CONTEMPORARY

ART PRACTICES
a rough guide
Himanshu Desai
NID Ahmedabad
Sept 2017
CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICES a rough guide
The purpose of this document is to provide referential information to design students.

● It offers general information, definitions, concepts, discourses and profiles of artists and thinkers from the history of art

● The history of art is diverse and vast, needless to say not everything is covered. This guide offers selected information tailored for use as a learning tool in more
design focussed environments, therefore, a certain stream of art history had been followed, which is selective and resonant of both proto and post conceptualism.

● This guide contains some images of nudity and violence. Art is often seen as a social provocateur. Artists often use nudity, sex and violence, in order to challenge
social injustice. The inclusion of controversial content herein, is therefore purely for discursive purposes and does not promote any sort of sexual dogma or
violent action.

● The contents of this guide are taken from various sources, books, articles, media, press, archives and the internet. Useful links for further reading are provided at
the end of this guide.
 Please note that the titles of topical pages and artist names are hyperlinked to respective wikipedia
pages. This guide is a self-learning tool - the reader is encouraged to use the links to further their
own learning.

hyperlinks descriptions
 HISTORY
ART MOVEMENTS, ARTISTS & ISMS
 POP ART
Eduardo Paolozzi Richard Hamilton
Larry Rivers Robert Rauschenberg
Jasper Johns Andy Warhol
David Hockney R B Kitaj
Billy Apple Allen Jones Derek Boshier
Joe Tilson Patrick Caulfield
Peter Phillips Peter Blake
Roy Lichtenstein Claes Oldenburg Jim Dine
Tom Wesselmann Eduardo Arroyo
Yayoi Kusama Tadanori Yokoo
Mid 1950s Britain / Late 1950s United States
1. Pop (popular) as opposed to elitist
2. Use of imagery from popular culture, mass media
3. Challenged the hegemony of high brow vs low brow
4. Brought industrial processes and applied arts, such as
printing, photography, photocopying into the so called
the realm of ‘fine arts’
5. Brought forth themes of
● Banality of consumerism
Suburban america
●
● The so called American Dream
Roy Lichtenstein
Oh Jeff, Painting
1964
Jasper Johns, The Critic Smiles, Sculpture, 1966
Robert Rauschenberg, Stoned Moon Drawing, 1969
Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry Portraits, Polaroids & Prints, 1980
CONCEPTUAL ART
VITO ACCONCI ART & LANGUAGE
ROY ASCOTT JOHN BALDESARRI
ADINA BAR-ON JOSEPH BEUYS JOHN CAGE
CAI GUO-QIANG SOPHIE CALLE
MARTIN CREED
MARCEL DUCHAMP HENRY FLYNT
GILBERT & GEORGE DAN GRAHAM
Concepts and ideas precede conventional notions such
as aesthetics, techniques and materials.
Challenges notions of formalism, structure
Offered art in a more participatory light and brought the
viewer into the realm of the art maker
Conceptual artists began rejecting markey happy
practices in lieu of ideation

HANS HAAKE GENERAL IDEA ON KAWARA

MARY KELLY YVES KLEIN
BARBARA KRUGER XURBAN COLLECTIVE
INDUSTRY OF THE ORDINARY
Joseph Kosuth, Clock (One and Five), English/Latin Version, 1965
Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing 49, 1970
Sol LeWitt, A Wall Divided Vertically into Fifteen Equal Parts, Each with a Different Line Direction and Colour, and All Combinations, 1970
Post-Partum Document. Analysed Markings And Diary Perspective Schema (Experimentum Mentis III: Weaning from the Dyad), 1975
PROCESS ART Mid 1960s US/Europe

Process over product (intangibles over tangibles)

Emphasis on the creative process rather than the final
LYNDA BENGLIS
outcome
JOSEPH BEUYS
CHRIS DRURY Creative process and actions gain more importance than
EVA HESSE the finished product/ artwork
Challenged the conventional notions of l’objet d’art (art
GARY KUEHN object)
BARRY LA VA
BRUCE NAUMAN Greatly expanded the use of unconventional, industrial
materials and alternative media
ROBERT MORRIS
RICHARD SERRA Preceded from trends e.g. conceptual art and performance
KEITH SONNIER art
 John Hilliard,
Camera Recording its Own Condition
(7 Apertures, 10 Speeds, 2 Mirrors),
1971
Bernard Cohen
Floris
1964
 Richard Serra
Belts
vulcanized rubber strips
illuminated by neon tubing
1966–67
 Emphasises experience over interpretation.
PERFORMANCE Exhibitions are often called happenings

Yoko Ono ART Experimental and interdisciplinary art form

Allan Kaprow inspired by Conceptual Art, Dada, Futurism, and
Jim Dine Bauhaus.
Claes Oldenburg
Robert Whitman Presented to an audience instead (of viewer).
Gilbert and George
Marina Abramović Usually manifests as live event or time specific
Laurie Anderson event in a public space such as a museum or a
Spalding Gray gallery. Uses shock or awe as a guiding
Eric Bogosian principle of expression.
Zhang Huan
JOSEPH BEUYS
How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare

At the beginning of the performance Beuys locked the gallery doors from the inside, leaving the
gallery-goers outside. They could observe the scene within only through the windows. With his head entirely
coated in honey and gold leaf, he began to explain pictures to a dead hare. Whispering to the dead animal on
his arm in an apparent dialog, he processed through the exhibit from artwork to artwork. Occasionally he
would stop and return to the center of the gallery, where he stepped over a dead fir tree that lay on the floor.
After three hours the public was let into the room. Beuys sat upon a stool in the entrance area with the hare
on his arm and his back to the onlookers.

