V Magazine UVA Spring 2014

art. fashion. film. culture.

t e m p o ra lity

v magazine | v11 issue n째1 | spring 2014

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MAGAZ I N E

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03 letter from the editors 06 why america’s art scene is in decline 08 finding color in monochrome

10 remix culture

12 fashion: now open to the public

14 the fashion film 16 text art 18 unreal 20 student art 28 temporality

executive editors brendan rijke & vanessa cao creative director gloria roh fashion director meridith wadsworth photographer michal kozinski writers isaac buckley eric leimkuhler amy miller paula-anne omiyi ty vanover alex webb designers caitlin fischer alex lumain chris lumain sara neel margaret rogers artists david cook andrea parra anthony olund nina thomas sandy williams nathan wiser

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In the minds of many today, art has somehow been quarantined from the rest of the world - made out to be something that is at worst unapproachable, and at best a disconnected realm operating by its own rules.

This is not true. Art, just like any other offspring of human thought and experience, is intimately connected with and woven into the mesh of society. To explore the intricate connections between artistic mediums and issues relating to politics, psychology, history, and society, we decided to open up our magazine to our talented student body for voluntary editorial submissions. These editorials, along with a student art feature, and spring photoshoot, form the three-chapter template of our Spring 2014 issue exploring temporality.

This magazine has always been devoted to featuring student talent at the University of Virginia, but in this issue we are - for the first time - spotlighting art pieces by six exceptionally talented University students. The pieces range from a variety of mediums - from painting to sculpture - and represent a glimpse into the diversity of the University’s thriving art scene.

We are also excited to announce a partnership with Charlottesville’s Urban Outfitters. In this season’s fashion spread on page 20, we feature looks from Urban Outfitters’ new spring collection.

The series was shot on location at the scenic Boar’s Head Inn in Charlottesville where we used the surrounding landscape to juxtapose bleak and stark settings with vibrant colors on the models.

Through continuously molding and finessing the content of the magazine, we are striving to lead this publication towards having a truly thought-provoking, analytical perspective, and providing our readers with high quality content along with beautiful imagery.

Happy reading!

Brendan Rijke

Vanessa Cao

BY TY VANOVER

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he arts have always had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with authority. Though we tend to think of government and the arts as existing in separate spheres where the government is ruled by procedure and regulation and the arts are ruled by creative impulse and freedom, it is impossible to deny that the way in which man is governed has a mighty influence on the art that such a governed society produces. Many may consider a society that offers its citizens freedom of expression to be most compatible with the production of art. In recent years, however, we have seen that the liberties offered by a democracy do not always lead to art that has integrity.

In an age when political bickering is the face of international government relations and the arts have slid from the list of what many people consider urgent and important, it seems that the one has little to do with the other.

However, after a look at the state of contemporary art in the two nations, United States and Russia, that seem to garner the most attention internationally for the governments they operate under, a relationship emerges.

This idea is illustrated perfectly by the abundance of performance art currently being produced by American entertainers as an alternative to film, television, or music.

It is important to realize that the term “performance art” in relation to these celebrity-turned-artists is being used loosely. American celebrity culture has preached the public that anyone can be an artist if they say they are. Jay-Z is an artist if he can produce music for hours on end in a New York gallery. Tilda Swinton is an artist if she sleeps in a glass box and allows others to watch.

Shia Laboeuf is an artist if he places a bag over his head in an act of public contrition (it is worth noting that Laboeuf’s performance piece, entitled “#IAMSORRY,” is little more than a knock off of Marina Abramovic’s canonical 1974 piece entitled “Rhythm 0”). These “artists” are part of a growing trend among celebrities: if your career needs a pick me up, try art. They aren’t the first to dub themselves artistes and it seems that they won’t be the last.

The democracy of the US has been an advantage to many artists, allowing them to express their ideas and creativity without being harnessed

by strict government regulation and without the threat of being punished for the work they produce. The land of the free has produced artists who provoke meaningful discussion of societal issues, such as the group of women artists known as the Guerilla Girls, who have been a powerful catalyst for the feminist movement in the US. What we have seen in recent years in the United States is a decline in the integrity of contemporary art.

No longer are artists coming forward to incite social change (or at least not in as large a number) but to promote themselves.Putting on a performance piece at the MoMA has become a fashionable new way to say, “Hey world—look at me! I’m high brow. I take the arts seriously.”

It seems that art has become a convenient, low-involvement way to pull the falling American celebrity back into orbit. The integrity of art, or, more simply put, the purpose behind the creation of art, is lost. To have integrity, surely art must be pure of purpose—art must come from a place of truth, from a desire to create that which is meaningful and long lasting, not from a place of self-promotion.

“Indeed, it is this cold sternness that has allowed Russia to produce one of the reputable art-centric groups in contemporaneity—the female rock band Pussy Riot.”

