Nov 11, 2008
Nov 3, 2008
3D Beeld Onderzoek
3D Beeld Onderzoek was the subject I was looking forward to mostly when the rooster started. The most important work I had done before I came to the art academy was a blacklight installation, so I thought this subject would be perfect for me. I was a bit disappointed then when we had our first lesson. The first thing we had to do was to copy 10 pictures of 3D objects we liked and we didn’t like out of books. The homework was then to make collages, simple ones, just with lines and as free as possible.
When our teacher analyzed our homework in the following lesson, he told me that I should not make the things to easy for me. I think the problem was that I thought we should make collages “out of nothing”, so I focused a lot on not thinking to much about what I was doing, so the result was really trashy. For the next lesson I made new collages, this time trying to arrange them a bit more thoughtfully. It was better than what I had done before, but I still was told to work less “nice”.
When we switched to making real 3D objects then, I tried to work therefore really free, spontaneously, without focusing on the aspect. Maybe I was a bit to hard in that this time, because the teacher was really critical and made clear to me that there must be any idea visible, and that everybody could make “trash”, but some of the works I made he liked, so I worked more in that direction. At that time I thought I would understand better what it was about. The objects should not be nice in aspect, but neather just senseless trash. There should be an idea behind the arrangement or the shape giving, but the aim was to make it interesting, not nice.
It was hard for me to get this point. I also was a bit angry, because it seemed that my original standpoint, that this subject would be perfect for my ideas, would not really work out. So what I did for the following lesson was not to put that many things just together like I did before, but work more minimalistic. Therefore I used a lot of ready-mades, because I didn’t want to make “trash” again, which I destructed or deconstructed.
The ready-mades were the biggest criticspoint in the following lesson. I was told not to use so much material, make the things less heavy, and still work more free, because ready-mades have already a shape what allows not so many variations. The teacher made clear to me that, if I wanted to work with ready-mades, I would have to pay a lot more attention on HOW I worked with them in order to make it interesting. But some of my workes asked his attention, and he gave me the advice to inform myself about the artist Erwin Wurm as an example. I followed the advice and noticed that the way this artists used the things was more my direction.
We were also told to think about our works, to find a description for them or for our working style, what it would be about. One big question in my life is the question about identity. If it exists, where it comes from, if things can have a fixed identity or not, and also if I myself, as a person or an artist, can have an identity which is visible in all of my works. So I chose that question to describe my works, “what is identity?”. That explained also why I had problems at the beginning to start producing, because I was not sure about the “identity” I wanted to give the things I made. Also my interest for ready-mades fits in there, because they already have an identity, and my question is if this is fixed or not.
I understood now also better what the teacher ment by saying I should pay more attention on HOW I worked with ready-mades. Just to destroy them or put them together in a new order would not question anything. This happens every day, everybody can do it and it’s not interesting and nothing. So if I wanted to work in this direction, I would have to add something new, something which would not be expected. So for the following lesson I experimented a lot and made several series of works. The feedback I got was then the best feedback I got during the whole period.
The end of the first period was near, and I made a final work which should express all I learned in this period and get in to a point. I “melted together” two light bulbs. Before I came to the art academy I would have left it like that, because I would have thought that this would be interesting. What I did not was to add something unexpected, so I broke out a piece of glass on the place where they “melted”. The aim was not to give two things new identity (“two light bulbs melted together”), but to question the identity in general. So by braking out the piece of glass, I wanted the viewer to ask himself why I did that. Was it an accident? Did he do it consciously? Are this still two light bulbs melted together? I explained everything to the teacher on the day of the presentation. He was still very critical and saw still a lot of thing I would have to learn. The thing is that at this day I could agree with him, and this is the important point for me, because I have now the feeling that I really learned something and understood now better where my weak points are. I’m more satisfied with that knowledge as if I would be if I would have worked perfectly, because I think this is a good base to work on for the second period.
When our teacher analyzed our homework in the following lesson, he told me that I should not make the things to easy for me. I think the problem was that I thought we should make collages “out of nothing”, so I focused a lot on not thinking to much about what I was doing, so the result was really trashy. For the next lesson I made new collages, this time trying to arrange them a bit more thoughtfully. It was better than what I had done before, but I still was told to work less “nice”.
When we switched to making real 3D objects then, I tried to work therefore really free, spontaneously, without focusing on the aspect. Maybe I was a bit to hard in that this time, because the teacher was really critical and made clear to me that there must be any idea visible, and that everybody could make “trash”, but some of the works I made he liked, so I worked more in that direction. At that time I thought I would understand better what it was about. The objects should not be nice in aspect, but neather just senseless trash. There should be an idea behind the arrangement or the shape giving, but the aim was to make it interesting, not nice.
It was hard for me to get this point. I also was a bit angry, because it seemed that my original standpoint, that this subject would be perfect for my ideas, would not really work out. So what I did for the following lesson was not to put that many things just together like I did before, but work more minimalistic. Therefore I used a lot of ready-mades, because I didn’t want to make “trash” again, which I destructed or deconstructed.