The relationship between thought, speech, and form in this performance was also characteristic of Beuys. In
his last speech Speaking about Germany (1985) he emphasized that he was essentially a man of words.

In another instance he is quoted as saying: "When I speak, I try to guide that power's impulse so that it flows
into a more fully descriptive language, which is the spiritual perception of growth."

The integration of speech and conversation into his visual works plays a meaningful role in How to Explain
Pictures to a Dead Hare.
For me the Hare is a symbol of incarnation, which the hare really enacts- something a human can only do in
imagination. It burrows, building itself a home in the earth. Thus it incarnates itself in the earth: that alone is
important. So it seems to me. Honey on my head of course has to do with thought. While humans do not have the
ability to produce honey, they do have the ability to think, to produce ideas. Therefore the stale and morbid nature
of thought is once again made living. Honey is an undoubtedly living substance- human thoughts can also
become alive. On the other hand intellectualizing can be deadly to thought: one can talk one's mind to death in
politics or in academia.
- Joseph Beuys, Lieberknecht, 1971, cited by Adriani / Konnertz / Thomas , 1984
 Marina Abramović, Rhythm 5, 1974

In this performance, Abramović sought to re-evoke the energy of extreme bodily pain, using a large petroleum-drenched star, which the artist lit on fire at the start of the performance.
Standing outside the star, Abramović cut her nails, toenails, and hair. When finished with each, she threw the clippings into the flames, creating a burst of light each time. Burning the
communist five-pointed star represented a physical and mental purification, while also addressing the political traditions of her past. In the final act of purification, Abramović leapt across
the flames, propelling herself into the center of the large star. Due to the light and smoke given off by the fire, the observing audience did not realize that, once inside the star, the artist
had lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. Some members of the audience realized what had occurred only when the flames came very near to her body and she remained inert. A doctor
and several members of the audience intervened and extricated her from the star. Abramović later commented upon this experience: "I was very angry because I understood there is a
physical limit. When you lose consciousness you can't be present, you can't perform."
 CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN
INTERIOR SCROLL

The first performance of “Interior Scroll” occurred on

August 29, 1975, at an East Hampton, New York, art show
titled Women Here and Now, honoring the United Nations’
International Women’s Year. Before an audience of mostly
women artists, Schneemann entered the performance space
fully clothed before undressing, wrapping herself in a white
sheet, and climbing atop a long table. She informed the
audience that she would be reading from her book,
Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter, then dropped the sheet
and, while, wearing an apron, applied dark paint onto her
face and body. While reading from her book, she performed
a variety of “action model poses” typical of figure drawing
classes. Finally, Schneemann removed the apron and began
pulling a small (folded) paper scroll from her vagina while
reading it aloud.
The text was taken from “Kitch’s Last Meal” (1973–76), the
artist’s Super-8 film exploring an artist couple’s lives from
the viewpoint of their cat…

… the idea behind “Interior Scroll” was to “physicalize the

invisible, marginalized, and deeply suppressed history of
the vulva, the powerful source of orgasmic pleasure, of
birth, of transformation, of menstruation, of maternity, to
show that it is not a dead, invisible place.” The performance
evolved from a dream in which “a small figure extracted a
text from her vagina that simply said ‘the knowledge.’” As
such, “Interior Scroll” asserts the vagina not only as a site
of physical creation, but as a source of thought and
creativity. By pulling a physical object from an otherwise
hidden space, the interior becomes visible, and therefore,
vocal.

Source: Hyperallergic
Chris Burden’s performance Shoot (1971) consisted of the 25-year-old Burden being shot in the arm at close range by a friend
wielding a rifle. A few inches off, and Burden would have probably died. Instead, as we see in the picture, he walks off very quickly,
more in shock than pain. His intention was to be grazed by the bullet. It went a little deeper.
FLUXUS MOVEMENT
In 1963, George Maciunas put forward a new movement in art, one that he
would call “Fluxus.” Fluxus’s spirit of rebellion against the commercial art
market, elitism, and the conventions of both art and society had its roots in
Dada, Futurism, and Surrealism, while its irreverence and youthful energy
were in tune with the burgeoning counterculture of the 1960s.

