Window Stuff
Artists:
Anselm Kiefer
Decay is the way: Merkaba, 2010, site specific installation
Ok so not really a Cornell style box, but the concept of placing something in glass immediately elevate its importance (something like a podium). A dull and rusty object can challenge the audience.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2010/11/24/anselm-kiefer-plows-back-into-germanys-troubled-history/
Carlos Amorales
Life in the folds, 2017, installation
A multi-media piece, it combines sculpture, cinema and print to create an installation for the Mexican Pavilion for the Biennale Arte in Venice. Kind of confusing, but Amorales created an alphabet from abstract forms to create prints, poems and ocarinas.
Politicalish, it talks about immigrants in his video he made from similar shapes. How is this related to a box I have no idea, but it's worth nothing that Amorales started with some marks on a paper, then transformed it into not only something solid, but also digital.
https://www.domusweb.it/en/art/2017/05/30/carlos_amorales_life_in_the_folds_.html
James Casebere
Bologna Tunnel #4, 2010
Casebere works with constructed photography, and that means he creates tabletop models and then photographs it. The added water effects and the foam and the lights make it look dramatic. In his constructed world, Casebere can really modify every aspect of the scene, it's almost like playing God. But immediately you can tell there is something surreal about the scene, like the texture and smaller things like hanging bits and water texture (in this case) reveals it is a miniature world.
http://www.jamescasebere.com/photographs/2009-2015/
Janet Cardiff (George Bures Miller)
The Paradise Institute, 2001
Ok so this is a big box, one you and a few other people can go inside and experience watching a movie in the cinema with ant people. Put on the headphones and you can watch the movie that's right in front in a mini screen, but also hear what's going on inside the imagined cinema. For instance you hear people behind talking (when it's just other audience), and your close female friend whispering into your ear. Ok so we all know Cardiff likes to use audio to toss people around, but what's cool is getting people inside a small(ish) box and trick them into thinking it's a huge cinema. There's immersion through illusion!
Lilianna Porter
Man with Axe, 2017, Site specific installation
We are talking about photography and illusion right? From this angle the little figure is chopping at things his size, however in real life it's just a little toy figure amongst life-sized objects. Takeaway: framing of shot can be used to give the illusion of scale.
http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/inst/paradise_institute.html#
Saskia Olde Wolbers
Placebo, 2002, Video
Wolbers first constructs the models, dips them with paint then submerge them in water. Since oil and water don't mix, particles of paint get suspended and dripped around in interesting patterns. Everything looks digital, but there's where the magic of this world comes in; unlike the rest of the worlds before this, Wolbers trick us into thinking it's CGI, which is expected nowadays, but it's all analogue.
Obviously I can't submerge my entire world in water (I could, but no), but the idea of reversing the audience's expectation is interesting.
http://www.saskiaoldewolbers.com/works/placebo-video-stills-synopsis/
http://www.saskiaoldewolbers.com/about/
Thomas Demand
Pacific Sun, 2012, Video
Demand constructs his world like Casebere, but instead of fictional scenes Demand tries to "convey the crudity of the scene without having to tell the whole story". In other words, Demand recreate highly emotional/tense photos of places in reality. Demand recreated Hussein's kitchen for example, in exact 1:1 scale. The actual photography is the last portion of the work, and most of the time goes into making the scene.
Despite the scale being all correct, the texture of individual objects gave the realism away. However, that isn't a bad thing at all, because that would make no difference to the real photo; Demand wants us to analyse the scene separately from the subjects that were in it (something like a parrallel universe).
http://www.klatmagazine.com/en/art-en/thomas-demand-when-attitudes-become-form-interview/33077
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJIcbjrT4Zs
William Kentridge
Right into her Arms, 2016, Miniature model theatre with projected images, drawings and props. Wood, steel, cardboard, found paper and found objects
In the first picture the arrows point to the tracks that the wooden panels travel on. On the left side there is what I think is a wheel/motor that rotates to move the wooden panels. The second picture illustrate the motion that this track can do, and at the core it's a very simple piece of work; projection on a moving surface.
Instead of just treating it as a stationary surface, Kentridge utilised the flexibility of the boards to give the image projected some cohesion with the boards
- Boards were plastered with assorted bits of paper of various colour and sizes
- Projection of papers curling with the breeze then all blown away, then moving with the panels is really beautiful to look at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=295fsCC9ZJI
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/william-kentridge-right-into-her-arms
Conclusion
These works feel unified because the materials used are either very limited, or that they belong together.