The ready-mades were the biggest criticspoint in the following lesson. I was told not to use so much material, make the things less heavy, and still work more free, because ready-mades have already a shape what allows not so many variations. The teacher made clear to me that, if I wanted to work with ready-mades, I would have to pay a lot more attention on HOW I worked with them in order to make it interesting. But some of my workes asked his attention, and he gave me the advice to inform myself about the artist Erwin Wurm as an example. I followed the advice and noticed that the way this artists used the things was more my direction.
We were also told to think about our works, to find a description for them or for our working style, what it would be about. One big question in my life is the question about identity. If it exists, where it comes from, if things can have a fixed identity or not, and also if I myself, as a person or an artist, can have an identity which is visible in all of my works. So I chose that question to describe my works, “what is identity?”. That explained also why I had problems at the beginning to start producing, because I was not sure about the “identity” I wanted to give the things I made. Also my interest for ready-mades fits in there, because they already have an identity, and my question is if this is fixed or not.
I understood now also better what the teacher ment by saying I should pay more attention on HOW I worked with ready-mades. Just to destroy them or put them together in a new order would not question anything. This happens every day, everybody can do it and it’s not interesting and nothing. So if I wanted to work in this direction, I would have to add something new, something which would not be expected. So for the following lesson I experimented a lot and made several series of works. The feedback I got was then the best feedback I got during the whole period.
The end of the first period was near, and I made a final work which should express all I learned in this period and get in to a point. I “melted together” two light bulbs. Before I came to the art academy I would have left it like that, because I would have thought that this would be interesting. What I did not was to add something unexpected, so I broke out a piece of glass on the place where they “melted”. The aim was not to give two things new identity (“two light bulbs melted together”), but to question the identity in general. So by braking out the piece of glass, I wanted the viewer to ask himself why I did that. Was it an accident? Did he do it consciously? Are this still two light bulbs melted together? I explained everything to the teacher on the day of the presentation. He was still very critical and saw still a lot of thing I would have to learn. The thing is that at this day I could agree with him, and this is the important point for me, because I have now the feeling that I really learned something and understood now better where my weak points are. I’m more satisfied with that knowledge as if I would be if I would have worked perfectly, because I think this is a good base to work on for the second period.
Beeld & Concept
The first step to our concept was the visualisation of a personal memory. It could be anyone, all we should do was to make it visible, to draw it. Before I came to the Netherlands, I lived in Madrid for a while and had some close impressions of the – in my eyes – senseless behaviour of many people who follow strict timetables and working calenders and think that’s what life would be about, whereas no one sees how empty their lifes really are. So this was still a very strong memory when I started in the art academy and I chose to work with it. I was not sure if that would be a good idea, because it’s a pretty bad memory, but finally decided to make myself the things not so easy.
I made several drawings with coal on sketch paper, in which I tried to combine what I had seen there in Madrid and what my impression of it was, what my mind made out of it. I was a bit to much interpretating the things, so my teacher asked me to stay at first a bit more at the concret visualisation of what I had seen.
Further we had to write texts about our memory, different ones, and think about how we could visualize them. I made some poems, a dialog and kind of a “why wall”, because I asked myself a lot of times questions with “why” at that time, and wanted to have all these questions presented like statements on a wall.
While showing all we had made until that time to the rest of the class and having a conversation about it, we then had to find our “concept” in it. In my case it was “standing critically between the worlds”, because what I made showed that I question a lot of things. But this didn’t give me satisfaction, because I could not work with that, it was still to open.
So I had a talk to my teacher, I told her that I had no idea how to go on. She gave me the advice to think about what happens when I travel from one place to another, like I did from Germany to Spain. I had the idea that, when you move from one place to another, you always have kind of a vision in your head how the other place would be and what you can expect to find there, and that these pictures in your mind always have something to do with a search for something better or nicer than where you are at the moment, and that the reality is always different. So I made some drawings of situations how I expected them to be before I went there during the last months, and also wrote down some questions I had connected with the movements I made. The idea was to put them behind a glass plate where I could see them, and meanwhile see myself reflected in the situation how it really was, so confrontate myself with what I expected and what it really turned out to be. I noticed that I felt uncomfortable while doing that, I felt kind of insecure feeling. So I thought this would be the better concept for me, insecurity.
I did then several tryouts, in order to give myself more insecurity while producing something. That I thought would be the aim of the subject, to make your concept to something productive. I changed e.g. my own standpoint towards the picture while painting it, I painted upside down or on inline skates, in order to see what would come out. Nothing really satisfied me, because I never felt like using my concept in a productive way, so I decided, one week before the end of the first period and the final presentation, to make an experiment with myself and bring me in real insecure situations. My plan was to program my watch to ring the alarm by coincidence during one week, and everytime when it would ring, no matter where I would be or what I would do, I wanted to do some artistic action.
This plan finally failed, because I just never did it. I asked myself why and analyzed my concept in form of a text. I wrote about insecurity, where it normaly comes from, what happens with people when they are insecure, how one can deal with it, and so on. Using this text, this analyse, I noticed why I could not realize my original plan. People never bring themselves consciously into insecure situations, they happen or not.
