Bryn Oh and I had a chat which was so interesting that I got the idea to publish. I asked Bryn for permission and she agreed. So I edited bit typos, gossips ;) and here it is:
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| Chatting |
Quan Lavender: I know Claudia’s opinion and I have the same from Harter (Fall). He is also a hard worker and builder. I think they mix something. Building is craftsmanship, not art. It is the content what makes art to art. So for me some artists in SL are not artists, but interior designers. Often their works are just nice decoration because of the lack of message. If they build or use prefabs is irrelevant. But - Claudia says too that it takes a lot time to create, time that prefab buyers do not spend.
Bryn Oh: Oh right. Yes well look at my blog and you will see a cat skeleton I made. It is done in zbrush same as what Claudia uses. That skull takes many hours to make. Then I make the jawbone, lumbar vertebrae, cautal vertebrae etc for days and it is just a tiny part of the build. So it is rewarding when people can see the amount of work done, all the texturing and so on. Virginia alone for example has taken me three months so far where a prefab build takes perhaps a day or two. I have nothing against people using pre made things it is more I dislike when they let people believe they made them.
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| Creation of Virtual Art by Bryn Oh |
Quan Lavender: I think Rowan Derryth gave the smartest definition of art I ever heard. She said there is only one definition of art possible, art is what the artist declares as such. For me as German it has a huge meaning. Art is ‘Kunst’ in German, and ‘Kunst’ is related to ‘können’, which means ‘be capable’. So Germans always ask "Is that art?" and mean "Has the artist done a good job?" And Claudia and Harter are born German too. You see? Language has a huge influence on the way of thinking.
Bryn Oh: Yes the final question as to whether it worked or not. I agree but I think I put more emphasis on technique as being equal.
Quan Lavender: Nothing wrong with it. The other extreme are to me some action orientated artists. All is so chaotic, so Kindergarten that I ask myself often where the art is. It just hurts my eyes.
Bryn Oh: Yes. For me I need to have control over what I create fully in order to bring out the needed emotional response etc and I cant imagine using other pre made things to do this as they wont be exactly what I need in colour or form. Same way I could not allow another to paint a painting for me of something close to my heart because it could not possibly bring out my feelings.
Quan Lavender: That is a good and important point. Mastership in technique helps to define the expression. But what is with Duchamp or Beuys? I am not their biggest fan, but they have been very influential artists. It is about the meaning.
Bryn Oh: They are working more on concept though. For example the "fountain" questions whether we can look at a public urinal and see the beauty in its form despite it use. But many would argue that Duchamp was the death of technique in art.
Quan Lavender: And I agree. Before that technique was the rule. But art is under evolution.
Bryn Oh: But does the evolution require old methods to die?
Quan Lavender: Some years ago I was with my children in Paris and we visited the Centre Pompidou. All important painters of the last century has been in the collection. My children complained all the time and said standing in front of Picasso, Kandinsky, Matisse, etc that they easily can do that too.
Bryn Oh: :) Yes, a common statement!
Quan Lavender: My learning that day was that the idea of making something new and different is art itself.
Bryn Oh: I agree but then there is also the need to understand what cubism was etc. The idea that we are looking at an object from all sides at once adds to the appreciation.
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| Traditional Chinese Art |
Bryn Oh: And that is the problem with all technique - there must be a balance. Let me send you something to look at. I will explain its meaning first. It is the relationship between my father and myself growing up. It is to convey the deep anger I had inside towards him. Let me know if you can feel this emotion from my technique. Unfortunately I am not so good with technique but hope it comes through.
Second Life has given you this object: name=Father
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| 'Father' by Bryn Oh |
Quan Lavender: Hahaha, great! That is as good as Beuys’ Fat Corner!
Bryn Oh: Lol. But you see what I mean? if there is not the understanding of methods to convey emotion or if there is not skill? So I feel there must be a balance of both technique and the undefined other that makes art because one or the other alone doesn’t work.
