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September 30, 2005
digital archive of plant and animal species
Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana
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Typetester - see CSS type styles
Typetester – Compare fonts for the screen
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September 28, 2005
Deep Blue Dreams -- iconographic essay
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September 26, 2005
Netdiver - new media deisgn portal
Netdiver is a new media design portal and digital culture magazine ->�Feed your eyes
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Initial Response to Avant-Garde and Kitsch by Clement Greenberg
9.26.2005
Andrew S. Zientek
ART.505 – Initial Response to “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” by Clement Greenberg
WORDS I HAD TO LOOK UP:
Mordant: adj. 1) a. Bitingly sarcastic: mordant satire. b. Incisive and trenchant: an inquisitor’s mordant questioning. 2) Bitingly painful. 3) Serving to fix colors in dyeing.
Repudiate: tr.v. 1) To reject the validity or authority of: “Chaucer... not only came to doubt the worth of his extraordinary body of work, but repudiated it” (Joyce Carol Oates). 2) To reject emphatically as unfounded, untrue, or unjust: repudiated the accusation. 3) To refuse to recognize or pay: repudiate a debt. 4) a. To disown (a child, for example). b. To refuse to have any dealings with.
Unpropitious: adj. Unfavorable; inauspicious: arrived at an unpropitious moment.
Simulacra: n. pl. 1) An image or representation. 2) An unreal or vague semblance.
Platitude: n. 1) A trite or banal remark or statement, especially one expressed as if it were original or significant.
Opprobrious: adj. 1) Expressing contemptuous reproach; scornful or abusive: opprobrious epithets. 2) Bringing disgrace; shameful or infamous: opprobrious conduct.
Adventitious: adj. 1) Not inherent but added extrinsically.
Ars est artem celare: Latin: literally, art is to hide the art; that is, good art conceals its making, good art shows no artifice
Ars est artem demonstrare: art is to show clearly – good art shows clearly its making
As I was reading this article, it was clear that it would be difficult to be critical in analyzing this article as I happen to agree with most of what Clement is writing. So, instead of dissecting Avant-Garde and Kitsch I will offer a summary and commentary from my personal point of view.
What Clement penned here is essentially a formalist response/manifesto in the light of varied social conditions and histories. His stance is in much opposition to that of Hegel and Wollflin, in that he speaks of art’s formalist affect in terms of the person and not the universal. The “social and historical contexts in which the experience takes place” are as important to the aesthetic experience as the formal elements of the work. This stance is both a separate formalist theory as well as the pragmatic acceptance that artists (people in general) can not fully attain the universal ideal – “all the verities involved by religion, authority, tradition, style, are thrown into question, and the writer or artist is no longer able to estimate the response of his audience to the symbols and references with which he works.”
AVANT-GARDE
Much of the article focuses on the Avant-Garde movement, which Clement ties, both chronologically and geographically, to the rise of the Scientific Revolution in Europe. Here, again, we see Clement departing from Wolfflin, who points out that new styles are linked to the history and culture of the arts but that a revolution in one cultural area does not (typically) coincide with a revolution in another.
With the Avant-Garde we see the first development of the ‘Starving-Artist’ as an ideal. The artist is now placed above others because of his purity in pursuit of his art, untainted by bourgeois society. Ironically, these new artists remained tied the bourgeois that they were rebelling against because idealism does not buy paint nor food. No matter how much artists rebel against the establishment they are attached to it because it is the only source of support, both in viewers and finances.
Art has always been elitist (as the masses generally are indifferent or uninterested in the fringe of culture – and lack the funds to support it anyway) but with the avant-garde retreating within itself (the development of the artist’s artist) it ended up alienating the educating ruling class which has always supported it . In response to this isolation, Clement states that “the avant-garde itself, already sensing the danger, is becoming more and more timid every day that passes. Academicism and commercialism are appearing in the strangest places. This can mean only one thing: that the avant-garde is becoming unsure of the audience it depends on – the rich and cultivated.”
{Authors Note: Clement underestimated the commercial machine, for the avant-garde was not only linked to the establishment by financial survival, it was eventually transformed by it into a commodity, transmogrified into kitsch. Artist’s are now in a continual cycle of rebellion and commodification.]
The avant-garde, as a movement, was interested in keeping culture moving and creating “Art for art’s sake.” Subject matter, communication in the ‘literature’ sense, is what is being rebelled against (as much as bourgeois society). The avant-garde arrived at abstract art in its search for the Ideal – because it is not representational. “Content is to be dissolved so completely into form that the work of art or literature cannot be reduced in whole or in part to anything not itself.” Yet, artists can not separate fully from relativism (aesthetics) and abstract art ends up imitating the discipline of art (paint looks like paint) and not God (the ideal). The result is the imitation of imitation; representational art uses brush strokes and color to imitate a subject and abstract art is imitating the process of traditional art without the subject.
When one considers the physical subject of representational art as an imitation of an Archetype or Form, then it would seem as if abstract art is very far indeed from its quest for the Ideal. A better term might be reenactment. If abstract art is a reenactment of the process of art, it isn’t imitating but rather going through the development a second time – one that is purposeful and seeks to use this second performance to bring new ideas and views to prominence that were hidden the first time. [Authors note: this may be an angle to explore further]
In its reenactment of traditional processes of art the avant-garde necessarily retains some of the very characteristics it is trying to denounce. This necessity of maintaining some old elements and notions are precisely what allows the art to progress and evolve. Just as the Knife Thrower kept certain elements from knife throwing’s carnival days in order to maintain just enough of a link to common perception the avant-garde needs a bridge for its viewers to cross.
