Printmaking and Photography Part 3

Module 11: Photography, etc. pdf (pg. 2) ➡ Photography ! • A very long time ago people observed that light coming into a dark room through a small opening, or aperture, created an inverted reflected image of the outside world in the interior of the room. ! • This effect was soon replicated by building boxes w/ apertures & mirrors & these devices are both called a camera obscura, which means “dark room” in Italian. ! • Some artists looked through constructed grids & transferred the images from each grid to paper, while other artists sat behind plates of glass onto which they traced the shapes of the objects before them. ! • Even though the camera obscura was originally both entertaining & useful, people wanted to try & capture the fleeting image of the camera obscura in a permanent method. ! • It became possible through scientific experimentation & advances in the early half of the 1800s. ! ➡ Early Photography ! • Progressed by scientific experimentation w/ light-sensitive chemicals in the 1700s. ! • Photography was not invented at this time because the chemicals that were used resulted in images that faded quickly & disappeared. ! • Until the early 1800s that a # of men working separately in both England & France developed permanent photography. ! • In France, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created the world’s first permanent photograph in 1826. ! - Then collaborated w/ Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerrre to develop a successful photographic process. ! • Process consisted of a piece of metal treated w/ light sensitive chemicals which was then exposed to light, fixing the image on a metal plate. ! • The image produced by this technique was called a daguerreotype, after Daguerre, & debuted to the world in 1839. ! • Only 1 daguerreotype could be made from taking a picture, & the shininess of the plate on which the image was fixed often made it difficult to see the image. ! - You can see your own reflection better in a daguerreotype than the intended photographic image! • The worst drawback for daguerreotype makers was that the process used toxic mercury fumes to develop images. ! • Shine light through the paper to produce an image on another piece of paper, the result of which he called a calotype. ! - Developed by William Henry Fox Talbot ! • Daguerreotype and other similar photographic methods remained popular w/ the public until the late 1800s. ! • Photography became cheaper & more convenient, it became very popular for portraiture. ! • For small-scale personal images, you could have had a portrait miniature of your loved one painted (if you had the money), BUT these small-scale painted portraits could vary greatly in quality & accurateness of representation of the subject. ! • Portraits were immediately popular, BUT because of the long amount of time it took for an exposure, people did not tend to smile. ! - Giving modern observers the false impression that everyone in the 1800s was boring & sour-faced in their black-&-white photos. ! • Small personal photographs were often hand-tinted to give the appearance of color, but usually limited to gilding wedding rings & applying blush to cheeks. ! • Early images on metal plates were delicate & people kept them in special made leather or plastic cases that could be closed like a book to keep the image from fading due to exposure to light. ! • The ambrotype & the tintype were 2 such developments in the later 1800s using different plates & chemicals. ! • Photography was popular among regular people for portraits ! - Photographers & scientists continued w/ their experimentation to create new photographic forms. ! • Cyanotype, named for the blue (cyan) color of the finished work! - Invented in England, 1842 ! - When an object is placed on a sheet coated w/ a certain combination of chemicals, & the sheet exposed to sunlight, the paper around the object turns blue while the shadow of the object stays white. ! - This method limited to produce singular images! • Photogravure, a complex photographic process invented in 1876 where multiple copies of an image could be produced in a technique combining photography with printmaking. ! - RESULT: an engraved plate used to make multiple photographic prints. ! • Photomontage is the process of cutting and pasting photos together to form one larger image. ! - Like collage except it’s limited to the use of photos ! - Cut & pasted image could be considered the final work of art OR could be photographed to form 1 large photo! ➡ Modern Photography ! • George Eastman developed film to replace cumbersome glass negatives & difficult to use paper negatives. ! - RESULT: a photographic medium that could fit easily in a small box & take multiple pictures. ! - Calling his camera the Kodak, & was put into mass production by the late 1800s ! ‣ A portable, refillable camera, was the prototype for the modern film cameras. ! ‣ 35mm film camera (NOT digital)! ‣ Holds a light-sensitive negative! ‣ Shutter behind the lens of camera opens & shuts quickly to admit a small amount of light onto the negative! ‣ The negative is placed in an enlarger to make the image on the small negative big enough for a photograph. ! • There are 2 main types of film cameras: SLR & point-&-shoot. ! - SLR ! ‣ Stands for “single lens reflex” & describes those cameras that rely on interchangeable, detachable lenses & use 35mm film. ! ‣ Used by professional photographers ! ‣ The photographer chooses the object that will be in view, & that can be something in the foreground OR something in the background, leaving some areas in focus & others blurry. ! - Point-&-shoot ! ‣ Just a standard camera w/out a detachable lens. ! ‣ You’ll notice that the viewfinder is NOT aligned w/ the lens, but usually above it, meaning what you’re shooting isn’t really what you’re seeing! ‣ Are