Quan Lavender: Yes, the technique is the medium to transport the message. Imagine I expose your work in a gallery. Hey, it is a real Bryn Oh! And so few prims ;) The problem is that the message is transported by your action of sending. How to present it to others?
Bryn Oh: Lol, hopefully it won’t be considered my best work. That would be depressing!
Quan Lavender: If someone says, I won't tell you.
Bryn Oh: :) It is an interesting discussion though and I think there really are no rules.
Quan Lavender: No, and that makes us so helpless. We all feel that art without mastership is crap. So the line between great artist and idiot is thin.
Bryn Oh: True! I have a theory about art in Canada recently. Might be universal not sure, but what I find is that the government has long reduced funding for art in schools. They have gym teachers teaching art now or math teachers etc. And i have found that as people get older they know less and less about art because of this. How to recognize techniques used or if something is good art ? So they are at a loss when someone says "do you like this?" or "is this good artwork?" and what I tend to see now is that photorealism is liked more and more because people are able to look at a painting of a flower and say yes! That looks exactly like a flower so it is good. Something abstract is hard to judge, but if the dimensions are clear for a hand on a body then yes it was well done because the hand looks real. That is an easy way for people to have an opinion now because they don't know how to look deeper.
Quan Lavender: The trend is more or less worldwide. I think we had a short high time of art with the high average prosperity of middle class beginning in the 19. century and now we go back to the times where artists are poor or have to rely on a few rich. Here is my blog post on the different kinds of art: http://quanlavender.blogspot.de/2012/04/huge-nothing.html
Bryn Oh: Ah yes, good post and glad you were honest. That is how I feel about technique: The ability to compose a work beyond the concept.
Quan Lavender: I am the last who likes to de-motivate but in that case some open words had to be spoken.
Bryn Oh: It is usually quite thankless to do so as usually it just angers the artist. But it is important and takes courage. I feel the art community is getting weaker and weaker as people leave. From three years ago the quality of artists here was much higher. Some of the ones people talk about now are mere shadows of the ones from before.
Quan Lavender: Virtual art needs more public attention in RL.
Bryn Oh: Yes and I feel the art community has to support each other to create an atmosphere of positive energy and get people excited to create. But to me the problem is that the community is weak and rather than support the weak until it is strong some attack it and make it even weaker. I don’t mean to wax poetic about the past but at one point there were constant shows in SL and each was stronger and stronger than the last and each artist was pushed to compete on a high level. Let the community become strong again then give the artists a kick at that time, but don't attack a struggling art community now when it is weak or we just end up getting weaker and weaker.
Quan Lavender: But that is only natural. The best works expose a lot of the own person, the emotions. It is very hard when someone else judges it.
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| Scene from Anna's Many Murders |
Quan Lavender: Sadly many forget this today. That is our media culture. The people need nowadays stronger pictures to feel. It is proved by science long ago. I refuse to see movies with so much blood. It is a lack of fantasy.
Bryn Oh: Yes, or half naked singers in all things. Ok I better get back to work. So much to do! Virginia Alone it should be ready by next week hopefully...
So far the talk with Bryn.
When I asked Claudia for the permission to mention her name here, she said something remarkable. She compared an artist hiding the creators of the prefabs with a conductor hiding the orchestra.
As always, comments are highly welcome!
30 comments:
"But many would argue that Duchamp was the death of technique in art." I would point "Le Grand Verre" to those people :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bride_Stripped_Bare_By_Her_Bachelors,_Even
"Father" is by far Bryn's best work!
