Well Here I am!... My first week of a new direction. After 30 plus years of working in IT management, production and services companies, I'm embarking on a completely new journey.
(Someone did say that the age 50 is the new 20)...
... So now I have to prove that, by a return to University (Actually, it's my first time at University, my HNC in Electrical & Electronic engineering and computing was completed 30 years ago, through a day release Technical College and an apprenticeship programme).
Well... The first week of Uni life went better than expected, even though I'm in a large group of around 45 students, some studying Contemporary Art, some studying Illustration, and some like me, studying both. All this, with the next oldest person being 25, - half my age!... Thankfully, with such a large number of eager peers, for our initial project we split our class into smaller groups of 5 or six students per team. We were posited with a couple of questions... It's interesting to ask yourself these questions too...
'What makes for "interesting" Illustrations or Contemporary Art'?
& 'What are your "values" when it comes to Art & Design?'
From that simple combined question we explored the two strands of Interest and Values, and then developed, through choosing to create a three dimensional style mind map, the two central themes formed by “Interest” (which we felt was an open subject for the general discussion of everyone), we compared it with the “Values” theme, (which was considered to be a personal or individual choice type zone).
Having discussed the features of each theme, the mind map soon got populated with key words based on attributes that were connected to each theme. We then realized between us that some attributes or features were either 'connectable', or 'related' or 'opposing' from one another. In order to highlight these we used a colour coding system to try to connect the attributes. There seemed to be a weakness to linking everything - or - nothing, as the attributes can change depending on the audience, or culture or society etc. It was at this point that we considered a “cloud” type symbol which could be an attribute that can 'influence' any of the other attributes. I discussed with the team the thought of the concept of these clouds being Viruses as they could move throughout the three dimensional model...
A Simple 3 Dimensional Mind Map of What makes Art Interesting |
Continuing on with the Identities theme, an exercise developed which would help to formulate our visions of the attributes to which we had identified. The exercise was
“ To pick key words (or a Key Word) and embody it within a genre of Superhero, and then to create a visual image to portray this character”.
The group spent some time discussing how we could create caricatures of the key words, such as “Simplicity Man”, Provocation Man, Point of View Man, Steadfastness (Lord Steadfastness), Purpose Man, Philosophy Man, Satire Man (Satyre-Man based on the Greek Satyre or Pan like creature), and later Originality Man. These images were generally drawn up and various caricatures evaluated. We came up with a general theme of a Pantheon of caricatures who are steeped in the midst of time and spawned from one another... (The group didn't like the word spawn for some reason, but for my own explanation I have included it here in my personal notes).
In order to help us share our visualisations we created some profile attributes and be-attitudes to describe the characters. The first items we tackled were Simple Man and Provocation Man, but I've put a narrative down in no particular order.... (See the following pages).
Simple Man was discussed as someone who is “intellectually challenged”, a bloke who wore his underpants on his head, not outside his costume, and rather scruffy and crude. Joe drew some great images of him, which seemed to be influenced by the view of a real person. However, this idea developed into a more elegant representation of simpleness, and we finally chose to portray Simple Man as a “stick” man. He's not got any special powers, but because he is simple, he can stand sideways so no-one can hit him. He doesn't know why he's a Super Hero, his real name is Dave. We talked through some of his likely escapades with Provocation man and others and how he might fight crime, or not at all, because after-all he is just Simple. Scott had an image of Provocation man trying to punch him in the face, but he couldn't hit him as his face is just a circle.
Point of View Man;
He is obsessed with getting everyone's point of view out and sharing it. He doesn't have any legs as he doesn't stand for anything. It also means that he can slide about and be everywhere... He is
omnipresent. He has no opinion, so he cannot make any decisions.
[OS came up with a great story] - The POV Man started off as just a simple child who visited an art gallery and exhibition with his parents. He was young and Naive and told his parents that he felt one of the exhibits was just crap and Sh£ite, which was very rude. Unfortunately for that little boy, the evil artist “Damianus Hirsticus” heard this, and put a curse on him, that he would never be able to miss a point of view in his life ever again and would be banished to the ephemeral world to seek all the PoVs forever...
The POV man's special power is that he can do a sort of “Vulcan Mind Meld”1 , through his special eye, but he can both take others' PoVs and feed those views to everyone else too. The POV man also holds all of our historical views in his infinite storage inside (he has no organs or orifices as he feeds on views only), - his inner self (stomach) is a swirling mass of “stuff” like the Mathmus2 . Whilst the original concept of Mathmus is a seething mass of the essence of evil, inside the POV man, its nothing.. (As in, 'Nothing is either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so'. (see Shakespere, Hamlet, Act 3 for that quote!)).
Side note; As a further reference to this kind of omnipresent and omniscient Point of View kind of thinking way about art, I found a piece of narrative that seemed to be apt, during recent reading3; a passage by Dziga Vertov, the Soviet Film Writer, in 1923 when he was a describing the power of the new Movie Camera” over the old static image of individual photographs taken with a static single frame camera (which were also relatively new at the time);
He wrote about the completely new found freedom with which you have with a movie camera. Remember, prior to the end of the turn of the new 20th century, almost all art was produced to show the viewer a single image - as created by the artist (who would have generally been commentating on current affairs or cultural stereotypes). Art was therefore usually posed for (if portraiture), or idealised by the artist to capture a "near perfect" rendition of a landscape, scene or other object; art was therefore generally expensive to both own and commission.
