I think I posted a couple of these but never labeled them with my name, anyways I just wrote some new responses:
Four Histories, 3 Directions, 2 Futures ~
“Intermedia is an art that lies on the edge of boundaries between forms and media.” It can be a state of flux between the boundaries of form and media with ill-regard towards a definitive art or non-art form. After reviewing the history, terminology, and story behind the onset of Intermedia, I find myself siding with Higgins interpretation; It is that within a self reflected experience that is occurring towards the combination of art/non-art forms. I found it interesting to read about how the curriculum was developed and incorporated into the University of Iowa. It has proven to take an even greater variety of subjects and collaborate them into one. These being, liberal arts, comparative literature, anthropology, psychology, and communication studies.
Dick Higgins, Intermedia ~
Dick Higgins poem, “Glasslass” caught my eye within this article. It really helped to develop the underlying idea of the abstract nature towards which both artists and intermedia was becoming during that era. “Glasslass is a poem about slithering assonance and the naked page. The sounds of the esses slither, seemingly seamlessly surrounding the inside of the readers’ mouths. EEsses spill sexily across the page’s soft skin, savoring the fancy glass lass.” This is another example of how assonance can be used to describe a subject while reinforcing the overall abstract idea within it. No longer does the text simply have to be just text. It can develop both literal and figurative forms among its various meanings by some of these techniques.
Sol Lewitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art ~
When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it merely means that the art becomes predictive, due to the planning and decisions that are made beforehand. The idea is no longer retained in a pure form but rather it takes on a machine-like approach. The mental process is said to be purposeless and intuitive. I would disagree, it is true the artist being seen as a craftsman, and typically attempting to make their work mentally interesting to the spectator. However, they are using various methods of creation and therefore not always will the process be intuitive but rather chaotic regardless of it being planned or sporadic.
Dick Higgins, A Childs History of Fluxus ~
Dick Higgins article on Fluxus seemed a little troublesome for me to embrace. I understand the mode of interpretation being presented and the idea behind taking an object and looking at it in a way never before done. But in this moment of clarity and realization, I still (not all the time, but most of the time) fail to see the beauty that lies within a simple cup. Yes, one could view it as great art, the shape, the texture, the design, but for me it was not created to be art. Rather, it’s use is for a purpose and that purpose is to hold a liquid. I’m not arguing that because ‘art’ has a purpose it no longer has art, but rather some objects should not be looked at in certain ways. For instance, it reminds me of AP Literature courses that study poetry; yes, there are beautiful pieces of work out there filled with an abundant amount of alliterations, allegory’s, imagery, and magical rhyme, but then there are also just words that fall together to form a sentence. Sometimes they fall in the right spot sometimes they don’t, regardless they could always be argued and interpreted to be something more than they were intended to. Frankly, without the author being there to say exactly what it is, we will never know, and more so it doesn’t really matter as I believe it’s the viewer who’s decision it is whether to accept a piece as art or not. Because if you can’t see it, or don’t care to see it, it never will really exist for you.
Dick Higgins, The Origin of Happening ~
I really found this reading interesting. I kept thinking back to a film I saw recently called The Happening. It was mostly about something in the air that appeared to be randomly attacking and killing large groups of people. It was thought to be spread via the wind and the trees. The sense of nature taking back the world and reclaiming power over the human race could be viewed as a natural art. The sheer power of what cannot be seen but what can have an impact. The majority of the movie dealt with trying to figure out why this thing was happening. Why were people dying? The emphasis drifted towards what gets done as result of the deaths, is peace being restored, is nature being restored? Similarly, Dick Higgins viewed The Origin of Happening as, “all the various performance forms in which the emphasis is placed not on who does a particular thing or why, but on, simply, what gets done.”
Allan Kaprow, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life ~
It’s interesting to view museums and ‘picture shops’ as a form of society drifting towards a separated boundary between a fantasy world. It almost makes a statement that art is fictional and was once something that we created but no longer can. It is placed in a building that society visits but always end up walking out of and back into the real world. This idea is very intriguing and I wonder what ramifications result from it. The merging of computer visualization and graphic art versus hand drawn, is this another way in which a boundary is being created? Someday hand drawn art may be antiques while I could see most everything on holograms or lcd panels. Being drawn via finger touching and virtually simulated colors.