The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". Humans are not born with the tools to make anything, unless you decide to express your ideas with your excrements,(unfortunately I have seen "artists" doing that too O.O ). So "Father"? Really? Isn't that a pre made prim by LL? or did she make the plywood texture and took her weeks? And if it was meant to be a joke it doesnt matter anyway I have seen many of her sculptures made with Prims by LL!! Early photographers made their cameras, todays photographers go out and buy them already made,painters used to make their own canvases and paint, now it is easier to go to the art store and buy them... does that make them less of an artist because they don't make everything? Or now only Zbrush users are the ones entitled to call themselves artists? I find that some of this artists we all hear about so much in secondlife have become premadonas who think their creations are the ones that are valued. In the case of Ms.Oh I suggest if she feels so hurt about a weak artist community, to start using her position at the LEA comitee and helping artists get their works there. So far in the last months I have seen so much of her pieces there that it makes me think if it is only her and some of her friends who are getting the benefit. Art is expression, no matter how you look at it, you may like it or not, a brick on a stand in an empty room in the MOMA is just that, the rest is up to a name. Call it Father by Bryn Oh and I will see many brown nosers coming to say it is a geniallity!! Stop focusing so much on how others build their world and worry about yours, after all if you are a true artist your EGO shoudnt let you worry about anything else, after all YOU ARE THE ONE AND ONLY!!
Art is a very wide subject and it is certainly not defined by craftsmanship or by how much time is spent on building it.
When I work on my RL art installations. I collaborate with a team, I’m not the camera man/woman, I’m not the editor, I’m not the person who makes the costumes, I’m not putting the make-up on the faces of the actors, I do not show the actors how to act, I’m not composing the music, not playing the piano to perform that music, I’m not building the props, putting on the light, making the lunch, or brewing the coffee.
All I do: is having a strong idea/ a concept and the skill to convince other people to follow my concept and work with me on it. I watch, I listen, combine, select, throw away and ask my collaborators to redo something because I’m not happy and work with them long days and be very critical and not easily happy. And I’m ecstatically happy when it all works well.
I should not take up the camera, or sew the costumes, or put on the makeup, or sing, or pretend to act, or play the piano, it would be horrible. But in the end this installation/ this art work has my name as the artist.
Without my idea/ my concept/ vision this artwork would not have been there.
A good craftsman can be a master at building, painting and building mesh and photoshop textures. But without a strong idea, concept, context, even when it is vague and not very understandable, it can be a very good craftsmanship, which not necessarily means it is also art.
Some people can put a pre build crow down and you think “ not again that crow”
And others put that crow down and you forget it is the same crow because it suddenly makes sense inside the ‘context’ it is put down, supporting the message it is telling you.
That quality of that context defines what is art and what isn’t.
And that also counts for the prims, a prim is not always just a prim, it depends on how you throw it down and what light you shine on it.
My suggestion is: lets support each other and make use of each other craftmanship to make the art grow and getting mature in this virtual world.
@ Salvador: If you are here to criticize you should at least brave enough to use your own name.
@Rose: Thank you for that good comment. I think everyone would agree. Many artists like i.e. Christo never could have realized their ideas without team. But the initial question was: Should these people be named as done in theatres or movies?
When I use tables, socks, light, candles, wine, dogs, flowers, clocks etc in my project I do not name the florist, the clockmaker, the wine farm, the dogkeeper or any other maker, I have bought or rented the item. Unless there is an agreement like sponsoring. The light-set-costume designers, the composers, the editor, the Dpo and performers are part of the artistic team and will be credited.
In SL most artists work as soloists and not in an artistic team. I find this a pity, but it is probably due to the fact that it is quiet difficult to communicate in depth and across language barriers in this virtual world.
My artistic team would be Caer Balogh, because she makes the scripts and
These scripts are an essential contribute to the content and the expression of my work.
Most prefab items are bought; you own them with some restrictions and they do not need to be credited unless again there is another agreement (like for example sponsoring). They are commercial items.
What I do notice in SL is that the covenant of a sim is neglected. For example I have clearly in my covenant of my sim the restriction mention when someone wants to use my work in his or her own art work. But many picture takers in sl have no clue what a covenant is.
And of course we all steal a bit and copy a bit and get inspired by other art works and study them intensely. But that behaviour is as old as the road to Rome and used to be common to make an artists grow and understand his/her own art and it can only make the virtual art movement better.
We need a bar in SL where we can get drunk, have endless discussion, splendid ideas, no rules and restrictions, stimulation and have lots of fun because tomorrow it can suddenly be a different day and we have lost the opportunity.
