he meets a princess of other, human, nation who is running away from arranged wedding with their archenemy. Carter promise to help her win their fight if she helps him to find a way back to Earth. The story describes the adventure journey of John Carter, princess of Helium Dejah Thoris and Sola of Barsoomian race. 

In this movie more then 2000 visual effects were used, and four companies were working on it (Chmielewski & Keegen, 2012). The sound was under control of Michael Giacchino and whole soundtrack for John Carter has 1 hour and 13 minutes. Producer of this movie was Walt Disney Studio. Because director Stanton has worked in Pixar studio, there can be seen big influence of Pixar style (Chmielewski & Keegen, 2012). 

Princess Dejah is a very well-educated woman with a big interest in science and history of Mars. She is as well a great warrior, just because his muscles and bones are used to Earth gravity Carter is stronger and he defeats their common enemies. Sola is young girl from original race of Mars, looking differently then other two heroes but she is not considered less important in their little group. Sola always had a free soul and as one of the few Sola is emphatic and sensitive Barsoomian. As negative characters there are used only men, but the biggest villain is a shapeshifter who performs his character in all genders. I would like to comment the relationship with other species, and that is unfortunately same as on Earth, where big species are used as transport tools and dog-like species is treated the same way as here – for someone it is the best friend and a partner and for someone just annoying think at the end of his kick. 

Mars is there represented as a desert without any big water lands. In one scene is a river flowing in a canyon representing very sacred place for Barsoomians. Dejah and John have a nice dialog about environment on Earth and on Mars, about water and ships, forest and animals and about airship what are used on Mars for traveling, but John haven’t seen any before on Earth. 

Communication problems are one of the most frequent problems used as a plot in movie stories and the same is happening here, when all main characters have hidden aims of their journey before they start to trust their mates. More complicated is a communication between Dejah and John with their relationship evolving into something deeper. 

I would recommend this movie to everybody who liked good stories, who enjoys seeing quality movie with impressive scenes, interesting plots and funny characters. As many other very good movies, John Carter is based on a book A Princess of Mars written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. There is a great option for everybody who will fell in love with this movie to continue the story of John Carter by reading the following books.

Sources:

Chmielewski, D. C., Keegan, R (2012). The planets may not be aligned for ‘John Carter’. The Los Angeles Times.

Ezra, E (2000). Georges Méliès: The Birth of the Auteur. Manchester University Press. pp. 120–1. ISBN 0-7190-5396-X.

Hendershot, C (1999). Paranoia, the Bomb, and 1950s Science Fiction Films. Bowling Green State University Popular Press. 

Langford, B (2005). Film genre: Hollywood and beyond (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. p. 185. ISBN 0-7486-1903-8.

MacDonald, R (2019). Andrew Stanton. Pixartalk. WordPress. Available at: http://www.pixartalk.com/pixarians/andrew-stanton/ (Accessed 21 May 2019).

Visual Culture: Andrea

Coming up with the idea for the visual poem took some time and some space in the sketch book. Some of brainstorming ideas were to make the word rain look like rain, to reflect on my dyslexia and to do a visual representation of that. The first idea seemed to be too simple and the second was too hard. It would be a loose representation of dyslexia and it would just capture one piece of the complexity of my disorder. 

Detta bildspel kräver JavaScript.

Instead, I went with a similar idea to the first example. I took Douglas Adams fantasy quote from The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy ”don’t panic”. It felt contemporary today, when we are encouraged to panic in the name of the climate. I chose to capture the text in a form of a hitchhiking thumb up reciting the quote ”do not panic” and ”don’t panic”.

For convenience I used a paper and a pen to draw out the outline and sketches and later I filled in with a permanent pen and erased the graphic pen. 

