Mark Wright
From this first lecture of the year we had two current tutors give us a talk about their practises and how they perceive art differently. To begin with Mark Wright spoke about his methods. From a scientific background, Mark wasn't educated into the art world. Instead he came to the decision to move to to art through the similarities he saw in it and science, embodiment. He described embodiment to be two entities, the soul and body. Known as the theory of Dualism. In modern versions they look at cognitive theories which he saw to be a link between how viewers of art interact and perceive it. Using the example of the rubber glove experiment, which uses one fake hand and the participants own to trick them into believing the pain inflicted upon the fake hand was their own. mark uses this to show how the cognitive brain can be tricked and split in two. In my opinion this isn't a meaning I would ever use within my own work, but I find it interesting how he can see similarities between art and science and how they can be used to further each others fields of work.
Through research into design he used architects, designers and artists to do their practise without notice and meaning, no purpose or libraries too. By doing so he was seeing if they could find solutions to fields of work. Example being archaeologists having the issue of losing contact of the artefact behind glass and special lighting which takes away the context of the object and makes it just another exhibit, no purpose or use. I liked this due to it conflicting ready made pieces because they also lose their context and purpose by being placed upon a plinth. Their solution was to create immersive versions of the objects through virtual reality to create the feeling of being their in the origins of the artefact. this to me shows being innovative because it uses today's science and technology to make visuals and education one thing. This has given me the idea to experiment with digital modelling for my own practise due to the possibilities of making installations seem bigger, smaller and more impossible than they can be in reality.
Connecting Cities - Binoculars to binoculars
The viewer of this immersive art looks through the binoculars which show another city somewhere around the world which, in which displays a live image of their eyes on a screen, and visa versa for the other city. This shows how science can connect with art to show and educated others about the world we live in. This piece really impressed me with the scale of knowing that when you peer through these binoculars, people form thousands of miles away are spectating you. This gave me many ideas for how using our connecting world through social media and technology can share experiences. This reminded me of how when I was living and working in america over summer, I could still share my travel experiences through video calling my family and friends showing them the environment I was in. This could be developed into an installation through making the viewers feel as though they are there through feelings, touch, smells and sounds. All through science and tech.
Another piece Mark spoke about was his work with Be Another Lab, who specialise in VR systems, together they created work that explored identities through simulating and making the participants believe they have swapped bodies with the person in front of them. Having a perspective of someone else which then gave them the feelings that they were in that body by seeing themselves touching body parts. This relates back to the rubber glove experiment which showed how the cognitive brain can be fooled. I particularly liked this piece due to its complexity and how it makes you really think about whats happening in front of you.
Rory Macbeth
Beginning as a street artist creating realistic copies of renaissance portraits 12 years before eventually starting an art degree. he explained the big change from this medium to his practise today. Showing his meaning through two classical paintings, point being that many have the main subject of the painting looking at the viewer. He took this concept in his own practise but messed around with it a little. Examples such as dj-ing phone hold music, a fake tour of the Tate giving false information which the participants believe and him being the subject interacting with the viewer, a wax work of someone pretending to be a statue in public giving the perception of it being a real performer which shows the connection through the subject looking at the viewer and the one I liked most being the object, made from the object itself. In this he created trees and rocks made from sculptured branches and stones scaled down. This trickery blends in with mark's work of tricking the brain. The work that I see being similar to mine was his installations, for example No Place, where he wanted to take a political meaning into his piece but ended up with people seeing it as beautiful instead. which resonates with pieces I've done in the past where the message is ignored due to the overall aesthetic, but on further inspect it reveals itself. This piece of his takes scale into play too which is something I want to experiment with because it gives the spectacular overwhelming feeling when viewing it. I relate it back to my work of typography photography where I created the image through using context writing that related to the image. similar to his work of creating things with said things.
The pieces of his that I see as silly but effective take his personality into action as you can see its his work. The square leaves on the tree, "self standing sculptures" being paint brushes struct in place from drying paint and taking crash barriers from accidents to show the story of what happened, they seem simple and complex at the same time. Thought provoking is a term I would describe Rory's work as being because of the time and meanings taken into consideration when making the pieces as he still uses the concept of the subject looking at the viewer from the classical paintings.
From this lecture I got inspired by how both their work relates through not obvious connections which I see in my own practise due to the range of themes all relating in one way, its just difficult to see. For this reason I went along to the Q and A to learn more about their concepts, especially embodiment as I didn't understand it. Now I get that embodiment is more philosophical than it being taught through educating. I found the concept that virtual art and realism can blend together, after all their aim is to recreate whats only in reality, just in different environments ect. I found the idea that this can be an escape and addiction to be interesting and maybe a topic to look into as in our social media age we are trapped in norms that previous generations weren't. Bringing questions of why are we trying to recreate reality when its all around us?
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