Rainer SPF10 Research

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Idea Post #8: Spring Semester

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Parental Influence

"The parent-child relationship is the most important relationship the child has. Different parental styles lead to various ways we interact with our children and is an important component that shapes the child's views about themselves and their world."

Source: http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Spring99/schoolage/family.html

"What can we, as parents and teachers, do to facilitate a child's development in the psychosocial arena? First, we must recognize the child's need and interpret his behavior from his perspective, not our own. Secondly, we can encourage the child and seek to meet his need to belong in a way that he understands. By doing these things, the child builds a good self-image which increases his ability to interact in a positive way with others and leads to the development of effective relationships with important people in his life: parents, siblings, and peers."

Source: http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Spring99/schoolage/family.html

Annotated Bibliography: Hill, C.R. and Stafford, F.P. (1980). Parental care of children: Time diary estimate of quantity, predictability, and variety. Journal of Human Resources, 15, 219-239.

This journal goes into the specifics of raising children and the how much the child benefits, or doesn't benefit from certain types of parental influence. It goes into the psychology behind the child's feelings and their actions how each varied response from a parent can affect the child in different ways.

Throughout the whole last year, I have been looking into the various ways children are influenced and how that influence affects their behavior and mindset. Looking into parental influence for once, instead of researching educational influence gave me a new perspective on how a child can be influenced. I sought out with this original thought process, and got wrapped up in educational settings that it was time for me to turn back to the parents for some answers as well.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Artist Lecture: Trevor Paglen

Tuesday April 5th, 2011

Questions:

1. I love the way you don't just call yourself an artist or a photographer, but you also refer to yourself as a social scientist, a geographer, and a provocateur. Do you feel this way and market yourself this way for a certain reason?

2. What is your attraction to painting with light and creating abstractions from cityscapes?

Favorite Quotes from the Lecture:

"How do we try to know something that is designed to be unknowable? How do we see things that are designed to be invisible?"

"If we want to try to see invisible things, we have to be like astronomers."

"If you want to build an invisible airplane, you can not employ ghosts to work in your factory."

Three Words:
Secrecy
Contradictions
Paranoia

Honestly, this lecture was just weird. I have looked at Paglen's work before and from reading his descriptions and reviews have always enjoyed it, but after hearing him speak today, I certainly have a different take on his work. He began his lecture with saying, "Today I want to talk to you specifically about state secrecy." He went on to talk about tracing "nonsensical" names with "billions of dollars attached to them" and following where the money goes to expose undercover areas and operations. The talk itself was interesting, but the art shown wasn't work, in my opinion, of a creative mind, but rather evidence collected and displayed by a geographer and researcher. He talked to us about setting up "front companies" and the military patches with insignias for secret organizations. Again, the lecture was interesting and I'm glad I got to hear him speak, but I don't think I was inspired to make creative work after this, my head was just confused.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Artist Post #9: Spring Semester

Monday, April 4, 2011

Lewis Koch

Bio: Lewis Koch was born in 1949 in New York, New York but now lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He got his BA in History from Beloit College and then entered the Concerned Photography (ICP) Program at NYU in 1971. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at colleges, galleries, and museums around the country since 1978. He has also participated in a good number of environmental installations around the country ranging from 1982 to 1998. Koch has a huge amount of permanent collections and has won a whole list of grant awards and fellowships to continue his art making.

Relation: In the late 1970s, Koch began working with the idea of "found text." He was drawn to the idea that these written themes, often cynical and mysterious, are found out there in our daily lives, in the ordinary world, but are often overlooked. He uses his photography to draw attention to these areas and these sometimes cryptic pieces of text. I have been looking at artists who use text in their photography all semester and most of them have added text to existing photographs. Koch, on the other hand, uses found text AS his photographs which is a really interesting idea to me.

Quotes:

“I like seeing things and I like words. There is something revelatory about the two together, an almost pentecostal feeling of seeing in tongues.”

