ART 311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dada, Wu-Tang Clan, Frankfurt School
…………….………ANTH 311 NOTES (Week
One)……………………………
July 3rd: Intro - Survey to New Media
➢New Media: Term to describe art projects that make use of emerging
media technologies and are concerned with the cultural, political, and
aesthetic possibilities of these tools (Photography, video games)
➢Art in the age of mechanical reproduction → images became
reproducible (cameras, cinema etc).
○ Painting forced into a state of change - shift in value of
paintings - forced traditional art products into jeopardy.
○ Marcel DuChamp.
○ The futurists - industrial noise, electricity, taking these things to
a level of artistic beauty.
○ Sound Art - Means of composing music to one that involves the
use of electronic tools, sampling and appropriations. Sounds
can be recorded and re-recorded.
○ 40 part motet → 40 different voices represented by each of the
speakers.
➢Video Art → Artists begin to use the tools of video cameras - instant
capture of events - compose sculptures using animated components.
○ Electronic graffiti, political critique etc.
➢Performance Art → different forms of theatre, rejection of the
reproduction of cinema. Live performance can embody a sense of
immediacy.
➢Interactive Art → projections, large scale works that encourage
audiences to become a part of an artwork. Bringing audiences
together towards a kind of collective experience.
○ Rafael Nozano Hemmer → represents the audience's heart
beats, and they are projected with lights around a park.
➢Tactical media → taking things that already exist and changing them.
A comment on trends, politics etc
➢Robotic and kinetic art →
➢Communication technologies → spoken word → written → telegraph
→ telephone etc
○ Communication becoming more immediate but also immaterial.
○ Media artists interested in these kinds of histories
➢Artists concerned with taking the black boxes (shininess of devices
and technologies) and opening them and assessing how the systems
work, and revealing to audiences some parts that may be problematic
➢Once open → use these technologies towards experiences that are
unique, critical, playful, socially engaging.
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JULY 5th: Aura
Wutang clan → Made one album in a box, only one copy. Value of
music/art. Can still be accessed anyways, once someone buys it and
shares it on the internet.
John Berger: Ways of Seeing (film BBC 1972) → the role of art in a culture
dominated by mass media.
● 1928 → the man with a movie camera
● ie) virgin mary image is reproduced and is everywhere.
● Reproductions distort
● National Gallery → original Mary painting (on rocks w/ babies?)
● Important parts of a painting : silence, stillness, connects the
moment it’s in with the moment we’re in.
● Painting itself has to compete w/ the information around it,
music, played camera music etc. These things can change our
perception of the painting.
● Reproduction makes the meanings of art ambiguous. And
makes it less powerful. (seeing a real painting gives off a strong
aura)
● Children relate things they see in paintings to their personal life
(that’s usually all they’re able to do) so they’re able to see
things that adults may miss (painting of a group around a table
Document Summary
July 3rd: intro - survey to new media. New media: term to describe art projects that make use of emerging media technologies and are concerned with the cultural, political, and aesthetic possibilities of these tools (photography, video games) reproducible (cameras, cinema etc). Art in the age of mechanical reproduction images became. Painting forced into a state of change - shift in value of paintings - forced traditional art products into jeopardy. The futurists - industrial noise, electricity, taking these things to a level of artistic beauty. Sound art - means of composing music to one that involves the use of electronic tools, sampling and appropriations. 40 part motet 40 different voices represented by each of the speakers. Video art artists begin to use the tools of video cameras - instant capture of events - compose sculptures using animated components. Performance art different forms of theatre, rejection of the reproduction of cinema. Live performance can embody a sense of immediacy.
