‘The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.’ It has also been defined as ‘a total dissolution of boundaries between art and life’

Inspired by 19th century writer and poet Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur, Marxist theorist Guy Debord coined the term psychogeography in 1955 in order to explore how different places make us feel and behave. Psychogeography can be seen as a playful and imaginative way of seeing the environments around us – with roots in dadaism and surrealism, it explores ways of ‘unleashing the subconscious imagination’ and approaching environments in a way that is less functional and more open to exploration.

Debord was also the founding member of Situationist International, an avant-garde movement of artists, writers and poets who wanted a revolutionary approach to architecture.

Dadaism

Dadaism was an avant-garde art movement formed in negative reaction to the horrors of the First World War. It favoured rebelling against the standards of society. Often satirical and illogical in nature, its purpose was to ridicule the meaninglessness of the modern world. The movement peaked from 1916-1922 and influenced surrealism and pop art.

Surrealism 

An avant-garde movement in art and literature beginning in the early 1920’s that sought to liberate the creative potential of the unconscious mind – by the irrational juxtaposition of images, for example.

Marxism

‘The political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism.’

Marxism in Art

‘Any serious study of art shows that, while art can have its own dynamic, it is clearly rooted in a wider historical context and that even the most refined and abstract art has an impact of some kind on the world around it. Yet there’s a persistent myth that art is a mode of self-expression that reflects only the spirit of the artist and the prior history of art itself. This myth is an aspect of bourgeois idealist philosophy, the notion that people’s ideas determine history while ideas themselves are only influenced by the prior development of ideas themselves. In this view of history, a great artist might have an impact on history, but he or she does so as an act of genius that is rooted only in the artist’s own spirit. This refusal to understand the basis of art in its material context explains why idealist philosophy finds it so hard to even define what art is. Without a wider context, any such definition must be to some extent arbitrary’.

Quote found in ‘Marxism, Materialism and Art – In Defence of Marxism’

What do Marxists Have To Say About Art?

Marxism, Art and the Artist

The Marxist Theory of Art

Highbrow – Intellectual, cultured or exclusive in taste.

Not Highly intellectual or cultured – Lowbrow

In preparation for this lecture we had to find one piece of work that we think of as highbrow and then one piece that we consider lowbrow. The way the class as a whole debated all of the chosen pieces proves that some of the time there is a strong argument for why a piece can be considered to be both.  The printed pictures were arranged on the wall with highbrow works higher up and lowbrow works closest to the floor. Not only was it interesting and expanding to hear my peers viewpoints on the topic of highbrow and lowbrow but this lecture opened my eyes to a whole range of new artists that people had discovered as well as the artists that I had researched myself. It was great to share our findings collectively.

The art pieces that I chose to share were Sophia Chang’s interactive installation of fabric tunnels and Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, with Duchamp’s Fountain being my lowbrow option and Chang’s tunnels being my highbrow option.

Architect and artist Sophia Chang’s interactive installation explored the boundaries between inside and outside, taking people out of context and represents the feeling of being on the other side of a thin wall to something unknown. It is because of these concepts and how philosophical they are in nature that makes the work highbrow as opposed to lowbrow.

I chose Duchamp’s Fountain to present as a lowbrow artwork because during a similar activity in college it got very divided reviews on whether the piece was even art or not. I personally think the Fountain is an interesting piece in terms of subverting an objects purpose however I do consider the piece to be lowbrow. I think that, instantly, the urinal’s vulgarity places it in the lowbrow category. The subject matter isn’t cultured, intellectual or exclusive in taste.

THIS is an interesting article on the subject of highbrow and lowbrow in art, questioning who defines the quality of art.

Similar to the way the metalwork induction was lead, we spent a day in the woodwork workshop being taught all necessary health and safety precautions and had demonstrations of the correct way to use all of the machinery.