I agree with Quan that it is preferable that the comment maker uses his/her recognizable identity. But in this case I like the hint. We have used the image of Salvador Dali in the Path. A strong identity that comes with an history. Not many commented that we stole his image, it is accepted that we use him as an icon.
Dali himself was a great copier, I think his self-portrait as Mona Lisa is as famous as the original one.
Another important topic, Rose! The artist as the stand alone hero is a concept born in the Age of Elightment. Before that quoting was not only appropriate, it was sometimes requested. And it might be that in our media era we already came back to this.
Agreed on the real name issue.
Exquisitely explained Rose, by the way just by your name I wouldnt know who you are, but your idea, the way you presented and the elloquency you have, to me are the same as if you had signed any other way. What is it that people dont read sometimes and have the feeling that critizism is destroying? I am glad you read and understood what I meant in my reply. Who cares who am I as a resident of secondlife, what, are you going to read my profile and ban me from your sim because I said what to me is a reality? If you want a better artist community, as mentioned in the article, and having the posibility because you are one of the few chosen to help,like bryn does, do it, instead of throwing vague words at bloggers and hope for things to happen just because!! Look at it today, yet another Marcus Inkpen show at Lea, I am not critizicing this artist, but showing that one man is not a community, and he or she, is getting a plot there very often which means other people are not! Anyway if you want to know who I am, I am just Another Resident!! Thanks Rose, wish you the best in your next creations!! Oh and Quan, next time you post dont forget to mention the developers and creators of Blogger in your credits, after all you are using their work as a tool 8P (just kidding, just kidding).
Well, you said all this much better than I can Rose. This is why, as Quan said (and thank you Quan for the lovely compliment), I think the question of 'What is art?' is, quite frankly, pointless. Tracy Emin calls her manky, used bed 'art', and the Tate agrees. I won't run around and shout 'THAT'S NOT ART!' Fine, it's art - but what I can do is say why, in my opinion, I find it to be a piece of incredibly self-indulgent wank that lacks in thought or originality. It is crappy art.
When I teach art history (my day job), I teach my students to question not whether something is art, but HOW it is art... WHY is it art? What does it say (or not say), what does it engage with? Duchamp is everyone's 'go to art god' because he well and truly broke what everyone said art should be. However, I do think he very much engaged with craftsmanship (look at The Large Glass). But there is an incredibly elitist and insular aspect to lauding Duchamp or Dada (which, btw, is just turning 100 years old, so lauding it as radical is pretty ironic). As my own research has taken me into studying decorative art and design history, I've thrown away the what is art question more and more.
I know for myself that the contemporary art I find successful and interesting is that which somehow engages with our culture, and has something to say about it. At 18, I was blown away by Jenny Holzer's pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Until that moment, Michelangelo had been the centre of my art world. I had little interest in modern art and probably said many of the same silly things Quan's children did (btw Quan, I hope you challenged them to go home and prove it - that is usually my response). Holzer was (and still is) using technology and text to comment on current affairs in an eloquent and thought-provoking manner, and her work opened up a whole new world of potential for me.
I still have this same criteria for art in regards to what I want to research and write about. And it is why I am passionate about virtual art. I respect everyone's right to rez what they want and call it art, whether it be pixel facsimiles of RL work, particle shows, or (neo-)dadaesque performances intended to disrupt and intervene in what is seen as the status quo. But I won't necessarily find them interesting, engaging, or in my view, successful.
I enjoy work that uses the medium, and I find the height of that being immersive installations. People like to criticise Bryn because she has reached a level of popularity with their work that some probably see equal to selling out. But there is a REASON she has reached this... besides the fact that she works her ass off, her work obviously connects with people. Certainly it doesn't work for everyone, and I admit freely that the very first time I saw one of her sculptures almost 3 years ago, I thought it was nice but I didn't get the hype. When I finally went to an immersive installation, I got it completely. Same with Rose, btw - I was creeped out by a picture of the Susas (ha, ha), but when I finally saw the piece I ended up writing about, I was 'sold' as they say.