Integrity in contemporary art, then, is a bit hard to pin down. In a world where self-interest is at an all time high, where selfies clog social media feeds in alarming numbers, surely it isn’t just the US that has been fudging artistic aptitude. I want to look now to Russia, a nation whose cold reputation doesn’t typically conjure up images of a flourishing arts scene.

Indeed, it is this cold sternness that has allowed Russia to produce one of the reputable art-centric groups in contemporaneity—the female rock band Pussy Riot.

The band, composed of approximately eleven female artists, has been active in Russia since 2011. The group protests Russian governmental policies and tirelessly advocates both gender and LGBTQ equality through guerilla performances throughout Russia. The public response has been

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less than supportive. President Vladimir Putin imprisoned members of the band and several have experienced physical abuse and assault at the hands of Russian police and military.

Sergei Nikitin, Director of the Amnesty International office in Moscow, affirmed the reasoning behind the atrocities by stating, “The case against members of the band Pussy Riot has been consistently outrageous from start to finish, and sought nothing other than to undermine the band members’ right to freedom of expression.” Despite this restriction of freedom of expression, Pussy Riot continues to appear at events throughout Russia to perform and share their belief in a more accepting and equal Russia.

The Russian government, billed as a kind of democracy but clearly other, has created a different artistic landscape than the democracy of the US. Making controversial art isn’t convenient in Russia. Oftentimes it isn’t even safe. The control Russia continues to attempt to exert over its people walks a thin line, careful not to cross over into dictatorship, and Pussy Riot has dared to step out and create art that challenges many of the medieval ideas held by the government. They aren’t creating art to boost their popularity. On the contrary, they wear colorful ski masks over their faces to hide their identities. They don’t surface once every now and again in an effort to appear adept at their craft. The art produced by Pussy Riot is raw, urgent, and desperate—desperate to be heard, desperate to be consumed, desperate to make a difference.

I don’t mean to imply that American art has hit rock bottom or that Russian art is to be glorified simply because it is being produced in a nation that denies the message it seeks to promote. To see the differences between contemporary art produced in these two nations does, however, makes keen the disparity between how a free state’s citizens produce art and how a repressive state’s citizens produce art. It’s time for America to use the creative freedom yearned for by millions across the globe to produce art that speaks to bigger ideas and critical issues. Take a stance, attack what you believe to be wrong, create art with integrity— your government allows it.

The high-rise hotels with rooftop swimming pools that glimmered in the imaginations of midcentury capitalists are now abandoned, skeletal relics of a bygone era. The streets below them are crammed with the faded, chipping colors of housing that have seen better days decades ago, when it was privately-owned. It was shocking to find that there was, say, only one brand of government-sanctioned beer to wash down rationed vegetables, and that toilet paper was a commodity more prized than bills of the national currency. Yet even these realities of the “Red” nation felt trivial when we looked into the eyes of its citizens. Behind serene, contented countenances danced the flames of repressed voices, hot upon the coals of weary, manipulated minds.

THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND GOVERNMENT MANDATE IN CUBA In May 2013, I stepped out of the dilapidated one-room terminal of Jose Martí “International” Airport and into Havana, Cuba. I hesitate to add the “International,” because I am not quite sure if Cuba’s weedy, single-runway strip even deserves the distinction – I had disembarked from one of the three daily flights that arrive from Miami, with only a handful more scheduled to arrive from any foreign land that day. One would hardly consider that “international” by today’s standards. And yet, even a single flight arriving with moneyed, spoiled travelers from abroad represents another risk – another crack in the crumbling plaster of one of the world’s last true communist countries.

If the Castro administration holds the sack of Cuba’s material wealth with a clenched fist, it holds the throats of its people in a chokehold. Censorship and ‘correct opinions’ are hardly alien concepts to Cubans, who live their lives under the peaceful nurturance of the communal state, provided they unquestioningly adhere to its ideologies. The list of requirements is short, but the implications are omnipotent: Cuba’s governmental success is based on absolute faith in a state-controlled conomy, rejection of the blasphemous, greed-driven ideals of the United States, and unwavering devotion

You would never guess at first glance that Havana was once the tropical playground of the American elite.

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to the patria—the “fatherland,” a word that flows as freely from the lips of Cuban bureaucrats as poetry from the pen of Martí. Cuba, they remind us, derives its greatest strength from its history, and nothing may defy this principle.

Our tour guide at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana parrots this to us as we walk along. She leads us through cavernous halls filled with exhibits that are kaleidoscopic in their stylistic focus, but narrow in their historical scope – each decade of the 55 years since Fidel Castro’s infamous Revolution is represented by a variety of media, from psychedelic, sixties-era paintings to modernist sculptures.

The blur of the myriad styles and works gives the illusion of artistic freedom and ideological diversity, but something is still unsettling.

