22nd Nov 2009 Clement Greenberg, Modernist Painting, Kant Society - forces that bind or break, constructs - history

changes Structuralists and P.S gives society a lot of importance Clement Greenberg (Kant modernist painting) - electric economy -> post industrial economy - digitalization - simulation - Picasso, dada, cubists, Duchamp, pop art want to produce art that coincides with its contest - Relationship between things Transcendental view -doesnt want to break the past unity art is about the field, not the figure no outside relationship not working with structuralist condition Greenberg Kant (enlightenment thinker) new set of metaphysicals (not physical, the mind) Neo classicism and enlightenment have their fingers planted on the French and American revolutionists. - Liberty everyones capacity to think for themselves. - No need for a king, ppl can govern themselves as they are rational individuals (Ingres, David) - white house greek temples govt buildings - colossus enlightenment - using greek design as its icon the spirit they want the new republic to be about - redisign of govt building -> Kant Arts have an essence (AMA 25) an essentialism, essence is something abstract Esscence of painting - flatness - modernist art embraces the flatness - detatches the painting from the world and itself. flatness operates in a different/separate space -> metaphysical space ->self refrential art is only about itself

Greenberg gets the idea from Kant Kant 1) phenomenon everything is only in your mind (think and perceive) - you can only know something after your mind has perceived it - so you only know your perception of things - conceptual things (time and space) 2) Noumenon actual thing that you can never have direct contact with - Das ding an sich the thing itself. - Can never have direct experience of things. - Actual objects, cant trust them, because you never have direct contact with them. what produces these perceptions - A priori concept the software for your mind computer -_- It takes new data and turns it into something readable - Like TIME and SPACE - Every perception exists in a network of time and space. But time and space dont exist in the real world, they only exist in the mind so that we can make sense of things/ give things meaning - Your mind projects time and space onto things because we cant understand things outside of the concept of time and space - As there is no way to learn about these things, they have to be given to you Innate Metaphysical

30th October 2009 Lacan, Elizabeth and Stuart Ewan, reading culture Lacan lack negative we are incomplete desire in representation -nostalgia -lack fulfilled through representation scepticiam -> Descartes COMMERCIAL illusion, belief, can be skeptical,high production value INFORMERCIAL ridiculous, entertains, pushy, in-your-face, makes fun of the conventions of typical commercials. self paradies, CAMPY (DRAG) CORNY AND CLICH -informercials are like television in drag. The conventions of consumerism are exposed -the same way you cant be skeptical of drag queens, you cant be skeptical of informercials because they are exposing the conventions of advertising and making fun of it. Epistemplogy study of knowledge Semeology study of signs Representation fidelity, verification Simulation infinite replicability, precession Metaphysical, transcendental -Mirror stage

6th November 2009 Methodologies, chpt 4 pg 69, Marx Why make art? Marx, originated the concept of structure - theory based on binary opposition between base and super structure. - Lay the ground work for structuralism - mid 19th C start of modernism - point of collision with (humanists)(transcendental principles, Kant, beginning of 18th C) 3 metaphysical positions 1) Plato the ideal something outside our world, the ideal is where you are not, we only get different versions of the ideal. 2) Descartes Cognito the mind(non physical) and not the body the cogito is you, it is where you are, its your consciousness cogito can become part of the physical world the cogito gives us an improved version of the physical world can exchange states.

3) Kant A priori concept time and space only exists in your mind, doesnt exost in the physical world - before you can even think, it comes before experience - never has contact with anything outside of the mind. - We need time and space to understand everything, we use them as our lenses we never see the thing itself, we only see our own perception of it - Phenomenon and noumenon never touch perception light & space artist james turrell (sky window) perception, transcendental, phenomenology. art happens in your perception, no physical forms or shapes. Distance between physical and metaphysical gets closer and closer getting increasingly mystical, more paradoxy the reason physical/metaphysical is getting strange is because its all a LIE and then the trainwreck happens. philosophy must become a hammer to smash all the mirrors which are all lies LIES told by the ruling class who created these lies in order to suppress the lower classes. Ctd