During the dramatic murmurings and startling changes of the Soviet revolution, through the 1910s-20s Dziga Vertov was being stimulated and fascinated by the huge developments in technology, and he often linked images of it by juxtaposing the old order (for example the horse and cart), with the new order (e.g. an electric tram)... His work was the first to show to the world this completely new form of communication, i.e. through the movie camera;
Of it, he wrote;
“I am a mechanical eye. I the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I am in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horses mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, maneuvering in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations. Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I coordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.”
This new way of communicating was received with amazement at the time, although now only some 100 years later, we take it for granted. Incidentally, as Vertov was also commenting on Revolution at the time, it is worth noting that his name actually translates to "Spinning Top"... (or so I have been reliably informed)...
Back to the plot again...
Later as a result of some more drawings completed overnight, some of these images are with a Tolkien-esk type of image based on our peer student, Orestis S's preferred drawing style, such as follows;
Steadfastness;
- (originally I had conceived a pole type stick figure, unable to sway in the wind, but it lacked much character depth for the rest of the group), So, based on Orestis's idea, we agreed on the Tolkien-esk character “Lord Steadfast”
“Lord Steadfast”;
He is the son of King Bileaf ( a play on spelling... who in turn who was son of Lady Twist and Lord View born some aeons before). Lord Steadfast is a very proud dwarf (as all dwarfs are proud). He is stubborn, narrow minded, generally only has one point of view on any subject, he feels he is always right (He IS a Lord after-all). He has one purpose, to smash through the opposition. He is rooted in his own traditions and old history, A mystical, almost mythological character, totally commanding with a voice like the sound of walking on gravel. His special power is that he cannot be moved.
Satyre Man;
He is a Pan like creature, based on the Greek character Satyre... (He is also connected to Dionysus, the Greek god of Fun, Humour and Amusement). Satyre chooses other people to poke fun at, and he is always laughing at his best friend, Provoking Man (described below)... Highly strung and energetic, he is almost maniacle in never taking anything seriously. His bed mate is “Ridicule” (sister of Provoking Man) - who is offspring of the demi-god Greystone Perricule).
Provoking Man
He doesn't give a stuff about anything or anyone! He hates those deep thinking traditionalists who can't change their views, but then he doesn't give a stuff about them either. He just wants them to think differently from his point of view. It sometimes feels like he is trying to piss people off, but he doesn't care, because he is the son of Damianus Hirsticus and Greystone Perricule.
However, he has a softer side that we as mere observers hardly ever see. The importance of his extended middle finger is significant, as it is a tool, not only to poke people with and be abusive, but it can also be used to stimulate and arouse. The extended finger has a double meaning. It can also be used to beckon, to draw people in; or to tickle under the chin or arm pit to make you laugh, or even as a sexual tool to stimulate an erogenous zone! So this is where his older friend Satyre Man are linked through a common rapport.
Originality Man
He's quite a lonely character, but does work together with POV Man, who is very important to him, because through POV Man, he can connect to any other artist to not only understand if the artist's thoughts are pure, but also so that he can then connect through POV man to check with every other view so that it is not a simple copy obtained dishonestly. This then allows Originality Man to authenticate the work as an original thought, even if someone else has already had the same thought or point of view. So, as a Superhero, he allows convergence, and spends his time authenticating original thought even though there may be many sources of similarly developed ideas.
[ The image of Originality Man came to mind as a kind of Desk Clerk type caricature, and a subliminal image came in my head who was of a maniacal guy with wire hair and glasses, not unlike perhaps a young Einstein sitting behind a desk full of papers with a rubber “APPROVED” or ACCEPTABLE” stamp in his hand. It was only later after I had drawn this that I realized the character was in fact probably influenced by Einstein’s own image, particularly with a connection as I knew that Einstein himself had originally worked as a Patent's Clerk in Sweden, so this is sort of linked!]....
Now here's the interesting thing...
None of these identities are real. They are completely make believe. We counjoured them up out of thin air. Harsher words may define them as complete lies, which technically, they are.
However, as we have drawn them, recorded them and painted them, as well as providing a general description of them, the caricatures and identities transcend into something (or some-things) that are almost tangible. We move just that little bit closer as human beings, to believing that they really exist in some form.
That is the power of images. It takes us to the next step in believing in something. This was the crucial message that I also found in Dziga Vertov's films. This key ability to influence an audience forms the backbone to much of what we know.... or "believe" in our current culture. Ancient paintings of cavemen on cave walls were no different when they were produced. Likewise, the paintings of the Holy and other iconography prior to the Renaissance had just the same effect on the people. They saw, and so they believed.
1
Reference Star Trek TV Series –
Gene Rodenbury , and the First Lieutenant Spock Character)
2
Reference Barbarella from 1968 French-Italian science fiction cult
film staring. Jane Fonda, based on Jean-Claude Forest's French
Barbarella comics–
3
(from the book “Ways of Seeing” by John Berger, BBC &
Penguin Books 1972 ISBN978-0-141-03579-6);
Week 2, here I come!....
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