Source:

http://www.eyecurious.com/review-lewis-koch-touchless-automatic-wonder/

Links:

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Idea Post #7: Spring Semester

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Music

Quotes:

"Music helps to relax you and your child and can improve his memory development and sensory coordination."

Source: http://www.child-development-guide.com/music-and-child-development.html

"There are many benefits of surrounding your child with music. Music assists in the development of his speech. Singing nursery rhymes and simple songs teaches him how language is constructed and assists with the acquisition of language. Singing songs with him will also teach him about tone, beat and rhythm."

Source: http://www.child-development-guide.com/music-and-child-development.html

Annotated Bibliography: Greenberg, M. "The Development and Evaluation of a Preschool Music Curriculum for Preschool and Headstart Children." Psychology of Music, 2:1 (1974): 34-38.

I was led to this source through a few scholarly journal articles about the effects of music played to children at an early age. This source talks about just that. It shows examples of what effects music can have on young children around ages of 3 to 5 years old.

Relation: I have recently been interested on other types of media that affect children at a pivotal age.
In general, I have been talking about media and indirect influence as a whole, but I have decided to look into more specific types of things that affect a child growing up. Music is something that affects a child as early as in the womb and there are plenty of articles written on the effects.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Artist Post #8: Spring Semester

March 28, 2011

Kiran Kumar

Bio: Kumar is a Mumbai-based Kashmiri Indian actor. He has worked in many Hindi and Gujarati films. He has been the main hero in most of the Gujarati movies. Kumar starred in Do Boond Pani in 1971, and went on to play the villain in several films.

Relation: Kiran Kumar is actually an actor who does fine art photography on the side. What I am really drawn to about his work is the times when he merges images and text. He uses local theater performances or debuts of plays as inspiration for art pieces he creates and then uses as promotional material as well. I like that he is very much in the commercial world, in his career and his hobbies, and he uses a combination of commercial occupations, advertising, photography and text to create visual pieces that rival graphic design. I relate to the way his text works overtop of imagery.

Quotes:

"I always want to play shades of humanity and not larger than life characters."

Source for both: http://www.indiantelevision.com/interviews/kirank.htm

Links:

Website

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Idea Post #7: Spring Semester

March 24, 2011

Child Development

Quotes:

"Positive behavior in a child is possible if a positive environment is maintained. A positive environment is one in which the frequency and intensity of negative interactions are substantially outweighed by positive interactions. However, a positive environment is also one in which parents maintain realistic expectations; and a structure of enforcement, reinforcement, and consequences."

Source: http://nacd.org/journal/article4.php

"Within a structured home environment, a child often performs the day’s routine tasks without objection. However, it is not unusual for discipline to fall apart a little when schoolchildren are on summer vacation. Lacking the routine and structure of a set school schedule, children may turn once undisputed chores into the objects of a running battle."

Source: http://nacd.org/journal/article4.php

Annotated Bibliography: Doman Jr., Robert. "Child Management ." NACD Journal n. pag. Web. 24 Mar 2011. <http://nacd.org/journal/article4.php>. This source is great in learning how to "manage" a child during the key years and important moments in early childhood development. This is a journal article written by a child psychologist and referenced on the NACD (National Association for Child Development website) so it is a reliable, authentic source.

Relation: My whole project has been about child development in general for the entire semester, but I somehow overlooked researching the actual term. When looking into child development from a medical and psychology point of view, it all seems to perfectly mesh with what has been going on in my head the entire time about how a child is influenced, etc.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Artist Lecture: Laurel Nakadate

March 23, 2011

1. In interviews conducted with you, it specifically says that you "collect men" and are interested in exploring a specific archetype of the male. What is the reason for being drawn to making work about a specific gender role that isn't your own?

2. In some of your other video projects, you don't involve specific types of people at all- you actually do the opposite- you find strangers on the street to include in your videos. Is there a reason for this starch difference in approach?