Though its nucleus was in New York City, where Maciunas and many other
artists were based, Fluxus projects popped up across Europe and in Japan. The
movement attracted a loosely affiliated, international group of artists,
designers, poets, and musicians who readily embraced one of its central
tenets: the total integration of art and life.

In his manifesto, Maciunas described the work that would result from this
integration as “living art, anti-art…NON ART REALITY to be fully grasped by all
peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals.”
FLUXUS POSTER
Ben Vautier, Total Art Match-Box, 1965
Georgs Maciunas, FLUXUS street theater performance - stringing the violin
VIDEO ART 1960s, with the coming of camcorders/ home
video, artists began to exploit the medium attempt
to redefine art making.

NAM JUN PAIK Decommodified art by challenging preconceived

BILL VIOLA high-brow art, high priced, gallery art or a
BRUCE NAUMAN commodity.
STELARC
Video is an experience (rather than a tangible),
TONY OURSLER therefore a tool for change, a medium for ideas.
PIPILOTTI RIST
Set the stage for performance as an art form.
Nam June Paik, Video Flag, 1985
Bill Viola, The Dreamers
The Dreamers, contains a series of seven plasma
screens each depicting individuals of various ages who
are submerged underwater at the bottom of a stream
bed. Eyes closed, lying perfectly still, the sound of the
water rippling over their bodies fills the room. With
only the occasional bubble rising from their otherwise
ghostly being, they appear at peace, a sensation which,
given the installation’s calming environment, is
transferred to the viewer.
Pipilotti Rist, Sip my Ocean, 1996
INSTALLATION Works of art, artefacts, media, and materials arranged
to form a complex and compelling environment.
Christian Boltanski
Typically site-specific and occupy entire spaces, e. g.
Wolf Vostell and consists of several different components arranged
Louise Bourgeois to create an experiential environment.
Tracey Emin
Installation artists tend to have a holistic approach -
Bruce Nauman
they prioritise experience over material in order to
Jeffrey Shaw maintain relevance of the topic as the essential element
Yayoi Kusama rather than material finesse or execution.
Sarah Sze
Wolf Vostell, Auto-Fever, 1973
Christian Boltanski, Monument Canada (detail), Clothes, black-and-white photographs, and lights, 1988
Rows of blurred photographs of children's faces — each
illuminated by a bent-arm lamp, electrical cords dangling
— arranged on the wall over neatly piled stacks of clothes
on the floor. The work silently invites feelings of an
implied melancholia.

Boltanski's works are known haunting yet ambiguous

installation raises many questions about memory, loss,
and the relics of past existence.
 Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1999

A readymade installation,
consisting of her own unmade
dirty bed, in which she had
spent several weeks drinking,
smoking, eating, sleeping and
having sexual intercourse while
undergoing a period of severe
emotional flux. The artwork
featured used condoms and
blood-stained underwear.
Bruce Nauman, Mindfuck, Neon Installation, 1985
Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, a mirror-lined chamber and LED light display, 2013 .
PUBLIC ART
Public art is art that has been planned and executed with
the intention of being staged in the physical public domain,
usually outdoors and freely accessible to all. Public art is
significant within the art world, amongst curators,
commissioning bodies, civic authorities, town planners,
Michael Heizer architects and practitioners of public art, to whom it
signifies a working practice of site specificity, community
Daniel Buren
involvement and collaboration.
Donald Judd
Francois Hers Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public
Anish Kapoor space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is
not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the
Richard Serra content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom,
Antony Gormley is just as important if not more important than its physical
location
 Under the weather
Richard Serra’s weathered steel
Tilted Arc (1981) divided Federal
Plaza in New York – and popular
opinion – until it was removed
eight years later. (Getty Images)
Seward Johnson
Forever Marilyn
2011
 Antony Gormley
Angel of the North
1998
 Bourgeois'
Maman
Guggenheim Museum
2000
Anish Kapoor
Cloud Gate
2006
 Land Art (or Earthworks) began to emerge in 1960s, 1970s largely
in the US and UK. Land artists interact with the landscape in order to
create artistic shapes or ‘events’, and typically re-fashions the

LAND ART
landscape or enhances them with man-made materials. Pioneers of
this artform include Robert Smithson, Richard Long and Andy
Goldsworthy, as well as the interventionists Christo & Jeanne-Claude.

ENVIRONMENTAL ART Environmental Art is considered art that speaks to activism and
protest against environmental decay and industrialisation, and is

ECOLOGICAL ART
often considered somewhat parallel to Land Art but different in its
intention.

ART INTERVENTION
Ecological Art is art made by using materials found in nature - it
used nature as the primary art material.

