SUMMARY
ARTiculA Action ART MARCH
2 0 1 3 Feel free to submit your artworks: just write to articulaction@post.com http://articulaction.yolasite.com/submit.php
IN THIS ISSUE
Emily Putter
(USA) “All what I paint on the canvas comes o from the questions and suggestions that does the material in movement and naturally also from things I have seen.“
Deborah Esses
(United Kingdom) “Movement has been the focus of my work for a long time. Movement is deeply connected to the speed of my thoughts and memories, travelling, reacommodating inside my mind.”
Eva Lee
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(USA) “Given the right conditions, great changes can suddenly happen from little constituent elements that seem unrelated. Everything matters. I often think about this when I consider Nature’s scales.”
Missy S.
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(Schwitzerland) “One of my major points and messages behind all my art is, that terrifying experiences have always an impact on further generations and do not just simply stop when the war is over, like in my case too.”
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(Spain) “Photography serves as the basis for the creation of a collage, which is treated artistically. For this reason, these compositions have a plastic and aesthetic expression close to painting”
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SUMMARY
(Spain)
48 “Words that could describe my artwork, are, honest, genuine, intimate, simple, depth and not directed to any kind of public. I do what I feel I have to do. That’s one of reasons why my art can be so interdisciplinary”
(USA)
Samantha Raut
50 “My artwork revolves around storytelling and creating a space for self-reflection, and challenges social traditions that we accept or go along with”
(United Kingdom)
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James Buddes Dees
“A work of art may have an impact on the mind or the body or have emotional or spiritual content, and that may be made from whatever material (marble, pixels, trash), but the primary objective is the communication of ethics and priorities”
(Belgie / China)
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Annelies Slabbynk
“My art work acts as a mirror reflection of human life, and its related existential questions, which go hand in hand with the natural evolutionary process of the human body”
(USA)
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Dato Mio
My work is both personal and conceptual stemming from a need to express and give form to ideas arising from my experience. Art is not a luxury. It is fundamentally connected to every aspect of my life and essential for living itself.
(Australia)
80 “I describe my particular practice of painting to be 'visionary' and I am inspired by the work of many Fantasy artists and Surrealists. My work also has a strong spiritual influence, as from a young age my mother would teach me about the universe and its cosmic powers, our connectedness with nature.”
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Chantelle Ferri
“Certain forms try to tell us something or, have said something, that we should not have lost, or they are on the point to say something. This upcoming revelation, that does not happen, is perhaps the aesthetic phenomenon….” Jorge Luis Borges
Emily (Germany)
an artist’s statement
“In my paintings I try to go as far as possible away from known images, even from images and all that has to do with publicity, advertising. My way out of this is to create a surface that is so complex and like a natural skin, grown in authentic ground, free from all intentions, like grass or flowers just happen somewhere…. Unrepeatable and unique. All what I paint on the canvas comes o from the questions and suggestions that does the material in movement and naturally also from things I have seen. I am absolutly against the use of fotografie for painting. I look at the world and look and look and sometimes take a sketch , then this constructs itself in the head to a visual mood. In the working process this interacts with with the materials I use. In a certain sense it is like Caspar David Friedrich did with his landscapes. The construccion is interior. The real things in life happen suddenly and without being able to control it. Control is fear and fear is bad for art. Painting is the conquest of freedom from our-selves as a creature . It opens the wide world and its beauty. Therefore it is necessary to let yourself go: the ego is the worst enemy of a painter. This experience comes to the persons that are later living with the paintings, in a reasonable time of co-habitation and then they complete it with their own, new input.
a photo of Jan Sobottka www.catonbed.de
All these moves I did by my own and because I needed it for me and my work. These moves maintained me free in the head and open for the developing of my work. I paid the price for this freedom, the constant economic edge and I did a lot of jobs that left me enough space for what was always extremely important in my life: Painting !!
Only then it is born. The circle is closed and a new level is possible to reach, a communication worked out in space and time. I am working over many years constantly and more or less hidden and now there is a huge amount of work. I moved from South Germany to Berlin then to Mexico and then to Barcelona and later to Madrid…
A sequence of stills from Spree III - Sturm und Drang
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From this point on starts a new relation with the spectator. Now these two, the finished painting and the viewer have to click and make art happen. But it is also time to listen again only to the music because now music is charged with a similar, fami- liar working process . It is visualized. On the other hand, dialectically, the silent painting now is full of music, it becomes an “audiolized” painting. In this moment we just finalize a new film with new music and a new angle and process. We will release it soon. The Kama Sutra. Michael Neil: an artist’s statement
I see the films we produce as possessing an atmospheric quality, or ambience, because they are stories told in a series of photographic stills with music. A film gives a temporal aspect to Emily’s work, which occurs in the realm of space and this, for me, gives it a haunting quality. I think it is one of the most important films of all time. It has a strange haunting quality because it is about a man foreseeing his own death and, for me, this haunted quality is due to the unconventional way the story is told in photo stills concerning the subject of time. Of course a photo is very similar to a painting in that it is a spatial rather than temporal pheno-menon. It is this quality that gives his film its haunted atmosphere. Marker makes excellent use of music to tell his story and I think that La jetйe has subconsciously affected all my films and the music that accompanies them, or a film that accompanies the music. I do not really consider myself to be a film maker but I have worked in the medium since 2002 in order to augment a certain type of music project. So it has become a tool in order to visualize music; music that generally falls into the ‘cinema for the ear’ category, because it is predominantly instrumental and has been influenced by film music from my youth, like John Barry as one example. (Michael Neil)
I visualized the main themes of my existence and this is valid for many people because we are not so different as we sometimes think. That I am a female painter had also an big importance, because it made the things much more difficult , and I had to learn this lesson also. But I went on and on in spite of everything, like Thomas Mann says , Art hap- pens in spite of. Now since I am again in this exiting Berlin a new element introduced itself in my work: MUSIC. Music brings time and movement to the painting and the painting process visualizes music. With Michael Neil, the composer, we found out that the music starts from the first brushstroke on and it develops in visual movements .We started to develop this. Photos, not videos, because a video brings a movement to the “film” but the movement should be only and exclusively the process and the music. So Music moves us through the doing, the process, and then leaves us alone with the result, the final point, the finished painting.
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an interview with &
Michael Neil
First of all, we would like to ask you what in your opinion defines a work of art and what is the nature of your relationship with music. By the way, are you a work in silence type?
Emily: A work of art comes out of a high level authenticity that strikes to a point of the NOW (Present - Contemporary practice??). I think that this is the same for all arts. So working with a composer is like working on the same level with different medias. I don’t listen to music while I work but sometimes I play something I know very well that put me in the mood to work. Moreover, music brings a temporal aspect to paintings and paintings bring a physical aspect to music. Could a symbiosis between two apparently different media implement a completely new kind of art, or just reveal hidden features of what we use to call "tradition"?
Michael: Both to a certain extent. But the latter is probably easier to comprehend in the context of music as a soundtrack - in the traditional sense: in our case short films made up of photos taken during the painting process and then edited together to create a sense of movement, i.e. film and its temporal counterpart, music. Whether this constitutes a “new kind of art” I am not so sure but music certainly gives a spatial art like painting a temporal character combined with the process of filming and this, I feel, has not been overly exposed as an art form.
and Micheal Neil a photo of Jan Sobottka www.catonbed.de
Do you visualize your Art before creating? Do you know what it will look like before you begin? What’s your process?
Emily: No, I do not visualize, I have to be in the right mood … So I start on a big canvas or on paper (also big size) just to see what comes out. This is a long process always several weeks until I learn to see what is the real theme that moves me .
Emily: The symbiosis happens when the process of painting, the making of it, is opened, so the two meet there in the temporal sense and the last note is the beginning of the finished work, its physicality. 6
to create music to a moving image - the greater challenge is to produce music to the ostensibly static image. Emily's assertion that it is easier for people to comprehend the moving image rather than to stare at a painting for a significant length of time is, I believe, a valid point. As a fan of film I can easily relate to this, however, to live with a painting is to get to know it better and discover new elements emerging from it. I have learned this from Emily and it allows me to relate to a painting on a different level. Emily: The composer and the painter in our case work alone, by themselves. But the composer looks at the process and starts to work with it. So we work from the same process. Especially in the Spree series the necessity of music is also in the theme of the painting, water, the flow, a river that is in constant movement, it is essentially changing yet always the same. So the music comes from two sides.
The idea of showing the process of doing a piece of art reminds a concept that Douglas R. Hofstadter explained in his best seller "Godel, Escher, Bach": painting is capable of exposing a synoptic scheme of Art, while Music is the only way to represent evolution, not only from a temporal point of view. What's your point about this? What are the differences in collaborative methods between painting and music? How did this effective and fruitful collaboration begin? By the way, most of the times, contemporary video making is very much a collaborative practice between video makers "toutcourt" and musicians...
Michael: It is a long time since I have read Hofstadter's book but as I remember it, he placed Bach's music and it's mathematical complexity with Godel's mathematical models whilst portraying Escher as a sort of intermediary - a spatial representation of their mutually combined disciplined approaches.
Michael: Emily wanted to document the process of her Spree series and wanted a score to accompany the filmed documentation. Emily's technique is very gestural and has a musical quality to it. Generally it is easier
Hofstadter was trying, if I remember correctly, to demonstrate how the brain interprets the world through mathematical codes or models. If my music has any relationship to this view it is with the preoccupation with the spatial in a deliberate 7
Spree IV
You have stated that "a painting has the complexity of a feature film but no one looks at a painting for ninety minutes": there's a clear difference between watching to a sequence of masterly brushstrokes and admiring the final result. Your works seem to offer an Ariadne's thread
attempt to escape the temporal, and, by association, mathematical nature of music and aim towards a timeless, open landscape, perhaps like a Mobius strip. Emily: What I try is to show is precisely the evolution of a complex painting‌. 8
a sequence of Sand Angels of Ifitry
between these apparently different moments, isn't it?
been doing it for about three weeks and now just saw what it is about. The Sand Angels is my first work using photos and then over painting them. So I just used the forces of nature to show what they showed me. Together with the music that is done in the same way with the samples of sound that were given to us by the nature. So I saw how well it can work together.
Emily: That is an interesting way of putting it. Yes I feel that it is difficult for the people to see, to look at something, as well as listening. I learn now to see listening.. It is perhaps necessary to teach looking: a “seeing� school like the Bauhaus did. Today everything goes so fast that looking at something shining is influencing us without our knowledge. All surfaces are publicity for something unnecessary. So showing the process of growing, the spectator gets a feeling of the result. A painting is like an human being that you come to know little by little: this applies also for the painter him/herself? Just like a mother who has to know her son...
Emily: Right, also the painter gets to know and see what comes out and what is going on in the painting, this is the continuous process that brings you to the next project: you get to know yourself better and can use yourself as something like a medium for the next themes. There's another work of yours that has impressed us: Sand Angels of Ifitry. By the way, Could you take us through your creative process when starting a new project?
Emily: I am just starting one , about mathematic formulas or about the internet . I have
installation in the ST. Georgen Cathedral in the hanseatic Wismar,
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We have had the chance to find on You Tube an interesting video and we've got to know that your grandmother was an artist and one of the first women to have a professorship in a German university, and probably in Europe. Did this at all impact on you?
Emily: I don’t know really, because my grandmother died when I was very young and her work, some sculptures, that survived belonged to the family story that is not so interesting for somebody so young. But close to the dining table there was hanging an oil painting that my great grand mother had painted, a dark, but very well done portrait and I think that this influenced my taste for painting, unconsciously. By the way, we would like to ask you what's your point about formal training: do you think that artists with a formal education have an advantage over self-taught artists? What should be the goal of an Art School?
Emily: As I taught for a 2 years I found out that there are students who want to be challengers to the society and make money. So for these type of students it is necessary to teach about speculation and money etc… and there are always some that want to go the long way of knowledge and this is with a totally uncertain end and these people really need, and want to know, about drawing and materials and painting… so they have to be taught in all the disciplines just to be able to go through it. You have told a nice and true story about the first time that you've sold a painting: we would like to ask you what are in your opinion some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship between the business and arts?
