grasp

I’ve found that one of the hardest things in life is

putting thought bubbles into speech bubbles

Everything You Do is a Balloon

after all, souls don’t always translate into words

sometimes it’s better to go without them.

untumblr me

Free The Robot’s Rattlesnake

remember when I said I hadn’t gotten into tumblr yet?
Well, I was looking through my last few posts and I was wondering why I was slightly discontent--
and I realized that it was because I had fallen deep down into the tumblr trap, where works of art are put up nameless, titleless, to be looked at for half a second
I fell into this trap of finding cool images instead of great ones, into a compilation of photoshop and generic quotes
sure, I’ve found some interesting images. and it’s fun to scroll down endlessly, it’s a nice way to distract`
but nothing means anything anymore, on tumblr, the aura of the work of art is completely gone
so I’m going to shut up and just let you see some good art.

Incredible double exposure oil paintings (!) by Ho Ryon Lee

This next guy, Marion Peck, literally cracks me up. Between his paintings’ mockery of art of the past, the titles, and the expressions on some of these characters, I have not gotten a laugh out of art like this,,, well, ever.

Clown Running Through a Landscape, 2009

Fuck you, 2008

Sacred Grove, 2011

Just stop here, think for a second, what does this clown represent? He’s telling us something, he’s referring to us, the viewers…

Landscape with a Submerged Deer, 2008

^^died of laughter

Peasant Dance, 2008

referring to

Peasant Dance, 1568 (Pieter Bruegel)

Young Lord Oliver, 2007

Comic book artist Tara McPherson and her alien oil paintings

puzzling prints by Charming Baker

and if you’re going to be looking at each image for half of a second, at least do it this way--

Thanks Vil.

March 6, 13:00, Café Artjava

Maybe I have too much trust in people
but there is something comforting about the presence of strangers,
seeing other people sipping coffee across the room as I pick up my own cup and do the same;
there’s something relaxing about seeing a man in a suit just like the one my dad wears to work every day,
holding a briefcase, thinking of his daughter--
there’s something relaxing
about seeing a woman typing away as I sit across from her composing words of my own,
listening to an old Beatle’s song knowing that if I were to play it aloud in this room people might sing it in their heads along with me..
I am content because they too have seen the triumphant skyscrapers outside
and heard the rumble of the drums coming from Mont Royal--
they too are tasting this bitter coffee,
are trying to avoid lengthy eye contact with the strangers who just walked in from the cold--
they too are silently sitting here with someone they miss in mind

I know these strangers
have thought about their moms today
have considered they might fail
have contemplated the meaning of it all
have gotten lost on a runaway train of thought

(artist Jung-Yeon Min)

Drive toward Abstraction

Featuring Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) and contemporary Hiroshi Manabe

Robot Koch’s “Verbal Bruises”

“Modernist art’s drive toward abstraction might not signal its withdrawal from reality so much as reality’s withdrawal from it—that is, from art’s capacity to represent a reality transformed by technology and war”

Paul Klee

Many people don’t understand modern art, why it’s so valuable, and what it’s all intended to mean. I don’t always either. It’s abstract, non-representational, seemingly referring to nothing in the real world. Between the avant-garde shapes and colors that are supposedly representing things such as the artist’s mother, or the war going on outside his studio, modern art’s intrinsic meaning seems impenetrable.

The Fate of the Animals by Franz Marc 1913

What I’ve come to understand, though, is that modern life itself is pretty abstract. As opposed to our ancestors who worked on quiet farms and lived in a comfortable daily routine, we live in a hyper-stimulated world where we see and experience new things everyday.

Lights, cars, bass, Yahoo search results: where does the stimulus end?

Exposed to mass communication, immersed in a world of changing technology, and surrounded by strangers, we live in a dynamic atmosphere which may move too quickly for us to capture it, say, in a painting.

The experience becomes so far from natural reality that human perception does not know how to deal with it, let alone how to represent it. As we are exposed to such great diversity everyday, from the world views of the people you meet or the latest news from the middle east, modern life is an immensity beyond human comprehension.

As a result, some art appears so abstract that it is almost inexplicable to the general public, and possibly to the artist himself. Modern art is defined by its incapability to capture the speed and constant stimulus of everyday life. Modern art is a reaction against the recent expectation of the human to have the efficiency of a machine, constantly processing all of the changes happening right now in the world in order to stay afloat. It’s a reaction against not being able to slow experience down,

to take time to see what it means.