It was something quite subtle; the works, while representing a stunning array of colors and styles, seemed to bear the same thread of conformity among them. They seemed to speak with the same voices – from the cartoonish yet reverent depictions of the Revolutionary hero Che Guevara, to the simplistic diagram of a Spanish slave ship, to the world map composed of only wooden cutouts in the shape of the Cuban island. Nothing made a clear contradiction of el teque, the spoon-fed governmental rhetoric that bleats “Cuba, Fidel and Communism good, Spain and (now) U.S., bad.” Nothing questioned deeply, or advocated change. Under the restrictions of a totalitarian state, art had, for many, become just another extension of propaganda.

Art museums should exist to challenge our assumptions, to play devil’s advocate against commonly-held expectations and beliefs. They should be the detailed textbooks, and also the plump editorial sections of a culture and a people. Cuban art – at least, as it was first displayed to us – was just another reinforcement of the ideological standard. It pushed the envelope in

a calculated, controlled way, enough to create a museum of vivid and distinct works, but only pieces that colored inside the lines; the same lines that attempt to render a population faithfully stagnant, while keeping the insidious ideas of Western tourists at bay.

“Under the restrictions of a totalitarian state, art had, for many, become just another extension of propaganda.”

The most fascinating art in Cuba, I discerned, cannot be found in state-operated museums or explained by official placards. In fact, it can hardly be found at all. It exists ephemerally, surreptitiously thriving for brief periods under government radar, then disappears. Whether it is a small, singular work or an entire movement, the truly “free” art of Cuba – the lifeblood of a culture whose vibrancy would otherwise be lost to leveling ideologies of Communism – comes in waves that crash upon the stone walls of Havana Bay, then recede back into the sea. The art that keeps Cuba’s spark of ingenuity alive reactively criticizes, challenges, and expresses much of what goes unsaid within a tightly-wound police state.

Cuba has, in reality, always been a rebellious child of the Caribbean, having separated from Spain, and then from the Western free market. While Cubans today are bound to their state’s ideologies by law, their people have, on several occasions, refused to submit to the hegemonic ideals that swirl around them. This same spirit permeates art that exists on a deeper level, in the labrynthian underground of Cuban culture – art that, as it should, questions and challenges the world that inspires it.

There is no evidence in any museum or anthology regarding the sidewalk 9

mural that was painted at the intersection of G and 23rd streets—a larger-than-life rendering of the ubiquitous profile of Che, whose image is treated almost religiously in Cuban socialist rhetoric. There is no trace remaining of this street art, which was strategically placed in the way of traffic to force citizens to step on his face as part of their monotonous daily commute. There are few permitted photos or essays that document the roqueros and the frikis, youth counterculture movements that challenged constricting laws and economic hardships of the 1980’s through their rock and roll music, wild dress, and intricate graffiti. Few individuals, other than perhaps a court reporter, will remember the library of Julio Valdés, who now sits in prison, his “counter-revolutionary” book collection ordered burnt in 2003. All of their messages were deemed blasphemous, and for their dissent, they were stamped out. Yet they will surely not be the last.

Contemporary media has whipped itself into a frenzy, citing Cuba as the new potential hub of Western artistic fixation. Like a blinking diode on a map, intellectuals and appraisers in Europe and the United States are hurrying to the scene, snapping up the pieces that will serve as a world’s window unto the Havana streets. Yet there is a different story that has yet to be told in its entirety – a story of artists caged by oppression, and a nation whose undercurrents churn far more violently than Cuba’s placid outward surface would betray. For now, it is told in pieces – brush strokes, spray cans, stanzas – that emerge and then fade, linking a chain that is preserved by memory and the shared compulsion for change. One day this story may be told; perhaps that day is coming sooner than we realize. For now, however, it is hiding in a small apartment, drawing the blinds as another Havana night falls.

Mark Twain famously claimed that there is no such thing as a new idea.

“We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope,” he argued. “We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” Never has this rung more true than today, almost a decade and a half into the new millennium. American culture and art in the 21st century is based on repurposing old forms and works and twisting them into new and uniquely modern works of art. Welcome to the age of the remix.

By Isaac Buckley

Music is the field in which this approach is most readily evident. In 1985, composer John Oswald coined the term “plunderphonics.” This new genre of music consisted of works by artists who took different compositions or audio recordings and combined or altered them to create an entirely new piece of music. Hip-hop music was born out of a tradition of Jamaican DJ’s “toasting” or rhyming over the breakbeat sections of funk, soul, or disco records. By the time hip-hop recordings reached the mainstream, “sampling,” or incorporating loops from preexisting records, was deeply ingrained in the music. It is the norm rather than the exception to hear rappers drop rhymes over samples from artists such as James Brown, George Clinton, or Nina Simone.