 

Visual Culture: Andrea

 

Do you remember eating the sweet milk chocolate? It tastes really good, right? But there is quite a story behind that little piece of satisfaction. Every milking cow is going through some rough times. It all starts at the moment of born. In our eyes a miracle, when from one being there is two. And al babies are so cute and so vulnerable. Little milking cow is separated from her mother within tree hours. It is located in an individual box, all alone, scare and never see her mother again. Why? Why would we do this to a mother and her child? Because we want the milk. The milk and we don’t want to share with anybody. So this isolated little cow grows and goes though several problems till it is inseminated, pregnant, give a birth to child what is taken from her and then she is producing milk. Milk for humans and their chocolate. This process is repeated 4 to 5 times and then people decide that it is not profitable to have this cow in this process anymore. Then in a age of 6 years, in human age we could say late twenties, close to 30, this cow is for her service for humans send to slaughter house. Our milking cow, famous Milka, is standing in a line, watching her kind, her friends to die in front of her eyes. These sensible being are watching death by waiting for their own. 

Taking the happy purple cow from idilic alpine green hills and put her into a reality, into a life of all cows, brings quite different view and approach to a chocolate. The cruelty behind what most people enjoy and call delouses. 

Taking the image of the hidden camera footage of a slaughterhouse and replacing one of the cows with the Milka cow, all in a very cheap matter. The point is simple, help you make the correlation, cow’s milk belongs to cows and a milking cow needs to deliver a calf before she produces milk. All this is obvious, your mum didn’t produces milk at all times and for no reason, in the same way as all mammals. As how simple and tacky this collage is, with the chocolate-bar layered on the image, it shows what you are actually paying for. Don’t buy in to their cheap lies! All this is simple to understand, if it wasn’t for the opposite norm. The fact that this is okey and you can purses this. One sweet cruelty-bar. Old history, tradition, sugar-rush, million dollar industries. The systematic mass-scale industrialisation, a part of socialisation. The false manufactured image of the cow and its fetished milk… it is even considered healthy, but no, it’s not, even if it was, would it be worth of a murder?

Milk is a murder!   

Visual Culture: Andrea

The bikers of Acea

 

It’s about a ten meter long and one meter fifty centimetre tall wall of granite with the iconic bronze bikers on an arc  with their different expression on their faces and bodies. 

We see the bikers frozen in time, paddling on their way to work from a village and a city to the factory. Some biker have it easy while others are paddling heavy, one looks like he is racing to work being late and the one in the back looks like he might just woke up, all of them are on their way to work.

This monument functions almost as a divider of the city between the newer part of a town and the older part that goes along the water stream. Behind the bikers, the city hotel is, behind that is the cathedral and behind that is the town’s oldest Gymnasium and a continuation of the old Västerås. On the right hand of the bikers is elongation of the old architecture of Västerås city that goes along the water Svartån. 

This very space-specific monument is viewed from the actual stones that the bikers, that are depicted, would  ride on. With this monument we can imagine how a city evolves, how some streets remained and how some are dismissed for new buildings or communication network. 

On the left hand of the bikers the city square is and next to it there is two brutalist buildings, one was recently turned into a shopping centre. 

The history of Västerås city has traces as a classic French town developing like a snail-shell. But Västerås is also in a constant trying to catch up with its close neighbour Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Maybe because of this a little sister’s complex, Västerås is like the monument, it is between the old and the new, the big and the small. 

To bring this monument into the contemporary I would develop an augmentation application that would be accessible by your mobile device. The monument would stand as it does and through the app you would see reinterpretation of the old architecture of the houses that has been replaced and of course the bikers on their way to work at Acea Brown Boveri (ABB). 

It would show the richness of how Västerås once was. Together with the current town people would be biking on the path and in the augmentation. Perhaps it would be possible to make the Augmented-reality interact with the world and the A-R would follow cyclist passing by and cycle together with time. You could follow the cyclist and discover the beauty in the past. To make a better future.

 

Inspiration: Early video, Exiting the factory. https://vimeo.com/167787841 

Image source:

https://www.vlt.se/artikel/stephen-bjar-ge-cyklister-prioritet-i-korsningar

https://www.vlt.se/logga-in/bildextra-kanda-platser-i-vasteras-centrum-da-och-nu

 

Visual Culture: Andrea

Growing up it was popular in my country to read Donald duck’s comics. Kids collected the new number that came out and it was good easy reading for anyone with an easy humour. 