In any case, I am starting to ramble, so I'll go back to the original issue. I guess I would have to see what mesh items were being used in this fashion to judge whether I'd have a problem. As we all know, SO much of the artistic media in SL is appropriated - textures, scripts, sculpts, etc. So why should mesh be any different? But for me, the work that always stands out is by those who make their own stuff, as it usually comes together in a much stronger and more cohesive fashion. So to the artists that this bothers, shrug it off.
-Rowan Derryth
As many of you already know, I make assemblages in RL. In some ways it is similar to using pre-made sculpts and textures in SL, in that I take objects that weren't necessarily meant to go together, but go ahead and try to make them work anyways. What I think I like best about this medium is that it pushes me out of my comfort zone. The artwork is determined much more by what available objects I have, more so than my conscious mind trying to force a preset image that I may have had.
At the high points, the artwork seems to create itself, and the result is something I couldn't have possibly made if I was able to dictate all the parameters. And of course the low points are when everything turns into a jumbled mess. But this spontaneity helps keep things fresh for me, even if I don't have anything close to a 100% "success" rate.
And like Rose pointed out, sometimes the Crow works and sometimes it doesn't. I am hoping my current Crow does, though. :)
My two cents (which I'll probably decide are worthless tomorrow): Quan, I think your comment about the absence of fantasy is tremendously interesting and important. Admittedly, I don't much about art, I just pretend to in Second Life, but I'm willing to float the idea that fantasy plays a large part in distinguishing art from non-art. I'm not a fan of the "art is whatever the artist (or anyone) says is art" point of view, it opens the door to too much crap or mere subjective opinion; but I don't think there are clear "objective" standards for art either: it's intersubjective, so if an artist is going to claim their work is art, they may need to persuade me -- a point that connects to Rose's comment on context. The leap of fantasy provides both persuasion and context. By "fantasy" I don't mean reveries on fairies and dragons and medieval swordplay, but rather stirring the imagination, emotions, sensual responses, meanings, and so forth. So a prim box is a prim box, whoopee, except when it has the title "Father" we receive a new context and we should start thinking about why and how the box could represent a father; possibly heaviness, lack of subtlety, plainness, lack of movement? It's not a "great" work but it's worthwhile to step back for a moment and fantasize about the possibilities. The Mona Lisa makes us wonder what the woman it portrays was like, and tells us some things about her. The geometrical designs that decorate much ancient pottery often had a symbolic significance known to all of its users, and so as I see it, a simple urn can be both a usable result of craftsmanship but also an artistic work in its own right. But I should add, I don't assume fantasy alone defines art, and maybe it isn't always necessary, but it's a significant factor.
Also Rowan raises a good point, that there's not only a (muddy) distinction between art and non-art, but also a (muddy) distinction between good art and bad art. (I'm reminded of Louis Armstrong's comment, "There is two kinds of music, the good and the bad.") Bad art is not necessarily non-art.
Salvador D is a bit unfair to Bryn and the rest of LEA. Based on her brief time on the LEA committee, Rowan has described both the democratic way in which artists are chosen for sims and the overall dedication of its members, and I have heard similar things from elsewhere. I see no reason to doubt these statements, least of all Rowan's since she resigned fairly soon after being made a full member. LEA's internal problems, its awkward relationship to the rest of the SL arts community, the sheer practical difficulties they face, and their overall cluelessness about how to resolve (or perhaps even recognize) any of these hurdles stymie their efforts, but I still think they're honest efforts to support a broad range of artists.
I was one of those people who noticed that "The Path" used an image of Salvador Dali! But then, as is well known, two years ago I revealed that Bryn is in fact Salvador Dali, or rather, Dali 2.0. So she was slyly dominating all of "The Path" and bending those poor artists to her will! Bruh-ha-ha-ha-hah!!
Oh, and back to the cube: Bryn, can I have that? I want a genuine Bryn Oh in my house!
