Max Interim Crit

I Presented my initial analogue experiments alongside my digital animations. Having spoken to Marcus and researching into the leads he gave me, I felt confident talking about some theory that linked to my process. This became a good method of thinking through making. I had lots of time to reflect whilst doing my photocopying experiments.

Max also mentioned “medium specific art” – “the artwork is constituted by the characteristic qualities of the raw material.” My process is dependant on the technology of the photocopier. It becomes a visualisation of the technology and its image making method. He also said it was interesting how this process could be replicated through purely digital means such as saving a jpeg over and over again. I think by introducing the analogue aspect to my work it makes the mistranslation of the image more multifaceted but it was interesting that this idea has a position in digital artistic practice.

This thinking reminded me of the scanning technology that enables us to be able to see the working layers underneath famous paintings. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/30/leonardo-da-vinci-painting-portrait-lady-ermine. Scanning could be considered a crude method of image reproduction. It flattens the image and in this way removes some detail. However, it also enables us a greater understanding of these traditional, analogue works of art. It’s an interesting connection.

I find these references to fine art really useful. Previously looking at Daniel Eatock was really helpful for me to develop a slightly conceptual process to my work. Max mentioned to look at Oliver Laric. He’s an artist who is famous for making casts of famous statues and recreating them. He makes us question the value of the copy. I found this video piece really eye opening.

It also helped me start thinking about my presentation method. I thought it would be effective to present my video experiments either alongside each other or in separate slides to a simple background like this. I was also recommended a text that Ajay had also mentioned in his lecture about media theory.

In his text “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Walter Benjamin talks about the “aura” of an original piece of art and the effect the copy has on this. This proved really useful in my presenting of my process later on.

It was really inspiring to see how other people had interpreted this brief. I was impressed by everyone’s idea. What stood out to me was the utilisation of the old technology – letraset and also a project which created a font family by exploiting the laser scanner of the printer. For the bold typeface the font was dragged alongside the laser to make it widen and draw out longer. Obviously I was using a printer as a predominant part of my process as well, so this was particularly eye opening.