Three things Timur
Timur
a piece of media (YouTube clip, film, TV show)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucKk_H71B74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZl3kyiJrgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0RQA9TqX1o
First video: Game show people falling into the water, with silly costumes. UK accent? The players need to make shapes with their body, and try to trespass a wall that contains that caved out shape. Only few succeeds. They mostly fall into the water. Wearing silver suits and helmets. The crowd is cheering. PLAY AREA! Everybody in the audience is making the shapes with their body, people are very happy. Second video: small about 4 years old russian girl in a house. It's christmas time, there is a tree in the back. A reallyyyy big bowl of brown jelly where she puts her hands in and finds a packet of... something russian. Looks like candy. They are small toys, little plastic animals wraped in layers of packaging. There are drawings in the packet, with small texts. There is a man but we can only see his hands. He speaks to the child. Can't really point out the direct connection to his work, but video 1 is a great metaphor to today's situation. A metaphor for how society shapes you. How economy pushes you on how to be in shape: being feminine or masculine, or having a family or a certain job. One acts to be a certain shape, you don't succeed, and fall into a pond of humiliation. Wall moving: accelleration, you must act, you must survive. Also interested in the shapes: abstract, words, numbers, so not only human shapes. Metaphorical shapes.
Second video: miss catty youtube channe, is organised by the parents of the girl. They advertise toys with the help of the daughter. Parents are using the daughter to advertise. The way the guy films and is speaking, the amount of toys they give her to play with, pretending to care about her... but actually making money on the chils. Fucked up, and horrifies Timur. At the same time it is interesting to see how parents spoil their kids. They bribe them with things, in order to make them behave. Children constantly stimulated by stuff. Not sure how this relates to my work, but it is very symbolic. The consumption of the video: cartoons, but also youtube. The way youtube goes automatically to these videos, so when children look at this alone, they come into this loop. Evil fucked up.
Relationship between parents and children seems trange: keeping children children and not letting them grow up. Seems to be a eastern way. Seems that they became extremely ritch through this activity.
a text you are reading which has a useful relation to your work Failure. Documents of Contemporary Art. Edited by Lisa Le Feuvre MIT PRESS
1) Writer: describe, in your own words, what the text (s) you are reading are about. 2) Readers: make notes on the pad of what your peer is saying. Readers, ask: 3) Why this text is of interest to you? 4) What is its relation to your self directed research? 5) How can you turn the questions these texts raise into work?
Text:
Is a collection of essays and interviews, different texts that speak about the presence of failure, while creating art. From the perspective of the artist, the assistant, froma philosophical perspective. Speaks about the inevitable moment of failure while making art. Deals with the questions of fears and anxhiety while making art. Use it in the moments when I feel empty and/or not being able to continue because of the fear of doing things. When I have the feeling that what I am doing is worthless. Which is also quite new to me. Coming from graphic design, making things for oneself is more diffucult, but also a necessity. It is a psycological help while coming to the process of making art. Incorporating failure through using humor... ect. I am trying also to turn failure into form. I am a perfectionist, and while making somethin, I try to make something with my hands. Feel like I don't have any skills, and it looks like it doesn't work. Which puts me down, negative thoughts, I am a failure. So I am training myself to continue and accept the failure as a part of the progress. This is the way I try to overcome these moments. I enjoy failure more and more. Has to do with the way I was raised. Always needed to satisfy my parents. Art gives you the opportunity to fail, and it spills into the narrative of art. Failure always reveals somethins. Nick thinks about autonomy: failure is also a way to be autonomous... aknowledgement of unperfection. Timur likes "tripping autonomy", autonomy is always unstable.
Suspiscious about the fact that it is a series.
a work of art (by another) which delights or infuriates you https://vimeo.com/110372969
Video Roderick Hedbrink A man in a brown closed cloth cube. He wears a brown cloth. Because he likes it like this! Voice is lowered. He keeps stating that he likes like this. This is how it is, he points at himself and the cloth. He talks to the camera. Touches everything: It's good like this! I don't know what it is, but it's good like this! He makes a dance, laughs. Turns around.
Why fo you like it? It's fun! And it also has to do with autonomy... how you are a slave of your own. The way you make decisions. It also speaks about creating art and doing things in general. I just enjoy the attitute. THIS IS HOW I LIKE IT. It s universal. Even if its a simple language it is a lot about that it is ok the way that you do it. It also becomes somehow biblica because of his hair. George: seems like the backdrop matches his hair: long hair. The video was shown on a screen in the brown cloth "box". Steve points out that this matches back with the idea of autonomy and failure. But how do they manifest in the work? These ideas serve as an internal dialogue, and help to deal with himself and how to handle the situation. It is very much about anxiety, and human behaviour: the way that people deal with their problems everyday. George: you could see it as a toolkit... make evrything one coulor. And it would hold itself. (?)