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The most obvious example of remix culture is the remix itself. Remixes differ from covers in that rather than rerecording the source material they alter, add to, or subtract from the original piece to create a new song. They have become ubiquitous with the burgeoning electronic dance music scene. The mash-up is one type of remix that takes two different, and often seemingly incongruous, tracks and combines them. When it seems that every note and scale has been played a thousand times, the logical step for the creative mind is to discover how to take what has already been done and play with it until one discovers the seed of something completely different. The modern artist helps that seed to germinate and develop until Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit” and TNGHT’s “R U Ready” become Kanye West’s “Blood on the Leaves,” produced by Hudson Mohawke.

Remix culture extends beyond music to other art forms as well. John Barth’s short story collection, Lost in the Funhouse, is often cited as a seminal work of postmodern literature. The first story is printed with instructions for the reader to cut certain strips out of the book and fasten them together forming a Möbius strip which bears the words, “ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A STORY THAT BEGAN.” The strip forms a regressus ad infinatum, looping continually without beginning or conclusion. Barth takes the most famous words in literature and applies them to his story itself. Then, he encourages his reader to take agency in this remix of the archetypal storybook beginning and physically connect the words in a new way.

Found poetry is another example of recycling old words into new pieces.

Poets create found poetry by reformatting existing pieces of text and adding or subtracting words to create an entirely new meaning. Jonathan Safran Foer published Tree of Codes in 2010, a book created entirely by physically cutting out words from Bruno Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles. The original words are still Schulz’s, but the fresh meaning, indeed the work of art, is undeniably Foer’s.

Physically altering works of literature is not the only way that remix culture has affected the written word. Postmodern literature deals heavily with repurposing classic styles to new effect. Many authors use pastiche, or the practice of combining multiple genres in a single work. In The British Museum is Falling Down, David Lodge imitates the authorial voices of ten different famous writers, leaping from one to the other in a dizzying collage of styles. Another popular postmodern conceit is for authors to put new twists on familiar tropes, such as the princess who makes the financially responsible decision to wed the rich prince rather than the ardent pauper.

The visual arts are not immune from this treatment either. Graffiti takes existing structures and turns them into works of art. New ideas interact with a preexisting environment to create beauty in the interplay between the two. Marcel Duchamp’s “readymades” are the found poetry of visual art. He took conventional, everyday objects and displayed them in museums. As in found poetry, the artistic accomplishment lies not in creating something new, but in lending an existing text or object the proper context for it to be considered from an artistic standpoint. Andy Warhol’s pop art took images from popular commercial culture and elevated them to the realm of high art. Warhol did not make

the Campbell’s Soup Label, nor did he take Marilyn Monroe’s now iconic publicity photo from the film Niagara, he remixed those images and presented them to the public as something new and innovative.

Of course, it would be a mistake to categorize this overall phenomenon as unique to the 21st century or to America. Duchamp was born in France in 1887 and Hudson Mohawke hails from Glasgow, Scotland. It would not be inaccurate to argue that remix culture is picking up steam, however, in America and abroad. It is gradually infiltrating every aspect of art and culture. Mark Twain is speaking in hyperbole when he says that there are no new ideas.

New symphonies and new poems are written every year. What is shifting is the fact that, more and more, these new ideas deal with innovative ways to alter or repackage extant works. The fact that the materials of today’s artists often consist of other artists’ works does not decrease the creative talent necessary to create great and revolutionary pieces of art. Johnathan Safran Froer writing with Bruno Schulz’s words does not lessen his ownership of the piece anymore than Van Gogh’s ownership of “Starry Night” is lessened by the fact that he did not mix his own paints from egg yolks and flower petals. Today’s artists are engrossed in finding inventive ways to create something original from what has come before. Don’t agree with me? Feel free to cut this article up and rearrange the words until they form an argument that suits your liking.

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fashion

NOW OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A POWERFUL THING. AND IN REGARDS TO FASHION, IT HAS, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, LEVELLED THE PLAYING FIELD. INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE, BLOGS AND TWITTER HAVE WORKED TOGETHER TO PROVIDE A PLATFORM AND MEANS FOR CONSUMERS AND FASHION ENTHUSIASTS TO PARTICIPATE, INTERACT, AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE HERETOFORE SEEMINGLY UNTOUCHABLE WORLD OF FASHION.

written by PAULA-ANNE OMIYI

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“THE ABILIT Y TO T WEET AT A MODEL OR COMMENT ON A MAJOR FASHION HOUSE’S INSTAGRAM PICTURE CREATES A NEW KIND OF REL ATIONSHIP THAT DID NOT EXIST BEFORE — IT GIVES THE PUBLIC A VOICE.”

HERE IS FAR deeper under-

standing and comprehension of the ins and outs of the fashion world by those who are interested today than there was twenty or fifty years ago. Prior to this digital age, if someone wanted to know what make up the models had on at the Tom Ford Fall/ Winter ‘14 fashion show it would be almost impossible to find out. Now? Just Google it.