Spree I
most challenging aspect of being an artist today. We have reached saturation point where, through digital media and technologies, it has never been easier to make something called “art”. Perhaps painting, due to its strong physical presence, doesn’t possess a presence when viewed on the internet, one needs to see it in the flesh, so to speak. So I think it isn’t sub-
Emily: If I would know this I would be like the alchemist that always wanted to know how to make gold… Michael: Well I am no alchemist either. I would say that it is probably the most important and 10
remains very difficult to get on. The labels still have the power through distribution networks and, in the present commercial climate, only produce and distribute what they can guarantee will sell. To a great extent the days when record labels were owned by enthusiasts who really loved music, have passed. In today’s commercial business climate it has never been so difficult to make a living out of ones practice; and not just in popular music: we are seeing an increasing number of highly musically educated individuals struggling to make ends meet. So, the challenge for a sustainable relationship between business and art, as you put it, requires practitioners to endlessly invent new ways of making work and publishing it. That people want to hear it and are willing to financially support it is a different matter. I think to achieve a livelihood, and I mean just surviving, as an artist, it is necessary to work with business and develop a mutually beneficial relationship. To some this might sound like a Faustian contract but since public funding has largely dried up we have to seek an income somehow. Perhaps drawing closer to business is a solution.
jected to technology the same way music is. Anyone with little musical knowledge possessing a computer, a music software package, and a USB MIDI device can make a piece of music and publish it on the internet. The music buying public can download it for a small cost or, in many cases, for free. Unless one has a recording contract with an established label it
working at Spree (a photo of Hamadi Ananou)
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Emily Not to mention that art should have an effect, should communicate something. Do you think art’s purpose is simply to provide a platform for an artist’s expression?
Emily: I think that as a platform for people that simply want to express themselves it is something that happens but with ART it has nothing to do with it. For art it is necessary for more, people that look and like and enjoy it and don’t want to be artists too. We are in the post Beuys time, everybody wants to be an artist until there will be no more art and then the story will start again, because humanity needs and needed always beauty and something that is simply true. We would like to thank you for this interview, and we have just a last we're always interested in hearing the answer to… What aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?
Emily: Love and being in a fructifying process of painting ….
http://www.emilypuetter.com
a photo of Jan Sobottka www.catonbed.de
Deborah Esses (United Kingdom)
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Deborah Esses
Deborah Esses was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1966, where she spent her childhood. When she was 15 she started her Fine Art studies at the “Instituto Beato Angelico” graduating with her first degree in 1985. In 1986 Esses attended a one year postgraduate course at Tel Aviv University, studying Art History in the Middle East. She then returned to Buenos Aires, where she enrolled in a Mixed Media course at the “Ernesto de la Carcova Fine Arts Academy” under the lead of artist and professor Alfredo Portillos. The following year she travelled throughout Europe, and became particularly interested in life in London, where she would later move to live and work.
Red Lady
to masters like Otto Dix, Oskar Kokoshka, Ernie Barnes and the Chinese painters Yue Minjun and Yang Shaobin and yet with an entirely individual style. Movement is what appears to be at the centre of her artistic production, Movement is what appears to be at the centre of her artistic production, together with a repertoire of personalities that appears inexhaustible. She would later explain “my initial decision to focus on movement themes comes from my own accompanied by an internal movement physical moving that doesn’t seem to be appeased…”
Between 1990 and 1993 she began using the collage technique and won prizes in national competitions. From the very beginning Esses felt attracted to depict the emotional aspect of each subject and the psychology behind each of her characters, rather than reproducing or imitating figures in an academic way. Her work owes much to modern expressionism
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Deborah Esses
60s party
She spent many years travelling until in 2002 she decided to finally settle in the UK, living first in Kent, and moving later to London. In her work there are couples dancing, athletes stretching their bodies and a whole world of joy where fun prevails over all.
these refer to how the human being has turned its back on insanity and prostitution, sending children to war. “When I suffer or get depressed I can’t work and my work doesn’t come to completion” ”By expressing myself through colours I would like to transcend the turbulence and darkness of my most painful experiences”.
The large canvasses put an emphasis on the freedom of women and their ability to enjoy womanhood be they truly dull or hyper sexy women. There are a few pictures of women viewed from behind;
Deborah Esses currently lives in London where she has her studio and gallery. http://deborahesses.com
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An interview with
Deborah Esses
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Deborah Esses
Reading your CV, we have been impressed by the wide spread of your experiences. So, first of all, we would like to ask you how your multidisciplinary training in Fine Arts has informed the way you produce your own art today.
In Buenos Aires I underwent academic training and the masters remain figures of great relevance to my work as a point of reference. When I started art school I knew of Oskar Kokoshka, I loved Egon Schiele’s drawing. They were a big influence, and I was very expressionistic for a long time. I still respond to them, but I’m also hesitant to use absolutes. The buzzing experience of contemporary art in London plus my emotional and intellectual experiences, shape my work and the way I work today. I use History of Art merging the academic with the avant garde trends of this century. My resources vary permanently. The gallery scene in London and the rest of Europe is huge compared to what it was and still is in Buenos Aires.
deeper. Travelling is a way of life, it allows me to appreciate the rythms and modulations of my own thoughts and being “on the move” is at the centre of my work.
You have traveled a lot, and you have exhibited in many countries: both in Europe and America and in Asia. How do travel influence your art? And What experiences have you had exhibiting in different countries?
The experiences of exhibiting in different countries varies, it depends on whether you can meet the public or not. I’ve had the chance of being in The Netherlands for the opening of my first exhibition at “Gallery 0-68” and I felt the public was extremely warm. I didn’t know any of the attendees but they all approached me to talk and ask questions and made comments about the show. The gallerist was the perfect host too, and that helped a Unfortunately, I could not attend the opening
Travelling you see new scenes and there’s always something that triggers a new painting: something I see, the memory of something I’ve seen. I’m a constant traveller: internally, metaphorically, geographically, and whatever the means I travel mainly within myself, each journey I get further and 16
Deborah Esses
the light I experience here in London. The colours seem to be more intense, more saturated. At the same time, many of the women I paint are a mirror of the Latinamerican woman: brunettes, full of passion and sexual content. By the way, when you show in Latin America are you perceived as an Argentinean artist or an European artist?
I think I’m perceived as a European artist. Europe is seen as the cradle of culture and living and working from London makes me a bit of a foreigner in my own country. We would like to mention an interesting series entitled "Sports": your masterly brush-strokes communicate a sense of movement, which is a distinctive feature of your art. At the same time the recurrent presence of an intense red reminds effort, strain but also vitaliy: also "Red Lady" shows that the human element seems to be the nuclear concept if your art. Do you agree with this statement? Deborah Esses
It’s true: movement has been the focus of my work for a long time. Movement is deeply connected to the speed of my thoughts and memories, travelling, reacommodating inside my mind. Certain subjects facilitate the depiction of motion, as it’s the case of my Sports and Dance series, where the colour has to accompany the movement. With movement I hope to capture a sense of an image I’ve seen. Sometimes the painting overpowers me and goes in its own direction.
of any of my shows in Singapore or New York, but I received a good account of how my work was perceived by the public. Moreover your works seem to be strongly affected by the Latin American way of life as suggested by your interesting "Dance" series.
Yes, the „Dance“ series is based mainly on tango steps and tango dancers, they dance tango in the streets of Buenos Aires and the images as well as the music are imprinted in my mind, I could nearly paint them from memory. Argentina being in the southern hemisphere has a daylight very different to
If the figure it‘s not in physical movement, then I want to show the movement of the thoughts, it’s own psychology, the oppossite of stagnant, and that’s when I use lots of red and strong colours, to provoke the viewer’s feeling, to make they eye blink. I want the 17
Deborah Esses
spectator to feel the strain, not to be able to remain passive. Ocassionally I like to paint animals, but they always hide a human personality: they will either have long eyelashes, or fleshy lips. I like to highlight human features on them. I can do the same with flowers, with anything really. The human eye governs everything I do, that’s the way I feel what’s around me.
represents the anger and frustration I experienced when dealing with the UK Border Agency’s employees during my immigration process. Most of the employees I had to deal with had no names and they all seemed unable to do anything (the hands in the painting are saying: „nothing I can do for you“), they’ve held my passport for nearly 5 years...and 10 years later I was able to paint the anger and represent all of them in one persona.
Your paintings often reveal a subtle irony and humor, like the piece entitled "The Civil Servant"... or it's just an impression?
This is a piece of Mixed Media that was worked on layers, there are some bits I blocked out and I brought some other bits in
I’ve heard somewhere that humour is the enemy of authority...“The Civil Servant“ 18
Deborah Esses
of, let’s say, 10 days, then I lose the idea and I have to abandon that piece of work. So in that sense, yes there’s a channel of communication that flows among the work and myself, under the umbrella of a limited period of time. 9) There's a cliche question, that we often ask to the artists that we interview: What aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction? But in this case we would go as far as to say that the act of painting itself gives you an intrinsical satisfaction, isn't it?
The Civil Servant
You seem to be a very prolific painter, and your works seem to be filled with intense emotion. Is painting like a release for you or is it emotionally draining?
I enjoy thinking and shaping ideas of what I would like to produce. The research process previous to the execution of the work is a very exciting one. My mind is always seeing action and my fingers jerk when I’m ready to use the brushes, and that tickling inside is an impression that can never be erased. It’s a personal encounter between me and the rest of the world.
I like to work intensely, I feel that the more I paint the more new ideas I have, in this sense painting is never draining. Of course my emotions go onto my production, but I also try to keep it professional, so that the final product is not my own vomit but a mixture of aesthetics, emotions, experience and knowledge.
I love the wonder of the journey. Then, finishing a painting is like a sacred moment for me: I take distance, I walk around and I worship the work, so that I can say goodbye and move onto a new piece as soon as possible. Once I finish a piece I have gratitude for life, it’s hugely satisfying.
(as the tin of non human food on the filling cabinet). It was a process of finding, or trying to find the reasons behind the behaviour.
Thank you very much for this interview, Deborah. What are you working on at the moment? What are your future plans?
By the way, how many paintings do you usually produce at the same time? Do you think that there's a "channel of communication" between different works that have been produced at the same time?
I’m currently working on human sins and human passions, I have a hammering pulse willing to paint everything I feel every minute of my life.
I normally work on 3 or 4 paintings at the same time, and these works will be closely related under one stream of thought. If for any reason I stop working on one of the pieces and I return to finish after a period
articulaction@post.com
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Eva Lee
Eva Lee (USA) I am indebted to Dr. Seuss for having written the children’s story "Horton Hears a Who", which first gave me the idea as a child that worlds can exist though we may not perceive them. What a concept! Reality may not be what it seems. This cracked open my imagination. As a visual artist and experimental filmmaker, I am inspired by what lies at the threshold of perception. I wonder about the unseen, the impalpable, the barely conceivable. The jostling of subatomic particles, the spaces between cells, what mind is, how we understand phenomena, the shape of the universe, these are some of the things that fascinate me. Science as a way of knowing is not far from my thoughts when I work.
Installation view of Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions
video installation which visualizes the data of twelve individuals, who participated in a study on the brain basis of emotions, as moving landscapes. I created twelve animations in which the shape and movement of each 3D plane are based on the EEG (electroencephalogram) values of a subject experiencing five emotional states —anger, joy, fear, sadness, and disgust. Each emotion is visible in this order at approximately eight second intervals throughout the 5 minute 29 second duration. Composer Manly Romero created sound also based on the same data and timing. The working idea was to make inner subjective states visible as external topography, experienced by the viewer as visual and auditory journeys through distinct and otherworldly terrain.