Forget it Dividni! 'Father' is a original piece and it is mine :P
Darn! OK, can I have an original Quan Lavender forgery -- uh, imitation -- of a Bryn Oh piece?
Ha! I'd rather have 'Mother', thanks ;-)
Div - I get your point about not agreeing with the 'whatever the artist says is art...' opening the door for crap. But the crap is there, regardless. I guess what I am saying is that I've learned from experience that saying whether something is or isn't art is, for me, a pointless debate. You say it is, I say it isn't, etc. I can think of several artists' work in SL that people LOVE that I think is utter shite... and vice versa. Incidentally, speaking of the LEA, I know there are a couple people who also like to say what is and isn't art there, and I think this is a dangerous game for them, too. I'm an advocate of throwing that question out the window, and instead truly educating oneself on their own taste, being solid in their criteria, and then saying not WHAT is are, but WHY, HOW is art, to what extent is art, and when you get REALLY good... does a piece work? Is it successful or not (which again takes criteria). Which, btw, is exactly what you have done in outlining your thoughts on fantasy above.
Obviously, what I've said requires more effort than the 30 seconds most people spend (if that) looking at a work of art.
Kunst ist ein Kontinuum, in dessen Wirkungsbereich du dich befindest, das du nie siehst, sondern ausschließlich fühlen kannst. Der Erschaffer dieses Kontinuums ist der Künstler.
ChapTer K.
@ Salvador D: "The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects"
I want to burn all hard copies of the Encyclopædia Britannica in a big flaming pile and call it art.
It is about the question if an artist is able to control the process of creation. I tend to believe that this is more a wish than reality. And you prove how succesful the other way can be.
The word "aesthetic" is wrong in that defintion.
FATHER of Bryn Oh is a cheap copy of HIS FIRST PRIM, the first prim DanCoyote Antonelli rezzed and is in my collection. I exhibited the piece during the DanCoyote Antonelli Retrospective, 3 years ago and I would like Bryn to redraw her cheap copy from the public space.
Which bar, darling???
@ savemeoh:
I have to tell you, I have the first original cube. It is right next to my computer on my desk in RL. It is a cube of 5x5x5 inches. the material is made of beech wood.
It is an heirloom of my great-grandfather, 19th-century.
I hope that this problem is now resolved
:-)
@ChapTer
I am sorry to break it to you, but your cube is but a small-scale model of the original artifact, 0.5meters x 0.5meters x 0.5meters, which was recovered from the Chicxulub crater in Mexico before disappearing under mysterious circumstances involving Phlilip Rosedale's great great great uncle.
@ Arrehn
ok, Arrehn! I would not take you at your pleasure ... but my great great grandfather had in his student days, an encounter with an extraterrestrial delegation from the constellation 'MUSREVATEM-74925601'. At that meeting, he was confronted as a present this model of the 'Chicxulub crater' in Mexico.
And this model is now in front of me on my desk.
Sorry, but those are the facts. Have fun with this information. I have my fun when I look at this heirloom now.
;-)
I often compare musicians to visual (3D interactive) artists. A musician practices and practices and then performs either live or for post processing. Either way, the result is obvious: a combination of proficiency, concept, execution, style, and medium that all add up to a work that, judged objectively and subjectively, is music to our ears. There is an obvious quality present, even if it not to one's liking. Same with visual artists.
http://visualarts.walkerart.org/oracles/details.wac?id=2453&title=Writings
"On December 1, 1987, Huang Yong Ping placed a classical Chinese art history book and a Western art history book into a washing machine and washed them for two minutes. These two long-standing histories were transformed into a pile of unreadable pulp within two minutes." (from the above website)
Mr. Salvador,there are moments that I feel your opinion is valid pertaining to premadonas. There are artist in SL who do act that way. I have experienced it and witness it. I was like- "WTF this is SL not real life. You haven't made it in real life". I have to give you credit for your courage to say it, but at least use your SL identity though. I would have said, "BRAVO"!!! :) BTW: I have been to MOMA, I swear some of the stuff in there made me scratch my head. :)
She should have stopped after this.
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