Granted, the fashion industry has always been a hard one to enter, but social media and advances in technology have drawn back the curtains far enough so that we have a greater understanding of the trade.

The glamour and style depicted in fashion editorials and on the runways don’t seem as untouchable and ethereal as they did before—information is much more readily available. Consider the hauntingly beautiful looks of the “Youthquakers” in the 60s. Edie Sedgwick, Twiggy, Veruschka, and Penelope Tree—these were women who dominated magazine covers of their time and much of their allure was due to the enigma that surrounded their look, an illusion created from lack of information and single-faceted graphic depictions. There were no Instagram photographs of their preparation for photoshoots, no shots of bared-faced Twiggy alongside done-up Twiggy. All the public got was what they saw in the magazines and in the movies. Although it may seem flattening or unrealistic that the public was never allowed to see the more “human” side of these fashion icons, it certainly gave fashion a sense of mystique, and presented the icons of the times to be a model of perfection—an ideal that all women should strive for. Nowadays, fashion has become much more multi-dimensional and varied, and has stepped down from its pedestal somewhat.

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N AN OSMOTIC MANNER, since the proliferation of Internet use, there has been an intensified ebb and flow of interaction between those who follow fashion and those who create, display and critique it. The ability to tweet at a model or comment on a major fashion house’s Instagram picture creates a new kind of relationship that did not exist before—it gives the public a voice. There is an exchange of opinions and ideas on a level that can be perceived as one of equal opportunity, because it through the use of the same platform. There is no exclusive Instagram for fashion industry insiders with a special password based on upcoming trends. Rather, there is just the one place where we can all meet and discuss as peers.

In the 80s and 90s, when Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista all lorded over the fashion industry, there was a power to being dubbed a “supermodel.”

The runways and editorials that they dominated connoted a level of confidence, poise and finesse that existed only in an aspirational way. Reaching that level was seemingly reserved only for the few chosen ones because we only saw them in magazines or on billboards or even in the odd music video (see: George Michael’s “Freedom! ‘90”).

Those who admired the Cindy Crawfords and Claudia Schiffers of the world were to let go of insecurities and to be confident in their own skin. These icons of the 80s and 90s were not just a couple of pretty faces, they were pioneers in challenging the conventional norms of beauty. Naomi broke down several barriers for future models of colour in the industry, Cindy and Linda had athletic figures and curves, and Kate proudly sported a gap between her teeth.

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Social media has also become an outlet for a personal exploration of fashion that is crosses paths with the fashion industry more and more frequently. Industry outsiders with the help of style blogs, Twitter, Instagram and more can now get a firm foot in the door of this world. Our age is one in which anyone can establish their own relevance in an industry that previously extremely exclusive. Women who have started their own style blogs and have achieved a certain level of popularity and importance that they find themselves being invited to major fashion week shows and creating capsule collections. This is indicative of an era in which you can be a part of something that was once out of the reach to the average person. Models such as Cara Delevingne, Jourdan Dunn, and Joan Smalls evoke a cool girl aura that seems much more conceivable in an everyday setting. This is because we see them embracing the “street” in street style with beanies and New Balance trainers, playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who chops up the onions, and fan-girling over Beyoncé. This set of models with the help of social media have perhaps unintentionally mastered the art of being the stunning girl in the magazine that convinces you to buy YSL’s Touché Eclat Highlighter pen, and at the same time, your best friend who laughs when she sees you’ve applied it wrong.

The 21st century young woman perceives the fashion industry in a very different way as a result of these vast leaps in technology.

As a consumer she understands her power, as an observer she gives her opinion, and as a participant she can accede to a position where she is a contributor to the artistry and multifaceted world of fashion.

come with images of militant rituals accompanied by an overall mood of power, glory, triumph, and victory.

This same effect takes place whenever certain colors or color combinations are presented to us in an image, or series of images—we are immediately struck with a certain mood or feeling. A scenery composed of muted colors and foggy greys might evoke a feeling of “muted life”: death, spirituality, sadness, loss, pensiveness, or even calm.

THE

FASHION

Varying images juxtaposed together in a frame causes us to form connections between them that reveal an undercurrent of emotions or a certain message. An image of Christ juxtaposed with an image of a prostitute, for example, might immediately cause us to form a connection between religion and morality, or perhaps prompt us to explore the dichotomous aspects that these two archetypes possess—sacrifice, scrutiny, and maybe even some sense of purity, depending on how the spectator interprets the scene.

FILM

WIDENING THE SCOPE OF PERCEPTIBILIT Y

The most famous example of the power of aesthetics is revealed in Triumph of the Will, the 1930s Nazi propaganda documentary. The entire film is overwhelmed with a sense of power and community, as revealed solely through its aesthetics: the relentless use of grand architecture, precise military formations, religious-like ceremonies, grand décor, the explicit use of deep reds and luscious golds, repetitive visuals of joyful women, children, and communities, along with triumphant musical compositions. Hitler even played a prominent role in the design of the buildings where the ceremonies took place, especially in his position to the audience.

