Jason Salavon

Salavon takes the digital world into a different perspective, especially into the technology aspect. His breakdown of frames into coding is the under layer and perspective we, as viewers and artists, do not look to right away. This process, in its final stage, gives a muted town, but the emotional and psychological interpretations are deeper once you realize what the image is such as in Salavon’s 100 Special Moments: Little League, Graduation, Wedding, and Santa. This series really questions as to how society has cultivated expectations of highlights in events. For instance, if you were to apply this method to a 21st birthday in the USA (in order to appeal to an audience of both young, old, and even around 21) you would more than likely get an overall photo of a person with a 21st hat/sash taking a shot/holding a drink; or even apply this to the U.S. Presidential portraits as well (This image would be nice to see because of the race of each president and the ages of the presidents). Another series of images I would like to see is of every major terrorist or wars event across the world displayed out like the Titanic piece. Our life, with the utilization of social media documentation, has been dictated to conform to standards to prove we (individually) have a life.

Pina Bausch

Tanztheater Wuppertal

 

The fact that Pina began by asking her performers questions around the themes of the play gave insight to both the raw emotions/ideas documented in writings and how people (i.e. her performers) perceive or react to them. Applying these raw emotions to a performance can be difficult because the actions that are typically represented of certain emotions such as anger and harsh, forcefully movements do not mesh too well in a theatre setting, and yet these expressive gestures combined with ballet created a beautiful play. Rather Bausch created another world in which it does not seek to teach, does not claim to know better, but instead produces experiences that relate to things every member of the audience knows; has experienced personally and physically.

The Fall Dance

With the first fall, I immediately thought of the faith/trust exercise done as ice breakers in work/social environments. However, the dancers appear to be in a romantic relationship. As to what stage of the relationship they are in is debatable. Firstly, they could be a few weeks to a few months in, and thus are still in a stage they are getting to know each other more hence the trust fall act. Yet, these two lovers could be in a phase that they are losing trust in one another due to circumstances unknown to us. There is a third option, in which these two are simply strangers getting to know one another, however, there are multiple falls and the attire and setting appear that these two are in a romantic relationship. The woman appears to fall at random times in testing if the man will be there to save her. The need for love, for intimacy and emotional security in a poetic way also encourages us to wonder what distances us from it all too.

Edward Burtynsky: Manufactured Landscapes

I enjoyed this film because Burtynsky's view on the smallest details in the corruption and evolution of our planet are crucial reminders. In my own work I look into social awareness topics whether that is between human and human, human and nature, or human and the world, much like the general arguments in books. With “Manufactured Landscapes” I am taken aback by how these larger images such as a wide shot image of oil tanks or of a factory get to that point. Actions such as the dissecting of computer part from California in China to achieve the highest percentage of recovery. And although recycling is stressed high in liberal areas and throughout our country/globally, the process and need for recycling is intensified in these images of the workers. It may be easy to just categorize paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass, but the real work afterwards is never questioned. Burtynsky provides us with an image of 45 million tires. This goes against the recycling images, but this is also because method of recycling is much more prominent in China. Burtynsky shows two strong images from Chine: a still moment of workers in a factory and real-time footage of an assembler at their normal pace for a ten hour workday. What is very strong about the first image is that Burtnsky had to make the workers pause five to ten seconds to get this image. He need about five times to do this just to get an images. That is how dedicated these workers are to their jobs.

There is also strong relationship that can be symbolic to the greater picture: Burtynsky working with the corporations. Burtynsky works with the corporations rather than against; yet the corporations take their time sometimes. Now if we could put forth that effort along with the corporations meeting halfway, a lot more could be done and more efficiently.  He took images of oil fields in California. Thinking more into the purpose of oil, the effects: cars to roads to jobs and shopping. So much relies on this domino wheel.  I also liked the display of: Obey the birth control law. In the background is the adaptation of our way of life and embrace the leading ritual lifestyle.  Burtnsky’s video also encouraged me to view another show: Living on One Dollar on Netflix. The struggles these workers go through can be correlated to those in the factories as well, but there is a strong contrast between the two in a senses of technology and environment as in Burtnsky’s photos. 

Andreas Gursky

Gursky’s photos are physically distant from his subjects allowing the people to interact with the culture and influences around them naturally. With this approach, I find the pictures to be realer because the artist is not manipulating the image to his perceived notations of this relationship. He likes to capture the whole picture rather than cropping and focusing on one thing; in this sense, he is not being biased about the influence of cultures are around us. This can be seen in his image of Parliament. Even though he had to take photos both day and night, the final product showed so much. Gursky was able to show the inside of Parliament while the busy life outside of it (the citizens they effect) reflected in the mirrors. This image is truly showing a relationship between the two groups of people though they may never cross paths often. This image can even show how parliament may not always see the people with the citizens’ being represented on the outside in the reflections.