Art Intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork,

audience, venue/space or situation. It has the auspice of conceptual
art and is commonly a form of performance art.
 Richard Long
A Line Made From Walking
1967
 Richard Long
Walking a Line in Peru
1972
 Elizabeth Albert
Wooden Wreck
Coney Island Creek
2011

"No one knows exactly when the ghost ships

began appearing near the mouth of the creek,
but local residents remember playing on them
in the 1950’s when they were still floating.
Some of them are said to be old whaling ships
whose owners did not want to pay to have
them properly disposed of. They would haul
them to the Creek and burn them down to the
waterline. The Army Corps of Engineers has
identified abandoned ships in other parts of
the city, but not here. The creek sludge is so
toxic that disturbing the wrecks would release
a torrent of dangerous chemicals into the
water and air."

- Elizabeth Albert,
wall text from the exhibition
"Silent Beaches, Untold Stories,
New York City's Forgotten Waterfront"
 Andy Goldsworthy
Tree With Stones Around It
2007
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Reichstag, 1995
In 1990s Christo and Jeanne-Claude (along with the President of the German Parliament, Rita Süssmuth) worked to convince the elected Members of Parliament, going from office to office, writing
explanatory letters to each of the 662 delegates and innumerable telephone calls and negotiations. On 25 February 1995 after a 70-minute debate at the Parliament and a Roll Call vote, the Bundestag
allowed the project to go ahead. Just under 100,000 m2 of fireproof polypropylene fabric, covered by an aluminum layer, and 15 km of rope were needed. The wrapping began on 17 June 1995 and was
finished on 24 June. The spectacle was seen by five million visitors before the unveiling began on 7 July.
 Street art is art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned and,
or unsolicited artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art

STREET ART
venues. Other terms for this type of art can be "urban art", "guerrilla
art", "independent public art", "post-graffiti", and "neo-graffiti"

GUERILLA ART
Protest art is art that is made for activism and social movements.
Activists produce such works as the signs, banners, posters, and other
printed materials used to convey a particular cause or message. Protest
art may also includes performance, site-specific installations, graffiti

PROTEST ART
and street art, and crosses the boundaries of art genres, media, and
disciplines. While some protest art is associated with trained and
professional artists, an extensive knowledge of art is not required to
take part in protest art. Protest artists frequently bypass the art-world
institutions and commercial gallery system in an attempt to reach a
wider audience.
 Banksy
How Do You Banksy
Want Your Eggs Enjoy Your Life
2007 2007
Banksy, Follow Your Dreams, 2010
 Birch Reincliff
Art Collective
Trump Gold Toilet
2016
Petr Pavlensky, Stitch, 2012

Pavlensky sewed his mouth shut in political protest against the

incarceration of members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot.

On July 23, 2012, Pavlensky appeared at Kazan Cathedral, St.

Petersburg with his lips sewn up holding a banner that stated,
"Action of Pussy Riot was a replica of the famous action of Jesus
Christ (Matthew 21:12–13)".

Police called an ambulance and sent him for a psychiatric

examination; the psychiatrist declared him sane and released him
shortly after the incident.

The artist stated that he was highlighting the lack of regard for
artists in contemporary Russia, saying: "My intention was not to
surprise anyone or come up with something unusual. Rather, I felt
I had to make a gesture that would accurately reflect my situation
Shepard Fairey, Protest posters for the Trump Inauguration, 2017
 The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and
accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that

THE FEMINIST
reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the
foundation for the production and reception of contemporary art. The
1960s was a period of civil rights and gay and lesbian rights
movements and protests against war. It was also a period when women

ART MOVEMENT
artists wanted to gain equal rights as men within the established art
world, influenced by modernist movements "utopian ideals," and to
create feminist art, often in non-traditional ways, to help "change the

&SEXTREMISM
world."

Sextremism is an offshoot of performance art and protest art that

uses sexually explicit performances of protest acts in the public
domain. It has also been referred to as a type of warfare where the
mission is protest and the weapons are naked breasts. The naked
warfare method was invented by FEMEN, an international feminist
movement aiming at combating patriarchy, religion and fascism.
Guerrilla Girls,
Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers,
Hardcover Book, 1985
 FEMEN
International
Women’s
Rights
Organization
 WRITERS
& THINKERS
TOP INFLUENCERS
& THEIR CONCEPTS
 WRITERS & THINKERS
ANDRÉ BRETON
French writer, poet, and anti-fascist.
Surrealist automatism is a
Best as the founder of Surrealism, his writings include the first method of art making in which
Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surréalisme) of 1924, in which
he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism". the artist suppresses conscious
control over the making process,
Surrealism allowing the unconscious mind to
have great sway.
Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to
express — verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other
manner — the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought,
in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from
any aesthetic or moral concern.
 WRITERS & THINKERS
VIRGINIA WOOLF
English writer who is considered one of the foremost modernists
of the twentieth century, and a pioneer in the use of stream of
consciousness as a narrative device. Her best-known works
include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse
(1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of
One's Own (1929), with its dictum:
"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to
write fiction”.
Woolf’s writing has provided a shared template for expression to
countless artists; and has had a lasting impact on the realms of
writing, arts, music, film, theatre and much more… Her work is
generally regarded as a definitive breakthrough in our
understanding of modernity.
Stream of Consciousness is a narrative device that attempts to give
the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in
a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.
● It is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is
characterized by associative leaps in thought and lack of some or all
punctuation.
● Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from
dramatic monologue and soliloquy, where the speaker is addressing an
audience or a third person, which are chiefly used in poetry or drama. In
stream of consciousness the speaker's thought processes are more often
depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is
primarily a fictional device.
 WRITERS & THINKERS

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
American mythologist, writer, and lecturer, best known
for his work in comparative mythology and comparative
religion.