KITSCH
As with all movements that become large, there was an alternate (backlash even…) development to the avant-garde – the kitsch. “Kitsch is a product of the industrial revolution which urbanized the masses – and established what is called universal literacy.”Art has historically been consumed by those who means and education (the ‘cultivated’), and now popular art is aimed at and consumed by a new type of class – the literate without means. The developing middle class learned to read and write but did not gain the leisure and means to become involved with traditional art and culture.
Kitsch is, essentially, the commercial condition masquerading as art. It was created to serve a growing customer base; those without the interest in, or the means & leisure to enjoy traditional art. Kitsch feeds on parts of traditional culture that have matured enough to be generally recognizable (even if not understood) – once something can be recognized (by the populace) it is looted by the kitsch machine and sold on the front of t-shirt – “…the popular art and literature of today were once the daring, esoteric art and literature of yesterday.” Because kitsch is basically a capitalist operation, it has been fully absorbed into our production system and general consciousness in a way that traditional art has never been. Like other commercial ventures, kitsch is continually trying to expand its reach, find new markets and boost its profits. Kitsch, in its ever growing influence, has been so widely accepted and embraced by the masses that the folk art, once cherished and produced in rural areas has been threatened or wiped out. As kitsch spreads across the world, supplanting local culture, it is becoming the 1st universal culture, continuous and expected. Bland and safe.
The power and spread of kitsch is based on many things, one of them being conditioning – “the attitude of thee masses, both old and new art styles probably remains essentially dependant on the nature of the education afforded to them by their respective states.” We can only like what we know, and advertising has surely shown us that we will prefer what we are continually exposed to. Repetition breads comfort which leads to acceptance and finally being liked. Kitsch is adept at advertising itself.
A closer look at the underlying draw of kitsch is more interesting because it would be just as easy to reproduce a Picasso as a Repin* (1844-1930 Ukrainian/Russian Painter- kitsch). The industrial revolution scaled time – it was now possible to travel great distances in a short time with minimal effort and to learn about what happened (in the world) during the morning in the afternoon. Everything was sped up and made easier (an over-generalization but largely true), and it is these value that kitsch epitomizes. It is a “short cut to the pleasure of art that detours what is necessarily difficult in genuine art.” Kitsch requires no reflection and no thought – its subjects and intentions are immediately revealed and is then further ‘heightened’ by the spectacular and dramatic realism. “Where Picasso paints cause, Repin paints effect.”
“Superior culture is one of the most artificial of all human creations.”
Because kitsch occasionally produces something with real value, and many popular works of art are borderline (between ‘serious art’ and kitsch) it is often difficult to draw a line of definition. Very little in the world fits perfectly into categories and there is no true line dividing ‘true art’ from kitsch, yet the gap is too large to be connected by gradations. This divide has always existed (in most cultures) – as represented by the schism between the elite (few, powerful and ‘cultivated’) and the rest (many, exploited and ‘ignorant’). “During socially stable periods “the axioms of the few are shared by the many; the latter believe superstitiously what the former believe soberly.” It takes time and relative comfort for the masses to feel admiration for the ‘masters’ of its culture.
Unlike times of excess, as in a bourgeois society, when art is created on speculation with personal ideals, in periods where art is commissioned the subject matter is determined by the patron. The artist is now reduced to a craftsmen and is left only to concentrate on his medium -- “He was not needed to be philosopher or visionary, but simply artificer.” The commission, and decorum, meant that the artist suppressed his personal views and affectations. Only with the renaissance do the artist’s personal pursuits become valid and common – but still kept universally recognizable.
[Authors note: Clement’s view on the role of the artist in a commission driven culture is one of the few points in which I adamantly disagree. It is true that DaVinci was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza to paint the Last Supper but it was Leonardo’s vision, his iconography and then his skill that makes the work a masterpiece.)
Even with this shift to the artist’s inflections, as long as art is trying to perfect its technique, it is necessarily bound by imitation because there is no other language or criteria in which to view art. It is this link to imitation that allows the general public to retain some connection, and awe of high art. It was when art left the realm of realistic imitation (abstract art by the avant-garde) that it lost the masses (which then took to kitsch).
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September 22, 2005
Seed Design - modular no tools furniture
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Modern Design blog / portal
MoCo Loco - Modern contemporary design & architecture
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is architecture a rich kids profession?
Archinect : Discussion Forum : is architecture a rich kid's profession?
architects basically are taught to be socialists in school but we work for capitalists so there is always this guilt. it comes up often with the architects i know here and in europe, and we all sort of laugh at ourselves for being so naive.
