MA 1 Visual Enquiry
Scale - master planning - super structures - dominant
Social housing or housing socially - housing society - which societies?
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A lack of colour alludes to a lack of..... ?
Hope?
Money? desire?
retro brutalist structures in desaturated mode
colourful utopias - desaturated dystopias
Constructing walls, translating fragments into compartments.
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Enclosed - Exposed
Top down - bottom up
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Light filters -darkness excludes
Consider how fabrics would work? What about colour change in paper, try black.
Stitches pulling together, traversing the lines that are enclosed by ‘structures’- the structures within structures- the sub genres , the sub class -
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Gulf Futurism – during & post war – containment embodied or expressed through/mall as escape. Connection through disconnect. A virtual free worlds within a real restricted one.
alienation
economical survival of the fittest
neoliberal society – failure is eliminated.
- late capitalism – unrealistic sustainability of resources. Master planning, world building.
- hyper-driven - master- plans – dystopias – metropolis – reality to appoint – utopianism
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Time Traveller – observations by foreigners are amazingly uniform. ‘where tradition & modernity meet’ Its as if there’s a membrane or smoke screen of unreality blasted up.
Gruen transfer – first mall design – to make time pass slowly so you spend more time/money inside the mall.
‘invasive species of colonists’ – if we all are, can we be angry at those before us who acted in ways we don’t condone today? We can reflect on the past to change the future, but what’s done is done.
‘Re-importation’ ‘Here vs. There’
Expats that are born and raised here but not given official status as citizens.
Experience - Identity - Expatriate vs migrant vs immigrant - from middle east or in middle east – classification of middle eastern artist – context of work.
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Orientalism – redaction into stereotypes/tropes – kitschifying
Avoiding self-Orientalizing – beyond the gulf – work re-imported was lightly kitsch
Self-censorship is the enemy
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Thoughts relating to Task 2 Form, Frame Fracture
Form, Frame, Fracture
Form, Fracture, Frame – current research practice
Frame, Form, Fracture
Frame, Fracture, Form – observation process/pattern making
Fracture, Form, Frame – over all current process
Fracture, Frame, Form
How I need to start: Definitions…
FORM |
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the visible shape or configuration of something.
a particular way in which a thing exists or appears.
a printed document with blank spaces for information to be inserted.
bring together parts or combine to create (something).
go to make up or constitute.
gradually appear or develop.
conceive (an idea) in one's mind.
establish (a relationship).
articulate (a word or other linguistic unit).
construct (a new word) by derivation or inflection.
FRAME |
4484 illustrator
a rigid structure that surrounds something such as a picture, door, or windowpane.
an apparatus with a surrounding structure, especially one used in weaving, knitting, or embroidery.
a basic structure that underlies or supports a system, concept, or text.
Linguistics a social context determining the interpretation of an utterance.
FRACTURE |
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the cracking or breaking of a hard object or material.
break or cause to break.
(with reference to a group or organization) split or fragment and become unable to function or exist.
(of speech or a language) faltering and full of mistakes; broken.
Thoughts:
Create a FORM, gather information from participants. FRACTURE it – reFRAME it, a different purpose/story – question the origin – does it read differently if the context is different. Like the children’s flip books that swap heads and bodies or the Exquisite Corpse activity. How does that affect its reading, how does that affect the information, is it now nonsensical, or more believable?create the forms of floor plans from the fractured patterns, within a frame of a box, using frames to hold the fabric
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GENRE
What genres do I fit in to? Gender, race, age, nationality, occupation, likes, dislikes, stereotypes.
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Are stereotypes genres?
how does genre affect how your work is read? Identity politics, inherited genres, uncontrolled genres, unsolicited genres, sub-genres, locations genres, political genres.
Where do I sit?
What’s my genre? Is that the same as context? Or more flexible/solid? Does one inform the other? Should it?
How do our genres affect how we read others?
How much does taste/preference impact on genre reading?
Can you claim a genre that not yours for the taking? Does that depend on the genres classifications, i.e. some you can, some you can’t, some you shouldn’t?
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TEXT
How I talk about my work affects how the gallery discusses it, which affects how it is read and discussed by audience & critics.
If I use text within my work, the words have the meanings dictated by the dictionary... who wrote the dictionary? - See Urban Dictionary for new words/slang - expression of roots - childhood of mum and Nan using Cockney Rhyming Slang, everyday speech - dialect as a class signifier. Can I redefine words - misinterpretation as work - such as dictation - see previous post.
Gallery tend to exploit novelty – newness, & exaggerate the sensations, experiences, dramatizing, emphasizing. use of language is unique to gallery - institution uses different - not wot worry about this - only for exhibitions?
critics question the work, dependent on publication they may be more provocative or simply highlight key terms from press release. Try to be objective, mostly subjective, bias. Is all writing bias? Is all art bias? does it matter? YES - RELATES TO CLASS AND CATEGORISING< LEAVING OUT< EXCLUDING ELEMENTS OF SOCIETY
- so how do I include text within my work so it allows the work to be read with clarity – how does this relate to genre, story telling? Is it in danger of becoming a ‘branding’ exercise?
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Previous work including text - a lot of my older work had written messages embedded within in them, hidden under the layers of paint.
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Identify as Interdisciplinary producer – ‘the creative’ is a myth – romanticized
W, Benjamin – author as producer -consume/produce – important to produce
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discourse, here, of there & from here.