His magnum opus titled The Hero with a Thousand

Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the
journey of the archetypal hero found in world
mythologies.

Campbell's concept of monomyth (one myth) refers to the theory that sees all mythic narratives as
variations of a single great story. The theory is based on the observation that a common pattern exists
beneath the narrative elements of most great myths, regardless of their origin or time of creation.
Campbell often referred to the ideas of Adolf Bastian and his distinction between what he called "folk"
and "elementary" ideas, the latter referring to the prime matter of monomyth while the former to the
multitude of local forms the myth takes in order to remain an up-to-date carrier of sacred meanings.
 WRITERS & THINKERS
THE MIRROR STAGE JACQUES LACAN
The mirror stage describes the formation of the Ego via the process of objectification,
the Ego being the result of a conflict between one's perceived visual appearance and
one's emotional experience. This identification is what Lacan called alienation. French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist.
At six months, the baby still lacks physical co-ordination. The child is able to recognize
themselves in a mirror prior to the attainment of control over their bodily movements.
The child sees their image as a whole and the synthesis of this image produces a sense
Has been called "the most controversial
of contrast with the lack of co-ordination of the body, which is perceived as a psycho-analyst since Freud".
fragmented body. The child experiences this contrast initially as a rivalry with their
image, because the wholeness of the image threatens the child with
fragmentation—thus the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the
subject and the image. To resolve this aggressive tension, the child identifies with the
image: this primary identification with the counterpart forms the Ego…
 WRITERS & THINKERS
Argues that Western philosophy has uncritically allowed metaphorical
depth models to govern its conception of language and consciousness.

JACQUES DERRIDA
He sees these often unacknowledged assumptions as part of a
"metaphysics of presence" to which philosophy has bound itself.

This "logocentrism," Derrida argues, creates "marked" or hierarchized

binary oppositions that have an effect on everything from our
conception of speech's relation to writing to our understanding of French philosopher.
racial difference. Deconstruction is an attempt to expose and
undermine such "metaphysics." Best known for developing a form of semiotic
analysis known as deconstruction, in the context of
He also influenced architecture (as deconstructivism), music, art, and phenomenology (i. e. The philosophical study of the
art criticism. Deconstructivism is a movement of postmodern structures of experience and consciousness).
architecture which appeared in the 1980s, which gives the
impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building. It is
characterized by an absence of harmony, continuity, or symmetry.
 WRITERS & THINKERS
SUSAN SONTAG
American writer, film-maker,
teacher, political activist.
In the essays, she articulated her theory of taking pictures as you travel:
‘The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a
ruthless work ethic – Germans, Japanese and Americans. Using
a camera appeases the anxiety which the work driven feel
about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to
be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly
imitation of work: they can take pictures’.
In 1977, Sontag published the series of essays On Photography.
She writes that the convenience of modern photography has created an
overabundance of visual material, and "just about everything has been
photographed".
● This has altered our expectations of what we have the right to
view, want to view or should view.
● "In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge
our notion of what is worth looking at and what we have the
right to observe" and has changed our "viewing ethics".
● Photographs have increased our access to knowledge and
experiences of history and faraway places, but the images may
replace direct experience and limit reality.
● She also states that photography desensitizes its audience to
horrific human experiences, and children are exposed to
experiences before they are ready for them.
 WRITERS & THINKERS
Adorno's work sets out from a central insight he shares with all early 20th
century avant-garde art: the recognition of what is primitive in ourselves and the
world itself. His theory proceeds from an understanding of this primitive quality
of reality which seeks to counteract whatever aims either to repress this
primitive aspect or to further those systems of domination set in place by this
return to barbarism. From this perspective, Adorno's writings on politics,
philosophy, music and literature are a lifelong critique of the ways in which each
tries to justify self-mutilation as the necessary price of self-preservation.
THEODOR ADORNO
German philosopher, sociologist,
Adorno saw the culture industry as an arena in which critical tendencies or
potentialities were eliminated. He argued that the culture industry, which produced
and composer known for his
and circulated cultural commodities through the mass media, manipulated the critical theory of society.
population. Popular culture was identified as a reason why people become passive;
the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture made people
docile and content, no matter how terrible their economic circumstances.
"Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall
helpless victims to what is offered them."
He wrote that "the same thing is offered to everybody by the standardized production
of consumption goods" but this is concealed under "the manipulation of taste and the
official culture's pretense of individualism
 WRITERS & THINKERS
Free Culture

On March 28, 2004 LAWRENCE LESSIG was elected to the Free LAWRENCE LESSIG
Software Foundation's Board of Directors. He proposed the concept
of "Free Culture". He also supports free and open source software
and open spectrum. American academic, attorney, and political activist.