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Total Comments: 321
09/22/05 5:53
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The Question—What is Your Hope
The Question—What is Your Hope
Original version, Smith notebook 28 (c. 1940s) final version c. 1950
I would like to make sculpture that would rise from
water and tower in the air–
that carried conviction and vision that had not
existed before
that rose from a natural pool of clear water
to sandy shores with rocks and plants
that men could view as natural without reverence or awe
but to whom such things were natural because they were
statements of peaceful pursuit–and joined in the
phenomenon of life
Emerging from unpolluted water at which men could bathe
and animals drink–that
harboured fish and clams and all things natural to it
I don’t want to repeat the accepted fact,
moralize or praise the past or sell a product
I want sculpture to show the wonder of man, that flowing water,
rocks, clouds, vegetation, have for the man in peace who
glories in existence
this sculpture will not be the mystical abode
of power of wealth of religion
Its existence will be its statement
It will not be a scorned ornament on a money changer’s temple
or a house of fear
It will not be a tower of elevators and plumbing with every
room rented, deductions, taxes, allowing for depreciation
amortization yielding a percentage in dividends
It will say that in peace we have time
that a man has vision, has been fed, has worked
it will not incite greed or war
That hands and minds and tools and material made a symbol
to the elevation of vision
It will not be a pyramid to hide a royal corpse from pillage
It has no roof to be supported by burdened maidens
It has no bells to beat the heads of sinners
or clap the traps of hypocrites, no benediction
falls from its lights, no fears from its shadow
this vision cannot be of a single mind– a single concept,
it is a small tooth in the gear of man,
it was the wish incision in a cave,
the devotion of a stone hewer at Memphis
the hope of a Congo hunter
It may be a sculpture to hold in the hand
that will not seek to outdo by bulky grandeur
which to each man, one at a time, offers a marvel of
close communion, a symbol which answers to the holder’s vision,
correlates the forms of woman and nature, stimulates the
recall sense of pleasurable emotion, that momentarily
rewards for the battle of being
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Questions to Students by David Smith -- Answers by Andrew S. Zientek
9.21.2005
ART.505 – Questions to Students by David Smith -- Answers by Andrew S. Zientek
1.
Q: Do you make art your life, that which always comes first and occupies every moment, the last problem before sleep and the first awaking vision?
A: Art is not my life – it is a large part of it but it is not all consuming. As much time and effort that I put into my art/design (in all its forms) there are too many things in this world to be stuck in one track.
2.
Q: Do all the things you like or do amplify and enjoin the progress of art vision and art making?
A: Yes. But all the things I like or do amplify and enjoin the progress of everything else I do as well.
3.
Q: Are you a balanced person with many interests and diversions?
A: Yes. So many interests and diversions that it is hard to focus on any one thing.
4.
Q: Do you seek the culture of many aspects, with the middle-class aspiration of being well-rounded and informed?
A: I do not seek, I find. I am interested in many things, and that leads me to being well-rounded, but my aspiration is to be absolutely great in one thing (or two, or three….you see my problem)
5.
Q: How do you spend your time? More talking about art than making it? How do you spend your money? On art materials first—or do you start to pinch here?
A: I don’t have spare time. More sketching ideas about art than making it, but not talking about it. I spend my money freely, art materials yes, other things yes – then I run out of money and spend other people’s money. Then I run out of their money and work my ass off to get out of debt, and then the cycle repeats.
6.
Q: How much of the work day or the work week do you devote to your profession—that which will be your identity for life?
A: I spend a ridiculous amount of time each day and week devoted to my profession (all of them) – but my identity is more than what I do, I refuse to be categorized purely by what I spend my time doing.
7.
Q: Will you be an amateur—a professional—or is it the total life?
A: Total life, full out Ramones style, fuck the title.
8.
Q: Do you think the artist has an obligation to anyone but himself?
A: My obligation is to God.
9.
Q: Do you think his contemporary position is unique or traditional?
A: Whose contemporary position? Very little is actually unique.
10.
Q: Do you think art can be something it was before? Can you challenge the ancients?
A: A better question would be “Do you think art can be something it hasn’t been before?” Of course I can challenge the ancients, but on my terms not theirs.
11.
Q: Have you examined the echoes of childhood and first learning, which may have once given you the solutions? Are any of these expectancies still operating on your choices?
A: I have not examined my childhood, but I still operate by intuition which is much the same as the way children operate.
12.
Q: Do you hold with these, or have you recognized them? Have you contradicted them or have you made metaphoric transposition?
A: I am assuming this question relates to the echoes of childhood which I still hold dear.
13.
Q: Do you examine and weigh the art statements of fellow artists, teachers, authorities before they become involved in your own working tenets?
A: What?
14.
Q: Or do the useful ideas place themselves in a working niche of your consciousness and the others go off unheard?
A: These questions are not fully formed. Useful ideas present themselves to my in many ways where they bounce around in my sub and cousciousness until some of them are recorded in my sketchbook and still less are birthed into this world.
15.
Q: Do you think you owe your teachers anything, or Picasso or Matisse or Brancusi or Mondrian or Kandinsky?
A: I think we owe our teachers many things. Respect at the least, thanks commonly and praise occasionally.
16.
Q: Do you think you work should be aggressive? Do you think this an attribute? Can it be developed?
A: Yes, yes and yes. Hard-core in any medium is well received. Aggressive in my interpretation is the same as intensity and intensity is the key to much of my art ideals.
17.
Q: Do you think your work should hold within tradition?
A: What tradition; of innovating—then yes. The most common tradition in history is innovation.
18.
Q: Do you think that your own time and now is the greatest in the history of art, or do you excuse your own lack of full devotion with the half belief that some other time would have been better for you to make art?
A: Now is always the best time for everything.
19.
Q: Do you recognize any points of attainment? Do they change? Is there a final goal?