Response:

Favorite Quotes:

"I didn't understand the world I was living in- but I was trying to make sense of it."

"I think there's something really powerful about being turned on and dismantled at the same time."

"It's slapstick, funny, sad, melodramatic, interesting, and at the end of the day, nessecary."

Three Words:
Collaborative
Performance
Genuine

What I really found interesting and amazing about Laurel Nakadate and her work was her mix of bravery and stupidity. She was a young girl picking up random older men in parking lots and Home Depots and going back to their homes. As Nakadate said, I am shocked she came out of this alive. The fascinating part, other then her making it out alive, is the strange collaboration she established between herself and these random strangers. I found it very interesting the way their opinions, their look, their actions, their stance, and everything about these random strangers didn't just become a part of her piece- they became collaborators with her, and she gives them that credit. The pieces she created involving the strangers are my favorites.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Artist Post #7: Spring Semester

March 21, 2011

Lorna Simpson

Bio: Lorna Simpson was born in 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, and received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Simpson felt the need to turn the photography world on edge, and examine it in a new way. She first became well known for the image-and-text pairs she produced in the 1980s that questioned gender and identity. This is the work I am most drawn to because of the element of text added to the images. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Miami Art Museum; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. She has participated in such important international exhibitions as the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany.

Relation: Similarly to the other artists I have been researching, I am drawn initially to Simpson's work because of the use of the text. Her aesthetic in her actual images is very different than mine, but the principle behind using text to continue to tell the story of the subject is similar. Many artists think that the story can be told in image alone, or what is left out is also important. While I agree in some circumstances, I think when there is a story that the artist intends to share that specifically changes from subject to subject, text in the voice of said subject is a powerful storytelling element. The text in these images, or paired with these images, intrigues me as an extension of the story being told by the photography. With my images, I am also telling a story in the voice of my subjects by adding text to my images.

Quotes:

"The only thing that I see as developing from the earlier work is that the films are even more about language. I was a little trepidacious about the way that text might translate onto film. Once you have someone mouth the words that you have written down, it's completely different than how a reader consumes that text when it is juxtaposed with a photograph."

"In some ways I'm trying to pull back and not make them completely descriptive of the project. But the photographs stand on their own and have their own interest in the way that the image and text relate. I'm trying to maintain a similar content level to what's in the films, but give a slightly different take with the photographs."

Source for both: http://www.walkerart.org/archive/F/B4737D1B1BCC13206169.htm

Links:

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Idea Post #6: Spring Semester

March 10, 2011

Environment

Quotes:

"Research has identified the physical characteristics of neighborhoods that significantly influence children’s development. These characteristics include: residential instability, housing quality, noise, crowding, toxic exposure, quality of municipal services, retail services, recreational opportunities, including natural settings, street traffic, accessibility of transportation, and the physical quality of both educational and health facilities."

"Direct effects include cognitive, social, emotional, and biological outcomes. Indirect effects include interactions with parents and teachers, which in turn, influence developmental outcomes such as learning and language development."

Source for both.

Annotated Bibliography:

Evans, G.W. (2006). Child development and the physical environment. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 423-451. The source here really goes into the physcology behind the environment a child grows up in. Comprised by the results of various medical studies, the source takes into account location, noise level, and other factors in the living situation of children and talks about the environment they need to grow up in to be successful.