Though trained as a painter, for many years I focused on drawing only, producing large-scale black and white works on paper. This then led me to experiment with moving images on the computer. I was looking for new ways to communicate some of the above fascinations, and thanks to the newly available consumer animation software at the time, even a painter who had never trained in film could produce images sequences. It was wonderful! I loved that I could create an experience that revealed itself over time. This resulted in The Liminal Series (2004-2006) which consists of nine short digital animations. These abstract works imagine nature's scales, structures, and forces. It has been described by The New York Times as “hypnotic,” showing the “awesome infinities and minutiae of the cosmos.” My interest in the nature of mind has led to collaborations with neuroscientists. In Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions (2007), I worked with Dr. James Coan of the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, University of Virginia. It is a three-channel digital
In 2010, I partnered with Yale University Haskins Laboratories neuroscientist Dr. Einar Mencl to create an animated visual poem entitled Word Brain. This short video is based on his brain imaging from language and sound-related experiments, as well as on our conversations. Because Haskins’ main focus is, as expressed in their motto, “the science of the spoken and written word,” the animation began with me contemplating the language of neuroscience. Word Brain presents research terminology paired with lab images as pictorial wordplay, along with motion graphics that recall scanning devices and x-ray views. I also used
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Eva Lee
meditative practice in India, the birthplace of Buddhism. Created based on video and sound recordings made during my travels, it is a visual expression of the idea of egolessness or no-self. It is also an exploration of the Buddhist philosophy of dependent-arising, or the nonseparation between self and phenomena.
three-channel digital video installation, 5 min 29 sec, 2007, with sound, approxim. 6 ft high x 18 ft wide, The Wadsworth Atheneum
phrases I found striking from my conversations with Dr. Mencl, and ones shown to participants in experiments on the cognition of words. In recent years, my curiosity about mind and phenomena has led me to study Buddhist philosophy. Recalling the message of Dr. Seuss’ story, that worlds may exist even if we don’t perceive them, Buddhist philosophy introduced me to its inverse —that worlds may not exist even if we perceive them. What a concept! My imagination is cracked open again. Into the Midst (2012) is my latest work. This experimental short is inspired by research conducted on Tibetan Buddhist art and Installation view of Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions
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One sees shadowy figures, wandering through abstract terrain which recalls cosmic or cellular environments, as they alternate between substantiality and disintegration. In a continued interdisciplinary approach, some current works are inspired by Eastern non-dual and Western scientific views of mind. I recently collaborated with neuroscientist Dr. Jose Raul Naranjo Muradas of University of Freiburg, Germany, to explore ways to visualize his EEG brain data from studies on notions of "self" and "other" in prayer and meditation. His research on individuals in contemplative practice is an exciting new field in neuroscience. I am very much inspired by this unusual confluence of science and spirituality where I think no less than consciousness itself—that is, how individuals identify and define themselves in the world —is essentially under investigation. (Eva Lee)
an interview with
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Eva Lee
Eva Lee First of all, we would like to ask what defines a work of art for a many-sided and versatile artist like you? For me, contemporary visual works of art are images that communicate ideas or an experience of life aesthetically, with the intention of creating new insight for the viewer. This is different from, say, images made for other purposes, such as to sell products and services, or report news, or to popularize topics such as posters or Facebook memes. Usually the work offers surprising or unfamiliar ways to consider a subject. The content can be emotional, religious, socio-political, etc., or purely about the art process and materials used. You have a formal training in painting. You received BA from Bard College and MFA from Hunter College. How, in your opinion, has your training informed your art production? Studying painting taught me how to see, how to really see the world around me. Then how to use materials meaningfully and translate what I perceive into visual images. I once had an undergraduate art professor set up a completely white still life for our class, and we had to paint that scene. It was composed of white pitchers, white balls, white boxes, and so on. We students were amused at first, thinking it was such as easy assignment. It looked like all we needed were black and white paints.
Eva Lee _
I learned how to look beyond my chosen medium, beyond what I knew how to make. Our group critique sessions were mainly about whether one's choice of media, and use of it, supported one's subject matter. And what’s more, if you were working within the art historical tradition of painting, were you presenting a strong enough personal vision to extend that tradition? If so, then you were on the right track. If not, and your work was derivative of what another painter had already achieved, then why paint? Alternately, if you were working against tradition, then did your work show a knowledgeable break away from art history? For example, such artists at the time were doing things like painting on site-specific, irregular-shaped canvases where the paint might extend off the surface and onto the wall.
But we learned that we had to go beyond our reductivist intellect that said, "Oh, this is just a monochromatic exercise." We learned to really look at the subtleties of colors that white on white shadows present, for example. At the end of the class, the paintings we made were all rather chromatic interpretations of "colorless" objects! Look, look deeply and beyond what you think, was what our teacher was saying. This training informs me today. Then when I was in graduate school for painting,
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my main art production now. I create digital videos and experimental shorts, in addition to original drawings, archival inkjet prints of stills, Collector Edition DVDs, as well as original releases available through Tribeca Film Institute Reframe Collection. You are a multidisciplinary artist: how do you choose a particular media for your works? And what technical aspects do you mainly focus on in your work? I've continued with new media because I love its visual results. I love that I can create an experience which unfolds over time. As for technical aspects, there are so many involved that I can only make general comments. Some projects require very different approaches, such as "Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions" which was a visualization of neuroscientific data, versus "Lux Flux" which was a portrait of a city. When I work I typically use a combination of live footage, photographs, digitally created images, and special effects. I focus technically on how to create visual complexity that isn't predictable. I think about how the layering of images work together, their transparencies, color, composition--all things a painter's training comes in handy with. But more than that, I also focus on how the content is conveyed through the right timing, through how it's revealed. If there is sound involved, I work to make sure the sound aligns with the images, that it conveys the right mood, tone, strength, etc. Then after the creation of an animation is complete, there's rendering, how to get the media out into the best format for its final viewing, whether it will be an installation, streamed online, screened at a film festival, etc. For me, there is so much to delve into in new media that it's always a learning experience technically.
Being challenged in these formal ways by my professors and peers was a really valuable experience. But to my surprise, I found that the ideas I wanted to express were not best served by painting, which was a bit troubling to discover in the middle of pursuing an MFA in painting! So...what did I do? It was back to the drawing board for me, literally! I drew. And I drew some more, and by the time of my thesis exhibition, I had completed a new distinct body of large-scale abstract drawings.
In your artist's statement you have underlined the importance of Dr. Seuss' story "Horton Hears a Who" which gave you the idea that worlds may exist though we cannot perceive them. Sometimes it seems that the environment hides information, which-even though not "encrypted" tout court-need to be deciphered.
This was the work that eventually led me to animation after earning my degree. I later began experimenting with the then newly affordable and user-friendly animation software. I wanted to see what my drawings would look like in motion. This is
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Still from Lux Flux
Do you think that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of the environment or Nature, in the wide sense of the word?
elaborate a bit on your interest in this subject? By the way, you have traveled quite a lot, and you have spent time in India. What aspects of travel have influenced your artistic production?
I must say that when I was a child and I read that story, it just blew me away! I remember sitting at the couch stunned by the possibility that the very spot I was staring at in the upholstery could contain living creatures. Wow, the world around me suddenly became so mysterious with things to discover!
Buddhist philosophy has an interesting non-dual view of reality that, if I understand correctly, basically goes like this: First, there is “conventional reality,” in which things appear to really exist as separate entities, i.e., there seems to be a you and a me, internal and external things, and so on, a Cartesian duality model upon which Western science is built. Second, there’s “ultimate reality,” which is the way things actually are, in interdependence. Objects are not separated and do not exist on their own.
Perhaps artists don’t “decipher” Nature, per se, the way scientists do DNA, for example, but I do think artists can reveal things by re-presenting, re-imagining, questioning, bringing fresh ways to think about Nature, like how a writer gave me the idea through a story that reality may not be what it seems.
Things appear the way they do as a by-product of our faculties. What helps me to understand this is to think, well, what if I had microscopes for eyes? The world would indeed look entirely different. Instead of a flower, I’d see cells. And if I could look more deeply, I would see molecules, then atoms,
A recurrent feature of your art is the synergy between Eastern non-dual and Western scientific views of consciousness: can you
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Still from Lux Flux
then particles, and finally beyond that, space. Nothingness. If you really investigate into the nature of things, you find there is nothing there. Mind-boggling. Things may not exist even if we perceive them (the inverse of Dr. Seuss’ message that things may exist even if we don’t perceive them!) “Ultimate reality” is, in fact, dependentarising causes and conditions that produce phenomena. There is no flower in-and-of-itself; there is the manifestation of flower.
growing more and more vague. Do you think that this "frontier" will exist longer? Sure, now that making moving images is no longer only for filmmakers, I think it will continue because new technologies keep developing, and different kinds of artists are using them in novel ways. Nowadays, even computer programmers produce moving images that are considered video art. I do think, though, that it can be confusing with the crossover of disciplines.
So, to learn more about this viewpoint, I traveled to India on an Asian Cultural Council grant to research Tibetan Buddhist art and meditative practices, attend a Mind & Life Institute conference, and create new work. My time there resulted in my latest work Into the Midst, which is composed of video and sound recordings made during my travels. It’s a visual expression of the idea of egolessness or no-self.
In my case, I have typically shown my animations in galleries or museums as projections or installations, but often the same work can exist on its own, screened as a short film. Because of shifting boundaries and definitions, it is unclear at times where my work fits best when it comes to submitting for film festivals. Is it an “experimental film” or an “animation” when a work has elements of both? Is the criteria for these categories the same across different film festivals?
In these last years we have seen that the frontier between Video Art and Cinema is
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Stills from Into the Midst
We would like to mention your collaboration with Dr. Jose Raul Naranjo Muradas of University of Freiburg. Your work was to explore ways to visualize his EEG data. Do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and technology?
art and art-related cultural exchange. As I mentioned before, their grant supported my trip to India to research and create new work. Resources like this, and other commissions and fellowships from public or private sectors, have been invaluable for the continued development of my work. However, these are awards for specific purposes, and don’t usually provide a livelihood. If by 'business' you mean how art is currently valued and sold in a capitalist market, I would say one challenge is that the supply is so much greater than the demand. There is a lot of talent and incredible artwork that is simply not adequately supported by the market. The vast majority of artists therefore must have full or part-time jobs, often in other fields, to earn a living wage. This is not ideal in terms of tapping into their best productivity and fostering our cultural vitality and innovation. What would be sustainable? I don’t know exactly, but what if it were part of corporate culture to have artist teams to help problem-solve? What if companies also maintained art collections, which employees took turns curating into exhibitions that featured thematic panel discussions
Regarding art and neuroscience, yes, by and large, I do think these two fields are mutually exclusive. Their tools, methodology, motivations, and results are different. But can art and science partner together for mutual benefit? A resounding yes! Dr. Muradas, as well as other neuroscientists, have said to me that while they may produce prodigious amounts of data and there are methods for analyzing the data to render correlations, it is still difficult to convey their meaning to a general population, and even often to other research scientists. Graphs and pie charts are limited visual representations. From my point of view, it is an interesting challenge for an artist to be given content in the form of numbers and re-present it creatively, in a way that potentially brings new insights for the scientist, but also becomes a work of art. The production of your piece "Into the Midst," whose stills are published in this issue, has been inspired by research on Tibetan Buddhist art, supported by Asian Cultural Council. What in your opinion are some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship between business and arts? Asian Cultural Council is a non-profit organization which funds individuals for the purpose of East-West
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Eva Lee kind of internal mystery, was created by composer Chris McKenna, and it included noises and other live recordings from my shoots. Some of the most recent and popular applications of mathematics in Art involves fractals and Chaos Theory. In particular Chaos Theory was thought up in order to explain what classical physics could not. It's an extremely fascinating field and I cannot forget that I spent lovely hours reading James Gleick's bestsellers when I attended college years ago. This reminds me of an interesting aspect of your art —the balance between the rational and emotional. What's your viewpoint about this?
and dialogues in critical thinking? How about if creative workshops to develop visual communication and free associative thinking were a routine part of employee training? There is one company I know of named Meditech, a software developer for the medical and healthcare industry, that does some of these things. They have done it for over eleven years, and both employees and employer have found it rewarding.
You know, I recently read a book written by English professor John Briggs and physicist F. David Peat, entitled "Seven Life Lessons of Chaos: Spiritual Wisdom from the Science of Change." Using Chaos Theory as a metaphor, the authors suggest how to shift our outlook so we can live more aligned with the way things are, namely that Nature is nonlinear, more seemingly irrational than orderly.
We would like to ask you something about your recent video Lux Flux which has been commissioned by the City of Tampa. Can you tell us about your process and set up for making this work?
I found it engaging and positive, especially the message that small things can make a big difference. Given the right conditions, great changes can suddenly happen from little constituent elements that seem unrelated. Everything matters. I often think about this when I consider Nature’s scales. It is immense, yet it is also miniscule. It conforms to classical physics, and it conforms to quantum physics, both at once and in apparent contradiction. It’s like the exquisite ambiguity of it all balances on
Making “Lux Flux” was great fun because I filmed on location in Tampa, shooting digital video footage on land and by boat out in the Tampa Bay, at different times of day and night. I knew that what I wanted to accomplish was a portrait of the city as a living system with life cycles, but it was really in post-production that I figured out how to do it using special effects and layering of images. The soundtrack, through which I wanted to convey a
Stills from Into the Midst
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Stills from Into the Midst, 4 min 45 sec, 2012, with sound
the fulcrum of our minds. At some point, one simply has to capitulate and admit there is so much we can’t know with our linear, rational approach. And then, poof, there it is! Enter the awe, the ineffable, or call it the emotional, if you will. It’s like the experience of standing at the Grand Canyon, trying to make sense of its vastness, and realizing that you have no reference point for its scale. You really don’t know. Because you can’t intellectually understand it, you have to let go, and just be, just experience. Then something rich and inexplicable emerges. You simply stand there awash with the majesty of the canyons! No words, no conceptualizing, just feeling.