A: My final goal, is realization of and union with god. My final goal for my art is to create things that make people feel how I feel when I listen to Bjork (simple joy). It is the same goal that Louis Sullivan had – enabling the view to something greater.
20.
Q: In the secret dreams of attainment have you faced each dream for its value on your own basis, or do you harbor inherited inspirations of the bourgeoisie or those of false history or those of critics?
A: See answer to question 19.
21.
Q: Why do you hesitate--why can you not draw objects as freely as you can write their names and speak words about them?
A: Our brains are not wired that way.
22.
Q: What has caused this mental block? If you can name, dream, recall vision and auras why can’t you draw them? In the conscious set of drawing, who is acting in our unconscious as censor?
A: Part of it is technical skill, most people simply don’t know how to render their visions clearly for others to see. Part of it is how quick our brain thinks, the time it takes to dream up a vision and the time it takes to represent it are very different. I do not think there is a censor.
23.
Q: In the conceptual direction, are you aiming for the successful work? (To define success I mean the culminating point of many efforts.)
A: See the answer to question 19.
24.
Q: Do you aim for a style with a recognizable visual vocabulary?
A: No, I am much more interested in process than visual style.
25.
Q: Do you polish up the work beyond its bare aesthetic elements?
A: That sounds like a short sighted modernist question. The bare aesthetic elements are whatever is needed to render the artists vision.
26.
Q: Do you add ingratiating elements beyond the raw aesthetic basis?
A: The raw aesthetic is overrated. I add only what is needed whether it is beyond raw aesthetic basis or not.
27.
Q: If you add ingratiating elements, where is the line which keeps the work from being your own?
A: I made it, therefore it is my own work.
28.
Q: Are you afraid of rawness, for rawness and harshness are basic forms of U.S. nature, and origins are both raw and vulgar at their time of creation?
A: Fuck your presumptuousness. I am not afraid of rawness, but I am not tethered to it either. I am quite aware that rawness is a characteristic of U.S. nature and so are many other things.
29.
Q: Will you understand and accept yourself as the subject for creative work, or will your effort go toward adapting your expression to verbal philosophies by non-artists?
A: Many (most?) of the greatest artists have expressed verbal philosophies developed by non-artists.
30.
Q: If you could, would you throw over the present values of harmony and tradition?
A: What possible benefit could be gained by throwing out harmony?
31.
Q: Do you trust your first response, or do you go back and equivocate consciously? Do you believe that the freshness of first response can be developed and sustained as a working habit?
A: There is much value in the first response, and the key is to retain the initial intuition, but rarely can the ‘first response’ not be developed to be more effective.
32.
Q: Are you saddled with nature propaganda?
A: If you are referring to the propaganda that nature is the domain of God and perfection, then yes I am very much ‘saddled’ with it. Who creates 44 questions for students and has most of them be value and philosophically loaded? Bullshit.
33.
Q: Are you afraid to exercise vision, seek surprise?
A: Are you serious? Is this not a questionnaire for art students?
34.
Q: When you accept the identification of artist do you acknowledge that you are issuing a world challenge in your own time?
A: I do not acknowledge it.
35.
Q: Are you afraid to work from your own experience without leaning on the crutches of subject and the rational?
A: Again, we see nothing more than formalistic propaganda masquerading as a question.
36.
Q: Or do you think that you are unworthy or that your life has not been dramatic enough or your understanding not classic enough, or do you think that art comes from Mount Parnassus or France or from an elite level beyond you?
37.
Q: Do you assert yourself and work in sizes comparable to your physical size or your aesthetic challenge or imagination?
A: I work in whatever size is needed.
38.
Q: Is that size easel-size or table-size or room-size or a challenge to nature?
A: I work in whatever size is needed.
39.
Q: Do you think museums are your friend and do you think they will be interested in your work?
A: I do not think museums are my friends, eventually they will be interested in my work.
40.
Q: Do you think you will ever make a living from museums?
A: Directly? No. Indirectly? Possibly.
41.
Q: Do you think commercial art, architectural art, religious art offer any solution in the maturing of your concepts?
A: Yes, across the board.
42.
Q: How long will you work before you work with the confidence which says, “What I do is art”?
A: What I do is art.
43.
Q: Do you ever feel that you don’t know where to go in your work, that the challenge is beyond immediate solution?
A: The challenge is usually beyond immediate solution.
44.
Q: Do you think acclaim can help you? Can you trust it, for you know in your secret self how far short of attainment you always are? Can you trust any acclaim any farther than adverse criticism? Should either have any effect upon you as an artist?
A: Of course acclaim can help you, art is a business as much as it is a calling. My ‘secret self’ does think it is far short of attainment.
In particular, to the painter—Is there as much art in a drawing as in a watercolor--or as in an oil painting? Do you think drawing is a complete and valid approach to art vision, or a preliminary only toward a more noble product?
Art is not tied to medium.
In particular, to the sculptor— If a drawing is traced, even with the greatest precision, from another drawing, you will perceive that the one is a copy. Although the differences may deviate less than half a hair, recognizable only by perceptual sensitivity, unanimously we rule the work of the intruder’s hand as non-art. But where is the line of true art—when the sculptor’s process often introduces the hands of a plaster caster, the mold maker, the grinder and the polisher, and the patina applier, all these processes and foreign hands intruding deviations upon what was once the original work?
I don’t know.
