M&J #2 - Research

FRI 26 SET / SUN 28 SET (SD)

   

RESEARCH 

Using a list with names and annotations about artists (filmmakers, painters, writers) discussed in class (26/09), I decided to make further research on them. For me, it’s easier and faster to understand someone’s work when I read about it instead of analysing an art piece itself. At this stage I used only the Internet  to get a glimpse of those artists and their work.

• Willian Blake > His poetry embodies an attitude of rebellion against the abuse of class; ‘free-love’; against church but in favour of the Bible, visions.

• Arthur Rimbaud > rigid childhood/education; prefigured surrealism; travelled three continents; ardent Catholic; change of behaviour which became provocative; city themed; Oprhelie, Lettres du Voyant; Le Dormeur du Val; Ville.

• Charles Pierre Baudelare > rejects the belief in supremacy of natural and fundamental goodness of man; effusive and public voice in favour of a new urban sensibility; awareness of individual moral complexity; interest in vice, refined sensual and aesthetical pleasures; the use of urban subject matter, such as the city, the crowd, individual passers-by; cynical and ironic voice; the use of sound to creat atmosphere; advocacy of modern music and paiting. Controversial: Satanism; drug-induced states of mind, his response to the spiritual uncertainties.

CONTEMPORARY

• Iain 'Boring' Sinclair: British writer and filmmaker whose film, M25, I watched in class. I’m not giving a second chance!

• Peter Ackoyd: British writer; It didn’t take long for me to realise that this is the artist who I was looking for.  This is a quote from 1994 when he was interviewed about the London Psycogeographical Assotions in an article for The Observer…

“... Just as it seems possible to me that a street or dwelling can materially affect the character and behaviour of the people who dwell in them, is it not also possible that within this city (London) and within its culture are patterns of sensibility or patterns of response which have persisted from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and perhaps even beyond?"

…and this is part of my last post where I write some ideas and thoughts for my project:

"The connection between silent and the manner in which British people ‘act’. What are these connections? How do they happen? Are they silent people because they live in a quiet place or is it the other way around?"

Janet Cardiff:. I’ve got interested on her work since I was told  that this Canadian artist works chiefly with sound and sound installations.

The idea of exploring the possibilities of Installation Art, and probably build one myself, made me come across The Serpentine Galleries. One of its current exhibitions, by Cerith Wyn Evans, uses sound as a  key features.  I haven’t yet been to this exhibition, neither have opened Janet’s book, but I certainly should analyse both with much attention. In relation to that, I fear to get disappointed (not ‘enjoying’) by their work and therefore losing me critical sense.