Sound plays a crucial role in your video. You have established a fruitful collaboration with Chris McKenna. How did the collaboration with him begin?
Chris and I met at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Artist residencies like this are so wonderful because not only do you get the quiet undisturbed time to work, but you get to meet creative people in other disciplines. So, communal mealtimes make for lively and colorful conversations when you can learn about the incredible work of a fellow artist. As I got to know him, I was impressed by his working methods. He was filled with elaborate connect-the-dot narratives. He had a large blackboard in his studio completely covered with taped notes and stories, pieces of scores, pictures, and so forth. He had brought all his instruments, plus recording and editing equipment, which filled up his work space like he'd been there all his life. He was multitalented, humble, smart, and irreverent. We became fast friends upon discovering that we were both practitioners of Buddhist philosophy. But we actually didn’t work together until years later when I felt that my animations needed sound. Prior to this, I had mostly made silent works. It seemed natural then to work with someone with whom I felt an affinity, who could understand my sensibility and translate it into sound.
Word Brain, archival digital print, 22 x 28”, 2012
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Discrete Terrain Still ID15, archival digital print, 24 x 29”, 2007. Edition of 5
Thank you for this interview, Eva. Just another question: What are your upcoming projects?
Thank you! As for upcoming projects, I recently received a Fulbright award, and will travel back to India to research murals in ancient IndoTibetan monasteries in the Himalayas, with a focus on the mandala principle as a blueprint for understanding the nature of mind and reality. I feel truly honored and grateful for this opportunity to study and create new work, as well as exchange ideas with Indian and Tibetan colleagues! Division Twist, ink on paper, 60” x 66”, 2004
articulaction@post.com
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‘Sotakirja’ (War journal) an artistic journey about an almost forgotten story Conducted by Missy S.
The deep roots for this whole art-project are captured around her own personal genealogy: being half Finn and having a Finnish grandfather who was a soldier during the main Finnish 20th century wars: the ‘Talvisota’ (The Winter War, 1939-1940) and the ‘Jatkosota’ (Continuation War, 1941-1944). The man in uniform, known as a picture on the wall hidden in almost silence, is the main focus for this art-project. As it happens quite often after wars the people born, just before, during or slightly after a war have a too deep, emotional bound with that specific war. Not that we can speak about forgetting, ignoring or neglecting what happened, but most of those people do not tend to be constantly open aboutwhat happened. As it then also happens is that later generations from the people who fought and died in the war, tend to ask questions about the people who gave their lives up for future generations to live in peace and freedom. One of those is Missy S. The notion ‘war journal’ can be translated into Finnish and ‘sotakirja’. ‘Sotakirja’ in two words: is a war journal in the context of a military archive, where a third party is writing down what occurred to a group and/or an individual, or a historic book. is slightly less objective and used for personal war journals, like a diary. With holding the war journal from the military archive from her grandfather in her hands, the journey about the story of her grandfather started and the artproject and the picture on the wall became alive. Although the source of inspiration is a personal, biographical journey, research about her grandfather and his life as a soldier, the whole art series became bigger and wider spread the deeper the research and information go. This has especially to do with the different aspects of war, or life as a soldier. Therefore this art series is split up in two main parts and techniques: the abstract paintings and the mixed media. On one hand there is the clear part about places, battlefields, platoons and their actions like a documentary. Those are painted in the technique of the ’propaganda’ illustrations, mixed
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karelia 01 mixed media oil, acryl and paper on canvas 30x30cm
Missy S.
with different medias (collages, wires, rust, etc.) and transformed into the modern time. Like the ‘propaganda’ style of painting is used as an authentic element, the different medias are always used as authentic as possible. For these artworks Missy S. is for instance only using real, original pictures, from books, newspapers, magazines or photographs. The abstract painted background is used to represent an emotional, personal aspect and feeling of the given theme. On the other hand there is the pure expression of abstract feelings about a real person: a loving father or husband, a brother, a son, who was forced by extreme circumstances to survive. These artworks are not based on showing the soldier as an idolized hero or a fighting machine, but as a human being. These paintings are abstract and focussed on emotions soldiers go through: confusion, coping with being isolated or being alone, living with fears andDesperation. Almost all art concerning war is either just showing the horror of it or some glorifying aspects. Shock tactics in war imaginary as consciousness-raising or just mainly for its shock value have the tendency more and more to make the pain and horror as a trivial thing these days. Missy S. deliberately chooses not to walk either one of those paths and it all asks a lot more from the spectator. Nevertheless there is a certain symbiosis between those two techniques. Because the series are part of an on going and growing process, the stories and the impression elements, which run through both series as a common line, are also in a constant growing and changing process. Although the titles for all artworks are referring to historical facts such as places or dates and are in strict connection to her grandfather’s war journal. All artworks also have a very universal aspect because of the emotional value and elements in each piece. The emotions and feelings her grandfather had to go through are actually common for all soldiers of all times (past, present and future). What started as a personal journey of her grandfather became a much bigger and deeper aspect of war and is about mankind in general. Making a one-sentence summary of the whole series could be said as: ‘an artistic journey about an almost forgotten story’
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An interview with
Missy S. We want to start by saying that we have been really impressed by your artist's statement: before getting in the matter of your Art production we would like hear something about your background.
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Missy S.
My background is quite simple, I guess. I was always drawing and painting or doing something creative since I could hold a pen. One day my art teacher from high school suggested that I should go to an art school, what I also did, because I was not even interested in doing something else. There I started to try out different medias such as painting mixed with different materials and techniques, then mixing with digital-stuff and so on. Painting or making pictures, with no matter which media was always my way of expressing. After art school I was that lucky to find a job as a stagedesigner and music-photographer, I started to have exhibitions and so on…and here I am now. You are from Finland and you currently live and work in Switzerland: moving from your country to another has impacted your process? We can recognize a clear mark of Nordic feeling, especially in your aurora borealis serie.
I was growing up in Switzerland, but I always felt a difference or that I was different. Adapting was and is still difficult for me. My mother also raised me Finnish, I would say. Therefore my roots are also very strong and I feel from time to time this homesickness for the forest’s, the nature, the people and the emptiness. Although the Finnish people are very open minded, like also my mother is, we still have something special or weird for other people and that’s exactly what I also experience. I think a lot of the people here in Switzerland can’t handle my black humor or my “not constantly talking” mood or that I just want to be alone without a specific reason. What also gives me troubles is that here is still such a big 32
Missy S. - photo by Jamez Dean
Missy S.
difference in between women and men. Scandinavians are not used to that and women are treated as equal. I think all those things have a very big impact on my work. It seems that you constantly ask to spectator to actively participate, not simply to enjoy your artworks, which look like more as a spur than a mere guide. By the way, when you conceive a work, do you think to your audience?
I honestly think that is not the right way of working for an artist or at least not for me. Art should show you something, give you an impression or even tell something about the piece or the artist itself, but not ask what do you want to see or feel. So no I don’t think about my audience in such a way. For sure I have ideas to express myself or I know exactly what I don’t want to do, but most of the time it is a series of different moments and acts. I think art should be spontaneous and without rules and boundaries, that is also the great thing about art. In short everything is a matter of how you see or feel things. A lot is happening out of a situation or an occasion, which is not predictable. For me it’s always a new challenge and I also want to keep it like this. A visual from some of your pieces that impacted on me is the red paint flooding downwards. Can you tell us a little about this feature?
I like a lot to work with this technique or element in my pictures, because it is not predictable, like mentioned before. It gives also a certain freedom in painting and in expressing. What I also like is to confuse the spectator like for instance with paint running upwards, because it is not possible to have that in a natural way and it is asking more from the people who are looking at it. For sure the red is an important element, because it has a lot of symbolic meanings. Red is always considered as aggressive, bloody or extreme, warning sings are red; all in all it is a very hard, emotional color. Therefore I like to combine red 33
Missy S.
sort of wooden boxes or something like that, are a part of the artwork itself and need to be painted too. While pain-ting I use a lot of energy. Painting is for me a physical act. I put a lot of emotions or anger and aggression in it; sometimes I even would call it action painting. Therefore it is not even possible not to cover everything. These are all the reasons why it is just not possible to have not painted parts in my work.
oil on canvas
was the Finnish name of the river Svir
70 x 70 cm
with white, which is the opposite, white is clean and calm. In general I like strong colors more, which are almost screaming at you. For sure it is also in the War Journal series an expression of the blood in the white snow. Is there a reason that you saturate your paintings, fill them up, with colours, shapes and forms? There's very little white...
the white death
Yeah indeed and if there is white, it is painted‌ For me a canvas has to be fully covered otherwise the picture is not finished. I also think, especially in my case, the artwork looses the whole effect, character and structure. Since I like to work also with large canvases the impression of almost standing in the painting and feeling like being a part of it would be gone.
oil on canvas 70 x 70 cm
Do you think art’s purpose is simply to provide a platform for an artist’s expression? Do you think that art could steer or even change people's behaviour? There's some-thing on your art that seems to move to act...
These are very important facts for me to express my art and myself. By the way, the sides are painted too and I also make painted frames or covers around them myself. Those frames or covers, which are a lot of times a
That has a lot to do with the person itself, like the artist and the audience. I seriously doubt, that art is ever changing something in this world, but maybe a few are thinking or start to think about life in general. 34
Missy S.
the destroyed dreams project (in cooperation with Jamez Dean)
Now we would like to focus on your project entitled "Sotakirja" a Finnish word which stands for "War Journal". Do you think that if weren't a personal and emotional invol-vement you wouldn’t have started it? In other words, how important is the fact that your grandfather took part in this dramatic experience?
and was raised, goes back to the experiences from my grandparents and therefore also from my uncles and my mother. That experience had a very big influence on my nephews and me again and goes on for generations. One of my major points and messages behind all my art is, that terrifying experiences have always an impact on further generations and do not just simply stop when the war is over, like in my case too.
I think it is a very important fact. Otherwise I never would have my experiences or personal view on those specific Wars. Also, I probably never would have the whole emotional bound to it and I would even go that far to say, I wouldn’t be the person now, who I am. All the history of my family and the way I grown up 35
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In your abstract you have underlined that you used authentic elements of coeval propaganda. It goes without saying that these days propaganda has improved its means, not only from a mere technical viewpoint. What's your point about this evolution? Do you think that today's propaganda is more dangerous than sixty years ago?
It’s not in my abstract; I use them in my mixed medias. Authentic elements are the photographs, the colours, techniques or wires, rust and the fonts… The point is the strong impression of the artwork otherwise it looses the message. Propaganda is always made out of a certain reason, and it has a very strong psychological fact and background, those things will never change. I think these days it is maybe more dangerous because the whole propaganda is most of the times more hidden, than sixty years ago, it was more direct and therefore the message was harder. Propaganda means spreading information or rumours deliberately, widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. That’s what I do with my art…spreading the true face of humanity.
sotalapset paper, acryl, oil on canvas, mixed media 50x50cm
Not to mention that Art has been often subjugated by politics, and in your aforesaid project you sometimes referred to propaganda: do you think that art degrades itself when serving political purposes? After all, also when expressing the struggle for freedom, Art pursues a political aim: this is a puzzling question...
My way of thinking is, there were always artists in history and there will always be those artists, who dare to say more out loud and that’s good. It also depends a lot from the artist itself and for sure also how you see things like for instance: do you feel the same way, do you agree with the artist. What often happens is, that people feel attacked by certain artists, but that’s human I guess, because they actually won’t see themselves in a mirror and it gives a very bad light on certain things, which needs then to be stopped or controlled or whatever…
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Not only the emotional value that pervades your pieces gives an extensive, universal mark. It seems also that you think of war as a metaphorical condition: do you agree with this?
Yes sure, like mentioned before…in a certain way you can see in all my artworks a little war, there are always elements such as death, pain or violence hidden, because that’s what I see and what is making me angry or emotional. You will never see me painting flowers, although I like them, but they are not keeping my attention to make art. I was always a fighter and thinking about life in general, that’s just me. Most of the people are not even aware of that they are alive; they just go on and on everyday without seeing all those things around them.
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oil on canvas, 80x80cm
Thank for this interview: what are your upcoming projects besides keeping on with the development of your current works?
Especially that gives me always a reason to create something extreme, to wake them up for at least a few minutes.
