For Clement Greenberg, “art was the polar opposite of mass-produced ‘kitsch’ or popular visual culture (Mirzoeff 2009, p180). This essay will examine both cinema and video installation in terms of popular culture and art, and will use the work of Bruce Nauman to highlight the popular differences in experience. Eadweard Muybridge’s 1878 sequence of a …
Category Archives: Assignments
In what ways do Video Installations differ from Cinematic Films? List the physical differences in experience and aesthetic appreciation.
For Clement Greenberg, “art was the polar opposite of mass-produced ‘kitsch’ or popular visual culture” (Mirzoeff 2009 p.180). This essay will make a brief study into the history of film before examining the work of Bruce Nauman to highlight the polar differences in experience. Eadweard Muybridge’s 1878 sequence of a running horse was probably the …
Fred Wilson’s “Mining the Museum”
Explore “Mining the Museum” in terms of “difference”. “It would be an error to think that difference was the only thing a work had to offer. However, with some caution and a little license, we can show that some works invite a differential interpretation more than others.” (Visual Studies 1: Understanding Visual Culture course manual …
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Read Plato’s account of “The Allegory of the Cave” and say whether and why you think it is valid today. There is a wonderful animation of The Allegory of the Cave with art-work by Dick Oden and narration from Orson Welles. Made in the 1970’s it has a wistful quality reminiscent of Oliver Postgate’s programmes …
Assignment 2: Allan McCollum, Plaster Surrogates, and Modernist Art and Theory.
Look at Allan McCollum’s work “Plaster Surrogates” and explain its relationship to Modernist art and theory. Allan McCollum’s “Surrogate Plasters” series was a progression from the earlier “Surrogate Paintings”. These earlier works consisted of varying frames, containing mounts and paintings: but in monochromatic colour (fig 1). According to Foster (2011 p 645) they were a …
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Assignment One Part B- Perspective: The Possibilities are Endless.
What are the implications of saying perspective was invented, and what are the implications of saying it was discovered. Assess these two possibilities. I found two definitions of the word “perspective” in relation to art. Here is the first: “A system for representing objects in three-dimensional space (i.e. for representing the visible world) on the …
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Assignment One Part A- John Ruskin, and Mark Tansey’s “The Innocent Eye Test”
“The whole technical power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye; that is to say, of a sort of childish perception of these flat stains of colour, merely as such, without consciousness of what they signify- as a blind man would see them if suddenly gifted …
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Understanding Visual Culture with the Open College of the Arts 