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container art
ContainerArt | 2005 The avant-garde closes in
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September 21, 2005
Art History 500 - Week Two Formal Analysis
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September 19, 2005
choices - from archinect
Archinect : Schoolblog : Hello from Fall 2005 ( photos)
1) to become pure service provider and execute the clients less than lolfty design as if automaton
or
2) to challange, to inform, to educate, to expand, to lead in discovery...to reveal to the client the added value that an architect brings to the table
Posted by: Suture on Sep 14, 05 | 11:49 am
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misprinted type
misprinted type 3.0_ art, design and type (1998-2005) Eduardo Recife
unparalled fonts and collages
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Ji Lee - designer
Quite possibly the best designer I have found recently. Awesome work. Quote bubbles in NY project.
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design observer
Design Observer: writings about design & culture
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Walmart box
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Design News Reluct.com design and architecture news
RE. Design News Reluct.com design and architecture news
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September 18, 2005
searching for a home
� A Roadmap to My Search For A Home�by�Blueprint for Financial Prosperity
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utopian communities
Portraits of American Paradises, Mostly Lost - New York Times
September 18, 2005
Portraits of American Paradises, Mostly Lost
By PHILIP GEFTER
Skip to next paragraph SWEET EARTH: EXPERIMENTAL UTOPIAS IN AMERICA
Luhring Augustine Gallery
531 West 24th Street, Chelsea, (212) 206- 9100. Through Oct. 22.
THE "perfect society" may be a figment of the idealist's imagination, but from the early years of the republic, many Americans have tried to give those ideals a tangible form, organizing their lives and those of their neighbors in a variety of social experiments.
Between 1810 and 1850, at least 600 utopian communities were established across the continent, approximating both religious and secular visions of the perfect life. In the 1960's, social upheaval led to a new wave of alternative communities, or communes, some of which still survive today. And, more recently, in the 1990's, new ideas about urban planning have led to more practical experimentation with a utopian vision of suburban design.
For the last 12 years, Joel Sternfeld has been photographing the sites of utopian communities across the country - the land on which they once resided, buildings that still remain, or monuments erected to symbolize their ideals. This body of work, "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America," now on view at the Luhring Augustine Gallery in Chelsea, is an extension of his continuing chronicle of the American landscape, most notably his seminal series, "American Prospects," with crisp, color-saturated photographs taken in the 1970's and early 80's in which structures of modern life fit awkwardly into the natural landscape.
The chapel without walls in New Harmony, Ind., was designed in 1960 by Philip Johnson as an inverted rosebud to echo the founding ethos of the community, home to one of America's first secular utopian experiments. It was started in 1824 by Robert Owen, a British industrialist who believed that education, equality and communal life were vital to the formation of moral character. "Happiness," he held, "will be the only religion of man." Johnson intended the chapel to cast the shadow of a rose, the symbol of the New Harmony Community of Equals.
Seaside, Fla., was the brainchild of Robert Davis, a builder who wanted to develop the land he inherited along Florida's Gulf Coast in line with his childhood memories of beach-town life. The community, which was first opened in the 1980's,was designed as a small town with everything within walking distance, and vernacular architecture that recalls an ideal past that may never have existed.
The school bus is among the dwellings at The Farm, a commune established in the 1970's that at its peak had a population of 1,500 members. The motivating source was Stephen Gaskin, a professor at San Francisco State University whose lectures about cultural upheaval developed such a cult following that hundreds of students followed him on a speaking tour around the country. Eventually, many people in that caravan of buses and vans acquired land in rural Tennessee and set up The Farm.
In 1982, while Mr. Sternfeld was still working on "American Prospects," he visited a socialist thinker, Scott Nearing, then 99, in Maine. Looking through Mr. Sternfeld's images for that series, Mr. Nearing advised that they were too critical of America. "Picture an ideal world and photograph that," he told the photographer. Mr. Sternfeld evidently took his advice, capturing in this body of work if not an ideal world, at least the idea of it.
...
September 17, 2005
the design encyclopedia
start � The Design Encyclopedia
The design encyclopedia is a wiki, which means that any registered user – look for the login button at the bottom to register – can add, delete or change any of the information on the encyclopedia.
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the earth from above - amazing photographs
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Water Fire Questions
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September 16, 2005
Thinkmap SDK
The Thinkmap SDK enables organizations to incorporate data-driven visualization technology into their enterprise Web applications. Thinkmap applications allow users to make sense of complex information in ways that traditional interfaces are incapable of.
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Top Ten Wiki Engines
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WebGUI is an application framework that handles content management
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DrupalED Drupal distributions for education
Distance Ed with Drupal: A live example | DrupalED
...
Advancing Insights ...ideascape moves people to action!
about us | Ideascape, innovation platform, collaboration, cooperative strategies
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Drupal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Drupal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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MediaWiki
Wikipedia:MediaWiki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Symbols from Art, Archaeology, Mythology, Literature, and Religion
great reference book for symbols, December 24, 2004
Reviewer: Cassandra (Arizona) - See all my reviews
I have been using this book as a reference for years. It is a wonderful book, full of information from a wide variety of cultures and disciplines. My only disappointment in the book is that it is not three times larger. I would love to see it expanded to include more symbols.