Carlos Carra

 

"It’s ironic that many people say they don’t “get” contemporary art because, unlike Egyptian tomb painting or Greek sculpture, art made since 1960 reflects our own recent past.  It speaks to the dramatic social, political and technological changes of the last 50 years, and it questions many of society’s values and assumptions—a tendency of postmodernism, a concept sometimes used to describe contemporary art.  What makes today’s art especially challenging is that, like the world around us, it has become more diverse and cannot be easily defined through a list of visual characteristics, artistic themes or cultural concerns."

 

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The Imaginary I

Bonobo’s “Noctuary”

My apologies for being away. 

My great escape, writing,

had to be saved for academic intentions,

seeing as reality just started to kick in…

…or did it?

I’ve been studying said “reality” and it seems as though I might be mistaken, for according to my recent homework:

“the human subject has no direct access to reality;

all transactions with the kind of objective world postulated, for example, by the physical sciences,

are mediated on the one hand by work of the symbolic order (production of signs), and on the other by the work of the imaginary (production of identity):

the real, in Lacanian theory, is a logically empty category.”

but Katy, you say,

what does this even mean?

Well, about that symbolic order…

we all participate in the acts of sign making— whether it’s speaking, writing, gesturing, dressing, or painting— everyday.




Every time, for example, you wave at a car that let you pass, it is assumed that you are saying “thank you”, as this is a sign agreed upon by society and borrowed by the individuals who live in it.





In the same way that we learn to understand pre-established visual signs, such as the waving example, we also learn to speak in pre-established systems of conversation.

Therefore, our subjective construction of “reality” is based upon these borrowed symbols, and even when we think we are in control of the way we see, speak, act or think,


we are conditioned to see, speak, act and think this way by a larger system in which we have been hard-wired.


We have no direct access to the actual objective world,

because we see it through a kind of pair of glasses with a prescription that has been chosen for each of us,

and we don’t always know the difference if what we’re seeing is blurry or clear.

The "I" that sees, speaks, and acts in a certain way is imaginary, for "I" do not actually choose how to see, speak or act. "I" is just how I explain it, how I gather all of these things that I see, say and do into one category, under one  umbrella that one can call "me" and "no one else,"

"an ‘I’ that looks out at the world from a central vantage-point, experiencing the visual field as a horizon always composed around itself.”

The concept of “I”, while seemingly personal property, is just as borrowed as the signs and symbols we use in everyday life. The word "I" can be used by anyone and everyone, given different definitions and have different functions.  To some, "I" means everything: to others, "I" can be my own worst enemy.





It’s just another sign, another part of language, a private concept that evolved from a public word. It has no direct relation to any objective reality, but acts as a flexible sign for what it could be.

You might think of this as depressing, that you no longer have autonomy of thought, conscious control over your individual decisions, that you can never know yourself. However, it can take another direction, and what I’ve resolved,




is since meaning is socially produced and shared,
you only can have access to the meaning of reality, and the consequential “I”, if you have access to other people’s viewpoints--

try on their prescription.


The key to understanding their prescription, or way of seeing, is through the agreed upon signs and symbols, be it their gestures to what stories they share and in what ways they express themselves differently than others. This sort of inspiration found in other people is the entry into finding the objective "I", the collective mind, and consequentially to recognize the dynamics of your own mind.

This also means that meaning is fluid, socially malleable and can be given different definitions at different points in time. Meaning naturally evolves, our concept of reality always changing.



Our opinions will transform when we reflect on them at different times in our lives, simply by which words we use to describe them to other people.








Reality, which means much more than we can subjectively comprehend, is inaccessible. Yet knowing this allows us to give it a more multi-dimensional consideration, a more fluid and flexible definition, something that we must share and express in order to understand.

(stellar photos by Pery Burge and Franco Rubartelli)

Some people take their expression…a bit too far? You decide where you cross the line:

The top 10 Illegal Baby Names, featuring Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, Woti (which means “Sexual Intercourse” in Malaysian), @, and more.


A town that has banned wearing Pajamas in public. According to head officer Williams, “Today it's pajamas. Tomorrow it's underwear. Where does it stop?"

seriously where does it stop..?

“Deviation from the social construction of visuality can be named and dealt with, variously, as hallucination, misrecognition, or visual disturbance.”

On that note, “Lords” by Nosaj Thing:

^{It looks like pink elephants on parade’s equally as twisted cousin. What did we watch when we were younger?}

^{Quotes from “Semiotics in Art History” by Bal and Bryson, ideas from Lacan.}