Some key health and safety things to note are – 

• Metal toe safety boots must be worn at all times while in the woodwork workshop.
• Long hair must be tied up and out of the way
• Loose bits on clothing such as the strings on a hoodie need to be tucked away to ensure they don’t get trapped in any of the machines.
• Safety goggles must be worn when operating machines.

By the end of the workshop I had produced an item made from wood that had been through multiple machines and processes, such as sawing, drilling, joining and sanding. I’m confident in my ability to use all the machinery I had a chance to use again and I think it’s a workshop I’d like to utilise throughout future projects.

‘This is the gallery and the gallery is many things’ is an evolving exhibition/performance/space/event where artists will respond to or add to and change the existing conditions of the gallery.

’We are active through art – art as a key human function. We use what we can while it works. We want new life. We have joined together to execute functional constructions and to alter or refurbish existing structures as a way of surviving in a capitalist economy.’ – Eastside Projects

The way that Eastside Projects continually has artists work not only just in the gallery but physically into the gallery turns the space an art piece itself. Certain pieces especially, like the curtains that separate the entrance space from the main portion of the gallery and the colourfully resin filled cracks in the floor look like they belong perfectly in the space. This makes the gallery different to any I’ve experienced before. It’s like a shared working document, evolving and developing its own story and history that can be physically seen – ‘a living documentation of what happens when you use your imagination in society’.

Another interesting thing that Eastside Projects does is create user manuals alongside their exhibitions outlining what the space is made of, who it is for, how it can be used and what it has to offer. They say that ‘As would be necessary for operating a machine or learning a subject, a manual may be helpful when encountering Eastside Projects for the first time.’

This is one part of a collection of pieces in the gallery that I was most interested in. It’s a piece that I feel like fully belongs where it is, rooted into the floor of the space. It isn’t typical for an artwork to be displayed on the floor, with the ability to mall directly over it. There’s a contrast between the brighter colours and varied array of objects and materials and the natural stone floor of the gallery. This artwork could be directly reflecting the theme of ‘art made public’ that Eastside Projects believes in.

Rooted

floor

Interactive

Found objects

I spent a day in the metal workshop where I was taught the necessary health and safely procedures and the correct ways to use the machines available in the workshop.

A few key health and safety things to note –

• Metal toed safety boots must be worn at all times while in the workshop
• Long hair should be tied up
• loose bits in clothing like strings on a hoodie must be tucked away.
• Goggles and sometimes safety gloves should be worn when using higher risk machinery

The second portion of the day entailed putting our new knowledge into practice through a simple making task, to fully practice and embed the new processes.

I used the folders, sanding machine and spot welding machines to make my piece.

While I am happy with the cube I created, it isn’t entirely even and the measurements of a few sides are off. I’m confident, though, that my skills and ability to control the things hat went wrong for me today will improve.

Aby Warburg, or Abraham Moritz Warburg, was a German cultural theorist and art historian. He’s known for founding a private library for cultural studies – the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, which was later moved to the Warburg Institute in London.

The Warburg Institute is notable for its interdisciplinary research reaching across the histories of art, religion and science to anthropology, psychology and religion. The Warburg Institute’s engagement with the superstitious, emotional and irrational elements of cultural phenomena has always been one of it’s distinctive features.

The Warburg Library has distinctive strengths in the fields of Medieval and Renaissance art, Medieval and Renaissance philosophy, the history of humanism and the histories of science, magic and religion as well as a strong and suggestive system of classification.

Watch Forensic Architecture | Turner Prize Nominee 2018 | Tateshots 

Forensic Architecture is a multidisciplinary research group based at the University of London lead by Eyal Weizman. They use architectural technologies and techniques to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world.

The agency develops new evidentiary techniques and undertakes advanced architectural and media research with and on behalf of communities affected by state violence and routinely works in partnership with international prosecutors, political and environmental justice groups and human rights organisations.

The group uses advanced architectural and media techniques to investigate armed conflicts and environmental destruction as well as to cross reference a variety of evidence sources such as new media material analysis, remote sensing and witness testimony.