Thank you too. I started already with working on a project about women and children in difficult situations like for instance war too…. and for sure about the food industry, that keeps my attention too since a very long time…
articulaction@post.com
the destroyed dreams project (in cooperation with Jamez Dean)
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(Spain)
of artistic disciplines, always in expansion and mutation with new technologies, can be found. This fact means there has been constant technique relearning so as to integrate the interaction between different artistic disciplines in her work. on the study of different cities and their culture, and complementing it with other artistic disciplines. “Cities interpreted (Road closed)” is a cross-cultural project that combines photo montage, painting and audiovisual techniques.
Belen Paton a photo of Valeria Ancaran
The project, which was conceived as a video installation, aims to deal with space as a “feelings container”, since it is about different interpretations of towns and their intrinsic characteristics: their life and architecture and the preservation of their identity over time. In this project it is the city, that huge space with impressive buildings, the one that reinvents itself artistically to revive the spectators’ awareness over the town environment.
This work was inspired by the idea of the identity of the city, which takes us back to our society collective and cultural problems. It helps us design cities through initiatives on the Commons, opposite to the new architectural design of cities, which tends to reticulated expansion without a core that creates a collective sense of community which can be part of social changes. 1
Site-specific work implies the production of a piece of work influenced by the place where it was created, so that the resulting piece is fully integrated in the town. The work process involves a search for the most distinguishing landmarks of each city. Here, photography serves as the basis for the creation of a collage, which is treated artistically. For this reason, these compositions have a plastic and aesthetic expression close to painting. Therefore, they get close to digital matte painting, the new movement. The collage is animated digitally to provide it with a sense of atmosphere (light, space, movement, sound, time).
Big City, From the series Cities Interpreted,
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Bruxelles, from the series Cities Interpreted
In this way, it generates a surreal space, but based on real parts of a city and as part of this reinterpretation and the atmosphere becomes one of the main elements. The first work which was created was Big City, a small video that emerged from a digital illustration.
according to the city or the collaboration with other artists, and in this way, each piece has its own entity.
This work represents an unreal place, consisting of parts of many different cities and it suggests a dreamlike interpretation of the idea of big cities. In the case of City of Caves, the city is Nottingham (UK) and together with the choreographer Maya Brinner, Belen Paton conceived a videodance in which we can see a very special interpretation of the city and its underground caves. Each piece of the project corresponds to a different city, but not all the pieces follow the same pattern. Each responds to a different stimulus,
To see part of the project:
The opportunity of collaboration with other artists or public creates the possibility of expanding the project, thus enriching its vision and content. http://www.belenpaton.com/audiovisual/city-of-caves http://vimeo.com/24385057 http://vimeo.com/41243176
artist: photography, painting, multidisciplinary installations, sound, audiovisual media. Graduate in Fine Arts (UGR, 2006) and Master’s degree in Art and Technology (UPV, 2007). In addiRoyale des Beaux Arts de Bruxelles (2004/2005) and received different awards and artistic scholarships in Spain and abroad. Currently working as audiovisual creative in Madrid.
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Nottingham, From the series Cities Interpreted
EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS
• Alonso Cano Award of New Technologies of the Image, University of Granada. 2006. • Special Mention, Prize Alonso Cano of Painting, University of Granada. 2006.
• Runner-up XXXIst National Contest of Painting Ciudad de Manzanares (Spain). 2006. • Runner-up I Photography prize A.R.A”. Itinerant exhibition 2004. (Spain). 2004. • Artwork part of the University of Granada Contemporary Art Collection.
Nottingham, From the series Cities Interpreted
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Oloris Causa (painting) 2
Sintaxis (installation)
painting, multidisciplinary installations, sound, audiovisual media. Graduate in Fine Arts (UGR, 2006) and Master’s degree in Art and Technology (UPV, 2007). In addition, she has carried out studies at the received different awards and artistic scholarships in Spain and abroad. Currently working as audiovisual creative in Madrid. 43
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Rafael (Spain) “Words that could describe my artwork, are, honest, genuine, intimate, simple, depth and not directed to any kind of public. I do what I feel I have to do. That’s one of reasons why my art can be so interdisciplinary. I work with many kinds of expressive ways, like drawing, sculpture and photography, mainly. Even, I also mix them. Some artistic techniques that I domain, are charcoal, graphite, sanguine, Chinese ink, pastels, oil acry-
lic, collages, analogue/digital photography, modeling, direct wood and stone carving, sculptural reproduction in plaster and synthe-tic mold, assembly, soldering, and some image software, like Adobe Photoshop, CAD, 3D Studio People usually ask me, “Hey, what?s your style?” or “Are you a painter or sculptor?” Then, I look at them, answering, “My style? I have no style. I just honestly express myself. For example, sometimes it is detailed, others not, it depends of it and my needs. I tend to express my inside world, feelings, thought, etc. When I create, I usually do it in simple movements, gestures, strokes, but with hard content, able to express strongly. “Doing without doing”, with little say much. Born and raised in Seville. 44
a strong framework. In 2008, I decided to finish my studies in Barcelona, to complete my artistic formation, due to in Barcelona were more modern, more in connection with current art. Then, in 2009, I started my Ph.D. studies, finishing doctorates courses in 2010, majored in Artistic Research. During the course of 2011-2012, I fished a Master in Teaching, majored in Drawing, Image and Visual Art Education. I had some exhibitions, most of them in my home town, Seville, in Barcelona, Tenerife and in Naples. My goals as an artist are more focused in continuing growing and evolving, maintaining my personal way of artistic creation. Of course I?d love to exhibit anywhere of the World
Flowing Water Never Go Stale
My contact with visual arts starts in my childhood, lived like a game, I even drew and modeled my own toys, my own characters, existing or not. When I was thirteen, I painted my firsts oils and, drew my firsts charcoals and modeled my firsts sculptures with clay. Since fourteen until seventeen, I received drawing and painting classes from Jose Mar?a Meacho, a decorate artist from Seville, who influenced me in my early art. During High school I could complete the speciality of art. I started my studies in Fine Arts in 2004 in Sevilla, which takes in Spain officially five years. According to American student framework it is like your current Bachelor degree plus a Master degree, in Seville learning the traditional methods and techniques, 45
Well, about current Art, thinking in its fundaments, I consider that this “free style” is something good that we obtained along centuries. But if we talk about its mercantilism, well, they are different concepts. As we know, current Art is a product of its social context, so if we live in a neo-liberalism world, where everything is feasible to be speculated. So, why not, Art? With this come people who try to cheat on others. How to difference it? Well, who had created it, knows full truth about his/her artwork. I mean, that most important thing is the intention which the artist created it, but the “problem” is that the artist is the only one who knows it. Anyway, people should not be so afraid about it. A part of exhibit artworks is how people interpret it.
An interview with Hierro We would like to start with our ice-breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of art?
In my opinion, in current times the artist and his trueth intention are who really defines it. I mean, every artist, first defines them self as an artist, so they are conscent of their activity, so what they are going to do is art. I guess, it is necessary to be conscents of what we are or what we are doing, to considarate it as something, in this case, Art. You have a formal artistic training: you have studied at University of Barcelona, Spain, which is your native country and you have recently received a Phd in Fine Arts & Master in teaching from the University of Seville. How much in your opinion training influences art? We were wondering if in your opinion a certain kind of training could even stifle one's creativity...
Well, of course it influences, all influences, genetics, context where we develop ourself.
even steering people's feeling and behaviour: what's your take about this?
to improve and develop creativity, even to be an artist. Depending of how your teaching was, you will be more conditioned by a method of teaching or kind of art.
plained well. I meant, that artist, to do a real Artwork, even to create a cuality Artwork, has to be him/her, express him/herself, honestly, just, not be influenced by thoughts like, what are they going to say or think about it and all those thoughts that afflict us.
You have clearly explained in your artist's statement that your art is "not directed to any kind of public. I do what I feel I have to do": so, do you think art’s purpose is simply to provide a platform for an artist’s expression?
All those thoughts, provide us fear, or if it will be more or less acepted in this or that way or not, so you change yourself to be acepted.
By the way, I'm personally convinced that Art could play a role in facing social questions,
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And that is the contrast, in time . Today, everithing is allowed, you can use traditional ways, modern ways, mix them or you can create a new one. You artwork "Chess Web" seems to going beyond this dichotomy, isnt' it?
Yes it is. But being more concrete, I used a traditional technique, collage, using a combining and contrasting, conceps, signs, with perceptions, compositional forms, colors..., to say, to express an idea. Now let's dwell upon some of the pieces that our readers can admire in these pages: first of all, tell us something about you inspiration for you interdisciplinary polyptych entitled "Flowing water never go Stale"
In this work I pretended to express an idea philosophy, Jeet Kune Do. The idea of being natural without intending, just doing it, and always keep going, keep flowing, because “flowing water never go stale”
In your artworks we can recognize an interesting synergy between tradition and modernity: as you have marked, after having assimilated the traditional techniques in Seville you directed to a more Modern approach. In your opinion could Modernity be considered as the natural continuation of Tradition or there's an irremediable contrast between these two different approaches to Art?
contrast is different art in time. Art is product of different kind of art. Due to their intention. I mean, Art in the history has differents objetives.
Sometimes there's a subtle irony and humor in your works and I must confess that at first glance I didn't recognize that each member of the family that you have represented in "PleasantVille" wear blinkers...
Jajaja, Yes, I tend to be ironic or sarcastic in my day life. In this case, the “blinkers” are a symbol of ignorance. You can see how the family is smiling, they just perceive what they want or, other way to read the image, people perceive what they are permitted. Humans, with our rationalism are more anything, just living the moment.
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An interview with
PleasantVille
By the way, is your process same for both the drawings and paintings?
intelligence, getting less avaricious and ambitious, just to balance the relationship between Art and Business.
I guess you meant if I have the same creative process for both kind of expresive ways. Well, yes, I have something inside, then I design it
We hope you will forgive us for asking you a question that you might have been asked so much times, being a Spanish artist: is there
times that I do it no much times, it depence-. Then I choose the technique and the materials that I want to use. And finaly I start with the final work. If it is necessary, I repeat again.
contemporary Spanish scenario?
Of course they have influenced but in our of them. I mean, today we live in a globalized
We have appreciate the frankness of the ening lines of your artist's statement, when you deal with the relationship between Art and Business (notice that we have used for both words a capital letter... ) So we would like to ask you what could be in your opinion some challenges for a sustainable relationship between Art and Business.
Thank you , Rafael: what's next for you?
Thank you to offer me the oportunity of show my Artwork and express my ideas. I am curently focused in art teaching too. I have a strong intention to work in U.S.A. as Art Teacher as well as working in my Art.
Honesty, empathy, more applying of emotional 48
Mujer Mantis
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Samantha Raut (USA)
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project description of “Art is Atrocity”
The “Art is Atrocity” project is a satirical conceptual art piece which was created to draw attention to the lack or decline of art and music in schools by personifying the opposing side of those who are against it. Three billboards were placed around Syracuse, NY and a fake website was set up to start a conversation and get people thinking about how valuable art and music is to us as a whole, and how important it is to maintain a balance between all subjects. Both the billboards and the website were created with poor to minimal design in mind to add to the personality and opinion the faux group represented.
many subjects. The idea was to draw people out of an apathetic state, and throughout the project many people reacted forcefully. The site provided visitors with a means to communicate with the satirical group, and many shared personal testimonies about how art and music changed their lives. Once the project’s true meaning was revealed, people were excited and even continued the discussion of the arts in schools with their peers.
Many schools across the United States are financially forced to cut 50
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http://www.artisatrocity.com/index.html
URLs: All from the same site – before and after its reveal Main Page: http://artisatrocity.com/ Images of billboards once the project’s true intention was revealed to the public: http://www.artisatrocity.com/billboards The archive of responses received: http://www.artisatrocity.com/topresponses
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An interview with
An artist’s statement
“My artwork revolves around storytelling and creating a space for selfreflection, and challenges social traditions that we accept or go along with. I take on subjects that are well-known within our culture such as childhood nursery rhymes and our public education system, and provide a new point of view.
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“Narratives are
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and can reach a wide audience and I try to find the best way to engage with people, whether that's through animation or Internet art. I often use commercial animation tools to create short films that have a specific style. I find that this medium best expresses my thought process and allows me to think through what I want to visualize or say. This medium is a main passion of mine because it lets me bring my ideas to life (literally), and it has always had a whimsical element to me. Creating a story from nothing and giving it movement and life is very powerful, and I connect with the work on a stronger level.