- Saskia's objects were all covered with the same colour of paint, and they all had a droopy effect to them
- Cardiff's structure feels cohesive because they are materials that make up a cinema space; nothing additional is added to throw off the audience's perception of a cinema
- Demand and Casebere's constructed reality is eerie, because it looks almost real
- this could be because the materials they used to construct the world (the uniform texture throughout the scene)
- Porter places the emphasis on scale, so instead of seeing random items thrown around we see the character's response to them
- we don't see little crumbs of dust and stone or a chair in the scene, instead we see a man going to town using his axe on these object
Kiefer's austere choice of materials reflects his upbringing and practice; growing up in war torn Germany meant he could only play with bricks and rubble. His sculptures and painting gives us a window into his life, and that's what I find profound, that materials and method opens a window into the artist/designer behind the work.
With that in mind I should put a piece of myself inside this box.
Additional Window Researching
Wow books are great man! It feels so different to use them before making the project rather than after!!!
Blériot #2 ('56)
Named after the famous French aviator, the delicate metallic spring quivers a bit when the box is handled. Aside from how economical the materials are, the also spartan construction and simplicity, the material and construction determines how it's to be handled. It's different from most of his stuff because they demand to be handled.
Similarly, his Celestial Navigation ('56~58) and even his X-mas card to Tilly Losch ('43) all combined aspects of interaction, and this is what I find interesting. Boxes and stuff in vitrines in general are quite stagnant and the interaction between the audience and the piece dies at the glass, though I'm not a big fan of delicate things within a box (or just delicate and meticulous things in general) I appreciate the thought and effort Cornell invested into each piece.
Some Epiphany Moments/Window on World Stuff
After tutorial(Michelle+Kaori)
- I like the idea of fine arts; the mysteriousness and perceived coolness that surround it
- When I work, I get stuck at the brainstorming stage
- there are a lot of marks on the paper but they mean much when there's nothing physical
- products/finished works don't have just one version, there are series and just numerous versions
- For the window project I can turn my predicament into the subject of the piece
So I'm thinking of a box covering an audience member's face to simulate being trapped
- For this to work I will need to create shoulder pads, ideally the viewer can enjoy the box without using any hands to support it
- The box is about 45x30x45, it can be shorter but need to be wider
- This epoxy sucks, the finish is yellowish and not rigid
- Won't use it
Box project progression + conclusion
Everybody seems to make making art super simple, these few weeks I started to feel the arduous and grind when I make stuff. It's quite manageable to make stuff, but the difficulty is in making stuff that I'm confident showing; the only way to do so is to start early.
- For this box project I really got the entire break to make it, I did did some research and planning here and there, but the majority of the box was completed in 48 hours.
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- Reading both Utopia Parkway and Wanderlust, both memoirs of Cornell's works, gave me a sense of what should go inside a box. I realised in the past I would dive into a project headfirst doing minimal research, headstrong in the beginning then stumbling afterwards.
- I was interested in Cornell's boxes that involved a bit of interaction for the user, those that gave an auditory feedback when manipulated or additional compartments that the user need to discover.
- Combining quite literally what it means to see things from my perspective, and how I have difficulties in breaking out of my brainstorming stage when working, I want to alter how people see things.
- I started out with a periscope device that plays on the parallax; there will be two compartments for viewing, one for each eye, and the mirrors inside will direct the light rays to the eyes from vastly different perspective, despite being the same object
- Ideally it sounds great but constructing it is complicated, and at that time it would be a miracle just to churn something out, so I stuck with the simple binoculars style construction
- Light only shines in from the front, so only the texture of the stuff inside the box matters and not the colour
Critique/feedback + other thoughts
- So with the interesting things inside the box, that actually became the focus, instead of gazing through it.
- Inside of being a "toy" (kinda funny because Cornell's boxes were called adult/grown up toys in the beginning), and being subjected to the whims of its viewer, mount it on a tripod or a plinth to demand respect
- When people move around it, investigating it physically the box is on its own terms
- People moving around it also creates a presence
- Wow so ok this box is a lot like me, I often feel like I'm not upholding myself and demanding respect and stuff, this is stuff for anther entry
- I feel this box should be manipulated by the viewer, it is mobile and handy because I made it so
- Nonetheless it's also important to consider the object determining how to be used on its own terms