They are an interdisciplinary team of investigators comprised of scholars, artists, architects, filmmakers, software developers,lawyers, investigative journalists and scientists.

One of their exhibitions from last year, Counter Investigations: Forensic Architecture at The Institute of Contemporary Arts presented a selection of recent investigations by the group. These address cases such as the racist murder of a man in Kassel, Germany by a member of the far-right group and instances of deferred responsibility by state agencies that have contributed to the deaths of migrants at sea in the Mediterranean.

Other Exhibitions –

REPORTING FROM THE FRONT La Biennale di Venezia 2016, Venice, 28 May- 27th November

FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE: TOWARDS AN INVESTIGATIVE AESTHETICS Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2017, 28th April – 15th December

FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE: TOWARDS AN INVESTIGATIVE AESTHETIC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporanco, Mexico City, 9th September – 30th December 2017

The way some of Haroon Mirza’s pieces are displayed as well as their square shape is almost reminiscent of how a traditional painting would look in a gallery – in a frame on the wall. But the pieces are made with metal and plastic with fabric and lights, purposefully haphazardly composed with exposed trails of wire. Some pieces seem quite minimalist with just carefully positioned light on a metal frame. I think the unsystematic feel and varying materials and compositions, combined with my knowledge of the exhibitions title, could be a reflection of the diverse and unanticipated nature of life. Or maybe the differing lives of differing people. Or thinking bigger to the more drastic scale of varying lifestyles/traditions/cultures/viewpoints/situations of people globally. There is definitely a common thread between these individual pieces even though each is different to the rest. This can be said about people also. The way that some pieces are hanging partially off the gallery wall could allude to themes of strain, pressure or burdens which fits in with the slightly dispirited tone of the exhibition title.

Lights

Haphazard

Unsystematic

Diverse

Unanticipated 

Life

Culture

Strain 

Pressure 

Burdens

Haphazard

random

unmethodical

disorderly

chaotic

slapdash

brutalist

Pressure

force

stress

oppression

burden

load

weight

Life

culture

society

variety

views

opinion

Tony Oursler’s ‘The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Ever Seen’ could be seen as a reflection of pressure or burden on a person. Also, the puppet like figure he created for this installation was put together in a purposefully haphazard way like ‘how the average person might make a figure if they had to, for instance a farmer and a scarecrow, a kid on Halloween, a dummy, an angry crowd, an effigy.’

‘Cycles of Collapsing Progress’ explores museums role in society and questions it as a medium of conveying culture. It has the same tone as what I imagine elements of Mirza’s work does.

Photography of rocks and rock surfaces printed and rephotographed in a studio setting. An initial photograph of the rocks surface has been printed and manipulated in the studio to mimic the shape of a natural rock. I thought it was interesting that the artist had chosen a man made sculpture to portray a natural form. I have a few thoughts on what the message behind this decision could be – maybe it’s a reaction to the way our world is advancing in technology and the idea that we have less and less need for a humans skills (the body is another natural form that features in Orton’s photographs). Or potentially a response to the way the planet is changing physically and the theory that we might actually have to build or rebuild our planet someday. There were also natural rocks on display in the exhibition but my attention was initially far more drawn to the large-scale prints draped over wooden stands and hanging loosely on the wall. There was one photograph of an organic rock and this was the only print that was properly framed and secured to wall while the rest were unframed and some were left purposely loose at the edges. This contrast could reflect the idea that natural things have more security since forms like rocks have proven to stand the test of time while our man made lifestyles have only existed for a fraction of the planets existence and its longevity is potentially unknown.

Natural forms 

Rocks 

The Human Form 

Manmade or manipulated surfaces

Advancing technology

The Earth

Natural Forms 

Natural

Rock

Stone

Water

Human

Body

Organic

Real

Manmade or manipulated 

Manipulated

Changed

Altered

Built

Designed

Digital

Fictional

Unreal

Fictional

Richard Longs’s ‘Ten days walking and Sleeping on Natural Ground‘ is another good example of an art piece representing a natural form through a man made medium. In text he describes a ten day long walk he took in Scotland.