Samantha Raut
“I find that my previous ideas often lead into my next project and I try to find the best methods to connect with viewers. While I have mainly used animation elements, I’ve also created provocative, satirical billboards and a website to engage
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Samantha Raut
tion have the opportunity and the resources to learn new things from instructors and their peers, and expand upon their passions.
Could you describe your background? Moreover, how much in your opinion training influences art?
However, if they do not take advantage of this and do not apply themselves, then this education can be worthless. Self-taught artists may not have these types of resources, but they can still learn even if it may take longer. They also have the freedom of not adhering to a curriculum that may be restricting, but on the otherhand, sometimes being “forced� to take other courses can open up new doors. I believe that if you are passionate enough, you can learn anything.
Actually, I received my Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Digital Arts & Sciences from Clarkson University, and and will receive my M.F.A. pending May of 2013 in Computer Art from Syracuse University. For me, having this training gave me the instruction and opportunity to explore different mediums. Being surrounded by great students and teachers who share a passion for art and learning also helped in my personal deve-lopment as an artist. At both Universities there were occassions that required me to learn something new that was completely outside of my comfort zone such as programming and visual effects. However, by doing something out of my element new doors and opportinities were opened.
Besides producing art, you also teach At Syracuse University: how this influences your career as an artist?
When I first started teaching I noticed that several students - usually the ones that just came from high school - had a very "black and white" mindset. They only wanted to know exactly what to do to get the good grade, and were often afraid to make mistakes.
The work we're going to deal with is strictly connected to Art & School, so we were wondering if in your opinion artists with a formal education have an unquestionable advantage over selftaught artists.
Throughout the semester I try to get them to change this "academic" outlook, and to treat their homework and projects like their own art pieces rather than just something they need to get done for the grade. Getting students to realize what is important to them has steered my work towards getting viewers or readers to do the same. With Art is Atrocity, when someone attacks what you are passionate about you realize just how valuable it is to you and why.
I don’t believe that those with a formal education always have an advantage over those who are self-taught. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides, and it depends on the artist and sometimes even the University they decide to go to. Those who pursue formal educaCharachter Study of b0b314 : The Rejecting Arm Digital animation (Autodesk Maya)
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Now let's deal with the project "Art is Atrocity": schools all across the United States (I would dare to say "all around the Universe"...) are forced to cut many fine arts classes. Just wondering if it's just a matter of money: Art could act as a substitute for traditional learning, in a process in which active learning could be carried out through experience despite of information. What's your take about this?
A considerable part of our readers lives in Europe and especially for very young artists and art students, the three letter U-S-A stand for chance of success: in your opinion this is nothing but a stereotype? By the way, how do you picture the European context? In a way, the opinion that the USA represents the “chance of success” is stereotyical, but has a basis of truth. I believe the aspect that is most stereotypical is the thought that if you come to the USA you will immediately have success and live a great and wealthy life. This isn’t always the case. We have our own economic troubles and other variables that can affect this “success.” However, I have personally found that if you work really hard and are truly passionate about what you are doing or want to do, you can find these opportunities, even if the path you take to get there is much different than what you expected. The USA generally celebrates individualism as well as teamwork, so one does have the chance to make a name for him/herself and pursue their passions.
I believe that the reason for the cut backs revolves not only around money, but also around what society values as a whole. At least in the USA, our public education system was influenced heavily by the Industrial Revolution. Children learned specific skills in order to perform well once they could work. Today, we are still following this system even though we are obviously not in this Revolution anymore, and consequently we are losing perspective on what is important for the present. Math and science are held up on a pedistal and therefore take priority in schools. While these subjects are very important and enjoyable, because we value them so much we devalue other subjects that are just as vital. Knowing the facts and procedures are only one side of the coin. Utilizing them in a creative way that can lead to new and innovative ideas or solve problems is the other. Teaching through art, or having “teaching artists” would be beneficial to students and help more of them succeed. You can approach very analytical subjects such as math and science in creative ways that do not rely on memorization and regurgiation of facts from students. The latter is often popular
In terms of how I picture the European context, what I am about to say may seem silly and perhaps is completely untrue so forgive me. I see Europe as being more sophisticated or more aware of the world. One stereotype that the USA has that unfortunately may have some truth to it, is that we are not well-rounded in terms of knowing what is going on in other countries. Artists in Europe may be able to explore topics that would be considered taboo here in the USA.
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get lost in all of the wonderful technology that is rapidly changing, and feel as if it controls us rather than the other way around. Not to mention that art should have an effect, or at least should communicate something. After reading your artist's statement, the following question might sound even rethorical: do you think art’s purpose is simply to provide a platform for an artist’s expression? Do you think that art could steer or even change people's behavior? in schools, but most of the time the students forget what they've "learned" shortly afterwards.
Art can have many purposes, and the further down the road you go you end up at the infamous question of "What is Art?" I think that art can be both a stage for an artist's expression and be used to bring a message, feeling, or change amongst people.
We have been googling for a while and it has been some funny to read comments like "I really hope this website is a joke"... Actually "Art is atrocity" is a kind of joke, but it stimulates to weight the heart of the matter: how many "angry" people has contacted you? There's something in particular that impressed you in people's feedback?
I believe that art can have an effect on people, to the point where change occurs, but it can be difficult to sustain that change after experiencing a piece of work. Of course it is up to the viewer to make those changes within their own minds or lives, but I believe artists to some extent, have a responsibility to create that initial spark if change is their intension.
Approximately 250 angry people contacted me, and what really struck me was that many of them shared their life story about how art or music changed their lives. One person in particular wrote a very long reply that explained how art helped her out of her depression and away from suicidal thoughts. Without art, she would no longer be with us. I found that people wanted to share their stories just to prove to the faux group how important art actually is, and may not have done so without the provocation.
Your artworks are intrinsically connected with the chance to create interaction with audience: when you conceive a work do you think to whom will enjoy it? Tell us something about the separation between the audience and artist‌ If I'm working on an animation I think about how to form my story to appeal to a specific audience. With animation and short films there is a separation between the work and the audience, and hopefully they will take away a message or a theme from the story. When it came to "Art is Atrocity," my intended demographic was more general because many people of different age groups have access to the Internet. In this project, I wanted to blur the line between the artist and the audience, and give them a way to communicate with "me" directly. In this way, their responses eventually became a part of the work.
It goes without saying that today's technology allows us to carry out project that seemed to be unfeasible just a few years ago: notwithstanding this, not few people think that there remains a hidden dichotomy between Art and Technology: what's your take about this? To me, the boundary between art and technology only exists within our minds. Technology can become a powerful tool for creating works of art across all mediums, whether that's work that exists only online or in robotic form. Sometimes we can
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We can't help without talking about the difficult alliance between art and business: how valuable art and music are to us as a whole, as you has replied on the web.
essential to one's learning experience, and therefore schools do not invest in them as much as they do with other core subjects. We have this very strong opinion that one area of study is more valuable than the other and that there is a definitive separate between the two.
So what could be some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship between the business and arts?
The famous Dutch artist, Theo Jansen, has created artwork that combines art and engineering. He said, "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds." We need to change our perseptions of both, which of course is easier said than done.
I think one of the largest challenges with this relationship is the popular opinion that the arts do not provide a solid foundation for a secure career. They are seen as more recreational rather than
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Thank you for this long interview, Samantha. My last questions concerns your future plans...
One of my main passions is teaching, and I love to watch students learn and develop their own passions, as well as grow as individual artists themselves.
We have somewhere read that you are aiming for a career in the gaming industry, which is going through a period of rapid growth. Yes, I am currently looking at getting into the gaming and animation industry. I also plan to continue my work as an independent artist. Eventually I would love to return to academia as a professor and bring that knowledge I learn back into the classroom. articulaction@post.com
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James Budd Dees Fluttering (An Artist’s Statement)
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In 1925 Kathleen Ward was convicted of theft, drunkenness, and indecent language. Her mugshot resurfaced over eight decades later at the Justice and Police Museum in Sydney, Australia as part of the show "Femme Fatale: the Female Criminal". Ward's image is peculiar. Three photographs capture her full body, close profile, and close front portraits, as was usual, but Ward's eyes seem half-erased -- halfhidden. The caption accompanying this triptych explained, "she appears to have fluttered her eyes in order to ruin the longexposure photograph". I approach art practice with Mrs. Ward in mind. Her struggle was not a meaningless flailing or useless exhaustion of her faculties; it was one of intelligence. She understood the weakness of the format. The regimented and meticulous ritual of documenting her likeness was matched by Ward's measured action. I am not inspired by the accuracy of her aim alone (as many male criminals refused to open their eyes for mugshots, too). Ward's "fluttering" added an additional flourish, a coquetry which was distinctly feminine. In other words, she imbued her rebellion with the personal and undermined an authority with a protest directly derived from her experience.
Bleeding a Pen Dry - installation 2011
create form (and also to sometimes explode form). Positioning my practice within this model, my work finds meaning in the opportunities of resistance to a given history of object-making taking form, giving form, and refusing it. I demand that abstraction and formalization find link not with the universal, but with the intimate - and an intimacy very specifically situated in what it means to be a contemporary queer subject. I experiment with opportunities for difference in
My work arises from questioning the accepted values and consistent behaviors of art-making. Catherine Malabou explains her concept of plasticity as the ability to both accept form and 58
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James Budd Dees 313 NE 11th St B Gainesville, FL 32601 478-397-3570 budddees@ufl.edu / budddees@gmail.com digitalmedia.arts.ufl.edu/~budddees Yellowcollarboys.com Education MFA 2013 (anticipated) Art & Technology University of Florida BFA 2008 Digital Media University of Georgia (Areas of Specialization: Video, Performance, Net Art) Professional Experience 2012
Instructor of Record
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Digital Imaging
Instructor of Record
University of Florida
Time-Based Media
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Spring Workshop in Fundamental Technologies 2010 Fall
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University of Florida
Worshop for Art Research and Practice
Scholarships/Grants Graduate School Fellowship Travel Grant
the standardizations of materials, cultural forms, and aesthetic protocols. My work presents charming difficulty, flirtatious refusal. I see these stylizations not only as the decoration of politics, but political in themselves (the way that Ward refused to be photographed is just as important as refusing-making it not a refusal, but her refusal). Using humor, Camp, and confessional storytelling as methods of resistance, I create a space of meaning which is indexical, precarious, and personalized.
University of Florida
University of Florida
Technical Skills Advanced Knowledge of Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quicktime Pro, Toast Proficiency in DVD Studio Pro, iMovie, HTML/CSS and Dreamweaver, InDesign Working Knowledge of Flash, Processing
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An interview with
James Budd Dees First of all we would like to ask you what in your opinion defines a work of art.
I think art is an ethics that is communicated and formalized in ways that cannot necessarily he verbalized. So a work of art may have an impact on the mind or the body or have emotional or spiritual content, and that may be made from whatever material (marble, pixels, trash), but the primary objective is the communication of ethics and priorities. And ethics has to permeate the whole project, material choices, the way the work is displayed, the conversation around the work, all have to answer to the ethical threshold of the artist. You have a formal training: you received BFA in Digital Media from the University of Georgia and MFA in Art & Technology from the University of Florida. How much does training impact on your process? Moreover, we would like to ask you if you think that artists with a formal education have an advantage over self-taught artists...
Well, to me, education means freedom. I have the freedom to think and ask questions that would have never occurred to me otherwise. I also think exposure to a lot of art work has influenced my taste as an artist. Exposure to ideas in cultural theory has greatly matured my process of ideation. So do I feel like education made me a better artist? Without a doubt. Do I feel like everyone needs this time to think and mature to be a better artist? Not at all.
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How new technology as DSLR and digital editing has impacted on your process? We have read that you are very experienced in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop...
Well it has opened my process drastically, it has taught me that experimentation and research can make any material available to me. Digital art, for a while it seemed, enjoyed this utopic gift from Conceptual Art. That it is totally dematerialized-- and the myth of dematerialization is that it can't be commodified. But of course it can be. Lucy Lippard's current exhibition of Conceptual Art at the Brooklyn Museum sells books and coffee cups from the exhibition. COFFEE CUPS!!! And of course net artist suffer the same fate. I think realizing this helped me think not about the inherent ethics of a material, but their histories and how I can use those to talk about a queer experience. 4) Where do your materials come from, and how do you go about putting them together?
I work from idea to material. That isn't to say that thinking about a material doesn't lead to an idea of how to use it. I am influenced by what I consider a queer history (ranging from politics to Camp sensibility). So the style of what is usually considered Campy helps me understand if the material makes sense with the general trajectory of my body of work. By the way, you often use papier mache: a perfect synergy between tradition and modernity. Do you think that there's still a dichotomy between tradition and contemporary?