This text was then also some kind of key for me in this subject. A lot of things about insecurity and why it developed as my concept were now very clear to me. On the day of the presentation I then made kind of a performance out of this text, in which I realized several things. Using a text which analyzed the topic “insecurity”, I visualized on the one hand the concept itself. On the other hand, I inscenated my personal situation in which I was during the week when I wanted to bring myself in insecure situations. Furthermore I even “lived” or worked with my concept during the performance, because my original plan was to show the results of my original plan which I could not realize, so finally I had a complete other result than expected, so I really was insecure on the day of the presentation itself.
This final step put my concept and how I worked with it until now in a complete new light. I also realized how it had an influence on me from the first lesson on. Because I was insecure what to do, I always had problems to experiment, or to bring experiments I wanted to do to an end. So my conclusion was that insecurity doesn’t bring you anywhere, the more interesting point is a new creative potential that comes when you look for ways to come out of insecure situations, like I did e.g. with the performance in order to bring myself out of the insecure situation of not being able to realize an experiment. I noticed how complexe the whole process was until the last step, but I think I finally made something really productive for me out of it, and that my thoughts from the first lesson, not to make the things to easy for me, turned out to be the right ones, because I thinks the confrontation with really personal conflictes or feares brings out complete new potentials out of one.
In the next period I’d therefore like to work more spontaneously, more free, having a close look on what I finally discovered: the use of insecurety by having a look on the ways how to avoid it.
I made several drawings with coal on sketch paper, in which I tried to combine what I had seen there in Madrid and what my impression of it was, what my mind made out of it. I was a bit to much interpretating the things, so my teacher asked me to stay at first a bit more at the concret visualisation of what I had seen.
Further we had to write texts about our memory, different ones, and think about how we could visualize them. I made some poems, a dialog and kind of a “why wall”, because I asked myself a lot of times questions with “why” at that time, and wanted to have all these questions presented like statements on a wall.
While showing all we had made until that time to the rest of the class and having a conversation about it, we then had to find our “concept” in it. In my case it was “standing critically between the worlds”, because what I made showed that I question a lot of things. But this didn’t give me satisfaction, because I could not work with that, it was still to open.
So I had a talk to my teacher, I told her that I had no idea how to go on. She gave me the advice to think about what happens when I travel from one place to another, like I did from Germany to Spain. I had the idea that, when you move from one place to another, you always have kind of a vision in your head how the other place would be and what you can expect to find there, and that these pictures in your mind always have something to do with a search for something better or nicer than where you are at the moment, and that the reality is always different. So I made some drawings of situations how I expected them to be before I went there during the last months, and also wrote down some questions I had connected with the movements I made. The idea was to put them behind a glass plate where I could see them, and meanwhile see myself reflected in the situation how it really was, so confrontate myself with what I expected and what it really turned out to be. I noticed that I felt uncomfortable while doing that, I felt kind of insecure feeling. So I thought this would be the better concept for me, insecurity.
I did then several tryouts, in order to give myself more insecurity while producing something. That I thought would be the aim of the subject, to make your concept to something productive. I changed e.g. my own standpoint towards the picture while painting it, I painted upside down or on inline skates, in order to see what would come out. Nothing really satisfied me, because I never felt like using my concept in a productive way, so I decided, one week before the end of the first period and the final presentation, to make an experiment with myself and bring me in real insecure situations. My plan was to program my watch to ring the alarm by coincidence during one week, and everytime when it would ring, no matter where I would be or what I would do, I wanted to do some artistic action.
This plan finally failed, because I just never did it. I asked myself why and analyzed my concept in form of a text. I wrote about insecurity, where it normaly comes from, what happens with people when they are insecure, how one can deal with it, and so on. Using this text, this analyse, I noticed why I could not realize my original plan. People never bring themselves consciously into insecure situations, they happen or not.
This text was then also some kind of key for me in this subject. A lot of things about insecurity and why it developed as my concept were now very clear to me. On the day of the presentation I then made kind of a performance out of this text, in which I realized several things. Using a text which analyzed the topic “insecurity”, I visualized on the one hand the concept itself. On the other hand, I inscenated my personal situation in which I was during the week when I wanted to bring myself in insecure situations. Furthermore I even “lived” or worked with my concept during the performance, because my original plan was to show the results of my original plan which I could not realize, so finally I had a complete other result than expected, so I really was insecure on the day of the presentation itself.
This final step put my concept and how I worked with it until now in a complete new light. I also realized how it had an influence on me from the first lesson on. Because I was insecure what to do, I always had problems to experiment, or to bring experiments I wanted to do to an end. So my conclusion was that insecurity doesn’t bring you anywhere, the more interesting point is a new creative potential that comes when you look for ways to come out of insecure situations, like I did e.g. with the performance in order to bring myself out of the insecure situation of not being able to realize an experiment. I noticed how complexe the whole process was until the last step, but I think I finally made something really productive for me out of it, and that my thoughts from the first lesson, not to make the things to easy for me, turned out to be the right ones, because I thinks the confrontation with really personal conflictes or feares brings out complete new potentials out of one.
In the next period I’d therefore like to work more spontaneously, more free, having a close look on what I finally discovered: the use of insecurety by having a look on the ways how to avoid it.
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