Marxist theory (theory made visible pg 18_ Base 1) Material things materialism directs things (conditions of production) - we all have to eat, and what we eat depends on where we are - Natural resources at our disposal 2) Means of production tools - art is a way of making symbols that ppl believe making a beautiful new symbol that convinces ppl - to hold symbols (crowns, jewels,) they held power Artists constructed symbols that create ideology that get ppl to believe what you want them to. 3) Relations of production (historical dialectic) they are in control because they are in control of mass production. - class struggle - labour (hand/consciousness dialectic) the dominant figure in each era determines ideology and controls the means of production. [Interactive dialectic between base and super structure] 4) Superstructure Create a superstition to say that there is justice, why things are fair - educational system, philosophical systems, usefulness for art ideological systems the ruling class sets up and uses to keep people believing in them. Metaphysics is constructed, not given by God, or nature or whatever

13th November 2009 Brecht, Alienation effects in Chinese acting, Marxist fanboi Brecht Marxist strategy for making art, director, writer for theatre, 30s prewar, (plays: mother courage and her children, Gallelio (faced problems with the catholic church), member of the communist party in Germany in 1930 under the nazi hatred of communists. - fled germany Brecht opposed bourgeois theatre {romantics- highly skilled painters, varnished finishes, perfect, glass like -wanted to create illusions so that ppl wouldnt be aware that they were lookin gat a painting - wanted to created a pure image with no body or materability modern films and movies have the same effect image is completely illusionary} modernists shattered all those perfect illusions - painting became imperfect, no smooth , knit together illusions unlike the romantic paintings - music became atonal, no harmony or melody bourgeois movies emotional inflection so the audience feels something conversion the actors convert themselves into someone else method acting Brecht opposes these illusions because its more real and youre emotionally involved audience turns off their mind and just goes with the flow of it Blind belief easily deceived (Marxist ideology) So these plays are just soaking you in bourgeoisie ideology the audience soaks in their ideology - bourgeois theatre ideology that there is an essence and that everyone is equal universality were all equal Brecht plays should not do this, they should (histories) (see the means of production) alienation - by making the play look strange, people are always aware of it, always thinking about it. P. Modernism allows the immersion into the movie that modernism doesnt allow Michael Moores documentary rough, unfinished, no varnish Even these documentaries are not true

M.Moore is plying a character, youre seeing M.Moores view on the subject, not seeing the documentary the way you see it. - You cant stand outside the play because weve already seen it before - P Modern you can never be outside of the story, someones always looking at you looking at someone looking at someone looking at someone looking at someone blahblahblahblaba looking at the story. {infinite regress} Modernists you can be outside the play -Sophie C-something self portrait of a disappearing artist.

20th November 2009 Bell Hooks, Talking Back, Marginality as a Site of Resistance, Foucault institutions Art is part of the circulation of things no adverserial distance no longer stands outside of society doesnt have an outside position - As an artist, you are not influenced by things, but by images of things (Lacan) design in representation your unconscious is formed through a discourse of things, not through inner depth. P Modern condition is informed by desire in representation Cindy Sherman film noir, femme fatale specific image of a type of woman represented in a specific point in a film youre looking at an image of a supposed film still INFINATE REGRESS -- looking at cindy shermans view of the film still which is someones view of blahblah --P. M art never have a representation of the original thing, only someones perception of it you end up with work that falls short and flat. Modernists believed he could stand outside the system they made paintings that were never seen before cos they wanted to undermine the bourgeois sensibilities ------------------> You have to be outside the system in order to criticize it Foucault P modern thinker about the system of power --deconstructs the system that came before (Karl Marx domination, power over subjugated class that controls means of production) --Ideology (art, religion, education, science, politics) How the dominant class hyponotises the subjugated class teleology has built in start and ending points, beginning and end biological entities Foucault human history is teleological, from one phase to anotherthey dont look similar but they are all part of one sequence. Leading from beginning (antiquity) to an end (when capitalism is under its own stresses)