At his Free Culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention
2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which
he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and
innovation.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an
argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital
technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that
digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity
has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on
copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum,
particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded
Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to
expanding the range of creative works available for others
to build upon and to share legally.

Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions

 WRITERS & THINKERS
MARSHALL McLUHAN
Famous McLuhan Quotes:

1. The medium is the message.

2. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape
us. Canadian professor, philosopher, and public intellectual.
3. The new electronic interdependence recreates the
world in the image of a global village. His work is one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having
practical applications in the advertising and television industries.
4. Art is anything you can get away with.
5. Anyone who tries to make a distinction between McLuhan is known for coining the expression "the medium is the message" and the
education and entertainment doesn't know the first term global village, and for predicting the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it
thing about either. was invented.
6. All media exist to invest our lives with artificial
perceptions and arbitrary values.
7. Most of our assumptions have outlived their
uselessness.
 WRITERS & THINKERS
HUNTER S THOMPSON
American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism GONZO JOURNALISM
movement.
an experimental style of
Thompson became internationally known with the publication of Hell's journalism where reporters
Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
(1967). For his research on the book he had spent a year living and involve themselves in the action
riding with the Angels, experiencing their lives and hearing their stories
first-hand.
to such a degree that they
become central figures of their
With the publication in 1970 of The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and
Depraved, he became a counter cultural figure, with his own brand of
stories.
New Journalism which he termed "Gonzo".

The magnum opus is said to be, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A
Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1971), constitutes
a rumination on the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement, or
the so called American dream.
 WRITERS & THINKERS
Edward Said became an established cultural critic with the book
Orientalism (1978) The thesis of Orientalism proposes the existence of EDWARD SAID
a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo–Islamic
peoples and their culture", which originates from Western culture's long
tradition of false, romanticized images of Asia, in general, and the Middle Professor of literature at Columbia University, a
East, in particular. That such cultural representations have served, and public intellectual, and a founder of the academic
continue to serve, as implicit justifications for the colonial and imperial field of postcolonial studies.
ambitions of the European powers and of the U.S. Likewise,

So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight

overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as
either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the
human density, the passion of Arab–Moslem life has entered the
awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab
world. What we have, instead, is a series of crude, essentialized
caricatures of the Islamic world, presented in such a way as to make that
world vulnerable to military aggression.
— Edward Said, "Islam through Western Eyes" (1980) The Nation.
PHILOSOPHY
& THOUGHT
REALMS OF THINKING
 REALMS OF THINKING

EXISTENTIALISM
a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the
existence of the individual person as a free and
responsible agent determining their own development
through acts of the will.
NIHILISM
the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the
belief that life is meaningless.
 REALMS OF THINKING
NARRATOLOGY
the branch of knowledge or criticism that deals with the
structure and function of narrative and its themes,
conventions, and symbols.
STRUCTURALISM
a method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human
cognition, behaviour, culture, and experience, which focuses
on relationships of contrast between elements in a
conceptual system. the doctrine that structure is more
important than function.
 REALMS OF THINKING
POST STRUCTURALISM
Post-structuralism rejects the notion of the essential
quality of the dominant relation in the hierarchy, choosing
rather to expose these relations and the dependency of the
dominant term on its apparently subservient counterpart.
The only way to properly understand these meanings is to
deconstruct the assumptions and knowledge systems that
produce multiplicity, the illusion of singular meaning.
DECONSTRUCTION
a method of critical analysis of philosophical and
literary language which emphasizes the internal
workings of language and conceptual systems, the
relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions
implicit in forms of expression.
 REALMS OF THINKING

GLOBALISATION IDENTITY CRISES

the process by which businesses or other a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a
organizations develop international person's sense of identity becomes insecure, typically
influence or start operating on an due to a change in their expected aims or role in
international scale. society.
 REALMS OF THINKING
POSTMODERNISM
a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts,
architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure
from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious
use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different
artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of
theories..
POST POSTMODERNISM
Post-postmodernism is a wide-ranging set of developments
in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature,
and culture reactionary to postmodernism.
Post-postmodernism is as yet a hard to define term - as it
applies to the current period, and much is to be desired in
terms of comprehending its qualities, however a common
theme of current attempts to define post-postmodernism is
emerging as one where faith, trust, dialogue, performance,
and sincerity can work to transcend postmodern irony (i. E.
the credo of ‘anything goes’)..
CONCURRENT
DISCOURSES
& HOT TOPICS IN ART
 LINGUISTICS OF
SOCIAL MEDIA
SHAKESPEAREAN PROPHECIES
‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. ~ from Romeo and Juliet
Resounds as a new truth about online privacy, as it has now become not only imminent that online profiles of people sometimes manifest
multiple identities on social media e.g. twitter, youtube, handles etc.