Relation:

Over the past few weeks, I have been looking into the places where children are influenced in their actual lives. The way I have been photographing them has featured the children has the clear subject but also shot in a pulled-back, landscape format to also show off the environment they are living in. The importance of their location is clear in the image as well as the importance of the child's presence and their text. The environment they are in plays a big part in where they receive the direct influence in their lives.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Artist Post #6: Spring Semester

Monday, March 7, 2011

Jeffery Wolin

Bio:

Jeff Wolin is the Ruth N. Halls Professor of Photography at Indiana University. He tends to use subjects that have been survivors of war or some sort of battle in his images and tends to use the pairing of image and text to tell more of the story. He has used Holocaust survivors and Vietnam War vets for various projects that have gained him extreme notoriety. He is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Relation:

I am really drawn to Wolin's work first and foremost because I have been researching how artists use text and handwriting directly on images. Wolin uses text and imagery in a way that allows the subject of the image to tell his or her story more completely. He uses an abundance of text and puts it all around the shape of the subject so it appears in the background but is actually a separate textured layer. I am very drawn to the use of handwritten text on image.

Quotes:

"The people I was working with said 'It's great you're doing this, because the stories will reach our children and grandchildren too.'"

Source: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/15243.html

Links:

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Idea Post #5: Spring Semester

March 3rd, 2011

Control

Quotes:

"Congrol is never achieved when sought after directly. it is the surprising outcome of letting go."

-James Arthur Ray

"A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often has no opportunity to exercise judgement"

- Harvey S. Firestone

Annotated Bibliography: Langer, Ellen and Robert Abelson. The Psychology of Control. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1983.

This book deals with the psychology of mental and physical control of situations. The book begins with general issues of what control is and how to hold onto it and then shows how it defers from relinquishing control. I think this book is a good reference for the medical and scientific issues with control and lack of control.

Relation: The issue I have been dealing with over the past week is how to give up control. I worked hard on my images and now am faced with the challenge of giving up control and allowing children without a sense of placement or design to obtain control over my prints. I really want to explore this feeling of letting go of control and letting someone else have it, but it also really scares me to let go. I think this is an important step in my art making process... giving someone else the option to participate in the creation of my work. Last semester, I struggled with finding a way to get someone else to participate in my project- viewer participation- and I think I have finally found the way to get the most important members of the project- the children- to participate. I am excited, but nervous, about this next step.

Artist Lecture: Kathy Rose

Kathy Rose Artist Lecture

Questions:

1. Do you feel like your animation/drawing background led into your performance work? How did the transition work between a 2-D based media to a dance, film, and media installation based body of work?

2. Do you feel more of a sense of liberation when using film and performance over other types of "gallery-based" media?

Response:

Favorite Quote: "I feel like creating veils in my work provides more dimension and sound makes things more atmospheric. They are both elements to making an entire experience."

Three Words:
Puppetry
Movement
Performative

I thought the later works shown by Kathy Rose were the most interesting. What I liked most about her work was being able to see the clear progression of how her worked changed and developed over the years. I like that she begen with showing us earlier works that just featured hand drawn elements and movements combined. The more pieces she showed, it was evident that her movements became more intentional and more integrated with the projection. Her drawings became more fluid and more complex until she stopped using drawings at all and began using Adobe Aftereffects and projections on the physical body. You could then see her progression to other parts of the body and even other bodies all together. Her later works were more interesting to me with the addition of multiple channels and layers of sound, but I really enjoyed seeing the progression of artwork.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Artist Post #5: Spring Semester

February 28, 2011

Jim Goldberg

Quotes:

"The beginning of my published work, when I was very young, was a book called Rich and Poor. It's a book in which I photographed poor people versus wealthy people and they wrote on the photographs. Conceptually, it gave voice to people but it also challenged the notion of straight documentary photography."

"I certaintly consider myself working outside of photography alone because I write and collect archival images and try to combine photography and use the art making process to create a new form, or push the form of what photography is usually about."

Source for both, video interview: http://www.fototv.com/jim_goldberg

Bio:

Jim Goldberg recieved his BA in photography and education in 1975 and his MFA in photography in 1979. Goldberg is inspired and informed by an ongoing interest in people and their positions in society as a function of broader cultural practices and policies. His work usually involves certain walks of life and ages groups per series and almost always involves some sort of writing component. His career, after his first solo show in 1979, has been very successful. He began his career with exhibits in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and has been honored with three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and has work in a huge amount of public and private collections.

