Susan foster

combining the aesthetic of advertising and the materials of signage to expand the possibilities in painting

MFA PaintingSymposium June 2013

agenda

• “Pacific Sun”, 2min stop motion video, Thomas Demand

• Michael Fried’s analysis • Relate the Cavellian model• Considerations for my practice

“Pacific Sun” – thomas demand

Why this event? • challenges the PoMo tendency of indeterminancy • uses mechanical causality to bring out artist’s conviction• does this by use of1. the single view allows for artist’s meaning2. Stop motion video

Why are the humans removed

• avoids potential distraction of slapstick

How is the soundtrack significant

• replicated sound adds to the similacra of the visual• equates with the abstract aesthetic of the visual• adds character to the objects• any use of music would diminish the visual intensity

Medium specificity – photography, film

• photography or single camera view of sculpture allows the artist’s intention to be the only way to view the work• is a work which somewhat upholds the values of high modernism and denies the indeterminancy of PoMo

Is the artist being skeptical?

Summary of Michael Fried’s analysis

Stanley Cavell b1926 and skepticism?

• A thought is either true or false or meaningless

– “I say, and you shall hear, only what I mean”

• [language is not just a set of words but worldviews]… Cavell– Evolves into thoughts of doubt and skepticism

about certainty

• [creating certainty about the world is actually a way of escaping the world and all its abiguity]…Cavell

Why this event

• mechanical causality• denies indeterminancy

• mechanical causality = artificial realm of absolute certainty (T/F) where thoughts and actions are mechanical•Returning to the ordinary world after this encounter changes experience of ordinary

Why are the humans removed

• avoids slapstick • to deny the ambiguity of the real world in this mechanically certain dreamworld

How is the soundtrack significant

• replication of sound unites with visual aesthetic

• abstract sound adds to the establishment of the artificial realm

Medium specificity - film

• high conviction •Artist’s intention

• “current of simaltaneous event reception”; uninflected sensory stimulation = passive activity of monitoring

Relating the Cavellian model of Skepticism

• My practice:– “combinesthe aesthetic of advertising and the materials of signage to

expand the possibilities in painting”• Process:

– Single drawing and an installation is photographed– Digitally re-mastered into compositions– Select what to print and what to paint– Select material– Print as ground then apply paint

• I think of my practice in terms of….. readymade materials, and how I can confound how people see machined and man made images

How might these models relate to my practice

• Mechanical causation is in my work– Digital process is a controllable environment– Some surprises, but not a lot of chance

• High Conviction is in my process– Thousands of artistic decisions are made in the composition and then

in the printing process, before painting starts– Staring at the screen for hours/days = passive monitoring?

• Material is a key to meaning– Billboards for art, in homes and on the street

• Am I being skeptical?– Do my works create an artificially painted realm which returns to the

real via painting? – Does the machine/man combination confound the eye, seem uncanny?

How might these models relate to my practice