Will AI Soon Be the Best Forgers? This article I found on frieze.com is an example of how artificial intelligence can successfully complete a task that before major advances in technology only a human could have done.

When researching for this body of work, based on the idea that the work is a reaction to our changing lifestyles and our changing planet, the artist would definitely have looked at current events relating to these things because information on those topics is inexhaustible. I think this link may have been relevant during the research for this project.

The below was detailed in the exhibition ‘Strata-Rock-Dust-Stars’ at York Art Gallery.

‘Liz Orton (b.1967)

The Longest and Darkest of Recollections (2016)

Inkjet and C-type photographs; stones; text

Orton’s artistic processis concerned with entanglements of landscape, technology and the body. She engages largely with archives, both real and imagined, to explore the tensions between personal and systematic forms of knowledge.

The Longest and Darkest of Recollections considers notions of time, memory and the construction of knowledge. Photographs taken both in the field and studio explore and reimagine the methods and gestures used by geologists searching for evidence in the ‘deep time’ of rock formations. Orton develops material connections between surfaces of the body, rocks and paper.

The work is informed by Orton’s visual research into the practices of touch and measurement used by geologists. It speaks of an ongoing curiosity about geology, and the systems used to categorise the earth and time. Combining scientific and sensual knowledge, she questions the role of photography as evidence.’

I like the notion of questioning the idea of photography as evidence, it’s especially interesting within our technologically advanced environment. A photograph could be staged and a scene could be just as real as a rock moulded out of paper.

I enjoyed the processes I used during this project. I think the lack of control I had over the images the photocopier produced was really interesting as it meant that every piece I made was almost trial and error and no two pieces were the same, even though every piece originated from the same initial sketches and collages I created at the beginning. It also gave me the ability to build an expansive archive of imagery very quickly.

The huge amount of pages I produced meant that I had a variety of options to work with when putting the book together. I played with the theme of distortion while creating this body of work, inspired initially by the way history has been told and retold, branching into the idea that stories have the potential to change drastically over time. I tried to organise the pages in a way that reflects this idea by putting pages with cleaner more recognisable motifs at the front and heavily distorted pages at the back.

I opted not to use any additional text and to let the visuals and the composition of the pages speak for themselves. This meant that the reader had no definitive context when looking through the book, but this was purposeful because I thought it would be interesting to see what themes or ideas a reader would formulate without any prompts. This might also kind of make a readers experience with the book more personal and specific to them.

To improve the durability of the book and to make looking trough it a more pleasant tactile experience I covered each page in clear plastic book covering before binding it with metal clips.

The group critique of our work was something I was excited about because it would show me realistically how successful I was at portraying a theme or concept through images alone. I would conclude that I was relatively successful in the way that my peers noted that the pages got progressively more distorted and distortion was the overlying theme. The smaller more specific underlying themes weren’t all noticed but my subtle use of sound waves to allude to speech was picked up on.

If I was to do a second version of this book I would definitely explore the use of text alongside the imagery. Even though I liked that I produced something that is quite open to interpretation I think that by doing so I missed the opportunity to dig even further into  the concept and uncover more complex ideas that could only be fully or properly told with the use of text.

I might also bind the book more interestingly if I were to produce it again. Although I might still decide not to bind the pages permanently in place, as another thing that was discussed during the group critique that I found quite interesting was that the books pages had the ability to be removed and rearranged – which I think related perfectly to the way a story of the past has the potential to be edited and rearranged over time.

In the textiles workshop we were guided through the important health and safety details and were shown the workspaces as well as how to use the machines.

Afer this we completed an activity where we had to fill a space with string. I opted for geometric straight lines in the corner of the space and enjoyed how different I could make it look from different angles.