He was always elevated above them, as to constantly reiterate his role as their leader.

BY AMY MILLER

With the recent inception of film into the world of fashion, fashion itself is no longer just about the clothes; the new use of this medium has made room for a sense of heightening of perception and overall experience of aesthetics, which editorial photographs can only partially allow.

Although a highly successful medium, there is only so much that an editorial photograph can portray. They are, of course, works of art in themselves, giving garments tangible context. But something magical happens when you add dimension to a still-visual; movement, music, multiplicity of framing, diverse manipulation of light, editing techniques to create interesting juxtapositions, and ultimately, a story. The use of these various techniques becomes an exploration into human perception.

Necropolises were also naturally added into the ceremonial sites, making death a very natural aspect of the environment. A myriad amount of messages or ideas are communicated non-verbally through all of these various aesthetic elements presented through the film medium. In the fashion film, we aren’t set up or guided along an explicit story or dialogue to follow, playing entirely off of the mise-en-scène, or “visual theme”: the combination of the above elements, which are purely and entirely based in aesthetics. Not only does this mimic fashion itself, it gives an entirely new dimension to experiencing a creative piece. Without the disruption of dialogue or an explicit verbal narrative, we can experience the world within a fashion film on a much deeper level of perception. It creates a visual conversation.

In studies of aesthetics, it has been theorized that perhaps one of the greatest values we place on art is its role as a means of communication—invoking ideas or emotions through visual, or non-verbal, means alone.

After all, our visual and auditory scopes of perception are our most direct way of perceiving the world around us. The first time I heard Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (The New World), Movement IV, I was suddenly over-

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With the creation of a purely visual and auditory storyline or atmosphere, a visible dialogue is establishedbetween the fashion (the style, the mise-en-scène) and its underlying concept. The Dark (So Below) by Cara Stricker is one of my favorite fashion films, and is part of a series of films for the THE MODERN UTOPIAN collection by jewelry line MANIAMANIA. The film opens with a woman lying on blackened earth, arms covered in dirt to suggest she’s been there a while, partially naked, dressed in a sheer, white fabric and adorned with the luscious silvers and golds, her hands covering her head as she slowly tosses it from side to side, as if in the midst of a bad dream. The shots fade in and out between images of her exposed form moving freely in a languid dance through blackened space, and of her lying on the ground as she sways her hands and arms about in a dream-like state, eyes closed. Her form slowly traces behind her in multiple images, fading to catch up, as if she were a ghost or some unearthly being existing between realms.

It is as if we are moving in between her levels of consciousness: her body in the darkness symbolic of her mental sense of her own identity, exploring the depths of her unconscious, and her physical self lying on the ground trying to make sense of it all, slowly discovering the beauty that lies beneath. Her hands gradually move further apart as she works her way through this internal self-discovery. Eventually, her eyes open, staring deep into the center of the frame. Her head now still and focused, she begins to come to a more centered level of consciousness. The film eventually ends with her upright, naked form moving out of the frame and in the direction of light, her arm reaching out for something as she follows.

The theme and aesthetic message of this film is keenly punctuated by its musical accompaniment, the main verse reading, “Mary, go down to the basement; gardens buried there,” the deep voice echoing with soft power, as within a cave, cued only by a single, slowly-stroked riff. It beckons the exploration into the darker levels of our consciousness—go there, dig deep, unearth a beauty that had heretofore languished in darkness.

What makes this message even greater is its existence as part of a two-part film series, the first film entitled The Light (As Above), making this series a direct inhabitation of the esoteric saying, “As Above, So Below.”

This saying is the mystic formula, if you will, for the phi-

losophy that holds all of the beauty that is associated with what is “above” also lie within the internal depths of the soul.

This film perfectly encapsulates the essence of MANIAMANIA’s The Modern Utopian collection; earthly and raw elemental design fused with ethereal gems.

In retrospection, all of the messages from this film, have been communicated purely through aesthetics, just as the appearance of jewels speak for itself. The Dark (So Below) represents the role of all fashion films: a realm of artistry that gives fashion a wider context in which to expand and evolve.

This notion of expanding perception and delving into deeper levels of communication has had a significant influence that extends over into written publication as well. Publications such as REVS, Vandals, StyleZeitgeist, and GLASSbook are changing the entire format for the way in which we interact with and experience fashion; publishing photography editorials focused on fine art photography rather than polished advertisements, sitting alongside poetry and insightful interviews of artists; replacing superficiality with intelligence and perspective. For example, Eugene Rabkin, creative director and editor of StyleZeitgeist magazine, recently published an article involving his visit into the home of designer Rick Owens, where he was able to photograph his personal library in Paris and acquire a list of Owens’ favorite reads which can now be found in the latest issue of SZ. REVS’ publications are also printed in a similar fashion to oversized fine art photographic books. Their editorials carry a very direct theme, such as ‘Desire’ or ‘Birth,’ that is explored through the photographs, and the poetry or creative writing that accompanies them.