Was this review helpful to you? YesNo (Report this)
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September 15, 2005
WorldLink Education's unique Chinese Language Programs
Study Abroad in Beijing with WorldLink Education and Experience China
12 weeks May 22 (06) - Aug 11 (06) CLA12wI:5/06 Mar 27 (06) Apr 10 (06)
12 weeks Jun 5 (06) - Aug 25 (06) CLA12wI:6/06 Apr 10 (06) Apr 24 (06)
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September 14, 2005
artworkers
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Big Black Pencils
Big Ideas come out of Big Pencils
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Worldometers - the world by numbers
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Motion Logica - great flash work
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FIBERGLASS mannequin
Home :: Mannequins :: Full Size Female :: Monique mf109
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White Plastic Mask
UNITED MASK AND PARTY : Masks - Basic and Simple
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Language of Architecture - Eisenman
The Cornell Daily Sun - Eisenman Urges New Language of Architecture
“If we are to begin to act again, the suggestion is that we must rethink how architecture communicates,” Eisenman said. “Not for change itself, but change for some social purpose.”
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September 13, 2005
cali bamboo sales
Cali Bamboo - Wholesale Bamboo Fence and Lumber
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Initial Response to Easy Chairs
9.13.2005
ART.505 – Initial Response to “Easy Chairs” chapter 5
Oh, this was one painful beast to read. Dry and uninteresting, it easily hides what information it does offer.
Repeating themes:
+ American Pragmatism & Appropriation
+ Commercial Influence
+ Cultural Reflections & Class Distinction
Pragmatism & Appropriation
One can easily make a case that pragmatism is the defining trait of American society. We see this in every facet of our culture. Individualism and pragmatism means never accepting dogma for the sake of dogma. This is in stark contrast to old-world Europe where seating (among other things) changed very little (style excepted) for hundreds and hundreds of years. Europe was ruled by Le bon gout (the good taste), which is established by decorum. Decorum is doing what is appropriate. In old-world Europe, it was appropriate for seating to be proper and follow well established notions. As “Easy Chairs “ follows its dry timeline presentation of the evolution of seating in our country, many of the developments were based on pragmatic ideals – what makes sense at the current moment regardless of dogma. The simple, recognizable shape of the Shaker ladderback is nothing more than the adoption of a European model to specific needs of a culture combined with utter efficiency of materials. This new model is further modified so that it can “be broken down for movement” which signified both our constant moving as a culture and the changing commercial landscape. Furniture, as with most things, are starting to be produced in central locations and shipped to customers.
Hitchcock “produced a product that standardized common design…not interchangeable parts but interchangeable decoration.” This was Henry Ford entering the realm of style. He “turned craft elements into machine ones”. This was a complete contradiction to the prevailing (intellectual) stance in Europe (London). This was exemplified by John Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture and in this case the Fifth Lamp, that of LIFE and human activity which was linked to craftsman(ship) and not the machine. If the work is not done joyfully, it is not worth doing. Hitchcock did not invent this technique, rather found an effective way to appropriate the stylistic elements of traditional furniture for cheap mass production. Appropriation of ornament (time consuming & costly) for the masses. This again illustrates the American condition of the time – Ruskin’s notions were of the educated elite and Hitchcok and his chairs were for the middle class, the common folk that made up our country. “The Hitchcok factory created disassembled versions of more high-falutin’ styles, such as [the] Sheraton.”
Commercial Influence
Just as we saw Hitchcok serve a growing market, many of our greatest developments in seating come from the commercial machine. The transit industry (rail, auto & air) was not obliged to follow tradition because there was none and that led to an objective approach to the concept of seating and created radical improvements. As many Americans “found themselves better seated first on railcars” it created pressure and a market for a better chair. The lineage of home recliners can trace its roots from the railroad chair to barber & dentist chairs before they found their way into our living-rooms. This evolution of acceptance is a common trait of new introductions. First it is met with skepticism, then followers take your lead and re-define your ideas and the third generation has already been taking information for granted.
The study of ergonomics also came from the transportation industry as companies strove to return your butt to their seats. The more comfortable the seating was, the more likely you were to choose them over a stiff painful journey on a competitor. “The impetus here was with commercial travel” but as with many things this new found knowledge led people to want “be as comfortable at hoe as on the train or plane” and a new type of seating was born; the “lounger”.
Cultural Reflections & Class Distinction
The article repeated illustrated the changes made to seating, including specific types of chairs such as the Ladderback, to reflect varied use based on culture and class distinction. The ubiquitous ladderback chair is adapted to be straight and stiff for the prim and proper New England culture while the Appalachian version is bent and relaxed. This is taken further to distinguish class, in the anglophile society of the plantation south no less, with the use of tall, slim chairs to ‘weed out’ the white trash with short legs. These class divisions continue today and are easily seen in the office chair. The higher up the corporate food chair you travel, the taller, more distinguished and plush the office chair gets.
Cultural traits, such as our restlessness, become physical with our choice of seating (in this case the rocking chair). Though as American sounding as the rocking chair is, the ‘easy chair’ is the real representation of our culture – “a chair for an anxious man in an anxious age” Yes, cultural ideas of sitting have changed all over the world, but no where has adopted the Lazy-Boy with such enthusiasm as America. It reflects our current values; ease, comfort, isolation, gluttony, & excess. “Such chairs became symbols of the self-satisfied American, watching television, and settling back into his prejudices like cushions.” As most everything that is broadly middle-class there is a backlash to the lounger and sleek, high design chairs that were just as comfortable but twice as expensive appeared and were “purchased by those who looked down their noses at the recliners.” Today, Ikea and Target have created a landscape that has ‘high design’ for the masses with sleek modern furniture and accessories becoming prevalent. There is a backlash in the waiting.