NOTES (Nick) Game show, 'Hole in the Wall' Australian? Silver body suits and coloured helmets Reminiscent of Takeshi's Castle (Japanese gameshow)
Girl getting toys out of brown goo at Christmas Small purple dogs Jump cuts POV camera, static,
Sophie: 'can you explain it?'
Not a direct connection to the work Hole in the wall a great metaphor for today's situation, globally, economically, socially, a metaphor for how society shapes you. Economies are really pushing you towards getting in shape, having a profession, having a family, being masculine, etc. Funny but also very sad. You act to form a certain shape, but rarely do you fit it, so you fall into the abyss of humiliation. Walls moving towards you, you have to act, take a shape, in order to survive. What is the menaing of the different shapes. Some are more abstract. Sometimes they use words, calculations. It is all metaphorical.
Youtube channel: 'Miss Katy' Parents of the young girl advertising toys with the help of their daughter The way of filming and speaking to the daughter, the amount of toys, pretending to care about her but exploiting her to make money. Horrifying. Performance economy. Every aspect of life (children, playtime) exploited. The way that parents bribe their children with toys, in order that they behave. It's all fucked up Not sure how it relates to the work. As a child you consume videos. Control mechanisms working on both sides of the image. Celebrating birthday in Dubai - insane amount of decorations. Her brother has a separate channel. Pink limo.
Johanna: what kind of life is this girl going to have? first as someone who is given everything, second as someone who interacts with her parents through a camera
The parents' tone is very infantilising. You could remain this way for the rest of your life. The way children are raised in Russia. Treated like a doll.
Text: Reading it from time to time. 'Failure' from the Documents of Contemporary Art series. Different perspectives: artist, philosopher, assistant. The inevitable moment of failure while making art. fears, anxieties. desctructive thoughts. serves a therapeutic function maybe. challenging to make things for yourself. a psychological helping hand. Doesn't necessarily relate to a current work, but to a process of making. All of them are revealing (no favourites) Artists don't always speak about these things, it's quite intimate or vulnerable. It's a big or interesting question. Trying to embed certain ideas of failure or turn them into form
Steve: how so?
Perfectionist, using the computer a lot, trying to break from using the screen and make something with the hands. skills/no skills/de-skilling I cannot continue, this is a failure. Training yourself to continue, there is no progress without failure. Small hints, a cheatlist. Overcoming
Steve: if you're a silicon valley millionaire you have to have failed, it's part of your CV. you have to have a spectacular failure
Enjoying failure - relating to the way of being raised with a need to satisfy your parents and not having permission to fail. Art, as a territory, gives you the opportunity to fail.
Steve: fail harder, fail better
Relationship between failure and representation. How to integrate this failure? Does it have to be explicit?
tripping autonomy the autonomy is always unstable
Steve: my no1 text in this book is the Tom McCarthy, International Necronautical Society Death as a literary form.
George: These books are amazing, but there is a danger of swallowing them whole and finding yourself at a dead end.
THE FEAR
BUT they are accessible, a good staring point, etc. Use them as a tool.
ARTWORK Roderick Hietbrink Iconography, mirror, man reflected in the mirror, clothes the same colour as the space. 'I like it'. 'Because I like it like this.' 'If you don't like it like this, go fuck yourself!' relationship between the scene and the text. Manipulation of the voice. Otherwordly. The text is really dominant.
1. It's really fun 2. It is concerned with artistic autonomy
decision-making, creating, doing things in general.
U N I V E R S A L
Being sure about what you're doing and the way you're doing it. Biblical.
George: did he choose the backdrop because of his hair? his hair is really nice.
Mis en abyme
Steve: how does it connect with your work?
Not sure if the ideas are embedded. An internal/external mechanism to deal with everything. Feeling O K Human behaviour, human interaction, the way that people deal with their internal problems, everyday things.
Steve: design as research - designers havin an identity crisis because they didn't have the same idea of autonomy. artists didn't have a problem taking the initiative
Graphic design at Rietveld not so classical, creating autonomous work
Johanna: it always had to have a reason to exist though. there was no rule on what kind of product it had to be, but it always needed a purpose.
You wouldn't be able to just say 'I like it like this'
J: you have to conceive the concept beforehand and then execute, not the same room for failure.
G: use of a specific toolkit. smoke and mirrors, but not in a cynical way, as a toolkit for the construction of a work. starts with a trick that allows you to inhabit the frame/space.