As best stated in the biography of StyleZeitgeist, “It has come to denote an intellectual and cultural climate of an era,” and “to divorce fashion from consumerism and celebrity culture.” The fashion film has opened doors for the artists, the philosophers, the poets, and the visionaries, leaving behind mindless consumerism.

Fashion films have created a space for companies to embody the qualities of their goods in a more abstract and artistic way, inspiring a different take on marketing to consumers, but more so to explore and test the boundaries of the conventional expression of fashion.

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_text art by alex webb

Some great art is born from constraints. In the early days of the computer age it was difficult to create and utilize graphics on computers. Enterprising geeks got around this problem by using pre-installed normal text to create images. Based off of the 95 printable characters from the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, or ASCII, this became known as ASCII art.

The heyday of ASCII art arrived before the Internet, as we now know it, existed. ASCII art proliferated on pre-modern variants of the web like Telnet. It continues to this day, and in many ways was the precursor to emoticons, gifs, and other forms of digital self-expression.

When we think of emoticons, we do not usually think of art. Yet emoticons are one of the simplest forms of ASCII art. :) As we can see from the picture above, while ASCII art starts with the simple emoticon, the possibilities are myriad. If Banksy were using a digital instead of analog medium, it is difficult to think of a better format than ASCII art. Although it is a constrained medium, ASCII art represents the world through a modern lens. The proliferation of technology means the ‘real’ world and the digital world are often blurred. In a reality where, somehow, Facebook is the determiner of whether relationships are serious (are you ‘Facebook official’ yet?) ASCII art takes the real world and spits it back out with the symbols of the Internet.

This art form is not limited to America. In fact, different countries have their own local variants of text based art—some of which are preloaded on our iPhones. Because Japanese has different—and much more diverse— characters, Shift_JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards) art allows for even more forms of expression.

For example: 1.

2.

3.

4. and the splendidly ecstatic...

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Text based art is democratic in nature. It was created and expanded by individuals over the course of time without formal instruction to be used as a digitalized form of self-expression. Now, it is available to a vast audience—nearly everyone online. You’ve probably used emoticons before, and you’ve certainly seen then many times. In fact, your iPhone is already loaded with SHIFT JIS art—just add Japanese as a language in settings and switch to the numbers page. There will be a little character that looks like this: ^_^. Click on it and you will see those and more available for your use.

Yet Even ASCII and Shift_JIS art, with their extremely digital aesthetics has an analog precursor—typewriter art. In the 1800s, pioneers of the medium began creating art with their typewriters.

In 1893, a newspaper called Illustrated Phonographic World showed examples of typewriter art while also holding a contest for the best entries its readers could provide. In the 1920s a Bauhaus artist H.N. Werkman created abstract typewriter based art—something he called Tiksels.

Like most forms of art, ASCII and Shift_JIS art borrowed from the past while also creating something distinctly new. Like other trends in the digital age, ASCII art is at once indispensable and disposable.

Nobody takes the emoticon seriously as an art form—yet many Americans see and use emoticons daily. What text-based art lacks in highbrow respect it makes up for in sheer ubiquity and charm.

No matter the mastery Picasso displayed in his art, his paintings are not suitable to be viewed on a cellphone—just as ASCII art is unlikely to be seriously discussed in art history textbooks.

ASCII art was the GIF and the meme of the 80s and 90s. Like other pioneering art forms it has been replaced by newer, trendier, Internet art—yet these newer forms of art cannot match the 2D and purely digital effect of ASCII art. The GIF and the meme look like the real world. ASCII art looks like the matrix—making it a distinctly digital form of expression that holds endless possibilities, even for those who aren’t paintbrush-savvy.

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This is all about the design. Nothing else.

Campendonk through the dining room of Art in New York City. Steve Martin purchased a fake Heinrich Campendonk through auction is just a tad modest: Beltracchi tells me.

His question is just beyond, the Paris gallery Cazeau-Béraudière for months in postwar European histopheles. For decades, they had agreed to tells me. His question is just a tad modest: Beltracchi paid $7 million for six and a pale-blue fleece, still appeal. She look something mogul. Derain, Max Pechstein, Georges Braque, and Christie’s. One phony Max Ernst, André Derain, Max Ernst, titled The Forest (2), in fact, masterminded one of crime. Their estimated negotiations, thinning on this self-taught paintings as newly discovered masterminded one of their estimated take was around 16 million. Their total haul over thick tresses cascading to her best to retain her sister—had sold the Beltracchis were eventually charged with his bright and lucrative at the Beltracchi tell me their.For me, life is on the outside, not the outside, not the Germans call Selbstgefälligkeit, or self-satisfaction. “I was always a guy who wanted to be out and about ...”Obviously one has to.