‘All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man
in his time plays many parts… ~ from As You Like It
Resounds as a new truth about about a highly de-individualised society, where belonging to a group or community often acts as a signifier
of one’s persona more than one’s actions.
 KI N G U P Like visual alphabets that offer new possibilities for non

A BRE A verbal communication - by doing away with conventions such

E
as literality, spelling, grammar, diction, verbosity, eloquence

OF T H etc.

N G U A G E Attempt at a great unification of languages - by offering the

LA visual as an artifact of literality.

R R I ER S :
BA OTICONS & Global language that assigns visual signifiers to feelings,
thoughts and emotions. Breaks cultural barriers and
M
EMOJIS, E CTS emphasises the importance of human psyche and behaviour
REA over culture, religion, and geopolitics.
 ‘The mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I
assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has
historical value as it marks a decisive

N I TY : turning-point in the mental development of the

A
child. In the second place, it typifies an

T A L V E
essential libidinal relationship with the body

DI G I L T U R image’.

I E C U
S E L F - Jacques Lacan, Some reflections on the Ego, 1953

● The Mirror Stage Addiction Hypothesis: the more that

you click selfies, the more you question your own
body image, the more you try to reinvent it, and it
doesn’t end until you start seeing the signs of old age
and physical decay.
 UTOPIA > DYSTOPIA

In the case of Online Dating Services, e.g. studies have suggested ACCEPTABLE IMMORALITIES:
that men are far more likely to send messages on dating sites
than women. In addition, men tend to message the most
ONLINE DATING, PORNOGRAPHY & VICE
attractive women regardless of their own attractiveness.
Secondly, the increasing acceptance of Pornography, Betting and ● It is widespread belief that the internet, although now a primary
Gambling, for instance, as viable leisure activities -- lends itself necessity, is also itself the catalyst of a new dystopian culture
to the notion of an acceptable immorality, one which is nihilist in that is continuously being reinvented by online services such as
its denial of conventional notions of morality, religion and dating, pornograogy and vices such as gambling, bitcoin industry
humanity as such, and instead accepts sexual activity as an etc.
imminent industrial supply chain. This is undoubtedly evidence of
a new and emboldened commodification of both women and men
as sex objects, pleasure tools or commercially viable routine
materials.
 STIMULI OVERKILL
THE ORWELLIAN
PROPHECY:
THE SURVEILLED WORLD
● George Orwell’s dystopian novel published in
1949; and futuristically titled Nineteen
Eighty-Four; portrayed a society in which the
state constantly tracks the movements and
thoughts of individuals.
● Its slogan is "Big Brother Is Watching You."
With the advent of smartphones and
widespread surveillance cameras, no
conversation or movement in the public
sphere can be considered private.
Big brother is always watching… simply
because:
■ Big Brother = Big Data
STIMULI OVERKILL
According to a 2016 report from CB Insights, equity financing in the
AI space rocketed from $282 million to $2.4 billion from 2011 to
2015 with global equity funding for AI reaching $6 billion. AI has
touched nearly every industry from manufacturing and robotics to
the Internet of Things (IoT), finance, healthcare, legal, and even
agriculture.
Within this, the technology industry has seen a plethora of new
AI-related startups, as well as acquisitions and investments from
major companies like Google, Samsung, GE, and Intel.
So who are the companies to watch? We've left off some of the
obvious guys like Google, IBM, and Facebook in order to highlight 10
new companies at the forefront of AI and machine learning.
Source: DesignNews
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence (AI, also machine intelligence, MI) is
intelligence exhibited by machines, rather than humans or other
animals (natural intelligence, NI).
In computer science, the field of AI research defines itself as the
study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its
environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success
at some goal.
Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is applied when a
machine mimics "cognitive" functions that humans associate with
other human minds, such as "learning" and "problem solving".
4

VIDEO ART
EXERCISES
VIDEO ART 1. NARRATIVE BUILDING & STORYTELLING
2. GHOST IDENTITY/ AVATAR
EXERCISES 3. PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY OF NON-SPACES

*PICK ONE OPTION

 1. THIS EXERCISE IS A PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF
AUTOMATISM/ SURREALISM

NARRATIVE
2. RANDOMLY PICK THREE BOOKS
3. NOTE DOWN THE FIRST SENTENCES ON - e.g.
PAGES 33, 66, 99 (OR ANY RANDOMLY OPENED

BUILDING &
PAGES)
4. CLICK 5 SEC. ABSTRACT VIDEO SHOTS AS
METAPHORICAL OR ALLEGORICAL

STORYTELLING
REPRESENTATIONS FOR ALL THE 9 SENTENCES
5. ADD 9 MORE SHOTS TO CONNECT THE 9 EXISTING
SHOTS
6. PICK ONE MORE BOOK AND USE THE LAST WORD
IN IT AS THE TITLE OF YOUR VIDEO
 1. THIS EXERCISE IS A PRACTICAL APPLICATION
WORKING WITH IDENTITY CRISES AS A TOPIC
2. MEET UP WITH SOMEONE YOU DON’T KNOW WELL
IN THE COLLEGE BUT HAVE SEEN PASSING BY A
NUMBER OF TIMES - COULD BE ANYONE - e.g.