I'm not sure of a distinct dichotomy. There is definitely a difference in the way that contemporary artists work as opposed to older artists. But tradition bleeds into the contempo-
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Ffffft 2012 paper mache and salvaged wood
This piece is part of a series of studies of Minimalist forms which are created via hand-made, craft processes and supported by found furniture remnants.
think to whom will enjoy your work? Tell us something about the separation between the audience and performance artist‌
rary and those practices still survive even for post-media artists. I think the danger of viewing art history in this way is that either traditional or contemporary art is more valued. Whether its, one, revering the hallowed masters as untouchable, or, two, thinking that contemporary practice is the most sophisticated form of expression because culture always progresses. Art doesn't move forward or backward. Art responds to the conditions of the present world of the artist.
I think that when a performer actively involves the audience she owes them something. It's not that she owes them politeness or safety. But the performer owes a crafted experience which leads to thought. I don't mind that an audience feels comfortable or serene, nor do I mind when an audience feels threatened or repulsed. What matters is the why. The worst thing that a performance can do, I think, is make a piece that isn'ttrue and doesn't do any real work. For example, a lot of interactive performance rests on this idea of egalitarianism in the art gallery, which obviously is a myth.
It goes without saying that a your performances intrinsically connected with the chance to create interaction with audience: we would like to mention that for "P-E-R-F-O-RM-A-N-C-E" you painted the nails of participants to while telling Sherwood Anderson's "Hands". When you conceive a work, do you
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whom I would like to align myself. So the process is very haphazard normally. I make a lot of things that are disposable and not precious. Then I get those things in a space and curate a display to figure out what pieces are good and what pieces are garbage. Besides producing art, you also teach: how has this influences your career as an artist?
The best way to really understand how to do something is to teach it. But ultimately teaching has made me realize that art is about communication and what ideas you leave someone with. This is more important than any pretensions or solitary satisfaction. I'm still very much an academic smartass, but teaching has helped me recapture some of my passion for the artists I talk about and helped me realize that I want others to feel that passion for my work, too.
P-E-R-F-O-R-M-A-N-C-E (2010) performance
How would you characterize your relation to performance art and live art? What artists, if any, have influenced your work?
Well painters and sculptors are male, right? Haha. Or at least there was a period when minority artists felt prevented from and accessing the language of traditional materials. So thinking about the new forms of expression that came from that frustration, performance being one of those, is really important to me as a gay artist. I love Adrian Piper and her insistence on making her race a part of her work, and then demanding to know why it shouldn't be in the piece Cornered. I love Karen Finley's performances and sound pieces which demand an assessment of decency and standards of evaluation.
Bleeding a Pen Dry (detail) 2011
Now we would like to focus on a couple of pieces of yours that our readers can admire in these pages: "Bleeding a Pen Dry" and "ffffft". Can you tell us about your process and set up for making your work? What technical aspects do you mainly focus on in your work?
we're always interested in hearing the answer to. What aspect of your work do you enjoy the most?
Throwing it away. Starting something new. :) Thanks for this interview, James: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you that you would like readers to be aware of?
I have a very nonchalant relationship to the technical aspects of my work. For me craft is about more than just the best way to deliver a concept; it is also an immediate indicator of a general philosophy of working, of the tone and perspective of the work, and of the artists with
Well I'm getting my Master's this spring‌ so I'm just starting to think about joining art communities post-degree. I'm excited to escape academia for a while. articulaction@post.com
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(Belgium) “My art work acts as a mirror reflection of human life, and its related existential questions, which go hand in hand with the natural evolutionary process of the human body. This translation is reflected through the composition and combination of old garments, fabrics, clay, medical and other objects, all of them originating from either West-European or Chinese culture. Every piece is unique, and holds the legacy of a certain period in time, hereby taking the viewer back to childhood memories and even more urging us to focus on our relationship with life and death.
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“My preference goes to materials and objects that are easily recognized, which carry a solid existence, and are able to be reused at any moment within their lifecycle. During the creation process, the pieces are transformed into a new concept, yet without losing their initial origin or identity. The usage of vintage textile pieces plays a prominent role within this process, whilst keeping focus on craftsmanship and its manual process. Through my art work, I aim to provide an esthetical as well a critical image of reality. In my complete oeuvre my aim is to use powerful, yet sober conceptual language to express the esthetic and critical questioning of our reality. “My creative journey leads me to symbolize a melancholic past as well as admiration of the present through artistic interventions and combinations. This leads the viewer to a confrontation with a “new reality” that he can recognize and experience through his personal involvement and confrontation between his past and present. By reconstructing this new reality the visitor discovers his own reality again. 64
Annelies Slabbynck
Annelies Slabbynck was born in 1968, Belgium and she lives and works in Shanghai, P.R. China
Studies: Ornamental Arts and Design at the Academy of Fine Arts; Aalst, Belgium Ceramics at the Higher Institute for Visual Arts; St. Lukas; Ghent, Belgium Ceramics at the Municipal Academy of Visual Arts; Ghent, Belgium
Awards: Excellent Prize honorable mention of ‘From Lausanne to Beijing’; 5th International Fiber Art Biennale 2008; Beijing, P.R. China
Selected exhibitions: 2012 ‘The Art of Existence’; Frontline Contemporary Gallery; Shanghai, P.R. China 2012 CONTEXTILE 2012 - Contemporary Textile Art Triennial; Guimaraes – European Capital of Culture, Portugal 2008 ‘Intrude 366 Art&Life’; (Zendai Museum), ‘The Art of Existence’; Nobel Eye Hospital; Shanghai, P.R. China 2007 ‘Waanzin is Vrouwelijk'( ‘Madness is Female’), Museum Dr. Guislain; Ghent, Belgium 2006 ‘The New Harvest 05'; Design Flanders; Brussels, Belgium media, (Museum) MIAT; Ghent, Belgium
Anatomical Balancing 2012 Wooden embroidery tool, X-rays, yarn - handmade embroidery
Contacts: www.annelies-slabbynck.com info@annelies-slabbynck.com
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An interview with
Annelies Slabbynck What in your opinion defines a work of art?
nal experiences; the art schools where I studied have offered me an introduction in several artistique techniques, opened the world of art history and therefore gave me a solid basis for where I stand now in my art work. I would rather see my studies as ‘a first taste’, a beginning of a learning proces which made me stronger in making choices over the years.
A real art piece has to show the artist personality; able to evoke a feeling of surprise and beauty, keeping you intriged while observing it and offering the possibi-lity to remain on your mind for the rest of your life. You have a formal artistic training: you have studied Fine Arts and then you specialized in Ceramics in Belgium. How much in your opinion training influences art? And how has your art developed since you left school?
After graduation I felt more ‘free’ in expe-rimenting with a diversity of materials and concepts without having to take my teachers’ opinion into consideration. ‘An open field’ to explore new ways to experiment with materials without following the traditional rules and expectations of school.
In recent years art studio’s and several art disiplines are overlapping in art schools which provides art students broader perspectives on many levels during their studies. I think this plays a prominet role to discover more in depht which path you will choose for your future artistic career. When I speak from my perso66
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which there's a dichotomy between tradition and modernity, your artworks creates an interesting symbiosis between past and present. Can you describe a little bit about your creative process?
I am fascinated by the human condition in all it’s stages (childhood-illness-healing-death as well aspects of the human identity) being the protagonist in my art work, and continuously positioned in balance with elements such as history (as well of the medical world), old objects, garment pieces and medical tools. All these ‘ingredients‘ are timeless. They carry a meaning, an existence which remained nearly unchanged trough time. During the last 10 years I collected a big diversity of old cloths (mainly pieces from Belgium and some of China) and lots of objects which are strongly connected with my artistique concepts. I am deeply interested in historical and contemporary fashion design.
A Second Earth (2008) Mixed Media 18 x 19 x 7 cm
As we can read in your statement, you prefer to use a sober conceptual language, which is capable of communicating to a wide and also popular audience. When you conceive a work, do you think to whom will enjoy your work?
My creative process exists out of old clothing pieces being matched with old black and white images of unknow people and/or antique human body drawings; medical objects to find a connection with daily textile users objects. Turning subjects which often carry a dark and heavy connotation into more playful and esthetical arrangments offers a sense of symbiosis I fully appreciate.
The concept which I handle in my art oeuvre will be approachable for certain people but defenitly not everyone. Trough the use of easily reconignisable materials and personal memories it will send out a message of who I am, and how I view ‘reality’.
Each art piece represents a story of a person, a moment in history and unique time spirit strongly connected with my life experiences. While observing my work; I believe it can give the spectator the opportunity to go back in his or her own personal memoires and experiences.
To be honest, I don’t really consider who will enjoy it or not during the creation proces. I consider it important to stay loyal to my own way of working & thinking and always realise that there will be people who are ready to understand what I make.
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1 piece of 'The Mourning Collection'
2012
Although going beyond the mere contin-gence of materials, your works seems to be intrinsecally connected to an analysis of the times: we would go as far as to say that there's an historical analysis that pervades your works: what's your take about this? Do you think that it's an exaggeration that one of the aspects of your work it to estab-lish a synergy between personal history and an historical viewpoint?
it is my ‘melancholic’ side to have a strong interest in objects, moments of the past. The use of old textile pieces often results in a more pure esthetical scene and are most unique in their exsistence. Maybe its origin came from growing up in a house filled with antiques; but for sure from the start of my artistique training I immediately knew that high quantity production was not intended for me. Let’s say I am a more L’Art pour L‘ Art person, caring for uniquely made pieces in which you can trace back the artist’s soul. Each art work or
Past and present can ‘live’ perfectly in harmonie; a crucial factor in my work. Maybe 68
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vains of the human heart. For this art piece I used as well wax to cover the whole piece (I often use this material – which gives in this case the piece a second skin). Going back to the essentials of life is for me related to focussing onto the originality and unique aspect of real craftmanship. Therefore my consious decision to mainly work with old materials which are evidences of a time area/spirit where such skills were common. For this issue we have selected a couple of interesting works of yours, which is entitled "Anatomical Balancing" and "Medical Air". Can you tell us a little about this pieces?
Anatomical Balancing confronts us with the extreme possibilities of the human body. The use of X-rays are directly linked with my overall concept of the human body/condition – the architecture of the human body. The embroidery images of girls shown in gymnastic poses are based on old pictures of Chinese girls who demonstrate how to challenge their young bodies in acrobatic positions.
A Second Earth (reverted) Mixed Media
object from the past tells a lot of a certain area in time. My goal is to emphasis my personal history (which includes a big part of my own medical path of life), combined with a historical point of view indeed. There's an interesting features of your art, the visual perception of tactility: this stands out especially in the work "A second Earth". As you have already stated, an important aspect of your work is focusing on craftsmanship and its manual process. How do you even come up with such creative concepts?
Medical Air exists out of two parts; first one are the mouth pieces which are made from medicine information printed on canvas. Part two is the girl; my daughter Amelie who wears the mouth pieces. The mouth pieces symbolizethat every human being will needat some stage in life some kind ofmedical support, no matter who we are in place or time.
A Second Earth is specialy created for the Miniartextile – Como 2009 competition. It’s theme was ...e lucean le stelle... 2009 was as well the year of astrology. During many years mankind is continously in search for life outside planet Earth, to start life all over again. A Second Earth translates the first sign of a human life: a heart beat; portrayed by the shape of the human heart. The front view of this art work is a picture of skin, the back is a drawing which show the
Our daughter is often a central figure – visible-unvisible present in my art work. She is not only my favourite model for my pictures but as well the key of my concept of the human condition. She grows along with the evoluation of my art pieces.
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Medical Air Mouth Pieces, 2011
You work and live in Shangai, China, and you have been awarded with a mention in 2008 within From Lausanne to Beijing 5th International Fiber Art Biennale. What experiences have you had exhibiting in different countries? What is the difference between exhibiting, for example, in Europe and exhibiting in China, or in the United States? By the way, how does the art scene in Europe operate in comparison to the China scene? What are the main differences?
from the series Corpus Collection (2009) - textile
Far from being abstract, many of your works, like the series from the series "Corpus Collection "establish an attractive communication between the physicalness of the body and "liquid concepts"...
In general I prefer to work non functional; nevertheless I use a lot of functional pieces in my work. Some of my art pieces can be used or worn, while maintaining its prime expression of art objects. The Corpus Collection falls in that last category, reversing the inside to the surface to create a form of esthetcial communication between these very different worlds. We all look different in our appereance, our identity.... but deep down side we share exactly the same, for me it’s just a matter of showing the reality of life. The Corpus Collection was selected for the biennal Nature 2010 in Liege at Belgium.