Donald duck’s comics where nothing that was too persuasive for me, instead it was something more black and white. Manga was starting grow more mainstream and reading from right to left didn’t make thing harder. From the manga One Piece we have the main character Monkey D Luffy and one of the side characters his brother Portgas D Ace. In this pirate world of One Piece some people or characters get hold of a fruit called a devised fruit and if eaten gives you an individual super power. 

Ace is a character too cool to care much about anything else then eating and being a bad ass pirate. With the awesome power of fire he has allied with the baddest of pirates. This character was one of the cooler we don’t get to see much of him during the story. Being the older brother to the main character he pops in a few times to help. I think my liking to this more self occupied person is how I related him to my older brother and how I got inspired to be more like my older sibling. 

In the end (spoilers!) Ace sacrifices his life to save his little brother Luffy so Luffy can continue his pursuit of becoming the king of pirates.

The pirates´ queen

Rándother opened door of the better of two pubs in this little town with easy to remember name – Corp. Better pub she called it because it didn’t smell here as wet socks and unwashed bodies. In this pub all this smells were beaten by smell of roasted pig and fresh beer. As always, her arrival has not gone unnoticed. The sudden silence spread all over the room, but she and her gang act like nothing happened. They sit to an empty table at the corner close to a door and innkeeper immediately run to their table.

”What can I bring you good people?” asked the innkeeper with a nervous smile on his face. 

Rándother knew this face very well, people tried to look innocent so they wouldn’t get to any harm. But as the reputation says neither the cuties face will not save you, if you annoy Rándother.

They ordered beers and piece of roasted pig for everybody with a freshly baked piece of bred. The innkeeper made it as preferred order even when they didn’t ask for it. He probably wanted to get rid of dangerous guests as fast as possible. 

They ate quick, her crew has a good discipline and after such harsh time on a sea as they have had now, there wasn’t enough energy to make a mess.

But the other guests weren’t such quiet. Their presence gave them a great topic to talk about. 

”I heard” said one of the younger habitues: ”that Rándother is the most terrible pirate on the west coast! Every ship what cross her road is robed or sinked.”

”I heard that she is the goddess of a sea, that she was born in a storm from the white wave!” add one of his friends.

”They says she is unbeatable on a sea and on the land as well.” whispered the short fat guy at the same table.

Older man from next table stood up and pushed his chair to these slanders. I tell you, boys, the story of Rándother, the pirate queen. They all locked at Rándother with open mouth and before their eyes met with hers they quickly turned the look back to their new friend. 

”It was a stormy night” started old man” lightenings crossed the sky and beat the ocean what fought back by waves high as a castle tower. At the morning the ocean calmed and a bloody sun rise started a new day. A day what changed many lives. The lord went on a control errand over the town and at the beach he found almost unrecognisable basket between all the trash. He lifted it and tiny sound came out. In the basket was a little girl. The lord took baby into his house and because he lived alone without any family, he raised this child as his own. He named her Rándother, after the Goddess of a sea. Several years pasted and Rándother was sent for studies to capital city. She never arrived. Some says the sea claimed her back, some that she was kidnaped, but the true is, she always had it in her blood. Her father, the lord, he was afraid of the ocean, he never let her go on a boat and he never let her go close to a sea. But she begged him so much to let her go by boat to capital, that he allowed. And then it happened. The sea felt her presence and it used all its power it had to keep her. Nobody know what happened, but the boat never arrived to capital city and nobody was found, except of her. Five years later, Rándother became a synonym for fear and anxiety, the feel of powerless and tremor. Rándother became the leader of all the pirates and nobody who has ever challenged her has survived.” finished his story the old man and everybody at the table still gazed on him with their eyes wide opened. 

Legends are more powerful than they seems, thought Rándother. If they would only know the truth, or maybe better that they don´t.  

Art History: Theo

A traditional performance, like a myth. This time there’s no apple, just human body, and instead of a bow and an arrow it’s a rifle and a bullet. 

