Author: JIALE_ART
Drucker’s Affectivity and Entropy: Production Aesthetics in Contemporary Sculpture
Johanna Drucker argues in her article, Affectivity and Entropy: Production Aesthetics in Contemporary Sculpture that artists in the 1990s and onward seek to differentiate their work from mainstream consumer culture. According to Drucker, they do so in two ways: Affectivity and Entropy. Each of them represents each end of the art-making spectrum. The affectivity approach/gesture is one that places importance in the form (structure and organization), giving the materials a new sense of purpose through reconfiguring, repositioning them. The entropic approach/gesture on the other hand, is one that places importance in the materials, by manipulating the material and making it about the material. These are the two approaches artists take to differentiate their artworks from the inundation of consumer products. While the two approaches do eloquently summarise the phenomenon I have been seeing in the art world, it is not the artists’ intention to differentiate their work from the mass culture. Rather, it is in the interest of artists to let our environment affect our making, so that art can reflect the truth of society, and to speak the vernacular so others may understand. It is the result of the change in art’s course since the beginning of modernism.
Drucker points out that 1980s was the end of the era of austere sculptures, with diminishing interests in minimalism and conceptualism. Instead, now the art world ushers in the inclination towards flirting with mainstream products and that old tools for criticism no longer works. However, I believe this “flirtation” with mainstream consumer products is not a unique standalone phenomenon that simply happened since the start of television or mass production, but something that has been on going since the 19th century when artists made the move towards naturalism – the search for something more candid and real. It is only by being so directly in touch with the every day can we, as artists paint, sculpt a realistic reflection of the current state of our socio-political, economical, cultural environment.
Seeing the Invisible (Wheel Throwing Class)
Feeling the sturdy walls of this cylinder, it is difficult to believe that three months ago I could not even lift the clay an inch high. This cylinder is indeed a powerful testimony to this new skill I learnt. Yet, touching the uneven foot of the cylinder, I am also reminded of the flaws present but more importantly, of the fact that this is only the beginning of my journey with clay. There are still so many things I do not understand about this material.
When I first began, I tried to replicate the steps taught by our professor as strictly as possible, thinking that these instructions will definitely bring me to what was produced on the instructor’s wheel. I try to relate what I saw during the demonstration to the way I positioned and moved my hands. They did get me somewhere, just not very far. As many frustrating hours went by, I gradually realised I was not succeeding simply because I did not and can never see everything that was necessary to make one. The rest of the steps were invisible because they were the amount of force the professor was applying on every move. While it is possible to verbally convey the amount of force required, only the clay and the professor would know and feel the exact pressure required. Not only is it a matter of pressure between the hands and clay, it is also a matter of depending on your entire body to exert the necessary pressure. It is clear to me that multiple forces are at work. It is not only the position of the hands, but also the careful calibration of the entire body to apply force on the clay. This reminded me of Octavio Paz’s quote, “The human condition is located at the point of intersection with other forces.” Learning to wheel throw is finding and mastering the intersection where all the forces necessary to make a cylinder are present. To see the invisible force, we need to first experience it with our bare hands, locating the extremes and then adjusting to what is optimal for the clay in front of us. Our hands are our eyes and mind here. It cannot be learnt without touching the clay. Hence, more time is needed to experience and converse with the clay in order to see the invisible.
Sinister Decisions in the Morning
Forced awake by the sinister decision of my mum to switch on the lights, my eyes struggled painfully to adjust. Groggly, as I sauntered into the kitchen, my mum made a second sinister decision to complain to me about sis grades, not that I am unaware of, but her recent negligence as a mum was the reason for this complain session. The jarring noise and unhappy tone were not something you want to hear first thing in the morning. I could feel it, like a fast filling pail of water, anger was mounting inside me. To make things worst, I realised mum made lunch because I had forgotten to tell her about my lunch appointment with colleagues. This was turning into a brew of anger. Just as I thought things couldnt get any more frustrating, on my way to the bus stop, mum told me to that sis forgot her eye drop and needed me to run back for it. Interjects gif of a nuclear bomb exploding.
Badminton, my passion
Wielding my badminton racket like a knight who is about to brandish his blinding sword, I made haste to the sports hall. I have been looking forward to a game of badminton all week. It’s the fire keeping me alive from the copious amount of mundane office work. Fortunately, at SIT, workers are allowed an hour off earlier on Wednesday to exercise, it is part of the instituition’s initiative to encourage a healthier lifestyle.