Cultural production as a form of belonging – investing
Marxist as form of control - Orientalism - colonial idea
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Genre theory – rhetoric in ancient Greece, drama prose etc
Becomes more elaborate & representative of social, political, economic structures
Genre theory the director recedes – its about the mood, type of story etc.
Aspects of affect – genre creates mood. Affects emotion
Film, books, food – agreed upon set of variables need in understanding genre.
Looking at genre as layers- relevant to life in GCC: horror of being an immigrant, psychological thriller, veneers of genres laterally, social relationships – fantastical, shared cultural understanding/ assumptions
Use genre to create a lens to see place – use to speak back to outsider – inside to outside
Disinterested gaze – are you allowed to be disengaged?
Enclaves- marina, jlt, malls – malls as public space –
The bridge linking the metro to the mall... no need to step outside, no need to breathe the hot air, so hot it feels like your lungs are burning. building the habit of staying inside, when its cooler, no need to step in to the chilly wind.
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Flâneur – a man who saunters around observing society.
Flânuse – female flânuer - Women’s bodies in context of loafing, can women loaf? Or a changed body – how things are read.
‘the keen-eyed stroller who chronicles the minutiae of city life’ – The guardian, Lauren Elkin, July 2016
Hybrid of Flânuer – to encompass driving – speed, wrapped up in genres, class – grammar of dialogue between master planner and constructors. Using the metro...
Authors of city are not natives
Walking is a class ‘thing’
Is it intentionally hybrid – municipality memory, pedestrian areas, DXB, AD, SHJ – remaining places of congregation
Intimacy not relating to emotional – affected
How people know cities – Michel De Certeu – how to inhabit the walking
The ‘peopling’ of the city is how to know the city –
Urbanism – intersections / meeting points
Each city has a different affect
Layers of city are displaced – moved through the areas – each area has its own genre –
Simultaneous genres – where the sidewalk ends the genre ends – difficult to walk from one to another – the legal act of walking – divided city – penetration only possible with vehicle
Intimacy allows for dwelling, - phenomenology – does the city allow for intimacy because of the lack of dwelling?
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Could it be seen as diminutive to utilize collective and simple genres to categorize and classify elements or themes of life, which is usually deemed as complex? Is it that we find it complex as individuals but as a collective life is generic? We’re birthed, grow, reproduce, and die; in between we have a collection of experiences in an order that is somewhat common. To classify it in to broad, subversive genres is dualistic in action: collating and rejecting information, group and ungroup persons and the removal of individualism of persons while delving in to the minutiae of an individuals’ story.
To recollect the so-called ‘untold stories’ of the impermanent residents here, is a genre that has been explored by anthropologists, biasedly by the media, and favorably by the government; or the heavily curated and contrasting accounts of the socialites and ‘influencers’ of social media. These genres of narrative manipulate and play to the existing desires of mass consumers of media. Increasingly issues in and of physical space are highlighted in a virtual space via a network society, the sense of reality becoming divertissement, the tuning in to the genres of others lives to tune out our own.
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Heredity genres
Genres dictating how work is read
Expat – being ‘from here’ but not ‘of here’
Space in common – the male
Struggle in geography – disconnect
consumption of space per person
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Genre as superstructure over the city –
Being conscious that our position is never fixed and can change
Many different positions – partial posterity
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Performance of identity – genre of literature on identity politics becoming a genre
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Marxist theory of control through genre – is the 'city' constructed in a fashion to create control – provide choices and then struck within them – used a s control
Censorship a- bypassing –
Moving through space that isn’t designed to be moved through
The inviting pristine grass on the untouchable intersection
Multicultural poly-amory
City a story – genre becomes productive – woody Allen feel
Genre allows for calibrated sense of expression
Read it backwards –
Pick a genre, such as rom com, horror , then make a film about labour or race
Genre as capitalist market – working against the niche markets
Self hood as genre - A system of beliefs, suspension of belief - Looming cloud of authenticity – if we remove genre – there is not something else? - If there is a state/time from which genre can be removed – impossible?
Establishing a genre from a ‘test’ one
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Genre is constructed and fluid – genre or subgenre
Conceptualize genre as forces or gathering
Semiotics – semantics
classifications
effectives
to create, interpretation and culture larger and feeds into genre
being aware of own genre –
genre as metaphor – expressing what is not expressible, ghost stories – if souls exist, do they maintain closure because of repatriation, why are there few gulf ghost stories
accessing uneasy topics
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is trauma resisted here? Everything is asking you to be happy.
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Addressing the politics and other issues
an artist & their context
A Generative series - the idea is to create interventions that will have an impact on practice
Sketchbooks
Slow learning – slow to find yourself
Leap of Faith – decoding and unraveling - reassess how I frame critique of own work.
Thinking strategically - endgame – enrich work
how meaning is produced around artworks. Understand how artist can control the meaning they create around their works.
Artist – documents etc
Who is speaking? – What are they saying?
How do we confront meaning? – categorisation
critical, social theory
How will it help formation of critique?
observing how we observe –O, Ward –
controlling nuances in my text to control/stage stories
how to place in a wider context
side note, audit – alserkal – exhibitions – male/female – nationality – group shows – residences
‘local’ art and global critique - How local art is perceived globally, what is local? How are they out of contrast as nationality?
how do we make sense when there is no distance? does artwork need distance from its narrative? can I discuss something I am distant from? Or do I need to be apart of it - links to Langlands and bell/Emin and the depth of research and personal narrative.
Studio & Cube – the relationship between when art is made and art is created – Brian O’Dougherty - Less in to biographical dialogue
website: http://tashkeel.org/workshops/critical-dialogues-1
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