The Folding Aluminum Lawn Chair
I keep this chair within its own section because we see all of the article’s reoccurring themes embodied in it. It appropriated Bauhaus ideals without the theory or high design. Its use was dictated by our value of “comfort, informality and convenience.” Just as our cultural values shaped the chair, the backlash has associated it with “the ugly backsides of fat women in curlers.” It is a product of pure commercialism, having spawned from a vast excess of aluminum. Its “economy of means, simplicity of concept, and low cost” are basic tenants of American pragmatism. If it were not for the ridiculous price of aluminum (due to China’s hunger for all natural resources), I would tend to agree with the article when it states that “the next revival will no doubt be of the folding aluminum lawn chair.”
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the practice of design necessarily involves solving problems.
v-2 Organisation | media culture | The bathing ape has no clothes
the notion of design as a conscious attempt to articulate solutions to real human situations is more meaningful than ever
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10 Facts about New Bedford
9.13.2005 - ART.505
10 Facts about New Bedford
1) The New Bedford half-marathon was won in 2004 with a time of 1 hr, 7min.
2) There are 20 buildings in N.B. on the National Register of Historic Buildings
3) Roughly 33% of N.B.’s population are registered voters.
4) N.B. has a population density of 4,938 people per square mile.
5) Our watershed is approx. 50 square miles.
6) In 2004 there were 68 fire hydrants repaired or replaced.
7) The average temperature in July is 74 degrees.
8) There were 801 reported cases of burglary in 2001.
9) The hurricane barrier is 9,100 feet long - longest stone structure on east coast.
10) There are 10 letters in the name NEW BEDFORD
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September 12, 2005
image database - for mac
Image and Photo Databases and Cataloging Software: Macintosh
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ART.505 – Initial Response to “The Knife Thrower”
ART.505 – Initial Response to “The Knife Thrower”
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Initial Response to “The Knife Thrower”
9.11.2005 - ART.505
Initial Response to “The Knife Thrower” by Steven Millhauser
First off I must say that when I read fiction, I don’t typically look for, or assume that it means anything. If I had read this for myself, outside of the assignment, I would have thought it was an entertaining and dark story that was well written. That is all I would have thought. It is of my opinion that the large majority of ‘meaning’ that is found in literature is post-fact invented bullshit that serves to maintain a ‘elite’ viewpoint.
Ohhh, the writer is so deep, did you get the symbolism in chapter 3? What you didn’t get it? You must not be as smart as I am.
We all lend our own prejudices, experiences and insights into the interpretation of any work, and it is my view that it is this personal vantage point has much more weight than what the artist intended or could have thought up to try and represent. {Mathew Barney excepted]
I am sure that much of this opinion is based on my own operation and creation of art. Yes, sometimes I am trying to communicate a certain message but usually I am working with metaphorically charged objects and arrangements that I think will spark something within the viewer without trying to say what that something is. Furthering this viewpoint is the fact that we, as a culture, are not taught to (or how to) look beneath the surface. This appreciation and interest in ‘meaning beyond the surface’ is an old and dying art and the only large segment of our society that is taught this is the upper class. Have you turned on television recently? Where have our poets gone?
Ok, on to the work at hand.
Damien Hirst. I think I could leave my interpretation of The Knife Thrower with Mr. Hirst and all would be understood between us.
Never-the-less, let us continue on with the discussion. As I said before, I don’t typically look for extra meaning so I will approach this analytically and pull things that may mean something. Some of it will be entirely unintended by the author. Bullshit on my part.
There are a handful of repeating themes in the story:
+ Role of the Artist
+ Uncertainty and moral struggle of the audience
+ High Culture vs. Low Culture
+ Pushing Boundaries
+ Link to the Past – Old notions
+ Role of honesty & authenticity in art
+ Varied Interpretation
In the context of our class, I think it is safe to say the major issue presented in the text is What do we consider art?
Art vs. Craft
“…the skill of his throwing had brought him early attention, but that it wasn’t until he had changed the rules entirely that he was taken up in a serious way.”
This makes me think of the saying – Conceptual artists are all vision and no skill, and craftsmen are all skill and no vision. Hensch’s technical skill is not enough and he is forced to push boundaries to become accepted as an artist. This ‘line in the sand’ is of dear importance to those of us in the artisanry departments. What must we do to be accepted? In the story there are many references to ‘his art’ and even the rumors which appeared in the “arts section of the Sunday paper” serve to publicize and categorize the show for the public. Media is often the arbiter of opinion in the case of art – what is and isn’t / what is good or bad.
Pushing Boundaries
Hensch begins to push the boundaries of his field by doing “something we hadn’t seen before, or even imagined we might see, something work remembering.” That could be one element of good art, regardless of medium. As is often the case, pushing forward leads to ‘forbidden things’. Hensch develops his “cruel art” and made his reputation. He must continually up the ante as our culture is always becoming more and more desensitized. Shock value and the grotesque are the basis of the appeal of his art. The voyeuristic nature of our culture flocks to his dark show where they allow him to play to basic fears and entertain “a dark dream”.