Relation:

The biggest relation I see between my work and the work of Jim Goldberg is not nesecarily in subject matter, but more in his involvement of text. I am drawn to his work with younger subjects, naturally, because they relate more to my topic, but no matter the age of his models, I love the way he uses texts. Just like I do, he is involving the subjects in his images by getting them to participate in the project on another level. He gets them involved, as I do, by having them write directly on the images to explain something about themselves or themselves in the images. I really enjoy his work.

Links:

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Sharing Session

Idea Post #4: Spring Semester

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Calligraphy

Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting.
-Patti Smith

A man's penmanship is an unfailing index of his character, moral and mental, and a criterion by which to judge his peculiarities of taste and sentiments.

-"Letters to His Son by the Earl of Chesterfield on the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World"

Annotated Bibliography: Gaur, Albertine. A History of Calligraphy. New York: Cross River Press, 1995. It's hard to find a book about calligraphy that isn't just a lesson or a tutorial on lettering. This book shows techniques but also goes over the history of handwriting and the art of calligraphy.

Relation: Ever since I began adding the children's handwriting to my images, I have been obsessed with handwriting and lettering. I am trying to figure out different ways to apply a child's natural handwriting to an image and I think I have just settled on some sort of paint pen and letting the child just write physically on the print. It scares me, but other options seem unauthentic.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Artist Lecture: Christopher Ho

Artist Lecture: Painting and Printmaking Department

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Christopher Ho

Questions:

Do you consider yourself more of a performance artist or a painter? Most of your work is either strictly painting or strictly performance. Do you think there is ever an overlap?

How were the reactions to “Happy Birthday from Ed?” How did the real “Ed,” the gallery owner feel about it? What was the point and did the reactions validate the work?

Artist Lecture Response:

Quotes from the lecture:

"I think it's always fair to ask of anything- what are it's internal qualities. But more- we should ask ourselves, do they push forward the limitations of the field."

"Is it possible as a medium to satisfy the demands of being advanced contemporary art?"

"These paintings could help us redefine the critical art we have defined over the past forty years."

"We, as artists, pursue a critical success, not a commercial success."

Three words:

Performance, Unconventional, Sophisticated

I thought the most interesting piece of work Christopher presented us with was his "Happy Birthday" piece. This piece was all about the different roles people play in the art world. It featured sections of the exhibition about the collector, the dealer, the artist, and the critic. The first section, "Happy Birthday from Ed," is based on the dealer of Ho's gallery in New York named Ed and features a 1:1 ratio sculpture of the naked dealer himself in an empty room. The section section represents the collector and is portrayed by a red dot placed strategically throughout the gallery referencing the red dot on the checklist when a piece is sold. The third section of the exhibition was called "Happy Birthday from Jen" who was a fellow artist. This part about the artist dealt with the value of calling something "art" and believing in it so much that you convince other people to put value in it. The final part of the exhibition id about the critic and is called "Happy Birthday from Nuit," one of the New York art critics. This section places value on the critic by having him write a short passage claiming value in the gallery.

The answer to my first question was answered when Christopher Ho discussed the way he worked and I believe he just considers himself an artist and a curator and does a lot of site specific work, but I don't think he falls into a specific category. My second question was discussed heavily and has been addressed above in my explanation of the Happy Birthday exhibition.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Artist Post #4: Spring Semester

February 20, 2011

Jill Greenberg

Quotes:

"The concept is that the children are crying as if its the end of the world-they are being overly dramatic, as they tend to be. But if they really knew how bad we adults are allowing things to get, and how bad it will be when they are older in terms of the environment they would really be crying."

"I loved the raw and intense emotion of the children, I have always been intrigued by pictures of children crying."