Another image such as the people on the elevator/escalade in the Paris airport, you are really taken aback by how the people are like clockwork as if in a factory setting. Moving along a converter belt one by one, packing up, and moving to their next destination. Gursky makes sure to avoid people sticking out or if they look directly at the camera as to focus more on the whole group. But Gursky is essentially noting these sites of commerce and tourism that draw attention to the industry and global markets within the images.

Even the people on the elevator have a reflection of mass-producing in their medias such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. We have created the software apps to allow people to document every moment in life i.e. mass-producing. By this are the people disconnected or connected? People are definitely interconnected by technology uses and purposes, however, they are more disconnected from each other. There are no true human connections going on between them. The only communication between humans in this is by secondhand like conversations by digital text.

With Gursky’s knowledge of architecture, some of his images are also created within the landscapes of the beaten down pathways, you get a sense of time and story, imagining who walks these paths every day and why? In some images, there is modern interacting with nature (natural).

Deadpan style photography is what we resort to after natural or human-made disasters. We look to ways to cope and comprehend the situations. How and Why did this happen? Photography reporters try to capture images of the whole situation to up close views of after results. I don’t think these close shots necessarily try to persuade the viewers to feel a certain way. The situation such as the Syrian refugees, it is hard to not get those images because people across seas want to know. We want to know how badly impacted those people are. And the truth of the images speaks for themselves as is. No matter the angle a person could try to persuade, it is evident within the eyes of the victims and the landscape. It is rather the stories that go with these images and how those stories are told that persuade people in certain directions.

Sandy skoglund from Hanna Vongpraseuth

Jeff Wall

The split actions caught in the space of time relate to paintings such as Édouard Manet. Manet’s work was surrounded by this idea of capturing and perceiving ascents of events such as music concerts, café scenes, and war. This concept was successfully applied by Jeff Wall. Wall’s photos imitate life though resemblances, expressions, and inferences. Thus the illusion of a reality in a fictional world. Wall also creates his images to be life size so that the viewer feels an intimate direct or subtle connection. These sizers are very similar to the ones Monet also worked with.

The process of manipulating the models is Wall’s influence on the image, but this does not affect the cultural surroundings he is trying to perceive. The way he works with his models and how his models pose fixed expressions can be associated with theater too. Staged action replacing real action. Hence the authenticity of true documentation of events and people is eliminated with his subjects acting out his productions.

Wall’s process of creating these acted out scenes are similar to how true story movies are portrayed. The details and emotions of the story are told vividly by the director and fools the audience into believing the entire movie is scene for scene, detail for detail, true to how the original movie was. So in a way Wall is also mocking these movies for how easy it is to fool people.

The issue he works with in this reality is typically class related yet he never gives a political stance; he keeps himself distant from influencing the viewers’ opinion. His subjects are signifiers of a social status, employed to signal the idea of class, as if in a genre painting. This is similar to Manet’s work on social events of the rich class.

The Works

Dead Troops Talk

If you look closely the phot shows no true side of which the soldiers belong to, Rather the soldier are no names and the expressions they give conflict with the setting. The dead soldiers seem to talk and joke with one another. As Wall typically makes the viewer question if the photo is real or fake, it is quite certain by the models that this image doesn’t refers to an event found in history books. I think this image can be compared to Manet’s Battle of Cherbourg. In this painting, there are multiple ships out at sea with one that appears to have been hit. If it were not for the French flag on the bottom left ship, you would not be able to tell who is fighting for which side like the soldiers from Wall’s photo.

View From Apartment

Manet challenged established artistic values by rejecting the illusionistic painting techniques emerging from the Realism to Impressionistic period. Wall constructs a similar critique through his practice by deliberately staging his photographs. In A View from an Apartment, the artist gave his model a budget for the apartment over several months and then photographed moments during the model’s time there. He then used digital editing to combine multiple shots to achieve this final image. This creative process forces us to question the photograph’s value as an accurate record of the scene.

Dick Blau

Dick Blau's photography work in Polka! Happiness captured a lot of raw first moments. I felt that since it was his first time experiencing this, we were able to experience it secondhandly through his eyes. These pictures also broke my own stereotypical thoughts on Polka music and the atmosphere surrounding it.

With his first film, his experimenting and educating himself, gave a different kind of element. Blau was used to photography in which the end result was just one moment. This mindset helped to capture the emotional expressions from the church gatherers; in moments such as them praying with their hands held up high or hold their books so closely to their bodies. He was able to diversify the viewers from a larger to small picture and back and forth throughout. He would focus on the people within the church and then pair these images with scenes outside such as the parade down the street or the woman preaching by herself outside. This piece overall was strong not just in the obvious religious ways but also in the social aspect as to how this group interacted the world outside of their church.

The fairy tale video was my favorite piece of his.The conceptual idea of this video added to the essence of it since kids pretending gets jumbled up by "new intruders" and "obstacles" causing the story to constantly change. I really felt as though this piece could have been categorized as creepy or horror by the way the video would repeat areas or reverse the order of another area within the "plot line." I also loved that although Blau staged some narratives, he had to work with what he was given by the kids costumes.