GHOST IDENTITY/
STUDENT, TEACHER, STAFF, SECURITY GUARD,
VENDOR, BANKER etc.
3. GREET THE PERSON AND ASK IF YOU CAN CHAT

AVATAR
FOR 5-10 MINUTES
4. ASK THEM TO NARRATE IN PLAUSIBLE DETAIL HOW
THEY SPENT THEIR WEEKEND, OR LAST FEW DAYS
5. NARRATE THIS ON VIDEO IN FIRST VOICE AS IF IT
WERE YOUR WEEKEND ACTIVITIES THAT ARE
BEING NARRATED
 1. THIS EXERCISE IS A PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF
PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY
2. SCAN THE COLLEGE BUILDING OR A STREET FOR
NON-SPACES
3. DO SOMETHING THAT YOU WOULD NORMALLY NOT
DO THERE

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY
a. e.g. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS FOR A PARTY IN
THE PARKING LOT, SHOOT THE PARTY ON
VIDEO

OF NON-SPACES
b. e.g WASH YOUR FACE USING A BUCKET OF
WATER, SOAP, TOWEL etc. UNDER A
STAIRWELL, A BUS STOP etc.
c. e.g. GO TO THE POST OFFICE TO TAKE A
SHORT NAP
4. SHOW THE ACTIONS ON CAMERA - AND TRY TO
CONVINCE THE VIEWER - WHY THEY SHOULD DO
THE SAME THING
GLOSSARY OF RELEVANT ART TERMS FOR DESIGNERS
SURREALISM an avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of Images
DADA a movement in art, literature, music, and film, repudiating and mocking artistic and social conventions and emphasizing the illogical and absurd.
BAUHAUS a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicised and taught’
ART DECO a style of visual arts, architecture and design with emphasis on decoration that first appeared in France just before World War I; and influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewellery,
fashion, cars, movie theatres, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and vacuum cleaners.
ART NOUVEAU an international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. A reaction to the academic art of the 19th
century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants and flowers
CUBISM a style and movement in art, especially painting, in which perspective with a single viewpoint was abandoned and use was made of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes, and, later,
collage.
EXPRESSIONISM a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective
perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.
ABSTRACTION freedom from representational qualities in art.
FUTURISM concern with events and trends of the future, or which anticipate the future.
CONCEPTUALISM the theory that universals can be said to exist, but only as concepts in the mind.
ART POVERA "poor art" or "impoverished art" - was the most significant and influential avant-garde movement to emerge in Europe in the 1960s. It grouped the work of around a dozen Italian
artists whose most distinctly recognizable trait was their use of commonplace materials that might evoke a pre-industrial age, such as earth, rocks, clothing, paper and rope.
PHOTOREALISM a style of art and sculpture characterized by the highly detailed depiction of ordinary life with the impersonality of a photograph.
HYPERREALISM a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting
paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that has developed since the early 1970s
MINIMALISM movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all
non-essential forms, features or concepts.
POSTMODERNISM a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as
intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, particularly involving video are described as postmodern.
PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY the geographical environment of a particular location, typically a city, considered with regard to its influence on the mind or on behaviour.
SITUATIONISM the theory that human behaviour is determined by surrounding circumstances rather than by personal qualities.
ALTERMODERN the theory that human behaviour is determined by surrounding circumstances rather than by personal qualities.
http://www.widewalls.ch/protest-art/
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/hong-kongs-guerrilla-gardeners/
Links
http://www.ddooss.org/articulos/idiomas/Sol_Lewitt.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/psychogeography
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/conceptual-art
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/j/japonisme
http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deleuze_and_Guattari
http://ensemble.va.com.au/enslogic/text/smn_lct08.htm
http://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/anti-oedipus-capitalism-and-schizophrenia
https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/when-does-a-meme-become-art/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_intervention
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-fluxus-movement-art-museums-galleries
https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/06/30/unpacking-fluxus-an-artists-release/
http://www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/2014/12/an-introduction-to-psychogeography/
https://mappingweirdstuff.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/mapping-weird-stuff-psychogeography/
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/contemporary-art-movements.htm
https://www.artsy.net/artist/gilbert-and-george
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/lacandesire.html
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/95.230
http://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/phaidon-art-in-time-video-art-54478
https://www.flashartonline.com/article/pipilotti-rist/
https://www.thebroad.org/art/yayoi-kusama
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130731-public-art-what-is-it-for
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/
http://www.complex.com/style/2013/11/banksy-greatest-works/paris-hilton-reworked-album-dangermouse-collabor
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=guerrilla-girls