Practice and Perceptions
Asynchronous Session
Strange Places: Translating the Visual Narratives of Heterotopias into the Written Word View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Denise Beckton
Heterotopias – places and spaces that evoke a sense of otherness – encompass visual narratives that can be described as disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory and/or transforming. These ephemeral qualities, which are unique to each heterotopic place, are influenced by past and present connections to cultural, social, economic and/or historic events. For example, the sombre events that contribute to the unnerving atmosphere of a cemetery contrast with those that inform the utilitarian ambience of a boarding school. These intangible, and often transitory, visual narratives can be challenging for writers to successfully translate into written prose. This paper outlines techniques designed to assist writers crafting action writing, comparative writing, and description as they recreate the visual awe of heterotopic spaces for written texts.
Negri’s Ontological Sublime: Immaterial Labor and the Event of Art View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gerlinde Van Puymbroeck
While his philosophical work on neoliberalism gains notoriety, Antonio Negri also poses important questions concerning the nature and meaning of contemporary art. His notions of multitude and immaterial labor found reflections, both in art theory and practice, on the activity of the artist and artistic production, and their position in today’s neoliberal society. However, Negri’s relation to traditional aesthetic concepts is largely absent from those discourses. Yet in ‘Art and Multitude’, questions about the Sublime in relation to contemporary art emerge. In his ‘Letter to Giorgio’ Negri explicitly proposes to reconsider the Sublime by placing Burke and Kant in the context of neoliberalism. As his considerations remain essayistic, I aim to accept Negri’s proposal and relate his questions to Burke’s and Kant’s accounts of the Sublime. Pertinent affinities as well as differences between the three authors’ accounts may be identified, allowing to further define Negri’s notion of the Sublime. The concept that comes forth appears as a key figure in Negri’s thinking about art, and one that solidifies the relation between his view on art and his political theory. In its relation to the omnipresence of immaterial labor, Negri’s Sublime proves to shift to from a reactive to an active notion. Thus reconsidered in relation to neoliberalism, the Sublime becomes firmly rooted in productive ontological praxis where it simultaneously appears to shift art beyond its objects and produce the concept of art as event.
The Birth of “Chinese White”: The Influence of Foreign Trade on the Formation of Porcelain Sculpture in Dehua Kiln View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yixuan Du, Miaowen Li, Zicheng Tian
The paper describes the historical factors of the development of Dehua ancient kilns and aims to confirm Dehua kilns' impact due to foreign trade business. Dehua's geographical location and raw resources provided advantageous conditions for the formation of Dehua kilns. During the Song Dynasty, Dehua white porcelain became a major trade commodity along the Maritime Silk Road. It became the only source of ceramics for foreign trade in ancient China. The paper first summarizes the time-linear changes in morphology, firing patterns, and firing processes at the Dehua kiln site through a study of archaeological documents, and attempts to confirm the influence of foreign trade patterns on the development of the kiln site. The paper points out that the aesthetic and cultural fusion of China and the West brought about by foreign trade enriched the artistic forms of ancient Dehua white porcelain. The main products of Dehua white porcelain gradually changed from domestic wares to ceramic sculptures. The western religious themes emerged under the influence of overseas market needs. It is the most distinctive feature of Dehua kilns compared to other ancient Chinese kiln sites. In addition, the paper analyzes the literature related to excavations from overseas as evidence of the characteristics of the linear development of Dehua white porcelain. The study focuses on the impact of foreign trade patterns on the development of Dehua ceramics, both changes in kiln shape and production items. It can be seen as an ancient bridge of cultural exchange between China and western counties.
Living Mountains in Iberian Cave Art View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bernie Taylor
Drawings, engravings, sculptures and similarly constructed art forms rely on our unique ability to internally process visual information and identify recognizable patterns. This same ability processes imaginary patterns, such as faces of people and animals in geological formations, clouds, and groups of stars. This phenomenon of identifying imaginary patterns is referred to as “pareidolia.” The ability to find pareidolia in the natural world is apparently innate to humans and logically should have preceded our earliest known drawings, engravings and sculptures. We have records of pareidolia in ancient times and worldwide among animistic hunter-gatherers who held their observations in sacred traditions. In this study, previously published Upper Paleolithic images from caves in Northern Spain were compared with prominent geological formations observed outside of caves in the region. The findings demonstrate that Upper Paleolithic cave artists in Northern Spain found pareidolia in geological formations outside of caves and projected those visualizations onto the walls of deep caves. In this presentation, five panels in four caves are shown to represent pareidolia observed at two geological formations outside of the caves. These pareidolia-based cave images are animated and retained in mythology that originates in cultures that have been present in the region since before ancient times.
Perceptual Disruption: The Poetic and Symbolic Language of the Double Page Spread View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Altea Grau Vidal
What is a double page-spread? How do we read it? This practice-based research paper aims to bring closer the fields of the book arts, printmaking and the fine arts re-evaluating the notion of the double page spread. I claim that the double-page spread is not only a component of the book. It is also an autonomous and self-functioning entity that can or cannot be linked to a narrative sequence part of a larger piece. I consider the interpretation of the physical and material processes that configure the reading of the page, such as mirroring, reflection, echo and the fold. These elements condition the way we interpret information, and in order to investigate them, I present a new body of work as well as number of new interpretations of artist’s works that make particular use of them (including works by Dieter Roth, Anish Kapoor and Jasper Johns).I claim the distinctiveness of this concept because it embodies both an inseparable cultural background and a place to develop art practice. This notion generates a new perceived space between something familiar (the book or the page) and the illusory, predisposing the reader with a different attitude towards the perceptual reading of an artwork. I argue that the double-page generates new reading and perceptual understanding, both showing what is revealed at first sight and what it is hidden once conventions are unmasked. Challenging the attempts of reading within an image, which resonates in the way I communicate through my artworks.