It is during the participation of these sports activities that we get to meet people from other departments and also, we get to bond with our colleagues and even superiors. Today, my department’s head is playing badminton as well. You can hear her screaming her head off from any corner of the hall whenever she misses a shuttle. She seemed really stress these days, often with her brows furrowed into a frown. It was great to see her unwinding herself.
After every badminton session, I feel recharge mentally, and I am ready to finish the week stronggggg.
Week 1
Prototype/ Situate/ Fabricate
- I’m kinda glad that the first project is team-based because that means I get to meet new people.
- Given task is quite interesting as well, creating a solution for a problem that arises in our living environment, can be political/ societal as well.
- Solution ties in with fabrics, an unfamiliar but exciting medium to work with
- only thing is that my teammates are probably not as excited as I am about it.
Lucy Orta Reading
- about site-specific works, or works that are ‘solutions’ to real-world problems
- I like the idea of an artist as problem solvers… although the realist in me, knows we aren’t really providing a feasible solution but highlighting the issue such that it brings to societal attention
- Through attempting to solve a societal issue in an artwork, it makes known the problem to the rest
- The ‘solution’ may appear to be a joke which may end up amplifying the issue or be satirical and act as commentary on the issue
- I think this is a very interesting perspective on art as problem solvers.
Art Matters
- students are generally quite uninterested with a few that are
the topic of the semester is bodies and sexuality - how the body is used in art and representing sexuality, these are topics that I am very unfamiliar with and it also made me realized how little I have considered my body as a tool to say something, although I might have already been using it?
- Although I can tell that she is suppressing her control freak aspect of her, I like how she explained the grades to us… about how A+ is not just about a well-written piece but how much you have grown since the first day
- She said she is going for growth instead
- she throws in a few eye twitching references from across the art history timeline
Drawing: Contemporary Practices
- the teacher can be quite long winded
- his lack of eye contact with me throws me off a bit
- he shows his biases quite clearly
- haha it sounds like I dislike him but I think I just hate the amount of homework he just gave us
- I think he tends to go rounds the same topic, but I like what he said about the innate sensibility we all have to compose things in an aesthetic manner
- he sugar coats stuff a bit, sometimes I wished maybe, just tell me that I suck and don’t leave room for my mind to wander but at the same time, the hope will keep me working hard to improve
- whenever you make a work, just think about an Instagram picture you are about to post, how you gonna crop it etc.
I must say ‘Rate Your Professors’ is pretty accurate,, haha but that’s it for this week!
Haptics and Optics Lesson #1
Neil Jones, when I told a Junior Year Student his name, she gave me an, “Oh, shit’s coming for you man!” kinda face. Well, I was kind of expecting that after my first lesson with him. His opening speech about classroom discipline and integrity, indeed, sets a very stern and serious tone for the rest of his upcoming lessons. It didn’t help when he shared with us how he left a former college he was teaching at because it failed to uphold and enforce the value of integrity in its students. He has a strong value and belief system but he is extreme. Nevertheless, I hope despite all of this, lessons can still remain informative, fruitful and fun.
Today’s class was nothing much, just his army styled speech and a photography documentary on Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor. Each of them representing the analog and the digital respectively. I guess it’s Jones manner of setting a background for the class, Haptics, and Optics.
Jerry and Maggie: This is not Photography
“This is not Photography” connotes subversion and contention. Jerry Uelsmann’s surrealistic photographs did challenge the boundaries of photography and brought about some criticism although they were in every way, captivating.
It may have been accomplished easily on photoshop. But, during his time, the skills involved is not the same without the advent of photoshop.
I was really captivated by his craftsmanship and his technique of merging two films together to create these surrealistic photographs. I was fascinated by the way he ‘shaded’ his photographs in the dark room by ‘interrupting’ and controlling the amount of exposure hitting on to the photograph. His eye for selecting images, manipulating and matching them with each other shows us clearly that he understands how a person views a photograph.
The technique he was using, pushed the technology of his time. He was manipulating the technology to do what it isn’t really meant to do through the use of makeshift methods.
It’s fascinating how his entire body of works is built upon this newfound skill he invented.
Even for Taylor, who followed in his footsteps, had photographs that took on a nature of its own, although in a similarly surrealistic manner. Her works represented the Age of Photoshop, or what the Adobe guy in the documentary said, “the dark side”.
I think it’s nice that the documentary decided to put their works and crafts next to each other, showing us the distinction yet similarities. I understand that they were a couple then. It’s sad they are not anymore.