Living in a city as Shanghai where everything is about business, including art; was for me in the beginning more difficult to find my place in the local art scene with the type of art work I make. Many new galleries opened in recent years, but most of them focussing on Chinese art as it sells easier to collectors. Still today you can feel that quantity is often more important than quality, expecially for group exhibitions. Re-petition and systems are a unfortunate fact in the Chinese art history and still in today’s art scene in China. 70
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Human Lace 2006 Lace, cotton crochets, white colored earth ware clay, rope, little table, 3 chairs and old black and white picture
What are some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship between the business and arts?
To find a gallery – people who belief strongly in your work is the key to succeed commercially. It’s of great importance to work with people who are the right fit for you and your work. The pressure for the artist is to stay in the running with work that always posseses the same high quality level without loosing yourself in commercial traps.
(2006) Vintage under wear clothing/dresses, white cotton fabric, pink colored earth wear clay, wax and synthetic stuffing, old wooden clothing hanger
When we arrived in 2006 in Shanghai for our second time; I started doing research on what was happening in the art world outside China by joining contemporary art exhibitions and competitions globally.
What are you going to be working on next?
Besides producing art, you also teach: how has this influenced your career as an artist?
For many years now, I am working on a daily basis; continously preparing new idea’s, finishing pieces, collecting materials. Currently I am working on new pieces for upcoming shows in Europe and Asia. In 2015 I’ll have a cooperation with a textile museum; a beautiful renovated textile factory which shows the textile history of the last 250 years of my hometown in Belgium. A perfect match with my old textile art pieces.....
I would rather say the opposite; my art career influenced the way how I teach art classes. The same way how I approach my own work philosophy: It is of tremendous importance to open as many doors as possible on what art can offer on many levels in a young persons’life. Learn to have no fear to try new things by not following the traditional way of thinking.
articulaction@post.com
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Dan Crosby
Dato Mio (USA)
5085 Broadway #5C New York, NY 10034 917.689.1612 datomio@yahoo.com
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Dan Crosby
Dato Mio is an artist based in New York City and works in various disciplines including Collage, Photography, Writing, Installation, and Video. His work has been presented locally, nationally, and internationally. Selected exhibitions “10.-22.-38 Astoria”, Group Show at The Lab, 2948 16th Street, San Francisco, CA (October 25thNovember 17th 2012) www.fictilis.com “The Underground Bunker”, Group Show at Rock Bottom, 177 Stockholm Street, Brooklyn, NYC (August 10, 2012) UNDER THE SUBWAY VIDEOART NIGHT at Local Project Art Space, 45-10 Davis Street, Long Island City, NYC (May 26, 2012) www.localproject.org “ITSA SMALL, SMALL WORLD" Group show at FAMILY BUSINESS, 520 West 21st Street, Chelsea, NYC (April 3-16, 2012) www.familybusinessgallery.com “Community MAP” project where I link Harlem and Washington Heights through local arts, NYC (September 2009-Current) www.youtube.com/user/COMMUNITYMAP H.O.A.S.T / Art Harlem Tour, DIALOGUES, Group Exhibition at Taller Boricua, 1680 Lexington Avenue, NYC (October 15- November 5, 2011) www.tallerboricua.org “Genitalia” group exhibition at Galeria at Hombres Lounge, Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC (September 28- October 19, 2011) www.cinemarosa.org/galeria “La Vida Es Magica” Public Art Installation for Hacia Afuera Festival, East Harlem, NYC (August 1314, 2011) www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0GzoENRkpw “Millennial Yell!” is a group exhibition at Art for Change, 1699 Lexington Avenue, NYC (August 5 October 22, 2011) www.artforchange.org “Faces of the Economy” is a group exhibition at Art for Change, 1699 Lexington Avenue, NYC (April 14-July 9, 2011) www.artforchange.org “NEXT” is a group exhibition of Artists, Architects, and Designers @ BECA ICAD (International Center forArt + Design) , Albuquerque, New Mexico (March 4-19 2011) www.becaicad.org “Harlem Glimpse” is an exhibition of Photography, Video, and Mixed Media at The Levi’s Photo Workshop,Soho, NYC (December 15-18 2010) www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY3gDvYpx9I “COMVIDEO” is a group exhibition at Apexart Gallery, Soho, NYC (November 10- December 22, 2010) “Freedom Sparks Film/Video Festival” at Visual Voice Gallery, Montreal Canada (July 2010) “Essential Art and Music Group Show” 287 Spring Street, Soho NYC, photography (Jan 7-24, 2010) “Focal Resolution-1” Photography Group Show at Climate Gallery, Long Island City. NYC (Jan 2010)
CURATE NYC 2012, http://www.curatenyc.org/index.php/section-blog/77-guest-curators/442-deirdrescott Citizens Committee for New York City, New Yorkers for Better Neighborhoods Award 2010 for Community MAP Bronze Palm Award, Mexico International Film Festival 2010, www.MexicoFilmFestival.com Premio Terna, Italy 2009, Finalist, www.premioterna.it/en/pt02catalogo New York Life Fellowship from The Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies 2008-2010 where I explored art as a catalyst for youth and community development while creating a model for a future local arts movement.(City College of The City of New York-CUNY) 2008-2010
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An interview with
Dato Mio
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Dato Mio
First of all we would like to know something about your background, and how your experiences has impacted the way you make art. By the way, what's your point about formal training? Do you think that it could even stifle "free inspiration"?
I grew up in Harlem in New York City in a Dominican family. I didn't have art as a child, but I was expressing myself by writing and collage. For as long as I can remember, I have dealing with words and images. It's always been part of my identity. I thought it was always be part of my life. I struggled as a young person to figure out how I would survive and what kind of job I would have. I was making art in a more serious and disciplined way a few years before I went to City College and began basic art courses, which included photography and film/video. I began to create my own photo projects right from the beginning. I thought of City College as a lab where I could have access to facilities and materials to develop my work. I had participated in a few group exhibitions before becoming a student. I think your question about the stifling of "free inspiration" by formal training is very interesting one. All of my work has been, in a major way, defined by limitations. Dreaming about things is much easier than getting them done. I found a lot of the courses and attitudes to be stifling. I was focusing on my camera and how to create the images I wanted to make. The technical skills came from making many mistakes and learning from them. As an artist, many times a "mistake" is the best and most wonderful thing that can happen. Not only do you learn about errors, but those errors can become pathways of discovery.
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We can read that you started with collage over a decade ago, and for the past 6 years have been focusing on photography and video. What has caused you to devote yourself to video?
I was dreaming as kid of making films so I always knew that I wanted to do that. For me, everything has been about stages of development and access to resources. I was capturing images with video as a way to prepare myself for more technically complex film/video work in the future. My video work began as experimentation with light, color, and forms. I thought of it as part of my personal poetics. How new media technology as DSLR and digital editing have impacted on your process? In your artwork "No Te Olvidare" whose stills can be admired by our readers in the pages of this issue, there seems to be an effective editing.
The digital editing process allowed me to work on the footage I was capturing and to create the work itself. From the beginning I was manipulating the colors and speeds and have mostly worked without sound. I have used sound on occasion, and it has become more important in my work. By the way, in these last years we have seen that the frontier between Video Art and Cinema is growing more and more vague: do you think that this "frontier" will exists longer?
I'm not sure about this question. I wouldn't call my video art cinema. There are so many distinctions. There is video art that has the appearance of being cinema, but in general I think they are separate. I just saw the exhibition "Creation (Megaplex)" by Marco Brambilla, which is visually stunning, but it's not cinema. When I think of cinema, Luis Bunuel, Lars von Trier, and >>> 75
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Still from Manufacturing a new value system for Harlem
Fassbinder come to mind among others. I like to think of video art as an area of becoming where experimentation is the law. It can be considered part of cinema as a whole, but with different structures, processes, and
stuff. I have used it to experiment with some of my digital images. My process changes as the project reveals itself to me. Whatever is going on in my mind in many ways is just a spark. I figure out what I need as I'm going along. Some of the projects I have staged required lots of planning and gathering materials, but with some projects it's not clear what is needed until later.
What is your studio process typically like, and how do you decide upon which materials you incorporate within a piece?
My process usually involves me capturing images and editing them, but it all depends on the project. For collage, I collect materials from everywhere. It can be paper, fabric, words on the street, etc. I have used myself for projects where performance was part of the work. With photography, I work mostly on film so the major focus is on getting the right exposures. I do very little editing on these images because I spend a lot of time making them the way I want. I primarily use Photoshop for resizing and organizational
A visual from your video pieces that impacted on me is the dazzling white of some of your video, like "Rainbow of the First Day of a New Life"... By the way, could you take us through your creative process when starting a new project?
The colors come from digital manipulations of what I find. I get a lot out of walking and looking around. I make notes. Some projects take more time to work through. Some involve more than one process. Some are time based. 76
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Still from Sobreviviendo en el Alto Manhattan en el Siglo 21 Awards often are capable of supporting an artist, but do you think that an award could even influence the process of an artist?
There is also a distinction here between a piece of artwork and a project that may have many artworks in it. Some of the work exists for just a few days while others have a more permanent presence.
My work has not been awarded often, but it's great when it happens. I was a finalist for the Premio Terna in 2009. One of my images from "Exile Ritual" was selected. Awards are a kind of support and acknowledgment that people are interested in my work. It can be a source of encouragement and hope. I think awards can influence the process of an artist especially if there is money awarded. Sometimes that's what makes a project possible-the funding.
For "Manufacturing a New Value System for Harlem" I started by documenting the changes in the area due to gentrification with photo and video. I was collecting hundreds of words I found along the way not knowing that this would become a major part of the project. I became aware of this possibility while looking at the footage I had captured. The creative process
Some projects just can't be done without the money. I always work from what is possible, and that can change depending on grants and awards.
Your works have been often awarded. In particular, we would like to remember the Terna Prize for Contemporary Art that is awarded by an italian electrical company.
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exile-ritual
You received New York Life Fellowship from The Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies: what in your opinion is the role of an artist in society? We would like to ask you if art could steer people's behavior.
Living in a "dangerous" neighborhood, for example, is a reality, that in itself is not art, an artist can be a communicator an influence the discourse of the day and public policy. There are artists who are mute. There are many biases about what artists can and can't be. Art is about discovery and expanding the possibilities of what can be done. I'm not sure about steering people's behavior with art. As an artist I have been influenced by many other artists and challenged to try things and think in a bigger way. I think artists can provoke something internally in people that can connect them in deeper way to themselves. Artists create spaces for people to experience things in a new way.
Art is part of our lives on a fundamental level. A society without art is like a library without books. It doesn't make much sense to me. Art is about creating and society is an invention. They are intrinsically connected. Every artist represents a world or a language into his inner world. The role of the artist in society keeps changing. My work is about contemplation so I'm often dealing with personal subjects that have implications for the society as a whole. but can create a need to respond. This way, 78
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A sequence of stills from No Te Olvidare
"Art is not luxury", as we can read in your artist's statement: what are some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship bet-ween the business and arts?
In some cases artists are seen as engines of economic development. Thank you for this interview: what are your upcoming projects? What's next for you?
This is a tricky question because so many things come to mind. On the one hand, money is needed for survival and for realizing certain projects. The sustainable relationship depends mostly on the monetization of artworks in the art world, which is a business world.
Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?
I have been applying to residencies and continue working on "Una Vida Secreta" (A Secret Life) and my Harlem Project. I'm also working on a large collage project. I'm going to be editing a film I shot, which is a kind of departure for me in terms of technique and forms.
Business uses the arts as a way to capitalize on the financial value of the artwork. It's about products that are sold and bought. It's interesting to think about performance artists and others where it's not clear how they can be monetized. This is a major challenge: the expectation that a work of art must have a price. It's difficult to understand for many people those works that are ephemeral and don't come with a price tag.
The film includes performance and poetry. Writing and text are going to be major parts of my work for the next year. I'm now preparing for a series of performance and time based works that I hope to execute this Spring and Summer. There are a few other projects I will do depending on funding. I hope to continue exhibiting my work and possibly collaborating with other artists. Thank you for interest in my work.
There's a non profit area that can provide resources, and for many artists these are essential. It's an ongoing joke that isn't funny at all in the United States. The first thing to get cut from funding is the art. They say it over and over because it's true. Art is seen by many as something frivolous like a luxury
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