THE FINAL BLOG

its been a rollercoaster of emotions, this class. through the weeks we've seen action, adventure, romance, betrayal, and in the end it all came down to justice.

so a highlight... learning about leibach and the caravan stuff was pretty cool. and that time we talked about cows. oh and the lesson we got to sit in the garden, that was awesome!

what ive learned about social relations... on a practical level i guess not that much (i guess cause its something i already looked into), but there's a lot of great readers that have some great ideas on a theoretical level. well its a theoretical course so i guess that makes sense haha

anywho in summation the course was pretty cool, and larald is a frob and its not my fault.

plants vs zombies

so there's a kind of plant theme going on for this weeks blogs! i've been trying to think of something that's related. i was having a hard time, till i came across something in a computer shop. it was a demo version of a computer game called 'plants vs zombies.' i played it for a bit, it was awesome!

on top of being fun it felt like there was a lot going on metaphorically. i had a giant rant planned about why it is relevent to be talking about a video game on an art blog, then i remembered caleb told us we were talking about art too much the other week so i wont bother, instead i'll just talk about the impact of the game.

it kind of felt more effective to me than the entire 'in the balance' exhibition in terms of creating environmental awareness. the game never directly says it has anything to do with the environment however. basically all you do is plant a bunch of plants in the ground who use their plat powers to stop zombies from eating you house or something. now i said i wouldnt try to rant about how this game is an art work... i will however say why it is more like an artwork than a lot of the work from in the balance.

long story short, despite the fact that the game involved plants fighting zombies, i came away from it feeling a willingness to fight for the environment. the cute little anthropomophic flowers sat on just the right part of the uncanny valley to make me love them, and dammit TOGETHER we fought to stop those zombies.
the beauty of this is that anyone could have gotten a completely different interpratation from playing. it didn't have to be about the environment for everyone. this is a quality i really appreciate in an artwork.

the video instillation from 'in the balance' i mentioned in my last blog though... no subtlty... painfully obvious... it was not an interesting work of art. maybe political works dont need to be sutble or interesting as long as they get the point across. and yeah i got their point. i already knew it though. everyone already knows it. so finally the feeling the work left me with... it made me feel like it was me AGAINST the environment.... this is not good.

so to round up:
plants vs zombies= fun, clever and creates the feeling we should be fighting TOGETHER with the environment

in the balance video insitillation= boring, obvious and makes you feel like fighting AGAINST the environment.


when it comes to plants, i think i want to be together with them, not against them. i reccomend this game!

In Da Balance!

hey ya'll!

so i saw the 'in the balance' show at the MCA! before i get too harsh i should probably mention what i liked about it.
The work by Makeshift was awesome! not only did it have those australian bees that look heaps cool and don't sting you but there were pikelets! Also the stand was made of found materials so its construction wasn't damaging to the environment.

This isn't true of a lot of the works. Namely the film instillation where you could pick something like 20 films to watch, that either told you how shit you are to the environment, or gave really obvious environmental tips... These videos used electricity to play all day and were displayed in custom designed plastic bins. Also mention the catalouge for the show is like 240 pages. I don't think this show is any position to tell others how to treat the environment.

Not all of them were hypocritical though. A lot made for pretty good political documentries, but didn't really strike me as interesting artworks. I kind of feel the show could have been more clever if there were some envirronmental artworks instead of just artworks about the environment.

On purely subjective level i really loved the turtles made of fishing net (cause turtles are way cool) and the moonshine distillery thing (probably just felt good to be allowed to touch something in the MCA).

Anyway I don't regret going, cause of the awesomr bees and turtles, but it also made me really angry. It kind of felt like art had a chance to help the environment and failed.... :(

other covers

Wikipedia has a section on how laibach do a lot of cover versions. Only their covers are meant to subvert the originals. These are always pretty cool, a bunch of artists do it. Weird Al Yankavitch (I'm sure that's not the correct spelling) is probably the first person to come to mind.
There's a major point of difference in that he changes the words and not really the arrangment, where as laibach seem to distort the structure to make political comments.
The fact that laibach aren't as accissible and are all serious and political could make you think that other covers, like Weird Al's aren't as important or serious... I disagree... kind of... He's taking the most accessible popular songs and changing the words into something less pleasent (fat, constipated, ect.). The popular mainstream is ussually pretty, polished and loveable, Weird Al uses the success of those pretty songs and basically always ends up having a very un-pretty hit of his own.
The message may not be as overtly political and serious (as laibach) but he's doing a pretty great thing.

And now to end, the link to a great cover, Roland S Howard's version of Billy Idol's "White Wedding". (Roland was great with covers...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjC2TWZZTaw

The stuff we were talking about but not?

