Understanding Visual Culture with the Open College of the Arts
The last module of level 1 of a Fine Art degree.
In a conversation with Dan Turello John Searle said that “we are getting closer to understanding consciousness as a biological phenomenon” (2015). If intelligence has to come from a conscious mind then- at the moment at least- it can only be artificial for as long as it comes from a non-biological source. In this sense …
Continue reading “Exercise 3.5 Artificial Intelligence Revisited.”
In what sense is this piece indexical and why does it matter for an interpretation of the work? Would overlooking this feature be wrong, or would that simply be a different interpretation? Whiteread talks about “House” in a short film for theEYE and Illuminations Media which I found on Youtube. It may seem a little …
Can there be one without the other? What would it be like? Does the term “binary opposition” apply to nature and culture? Let’s start with defining what binary opposition is. Basically, what we are talking about is something that has an exact opposite. We can describe something as “hot” because there is a “cold” at …
Continue reading “Exercise 3.8 What does it mean, to say that Nature is Culture?”
Write a paragraph on a single work by Koons according to what you understand of the simulacrum. 400 words is required for this: not very much, so I cheated a bit, by laying down some ground-work in my previous post about the praying mantis. Hah! Ultimately I will be using two of Koons pieces as …
Continue reading “Exercise 3.7 The Simulacrum and Jeff Koons”
I admit to having problems with understanding the notion of the simulacrum. It has caused much head-scratching, and I have struggled with trying to understand the relevance with all this. I found Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” but found it impossible to understand. It was peppered with phrases like “whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by …
This sentence (which we are invited to reflect upon) comes at the end of a paragraph concerned with contrasting realism with constructivism. It talks of entitlement, and of being wrongly placed. It pigeon-holes: not specifically rightly or wrongly, but it does suggest that constructivists should not “mourn the passing of a world less driven by …
Does the prospect of artificial intelligence make us doubt the authenticity of human intelligence or is it forever a fake version of human intelligence? Give reasons for both arguments. The first reference to any kind of artificial intelligence in the media that I could find was a short silent movie from 1917 called “The Clever …
Write 10 sentences containing these words. The origin of the River Kennet is near Avebury in Wiltshire. The origin of the universe is considered to be The Big Bang. To shop ethically it is important to be aware of the origin of the things that you buy. The original painting now hangs in the gallery …
Continue reading “Exercise 3.4 Origin, Original, Originality.”
“Find and collate 10 diverse examples of meta-painting from the 17th century to the present” To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of the term “meta-picture”. I was familiar with Walker Evans’ photographs, but not Levine’s “After Walker Evans”. I love the concept of novels-within-novels and plays-within-plays: even plays within plays within plays, like …
This is a course about Visual Culture. Prepare yourselves, then, dear readers, for a visual feast. Here is the comment we are invited to discuss for this exercise: Do you think art is and will remain a distinct category or is it best seen as a species of visual culture? List reasons for and against …
Understanding Visual Culture with the Open College of the Arts