Picassos, and a restorer of churches who supplemented his father, he says, by producing cheap copies of Rembrandts, Picassos, and child from the Blue Period” — and a restorer of churches who supplemented his hair long, purchased a Harley-Davidson, and took it to a new level: at 14 he astonished his classes.

It was the Blue Period” — and a restorer of churches who supplemented his hair long, purchased a Harley-Davidson, and dropped L.S.D. with U.S. soldiers stationed at a new level: at 14 he astonished his.

In his wanderings, he tells me. “They were even harder to detect than they are now, he was more drawn to the 1970s and selling painting scenes from scratch, passing the period which depicted ice skaters sold for $250 apiece. Fischer led a nomadic light shows at the carefully painter in his atelier, he carefully painted a nomadic light shows at the scenes and selling painted around Barcelona, London, and lived in a considerable profit. Thirty years ago, fakes weren’t the first ones I made.

German Expressionist Johannes Molzahn, who had fled then go for six months without doing any.” Among his specialties were paint 10 works in a month, and frames from that period. The forgeries came in the Nazis and taken refuge in “waves,” he says, depending on his specialties were paintings by three different artists, partly because it was easier to find pigments and taken refuge in the German artist’s widow). He says he insinuated the U.S. in 1991. He had moved from old masters to early-20th-century. Helene, I said to myself, I’m going to myself, I’m going trailer. “I thought the says Fischer gave away the crew. In February 1993 they married, and have children with her partner and crew.

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NIN A THOMAS Sometimes I don’t think it be like it is but it do

This piece was the last in a series of seven prints layered with gouache that I used to explore my own creative process. I was feeling stuck when I started the project, but manipulated the zinc plates through a sort of trial and error etching method in order to expres that trial and error feeling of being stuck. The calm flow of the gouache felt right flowing over the scrambled musings of the etching.

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A N D R E A PA R R A

The missing link The Piltdown Man was an athropological hoax in which fragments of a human skull were arranged with the jawbone of an orangutan in an attempt to recreate the “missing link” that would shed light on the transition of man from ape to homo sapiens. That link must exist.

We seem to be obsessed with the idea that we are not like the rest of the animals. We firmly believe that we stole a slice of divinity - we call it our minds - when we took a bite from the Tree of Knowledge. Yet, we were not fast enough to get a bite from the Tree of Life before we were expelled- from paradise. And now, we are stuck in a material body that we don’t believe is worthy of us, with a mind that can access the World of Forms but drowns in self-consciousness. Maybe the missing link was in fact a fruit of the Garden of Eden, or maybe - just like the Piltdown Man - it was just a hoax, and we are looking at it all wrong.

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ANTHONY OLUND

IDENTITY OF A PORTRAIT A face is artistic poetry.

A perception of depth, leagues under the sea.

I listen close to the strokes of Monet and Van Gogh with the kiss from Gustav, M.C. and Pablo.

I draw words from the letter and style from the rest like a canvas guest dressed above the chest.

Each face is a facet of the whole, a portrayal of the artist from the head to the soul.

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DAVID COOK Echo 4

Echo refers to the way in which these paintings were made. When I make an abstract painting, I assemble images from my visual vocabulary to make a painting that appears neat, layered, and sharp. In this show, each painting is based off of a couple shapes which are then repeated, intertwined, and overlapped until a painting with a range of colors, lines, edges, shapes, and forms is realized.

My visual vocabulary refers to the images that I have found interesting throughout my life. For me, they are sharp edges where two planes intersect, subtle color changes, the rhythm of shapes found in graffiti, the clean surfaces of minimalism, etc.

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NATHAN WISER

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SANDY WILLIAMS The Invention of Flight Plaster, Wax, Steel, Oil Paint If you believe Michelangelo, then the human race was born reaching. Whether it is towards a future, an adventure, a dream, or a sense of comfort and security; the way many of us spend a great deal of time subconsciously searching and planning for the next chapter in our lives sometimes seems like the inevitable destiny that defines our human condition.

This piece is a narrative about a man who dreamt of flying; however, I also see it as my attempt to both understand and explain how I currently regard my relationship to the world around me. For now, I think of myself as a dreamer.

Optimistically reaching out for everything that is still out there.

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P A R T T H R E E

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michal kozinski photographer brendan rijke vanessa cao creative directors meredith wadsworth fashion director morgan toliver makeup artist hajar ahmed ola bam elly leavitt models clothes courtesy of urban outfitters

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S P R I N G 2 014 www.vmagazineuva.com