Writing Three - Group C Reaction

Writing Three - Group C Reaction

Ramon Riley

I found James Battistelli’s description of his work fascinating!  Is there a blog with pix?  The idea of science fictions impact opens a new discussion that I hope the book gets into further.  I think how we are portrayed in science fiction sometimes tells us more about our culture than movies based in reality or even based on true stories.  Battistelli say’s, “What I plan to do in my work this semester is incorporate body extension and performance into these new creatures I am creating,” which hooked me in based on the concept alone. 

I found Michelle Coulbaugh’s take on the chapter and the impact of branding and labels compelling saying “Specifically, my paintings focus on creating new representations and relationships between the spectator and the fast food industry. I strive to break down the industry’s power over our buying choices by removing branding from their food packaging. What is left is a stark, blank slate upon which we can apply a fresh judgment on what and why we are buying.”   After seeing her current pieces in Kipp Gallery, I realize my mind had added the labels to the product. My mind completed the picture.  There is a difference in a McDonald’s yellow and a Wendy’s yellow.  My mind immediately saw that paler Wendy’s yellow and filled in the blanks.  These big companies are watching us and directing us.  We are the market in market research.  Repetition fosters familiarity, which is difficult to resist even if the result is unfulfilling.  I am trained to go back again and again.

Crystal Miller’s point that the scale of her work is very important to addressing/engaging people was well stated.  Having worked on illustration size drawings for the past five years versus putting work in a gallery environment is a daunting task because how it will ultimately be received  is dependent on variable I had not been considering.  The intimacy of holding a book is very different from luring viewers in to see you work.  What I thought was large can be dwarfed by the context of a wall.  Having been in class with the artist, I wanted to hear more about how she chooses her subjects for her photographs.  I wonder what makes something worthy of this creative treatment of printing and scaling to turn it into art.  I wonder is it being at the right place at the right time, or is there some part of the plan that is consistent when you are looking?

Crystal’s paper addressed the sexual undertones of the “gazing” process that I focused on in my writing, but I thought  Eric Brennan’s stating “Men may like to imagine they are in control but women love knowing they DO control men’s gaze,” was addressing the elephant in the room.  As he states in his blog, (we are) “Surrounded by people and society that are always trying to influence us,” I am finding I grow impatient with people who are unwilling to take a stance, state an opinion or aren’t willing to acknowledge their emotions and feelings.  Ironically, many art students try to adhere to unreachable standards of purity.  I feel this is out of fear of having to defend one’s self.  Brennan’s paper also references the the repression of feelings seen as inappropriate.  My question is inappropriate by who?

Why do we have this standard that any and every question is worthy of answer?  Group C re-evaluated their work based on Mulvey.  Why?  I would have to commit time to see her work as a filmmaker before I put so much stock in her criticism.

“She instead stated that she intended to use Freud and Lacan's concepts as a "political weapon." She then used some of their concepts to argue that the cinematic apparatus of classical Hollywood cinema inevitably put the spectator in a masculine subject position, with the figure of the woman on screen as the object of desire...

Mulvey argued that the only way to annihilate the "patriarchal" Hollywood system was to radically challenge and re-shape the filmic strategies of classical Hollywood with alternative feminist methods. She called for a new feminist avant-garde filmmaking that would rupture the magic and pleasure of classical Hollywood filmmaking. She wrote, "It is said that analyzing pleasure or beauty annihilates it. That is the intention of this article..."

That just sounds sterile and bitter.  Are her films void of beauty and pleasure?Why would I want that for myself?  Before I punish myself, I will consider and analyze the source.