Source for both: http://www.bakmagazine.com/interviews/13/jill-greenberg

Bio: Jill Greenberg calls herself "the manipulator." This nickname was inspired by a German pop culture magazine in the 80s, but refers to the fact that she stages her art be it photography, painting, or filim. Greenberg went to art school her entire life and has been active in the darkroom since the fifth grade. She eventually graduated from RISD with a BFA in photography and then moved to New York City.

Relation: The series that I relate most to of Greenberg's is called "End Times." This is a series of stunning portraits of children screaming and crying. In her artist statement, she talks about how toddlers cry and act like everything is the end of the world and how she really enjoys that aspect of things. I think her work is so interesting and it relates to my work in the fact that it deals with children's emotions and how they act.

Links:

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Idea Post #3: Spring Semester

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Media Influence

Quotes:

"...I rant about it in the book, too, about the sort of 'Sex and the City' world. That really bothers me that Samantha, who is one of sickest characters on television becomes a role model...It's such a divorce from reality. I treat Samanthas all the time. They're horrible, miserable human beings who will suffer with their behavior...Then to put her up as a role model becomes confusing, people start to feel flawed. They engage in behavior that's supposed to be cool and good and don't feel right..."

- Dr. Drew Pinsky

"Television exposure during adolescence has also been linked to subsequent aggression in young adulthood. A 17-year longitudinal study concluded that teens who watched more than one hour of TV a day were almost four times as likely as other teens to commit aggressive acts in adulthood."

-The Kaiser Family Foundation, TV Violence Fact Sheet, Spring 2003

Source for both:

Various Authors. "Media Violence, Sex, and Profanity ." Parent's Television Council, n.d. Web. 15 Feb 2011. <http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/facts/mediaquotes.asp>.

Annotated Bibliography: Lewis, Justin. Constructing public opinion: how political elites do what they like and why we seem to go along with it. Columbia Univ Pr, 2001. Print.

This book is an interesting resource on figuring out how children are influenced. I like this as a reference because it tells you how media personnel work to construct public opinion. This book is like a guide on the "science" of swaying opinion. This would be helpful when trying to show how and from where inspiration is received.

Relation: I really feel like this issue addresses where my series is heading. I feel like after tons of reasearch and contacting people and interviews and unsuccessful photographs, I have finally found what I need to focus on. I am narrowing down the topic of my series where children draw their inspiration and make a point to show that the parent's of these children should want to be those role models. Researching the topic of "media influence" of course is relevant to my work because I am exploring where inspiration and influence come from in a young child's mind.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Artist Post #3: Spring Semester

February 13, 2011

Darragh Shannahan

Relation: The work I relate to the most of Darragh's was a series called "Stick Stories." Darragh is technically the artist responsible for the series and the resulting photographs, but the photographs in the series are actually documentations of pieces of art made by children Darragh met and worked with. Darragh is an Irish artist and worked in an underprivileged area of the Canal Communities in Dublin. Here, Darragh made it a goal to keep the local kids out of trouble by working with local arts foundation groups and holding free photography and art classes for the kids. The resulting pieces were made by the children and got them involved in a creative act versus another activity. This relates to my work because I would like to somehow involved children in an art making process, or invite them to have some hand in the series, in some form.

Bio: Darragh Shannahan is an Irish photographer. Growing up, he was more interested in music, and is currently still the drummer in a band in Ireland. After becoming a successful photographer, Darragh got a job teaching photography workshops at the National Gallery of Photography in Dublin. He is also a working artist in various projects mainly working with the youth of Dublin in one way or another. Darragh has been a photographer for the past 10 years. He has worked with the After Schools club in St Michael's since 2005. His "Stick Stories" body of work is currently on display at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Quotes:

"We develop art programmes in collaboration with youth groups and community groups, whether they be children, young people or adults."

"It's not just about viewing art as an activity, it's about creating opportunities for people to really develop meaningful relationships with artists".

Source: www.cdysb.ie/publications/PDF/Y%20Now%20-%20Issue%20%201.pdf

Links:

Gallery Rep 2