for everyday use ! ➡ Moving Pictures ! • Film ! - Eadweard Muybridge is a well-known photographer who conducted experiments w/ capturing motion on film. ! - A series of still images recording motion at intervals, the basis of the moving picture. ! - The use of photography to capture motion progressed beyond still photographs to moving pictures in the very late 1800s with the use of long strips of film. ! - The film strip is then loaded onto a projector where it moves at 24 frames per second & is projected by a light shining through the film onto a screen. ! - Movies primarily became a form of entertainment ! - The invention of sound in 1927, to the prominence of the use of color in the 1930s. ! - Some artists were able to team w/ filmmakers & created art films ! - 1 artist who used film as art was Pop artist Andy Warhol, who’s known for the mid-1960s works he developed called Screen Tests. ! ‣ These screen tests consisted of inviting a person into his studio in New York, asking them to sit in front of a running camera, & then leaving the room while the film was rolling. ! ‣ The unfortunate sitter was not informed of what was going on, and the point of the works was to capture the expressions of people caught in this awkward situation—to see their true identities. ! ‣ Warhol considered his Screen Tests to be portraits. ! • Video ! - The film lasted only for a short amount of time & still had to be processed & projected on a screen to be viewed. ! - The incorporation of motion picture technology in fine art came w/ the invention of the hand-held video camera in the 1960s. ! - The portable hand-held movie camera had an advantage over older hand held film cameras because the image was recorded directly onto a tape that could be played immediately. ! - VCR (video cassette recorder) was developed for consumer use in the 1970s & that meant that the video could go straight from recording to viewing. ! - Video had the advantage of being more instant— record, rewind, & play— BUT it was also lower quality than film, & cheaper. ! - Video cassettes could be re-used BUT tended to wear out from too many plays & too much recording. ! - The most popular format for video was VHS (video home system). ! ➡ Digital Technology & New Media Art ! • Latest development in new technology to affect art is digital technology. ! • Digital technology has revolutionized the transfer & creation of images. ! • The DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) was developed in the late 1990s, and rendered VHS obsolete. ! • Relies on the visual imagery to be stored as pixels, small pieces of digital information. ! • The digital camera is a product of the early 1990s ! • Until the early 2000s that digital cameras became affordable for professional use, and then for private use. ! • W/ digital, the delay between capturing, viewing, & sharing images has been erased. ! • The Polaroid camera was for a long time the only camera where the image could be developed right after the picture was taken ! • Digital photography allows for the image to be quickly used in a variety of other applications from web publishing, to video making, to instant sharing via online social media sites. ! ➡ New Media Art • The term New Media Art is a term that has been coined to describe a genre of art where the art is made using new technologies ! - Including works of art that use computers or anything made w/ a computer, art that’s internet-based or virtual, & any art using digital technology. ! • One of the hallmarks of our use of modern technology, is its social dimension ! Module 11: Camera Obscura (pg. 3) ➡ This diagram shows how the light enters through an opening (aperture), & is reflected up by a mirror. ! ➡ A photograph by Abelardo Morell called Light Bulb from 1991 showing a camera obscura#in action. ! Module 11: Un Chien Andalou (pg. 4) ➡ https://youtu.be/054OIVlmjUM ! Module 11: Discussion 8 (pg. 5) ➡ DISCUSSION PROMPT! • I want to know what you thought of the film? • Did you like it? Why or why not? • Be specific when you are providing your response. (a paragraph minimum- 5-6 sentences) • Please also respond to the posts of at least two of your classmates. Module 11: A Brief Introduction to Media Art pdf (pg. 6) ➡ Exploring the computer’s potential as a medium helped further the idea that every kind of art had always been media art, in as much as the term “media” can also refer to all sorts of tools, appliances, machines, artificial extensions of the body etc. ! ➡ “net art,” which is found on the Internet & can be accessed from any personal computer ! ➡ “installation art” that is characterized by its specific location and concrete materiality. ! ➡ Within this genealogy, “video art” plays a paramount role. Due to its:! • Technological basis! • Transformation of sounds & images into electronic signals! ➡ Beginning in the late 1960s, the new medium of video became attractive for artists from different realms of expression (music, dance, performance, political agitation, experimental film, etc.) ! ➡ “Time-based art” has accordingly now become the term of choice for this genre. ! ➡ Film & media studies, too, can hardly avoid engaging w/ audiovisual art. ! ➡ A focus that subsequently came to dominate (new) media art & perhaps even constitutes a specific characteristic that sets it apart from traditional art, namely the dispositif. ! ➡ Media art is highly self-reflexive in that it frequently displays the conditions of its own production & reflects on the “apparatus” in which its production & reception are inextricably tied together. ! ➡ Paik is the pivotal figure in any history of media art. ! ➡ Political & social upheavals of the 1960s are usually associated w/ ! - student protests, ! - the peace movement, ! - environmentalism, ! - sexual revolution, ! - feminism, ! - Black Panthers, ! - & the gay & lesbian movement, ! - the