Anyway, I’m going to end my reflection here on today’s class, with an impactful quote I heard during the documentary.
“He was exploring the inherent nature of the medium that no one has. Controversy is a sign of success, it’s a sign that you have covered some new territory, that you have actually thought about the medium in a new way.”
Homesick!
The spring cohort is really small. Excluding those who transferred and exchange students, those like me, are down to only 7 of us.
Orientation, although short, had the potential to be cozy and opportunities to form more meaningful conversations with those around you.
When I was holding these meaningful conversations, I often could sense a wall they were putting up. A wall that represents their unwillingness to share more or to connect. Maybe its just a mismatch of frequencies.
Initially, I saw it as a display of guardedness from these students but it might have just been a healthy sense of mistrust.
I guess I was eager to forge a close relationship as soon as possible to cure me of my homesickness and to find a physical outlet to the emotions I have now.
I am homesick. It gets real bad when I come back to my empty dorm room. I feel lost. I feel like I have no one to really talk to. I am reserve guy but I crave for the human warmth too.
I am not used to this loneliness. I decided to google homesickness and found out it was not really missing home, but missing the love, warmth and security of a home.
a new start…
It feels too unreal that I am travellling to US to pursue an education…. I never imagined my life to charter towards such a course. Even after the decision was made, I didnt dare envision how the scenario will be like…those few days left before leaving my family for at least 5 months and traveling and living alone in a place so many miles apart.
I am currently on the halfway mark to Philadelphia International Airport…These days planes have cameras on them and passengers can view them through their led screens. One of the camera shows a blinking red light. Flashing continuously in a constant rythm, into utter darkness. Seems so evocative of an existential thought but there are just too many things on my mind as of now.
The next few days, I will have so much to take in… the new environment, the new community of people, a new way of working hopefully. I honestly dont know what lies ahead, but I know whatever I do in the near future and the future will be powered by my interest for it.
For those around me, especially my family, it will be a big change because weekends wont be the same. Thanks to Skype and Whatsapp, my absence can be reduced to a digital transmission of me on a computer screen.
December and the start of January has been a crazy period for my family. It is during this period, our house’s renovation and my preparation for school overseas intersect. It is not easy and I admit I wasn’t too hardworking about preparing for it. Maybe because I wasn’t emotionally prepared.
It was during this period, my family faced many decisions to make. Some big, some small and most had reprucussions on us as a family. But I felt like these little obstacles brought our family a little closer, as mentioned I see it as a test of our family’s unity. It brought us physically closer too as I recall the moments we all squeeze into one room to sleep.
I somehow saw the reconstruction of my house as a parallel to the reconstruction of my family’s dynamics.
Dad’s changed a new job. Sis is in her final year for JC and Im studying overseas. This year wont be an easy year too but we all need to embrace the challenge. I guess one of my new year resolutions will be to embrace mistakes and see change as a form of challenge.
conversations with dad #1
I really enjoy conversations with dad, especially topics that are ‘homemade’ theories to explain the world around us. Today, my dad brought to the table an interesting theory. He suggested that why certain societies are able to invent more than others was because they believed in a god. He suggested that perhaps, by believing in a god, people are able to create the impossible. He didn’t explain it fully, but I think it’s the faith that something special can happen because of the existence of god that gives them the motivation to create something beyond our imagination. At the same time, to look at things beyond the mathematical and scientific rules that binds the world. As oppose to societies that don’t believe in a god, often seem to look at things within the rules of science and math. Perhaps, religion in some way, affects the way we look at things.
This was just one of the many theories he mentioned over dinner today. Although he doesn’t go into the detail, it is interesting because the theories are often inferred from real life evidence and examples, just taken a twist in my dad’s mind. For example, in this case, he cited how during a period, before Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution, China was very good at inventing things, they invented the paper, the compass, gunpowder etc. And that was during a period when the Chinese people were deeply engrossed in the world of celestial beings and immortals that live in the heavenly kingdom above us, in the skies. But, post-cultural revolution, it seems like the Chinese are less religious and more scientific and mathematical. Invention slowed down during this period.
The thing about ‘homemade’ theories blabbered over dinnertime conversations, we never really question the validity of this evidence supporting them, nor do we question the logicalness of them. It was between the line of truth and myth. I like that, its like we can be anything in the conversations we have, a sociologist, a scientist, a mathematician, it is like an empty canvas for us to draw up endless possibilies, not bounded by academical rules of credibility and validation.
I really like these whimsical and seemingly bizarre theological conversations we have.
a monosyllabic dude's world 