This Week’s Lecture:
This week’s lecture focused on the Site Specific aspect of the theme for this semester: Site Specific Sound Art. We learned that Site Specific art is designed for a specific space or location. If the work is removed from this intended location, the piece loses a substantial part of it’s purpose and meaning. Site Specific art is often used in relation to installation work and Land Art.
Installation artworks often occupy an entire place or space. They create an ambience or mood through sensory immersion. I have worked with the idea of installation art in both of my previous IP projects, as I feel expanding the mood and emotion of the artwork you are exhibiting into the surrounding space helps to capture the audiences interest and attention and makes the piece easier to understand.
‘A Line Made by Walking’, Richard Long, 1967
Land art is art made of the land- so natural materials such as leaves, twigs and sand as well as man-made changes and impressions to the earth. One example of Land art that I found particularly interesting is by artist Richard Long. ‘A Line Made by Walking’ (1967) was a piece made by Long on one of his hitch-hiking journeys from Bristol to St Martins. On his journey he stopped in the field, proceeding to walk back and fourth over the same line of grass until eventually he created a clear linear impression. I find this piece interesting as it’s so simple, almost comedically simple. It wasn’t even the purpose of his journey to create this piece, however he felt the need to alter the land and document how his motion had temporarily intervened with the natural landscape. The line created is a record, a natural marker of the steps that he took. It is quite an animalistic artwork, as despite the fact that he alone made the line by retracing his steps, it recreates the instinctual trail-making habit of wild animals such as deer, who tend to take the path of least resistance. Maybe the path that Long created for this photograph was then used by wild animals.
My moodboard & mind-map
During the lesson we took some time to collate images that we had brought in that we liked and found interesting and inspiring. I got most of my images from Pinterest as I have quite a lot of boards on there already, along with some photos of researched art I have already found this semester. Some images are directly linked to tattoo practice and culture, others to the theme of death and concept of memento mori and some that I just like (like the raccoon!). I’m happy with how my moodboard turned out and it reminded me of when I used to practice this way of displaying ideas during my A Level Art and Photography courses. It was useful to see the differing subjects I am interested in placed together visually. In addition to this, I created a mind-map surrounding the theme of death, as it is something I have decided to bring back into my project to help build a richer and more personally meaningful creative concept. It is currently a bit of a jumble of ideas and random words and phrases but I plan to look back over it to try and decide where I want my project to progress to.
2 artists who inspire me…
This week we were tasked with creating a PowerPoint to present to the rest of the group, showing two artists that we have found who inspire us/ influence our work, thinking and practice for this project. Over the last few days I have been thinking about how I want to intertwine my interest in the art and culture of tattooing with the theme of death, as this is something present in my life at the moment and something I feel I need to explore further in my work, continuing on from my project on life, death and rebirth last semester. The artists that I have included in my presentation therefore relate to both of these interests.
Hi Katy, Great posting on your online notebook. Well done. It’s great to read about your practice, interests and things that you’re working with at the moment. You’re showing some independent research, especially looking into the Faience figures from ancient Egypt and how these relate to tattooing and the body. Great to see your slides here and you referencing the work of Snape and Barber. As you go further with your artistic and secondary research, be sure to cite your sources and include a bibliography. Info on referencing can be found here – https://aber.ac.uk/en/aberskills/referencing/#referencing—the-basics. To develop, this week, finalise the concept for your IP project, will it be death or tattoo focussed? You’re documenting you class work really well – leave time to evidence and show critical reflection on and analysis of your creative experiments. Looking forward to hearing more about your creative concept in class next week.