sphere of art produced its own Zeitgeist-evoking terms, among them Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Anti-Art, Land Art, Body Art, Pop Art, & Fluxus. ! • What these labels have in common is that they imply a change in the concept of the artwork, emphasizing its procedural, immaterial or simply everyday characer. ! ➡ Andy Warhol, in 1965, used video camera equipment (made by an American manufacturer) to shoot footage of Edie Sedgwick, his Factory Girl, in profile. ! • He then placed her, face-front, next to a huge monitor on which the previously recorded images were playing, & recorded this w/ a 16-mm camera. ! • RESULT: Warhol called Outer and Inner Space, made it look as though Edie was talking to herself. ! • Warhol was the 1st artist to mix film & video techniques! ➡ The 1st really portable 1⁄2-inch devices (the most prominent being Sony’s DV-2400, also known as “Portapak”) were introduced in 1967 & immediately triggered a real video boom. ! • At first, they could merely record images but NOT replay them & used open reels; however, they quickly became more powerful & user-friendly. ! ➡ Performance & Interaction ! • Many performance artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg in the United States & Günter Brus & Otto Mühl in Austria, began their careers as painters. ! • These beginnings gave way to 4 basic kinds of video practice: ! - the use of video on stage; ! - the live manipulation of video images by the video jockey; ! - the documentation of performances/spectacles/events; ! - &, the video performance in which the dispositif plays a crucial role. ! • Today, using video on stage is a standard theater practice. ! • The stage & the performative act are also relevant factors in video installations, as can be seen in the works by Tony Oursler, who combines video projections with theatrical props & decors. ! • Even more fundamental to the history of video installation than the theatrical quality of its objects & their presentation is the behavior of the viewer which, in many cases, became inscribed in the art work’s functionality &, going by the label of “interactivity,” extends into the worlds of cyber space & contemporary game culture. ! ➡ Installations & Projections ! • This type of installation NOT ONLY defines the amount of time a viewer must spend on the artwork, it also requires him or her to actively engage the surrounding space, as is the case w/ sculpture. ! • The 1st explorations into the creative possibilities of film projections in the form of overlapping images on several screens were carried out in the 1920s by the animation film pioneer Oskar Fischinger. ! • The broadcasting of art videos on television initially provided these artists w/ the rare opportunity to get paid for their products ! • Artists now had a more individualized access to audiovisual media which in turn improved their knowledge of film history & their willingness to use already existing material in new contexts. ! ➡ Thematic Constants ! • (1) Body & Voice, Language & Writing! • (2) Ego-Identity & Sexuality ! • (3) Surveillance / Control ! Module 11: Bill Viola, The Crossing (pg. 7) ➡ https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/global-contemporaryapah/20th-century-apah/a/viola-the-crossing ! ➡ Taking time back! • Bill Viola’s#The Crossing#is a room-sized video installation that comprises a large two-sided screen onto which a pair of video sequences is simultaneously projected. ! • 2 scenes diverge ! ➡ Expanded Temporal Experience ! • The Crossing#makes use of Viola’s signature manipulation of filmic time. ! • It was shot using high-speed film capable of registering 300 frames per second, thus attaining a much greater level of detail than would be discerned by the naked eye. ! • In postproduction, Viola reduces the speed of playback to an extreme slow motion—further enhancing the level of definition to a dramatic & scrutinizing effect. ! - To invite a meditative & contemplative response ! ➡ Religious Symbolism ! • The Crossing#might be interpreted through the lens of mythology or religious thought, even though the work does not make iconographic or stylistic reference to a particular narrative. ! • Viola has been inspired by a rich variety of spiritual traditions, including Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, &#Sufism.! • The artist has similarly made reference to transitions and passages in works! • Viola’s education & artistic practice have long been guided by questions of “how we see, how we hear, & how we come to know the world.” ! ➡ Technological Experimentation ! • Early as the 1970s, Viola was one of the first visual artists to make use of new video technologies. ! • He experimented w/ new portable recording devices, w/ which he created short video performances that explored a variety of gestures, sounds & expressions, as a student. ! • During the 1970s & 1980s, he was artist-in-residence at a number of media laboratories & television stations, while also serving as an assistant curator at Everson Museum of Art where he was exposed to the work of Nam June Paik & Peter Campus.! - Artists who were early innovators in the emerging field of video art. ! • Viola conceived of multi-channel & immersive installations where#viewers are surrounded by carefully arranged screens & projections, sometimes displayed w/in an otherwise pitch-black room. ! ➡ Sacred Space#! • Between 1974 & 1976, Viola lived in Italy, where religious paintings & sculptures are often displayed in-situ, in the cathedrals for which they were commissioned. ! • Later traveling throughout Japan & other parts of East Asia, Viola observed the same active level of engagement with art. ! • For viewers, the experience of viewing Viola’s works need not be spiritually inscribed. ! • In most cases, his works appeal to OR reflect raw human emotions OR universal life experiences