So we've looked at a bunch of different types of relational art. Because of the diversity it seems like there are lots of (relational) mediums involved than just 'relational art' in general. Situation, Conversation, Participation and some others all seem to kind of be mediums used.

Someone like Rikrit Tirajaniva creates situations, which give birth to conversations. Some people may say it's the situation that is 'the artwork' and other would say it is the conversation (it seems to be common thought on relational art seems to see this as the important part). I guess it could be both that doesn't really matter to me.

The group (whose name escapes me) we were talking about on Monday also create situations which give birth to conversations. Only their conversations usually lead to action that produces social change. Is there a difference in the mediums of productive and unproductive conversation? Is Tiravanija's work fundamentally different to the group's because the conversations he facilitates aren't of consequence to broader social issues?

As with most questions regarding if things to do with art are different my answer is "I don't really care, it is what it is." Despite this there is a reason I'm actually writing about this... It's hard to describe but there's a reason I wrote all this, something I care about in all that... It'll come to me... When it does I'll post it...

That wandering stuff

I can see where the situationilists were coming from, but they kind of seem like tools. The act of wandering around for no reason to make a comment on something kind of seems like a reason. And most of those things that claim to be anti-art or not art, kind of are, but just want to think they're better than other art just cause they're different.

Narrative Space

So we've been talking a lot about alternative for gallery spaces for art to exist (the streets, deserts, people, actions, ect.). I've been pretty interested in the place where a narrative (as art) exists.

Susan Triester is an artist who has an alter ego called Rosalin Brodsky, who is a time traveller. Susan exhibits various costumes and memrobilia from rosalind's travels, but i think the most interesting aspect of the work is the narrative itself. The characters and situations she has created. What interests me more is where that narrative as an artwork exists.

I guess it does exist in the objects and costumes she exhibits. It also exists in the website she made about the project and any writing she has done about it. I think the most interesting place it exists is in the minds of everyone who has heard of the narrative. Just people hearing and knowing about these fictional events and characters is the space they exist as an artwork. I'm not sure if I'm expressing this very well, but i think it's pretty amazing

Microtopias can be fun too

Bishop tends to imply there's something wrong with a microtopia, that just because it isn't trying to change the whole world it isn't as valid as work that is. I think since P0stmodernism, the opposite is true. When Modernism died things became all about pluralism, multiple narratives, realities, views ect. So with that in mind trying to change the whole world is just ridiculous. You could never get every single person to agree to one idea of a utopia. it just doesn't make sense.

The idea of many microtopias just seem to make much more sense, you create lots of ideal worlds that anyone who wants to can join and anyone who doesn't want to can ignore (and find another that suits them).

Eat Your Art

So in first week i remember Caleb talking about that conceptual restraunt 'food', and we've been talking about Rirkrit Tirajaniva's food related works, so I figured it's probably relevant to talk about this exhibition that was on Tuesday night at Polymorph Gallery called Eat your art.

Most of the work was painting photography and sculpture that all referenced food, consumption, ect. but there were also some edible and interactive works. One artist (Allegra Holmes) allowed people to lick salt off her then take a tequila shot. Her artist statement said the idea behind it was to brake down the physical barriers of 'personal space' so that a connection could be made with the participant.


There were also cookies with icing in the shape of vaginas, penises and boobs, they tasted good, but it was also pretty funny to see how people decided which to eat. Everyone seemed to expect some kind of psychological judgment on their choice. There were some kids at the exhibition though and it just felt weird whenever they ate them... *shudder*


One of my favorites was "wish making machine" (by Gemma McKenzie-Booth) which was a performance where a toy train with fans attached circled around a bunch of cupcakes with birthday candles in them and blew them out. Wasn't really that interactive, but everyone started singing happy birthday even though it wasn't part of the work which was a pretty cool reaction!


Anyway was a cool exhibition!

social relations, ect. (MEG'S MUM...)

Reading over some of the stuff mentioned in the article, there seemed to be some pretty awesome stuff happening in response to gallery spaces/social customs ect. Although the stuff was pretty cool, a lot of these works seemed a little one dimensional as they were purely gallery space/social critiques. At the time they were made I think that definitely would have been ok, because the whole relational aesthetics thing was still pretty exciting, but now I guess if people were making these kinds of works they would need another element. I'm not actually sure if anyone is making these kinds of works these days, but I hope not. In Rikrit Tirajaniva's case he has a bunch of other elements that keep his work interesting, and that's probably true of a lot of the other artists, so I probably don't even know what I'm talking about now.

Anyway, I guess the point is these days it seems people are free to create work in any kind of ways, so no one cares if you are or are not using a traditionE