COP progress - Grayson Perry as inspiration

As I've already mentioned, Grayson Perry's BBC Reith lectures have been in a massive inspiration to me in undertaking this project. Throughout the talks he raises a lot of really, really interesting questions about the nature of art, both classical and contemporary, and how we as audience, both those educated in the arts and more casual observers can relate to it. What I find most interesting about these talk is how Perry, even though he himself is a practicing fine artist and has had a formal arts education and is capable of discussing art in theoretical contexts, is never patronising or condescending. His speech is accessible, and I think accessibility is something that is really missing is the discussion surrounding art, especially contemporary art. 

If I pursue the thread I'm currently thinking about - about the accessibility of craft vs the inaccessibility of fine art - these talks will probably come in handy. But I'm also thinking of pushing my essay more toward the specific discussion of the inaccessibility of the art world as whole?  That's not to say that I want to write an essay specifically about Grayson Perry (although I could probably find plenty of interesting material with which to form an essay), but he could prove a figure that I could use to highlight the inaccessibility of the art world? I'll keep pushing this idea around, but this is proving an interesting topic to think about. 

1: Democracy Has Bad Taste

2: Beating The Bounds

3: Nice Rebellion, Welcome In!

4: I Found Myself In The Art World

COP essay question/ decision making

Ater today's session I've decided upon a definite route to take my investigation this year. I want to do something (the details still need fine tuning) about the inaccessibility of 'art' and the domesticity of 'craft'. Craft seems to be thought of as the suburbs of art by certain 'art world' minds, and I take real issue with this. I got my inspiration for this by re-listening to Grayson Perry's 2013 BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures, 'Playing to the Gallery' (which Perry, rather gleefully points out, are called "playing to the gallery" and not "sucking up to an academic elite"). Furthermore, illustration inhabits a weird space between 'art' and 'craft', somewhat straddling the boundary between the two. I think this will be a very exciting and interesting topic to study.

Richard seemed really enthusiastic about the idea and gave me some very good tips on two texts to read, "Network: The Art World Described as a System" by Lawrence Alloway, and "The Artworld" by Arthur Danto.

Cop Research Question / initial thoughts

I had two initial ideas for this years COP project. The first arrived as a product of Richard's 'The Flipped Classroom' lecture, and a book that I read over the summer entitled "The Boy Who Played with Fusion", a biography of the young American scientist Taylor Wilson, who, at 14 years old, became the youngest person ever to build a working nuclear fusion reactor, and create a star on earth. What I found so interesting about Wilson's story, was that he was an (almost) entirely self-taught genius, having absorbed enough information and learning by the age of 14 to accomplish what some of the world's most accomplished scientists don't manage to achieve in a life time. I thought that Richard's lecture tied in quite neatly with this, and that the question of whether the State School system quashes and restricts the very best and the brightest young people could be an interesting area of explanation. However, upon reflection, I've decided against pursuing this topic. Not because I don't think it's a fascinating topic for discussion, but because I'm not sure how effective an essay I could write about something I'm not an active participant in. I wouldn't what the topic to become diluted. 

500 words on The Death of the Author and commercial illustration

In the digital age, where every last bit of advertising, or media, or packaging, or cyberspace is plastered with an overabundance of imagery, a common career trajectory for today’s illustrators, designers or image-makers to follow is that of the editorial, or ‘jobbing’ illustrator’: Practitioners working to client-set briefs, marrying their images to everything from broadsheet newspaper articles to lager bottle labels. There is an interesting comparison to be drawn between the Barthesian model of literary criticism offered in The Death of the Author, a model that is, ultimately, authorless, and commercial illustrator of today, whose job it is to attach images to external ideas or products, images that are in keeping with brief specifications and are, typically, quite free of any specific politics or agenda. While some editorial illustration can be thoughtful, sensitive, or, even, provocative, contemporary commercial illustration is simply authorless picture making, with it not being the job of the illustrator to provide any socio-political context, or justification, of their images, outside of the product they are illustrating. Even though a practitioner may have an identifiable visual voice, many illustrators who work in the commercial realm will be sure to keep their commissioned work as neutral as possible, and to reflect only the ideas that are presented by whatever it is that they are attaching their work to. Just as Barthes argues in The Death of the Author that “to give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified”, commercial illustrators would want to keep their output free of any overt ideologies, especially political ideologies, for fear of damaging their commercial desirability. These practitioners can be likened to Barthes’ “modern scripter”, that is “born simultaneously with the text, is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing”, with their work, and by extension, themselves, existing only within the parameters of their commercial visibility.

This is not to say that all commercial illustrators damage their marketability by owning their authorship, and, for some, the distinctness of their voice - their authorship - becomes an integral part of their identity. London-based illustrator Mr Bingo, perhaps best known for his on-going Hate Mail project, has an interesting and varied list of clients, including The New York Times and Doritos.  Hate Mail, through which Mr Bingo will send a hand drawn postcard, coupled with a crude, and sometimes cruel, message, to anyone prepared to pay for one, establishes an interesting dynamic between the ‘author’ (or, in this case, the illustrator) and the reader, or receiver. Barthes may have decided that “the birth of the reader must come at the cost of the death of the author”, yet through Hate Mail, author and reader  must co-exist, for one can not exist without the other, thus closing the author/reader loop.

COP lecture: The Flipped Classroom

Richard's lecture on the concept of 'the flipped classroom' was absolutely fascinating, and raised a lot of interesting questions and ideas in my mind. One route I've been considering steering my COP project down is the question of whether or not it is the most excellent, the brightest students that are most failed by our Western state school system, with particular focus on the US and the United Kingdom. I'm definitely going to cheek out some of the reading material Richard suggested, and see if this can help me form a more whole idea. This lecture was also valuable as it questioned the very nature of education and arts education, both something I'm very interested in and will be seriously considering in the future.

CoP2 lecture - Identity notes

CoP2 Lecture - research and epistemology notes

Level 5 COP introduction pt. II

Photographs of the sheets we put together in our introductory COP session, to get us thinking about different contexts in which to view practice. 

Level 5 COP induction pt. I

•  Social - 'Relating to society or its organization' 
• Cultural - 'Relating to the ideas, customs, art, intellectual achievements and social behavior of a society'
• Historical - 'Of or concerning history or past events' 
• Political - 'Of or relating to the government  or public affairs of a country'
• Technological - 'Relating to or using technology

Cultural

• 'Democracy has bad taste' - Grayson Perry
• 'One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries' - Alberto Manguel
• 'Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs' - Thomas Wolfe 

Photographs:

Images:

CoP2 Introduction notes