Uncertainty and Moral Struggle (of the audience)
“We felt a tug of disappointment, which changed at once to shame, deep shame.” Throughout the story, the audience switches between wanting the forbidden and wanting to remain safe. It was the very “dubious enticements” that drew them to the show that they “stirred uncomfortably in [their] seats” in response to. This is the same audience that watches Nascar races, hoping to see a fiery multi-car crash that stops the show as cameras show paramedics rolling the driver to the ambulance as he raises his arm aloft giving the thumbs up gesture. Hensch’s show allows the ID to be satisfied while remaining safe and distant; “after all [his show is] public and well traveled.” The audience wants to remain on the moral high ground while also reveling in base desires and dark yearnings.
Role of the Artist
Dressed in black and indifferent to approval, Hensch is the model artist. He pursues his art for himself and the audience is merely his patron, a way “to earn his living.” This idealistic view enables Hensch to take on a role of the ‘authority figure’. He is a poet – one who sees beyond the veil, for if “we weren’t absolutely sure of him, then who were we, what on earth were we, who had allowed things to come to such a pass?” He is now given the benefit of the doubt, everything he does is with meaning. This gets back to my initial distrust of our interpreting of others work because as my friend says “he is still a man and occasionally he gets a belly ache just like the rest of us.” Those marked by ‘the master’ “will treasure it (their wound) all [their] days” means that these ‘ordinary’ people are now special because of their proximity to greatness.
High Culture vs. Low Culture
“The only knife throwers any of us had ever seen were in the circus side show…” This type of reference is contrasted by the many “master of his art” statements made throughout the story. Returns back to the question of what is art.
Link to the Past – Old notions
The references to carnivals and throwing the knife through the apple on his assistant’s head serves to show that Hensch, for all of his rule changing and boundary pushing must still operate within some of the understood norms of his show, or risk losing all reference points and hence his audience.
Role of honesty & authenticity in art
This is an element of art that I still haven’t made up my mind on. Would it diminish the value of Hensch’s art if the people from the crowd who were marked were part of the show and not really willing audience members? In the end was Laura actually killed? Does it even matter? This weekend I saw the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine arts and on one of his photographs he had touched up the negative to ‘erase’ a road that went through the shot. Does that diminish it as art? How is that any different than editing in Photoshop (it is just another tool)? In the end, does only the image matter?
Varied Interpretation
“Some of us heard the girl cry out, others were struck by her silence”
The audience continually observes different things during the course of the show. Just as our society, at large, perceives different things in art, and again brings up the question of what is art?
Damien Hirst
”For wasn’t he an artist, in his fashion? And so we admired his daring, even as we deplored his method and despised him as a vulgar showman.” Both Hirst and Hensch are not really about life or death, or even art, they are about testing values. What buttons can they push? What can they get away with in the name of art.
One last thought on how the story is told. The plural first person (is there an actual literary term for this?) creates a general ‘we’ which remains abstract and could be interpreted as a couple who went to the show together to a generalization of the whole crowd. The whole crowd can be easily be seen as a generalization of our society.
Might one say that the use of the “we”, passing the buck, so to speak, to a collective voice, is one way for the narrator to avoid the issue of moral choice or, to put it differently, to avert or dissolve responsibility for this or that particular interpretation of the events related ? --Steven Millhauser
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September 11, 2005
The International Journal of Social Spaces
Space and Culture : The International Journal of Social Spaces
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September 09, 2005
wood products
Howee's Inc. Home Page / Wholesale Wood Crafts Supplies
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cheap wallpaper
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wall paper source 1
Retro Wallpaper by Melinamade, Vintage Inspired Designs
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most excellent illustration
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September 08, 2005
fyshlyps visitor log
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September 07, 2005
CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR THE INTERNATIONAL GARDEN FESTIVAL
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September 05, 2005
hunter s interview
On the surface it's this cartoonish, ether-chugging adventure, but then there are all these darker themes—the death of the American Dream, instant gratification, how Americans find happiness—all that's underneath. So it's like a thrill ride to read the book, but then you pick up other messages along the way.
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The Glad Version
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Salter's band The Glad Version
www.myspace.com/thegladversion
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mint web stats
Mint: A Fresh Look at Your Site
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columbia sustainable development phd
SIPA-Ph.D. in Sustainable Development
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unitec - developers in india
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September 04, 2005
Build Boston
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September 03, 2005
otoBilder installation
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Welcome to Instructables: step-by-step collaboration
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Katrina Information Map
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September 02, 2005
apartment therapy
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cubic tragedy movie
CUBIC_TRAGEDY_QT6.mov (video/quicktime Object)
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idea generation methods
The definitive collection of idea generation methods
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September 01, 2005
Exercises on the Ball
Core Exercises for Ab strength- Exercise Ball
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Exercises on the Ball
Core Exercises for Ab strength- Exercise Ball
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Top 10 Fitness Ball Exercises
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goats
Hey, You Got Something To Eat? | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
Hey. Come on. Don't be greedy. I said I'd like a little something to eat. Put something in my mouth now. Let me chew something, you fucker.
Oh shit, man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. That was uncalled for. There's no problem. I'm really sorry, friend. Food-giver. That's what you are. There's the stuff. Food-giver. You're my friend.
Hey, by the by... You got anything to eat? Don't go out of your way on my account. It's nothing, really—I don't need nothing. But if you got something, I'll eat it.
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