-----------> Karl Marx had to put himself outside of history (puts him in a transcendental position (metaphysical position) which goes against his position that there are no transcendental things, that everything is about materialism [Contradicts Marxist theory] Foucault you dont have to own something to have power - everyone has power - power runs through infinite regress power connected to personal interest Power operates in two ways 1) Power over the body (your body is the conduct for power) an engine of power and the victim of the power system - your body has been moulded by power systems - naked display of power prisons - the prisoners body is restricted, prison is suppressing the body, controlling and keeping it in place in order to control and hold the body in place, deterrent, reform. - Perception that the prison system is broken is wrong - he proposes that is how prisons in fact work, not by stopping criminals, but by perpetrating crime, not by stopping criminals, but by subsidizing them. Sending ppl to jail only propagates a life of crime. 2) Power of the body (pleashure) power of pleasure - you never know what brings ppl pleasure, it is unpredictable - because you cant predict whatll bring ppl pleasure, you cant institutionalize it, cant contain it keeps ppl out of the range of contro. - Once you institutionalize pleasure, people will start looking for something else thatll bring em pleasure power of the body - Can never be gratified, always searching, looking for new intensities, always supplanting itself. AMA chpt 7 - how this system of power is harnessed by P modern artists, effect this has on knowledge. Global overviews are no longer possible, there is no longer a standard for normalcy (there used to be god and his ideals) -knowledge is based on relative perspectives knowledge becomes relative Eurocentrism that they have knowledge and its their job to spread it to all the barbaric nations (white mans burden) As opposed to multi culturalism - a rebuttal to evolution - pluralistic POVs - decentralizes

Modernist artists are suppose to add something new to the time (Avant Garde) P.modernists history is not a sequence of events, they cant create something new - art is not linear sequence - all points of history are equally accessible and usable no expectation you can add anything new Jimmie Durham (221) - Treating materials just as sacred and profane as everything else - Cultures have become hybridized and multicultural Joseph Beuys (87) - Tries to go back to an early part on the timeline to a point when ppl were closer to the beginning, cant add anything new to the sequence - Reliant on the idea that the truth is out there and that he can find it. PModernisms relationship to knowledge and power - stopped trying to represent reality but tried to make work a part of reality that creates situations in the world rather than depictions of the world - art is becoming dialectically engaged with reality - not about what the artist is trying to say, its about what the art work says to you - cultivates a new genre, a new way of looking at things New Genres film, video, flash mobs, performance, conceptual art, photography all operate as installation installations dont depict reality, they are a part of it. Rearranges what is already there, doesnt add or subtract Eg. Graffiti, SPIRAL JETTY - involves power - assumes power is everywhere anyone can just go anywhere and dadado stuff. Power as an open system - the truth is singular, only one trute - art is about phenonmena that can be quantified, totalized, and contained - eg. Helvetica modernist font, (picture, some one adds an s making it pmodernist, makes it fluid, more than one truth, more than one POV)

4th December 2009 Wolfgang Schirmacher, Homo Generator: Media and Post modern technology, Foucault 2 technologies that have characterized the post-modern era - Biotechnology technology applied to the human body cloning, stem cell research, implantation devices, prosthetics, cosmetic surgery. Matthew barney -> blurring the lines between make up, cosmetic surgery and all that stuff -> redesign the human body. -> Investigates the different types of design. - Communication technology computers, wireless stuff, handphones, ipods. Tvs only with regard to distribution is mass still a topic, in terms of audience, we are dealing with tailor made inventions, what has really changed with mass media. In the past is was mass media cos it was for everybody and distributed widely, but the technology now allows you to personalize stuff, edit you own stuff, customize your own things, its all personal. carry your own phone around, create your own play list. Open systems -> not coming in just one direction. The system is open because anyone can edit their own things. This open system of communication fosters irony. Because we have a polyphonic language of several codes. Deals with indirect communication. These technologies allow you to be yourself, only more so -> have a larger presence in the world, much more exposed, can be in several places at once, can do more things through the technology than you can do without them. Have more power. Communication design has both succeeded and failed. To a certain degree you can shut it off, to some degree you cant. Its an open system, no totaling answer. You dont really know whether or not you can separate life from technology. Artificial life and real life are irrevocably interwoven. You cant tell who is the controller and who is the controlled and after a while it doesnt even matter. (Michel Foucault Prison, body has been modified, power is all over the place) Cant tell who really has the power, all over the place. And irony is the primary motif that has emerged.

The irony is that the only signifier is the style in which things are presented. A news presenter is a celebrity just as an entertainment person like jay leno is. The condition of free play is the irony, making work feel more like play. Play is serious now. These two different styles no longer signify a real difference.