A simple idea with a difficult execution. One mistake could make it lethal or leave permanent damage. The artist get shoot in the arm. Why? Because it’s an art!  What sounds like something you promised drunk in a bar, became an honest performance. Before the performance took place, Chris Burden would have to find the brave person with enough skill and trust to pull the trigger. Because the idea behind this art is very intensive, provoking and inspiring I would say it is a good example of a Conceptual art.

This nonsense action is justified by its time. It’s not a romantic child story where the best archery man in town can show off his skills by shooting of the apple from the head of his little sister. This performance questioned what it could feel like being shot, not almost, but really shot and how it could feel to shoot someone.

‘Shoot’ is a provocative action in the time of the Vietnam war and seeing someone get shot on the news was normal. When the whole America is in a state of compassion fatigue and war is the normal state, convincing your friend to shot you is maybe not so hard. 

C. Burden is executing this performance and provoking feelings, reaction and raising more questions. For me, the idea behind the “Shoot” is covered by a lot of anger towards the Vietnam war and war in general. Somehow, maybe because of war, C. Burden and his assistant are doing something normal, just it’s in an abnormal art setting. As typical for performance art, this work evolves around the body and the body is the art medium.

We can ask why the upper arm was the target for a bullet. Is it because arm is the part of a body what usually hold a gun? But it also holds a brush or plays a piano. Maybe it was chosen because the arm is closer to the hearth and the brain, the most important organs in human body, then for example is a leg. It might have been arm because it associates with control, what US government wanted to have over problems of country on the other side of the northern hemisphere.

This work was as public as it could be considering the comfort of the execution, held at a semi private exhibition and considering the legality of this action. It would be interesting to know, how the artist handled the hospital visit and possible police questioning. 

Art History: Theo

Picture 1. Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times by Andy Warhol

We see Warhol´s screen prints getting a formal value by its repetition and the irregularity of the same print. This painting consists of orange canvas whites divided in vertical way, on a left side there are multiple car crash, exactly fourteen times (Picture 1). On the right side is just the orange background. Orange colour associates with a fire truck or urgency I think it is a good choice that Warhol chose such colour for this topic. The repetition is necessary in gaining skills and here we see Warhol directly pointing out importance of repetition. The repetition is one of the main characters of Warhol´s art. Each print of the fourteen car crashes prints gets slightly different result and brings a formal quality. In a detail (Picture 2) you can see the different in pigment usage and this leads to differences in focus in each screen. 

Difference from sparkling coca cola art, what made Warhol famous, the topic of a car crash is grim and dark. The reality of car crashes is cruel. 1,25 minion of people die in car accidents every year (Wayback Machine, 2019). As Andy Warhols displays the industrial nature of producing coca cola, he shows the industrial production of car crashes on roads. In a time of this painting, there was 41723 lethal consequences of car accidents in the USA in 1963. Luckily, today this number is 11 % lower but the painting is obviously still relevant considering the amount of people dying every year from this one particular reason (Road safety facts, 2019). 

As this painting comes as a hybrid between minimalism and pop art without its obvious reference to a productive brand. This painting doesn’t reference to Ford as much as the Tin soup references to Campbell. 

Topics of his artwork are close to industry, and those atrocity topics are related to industrial world.

We can speculate he reflects on the amount of products released from industry and compare to his artworks, he feels that he can’t create so many painting as there are car crashes in certain time and place. Controversial topics related to death brings more attention to artworks, it is important for Warhol to show the fragile nature of a human and the presence of death in everyday life. It seems to be effective way. The fourteen repetitions of one car accident can relate to 14 different ones because of the high rate of car crashes within one day.

Warhol is making his style of art both performance or repetitive painting. His concept points out one part of humanity, the consumption part and the fragility of human body. 

Picture 2. Detail on Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times by Andy Warhol 

Sources:

WayBack Machine. [cit. 25th April 2019]. Archive. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110921222129/http://www.saferoads.org/federal/2004/TrafficFatalities1899-2003.pdf

Road safety facts. cit. 25th April 2019]. Association for safe international road travel. Available at: https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/