Science and Progress-Tony Oursler- week 5

-Research Tony Oursler's projection sculpture to identify some of the ideas and methods he uses in his work.

Tony Oursler has used the medium of film to create his own unique sculptural aesthetic, taking the images out of the television box and making them function in three-dimensional space. A recurrent theme in Oursler's work is the way in which visual technologies influence and even modify our social and psychological selves. His practice continuously engages with popular culture and questions how systems of mechanical reproduction, like photography, film and television, have come to dictate not only the way we see the world, but also the ways that images are constructed. Ourlser's formal vocabulary is deceptively simple, employing objects of everyday life, both high and low, that range from kitsch to folk art, and investing them with a new aesthetic meaning. A key feature of his work is the ways in which the human body comes into play. On one level the body is employed in a very literal sense through the projection of fragmented and alienating body parts onto fibreglass forms. On another level the body functions through the encounter with the work. Oursler's scenarios constantly invoke the very human wish to lose oneself in fantasy.

-How do you think the Enlightenment concepts of Science, progress, reason, individualism, empiricism, universalism, freedom and secularism can be applied to Oursler's work?

Drawing extensively from his obsessively researched timeline,
Tony Oursler will freely employ the strategies, all that
abracadabra, now you see it now you don’t, smoke and mirrors
prestidigitation, of proto-cinematic projections, as an investigation
into the arcane roots of his supposedly new medium and an
intervention into the mysticist causes for all these extraordinary
effects. From Gaspar Robertson’s moving image theater of the
1780’s conjuring the devil in a Parisian crypt, to Kircher’s camera
obscura, running parallel yet divergent to its age of Enlightenment,
Oursler takes those shadows out of Plato’s Cave and does the
whole phantasmagorical light show of evolving technology’s
increasingly more sophisticated projections. And more than simply
the quasi-scientific charlatan’s way of conjuring the worlds
beyond, the way in which Oursler distills this technology is in
itself a life after death, a mode of reproduction in the simulacra, of
living on through what has been made, that is at the heart of The
Influence Machine . Technology is its own post-human Golem
here, not so much the persistence of spirit as the interminable
machine. Be it all the ways that technology cheats death, from
perpetual simulation to more simply scaring the begeesus out of
people, the ways in which television’s constant
reminder/rebroadcast of death acts to invoke some personal victory
over it (this time) for the viewer, or the immediate, nearly
concurrent rise of spirit photography that accompanied the birth of
this seminal medium of mechanical reproduction — Oursler
understands how the mystery of every technological innovation has
brought with it a deeply superstitious sense of possibility in terms
of communicating with the dead.

3weeks- Fiona Hall's works and mercantilism

I think.... Mercantilism is economic system of some countries in a capitalism's creation period. This system could make some countries which had this policy powerful and wealthy by getting trade's money.

I'll write that i found a definition's mercantilism in the course book.

Mercantilism, economic system of the major trading nations during the 16th, 17th, and 18th cent., based on the premise that national wealth and power were best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return. It superseded the medieval feudal organization in Western Eupope, especially in Holland, France, and England.

Fiona Hall’s “Force Field” exhibition at Wellington City Gallery. Works which were exhibited connected with mercantilism.

'Tender', consists of giant vitrines with meticulously crafted birds’ nests made from shredded U.S. dollar bills. Etched into one side of the glass is the serial number from each dollar used in it. On the other side is the bird species that corresponds with the nest.They’re incredibly realistic especially in the exhibition environment where they’re collected into museum style glass cases with each species’ nest labelled with its scientific name on the front of the case, the banknotes’ serial numbers listed on the back.





Hall’s work explores the boundaries between the natural and the man-made with subtlety and humour. Works like 'Leaf Litter' show how the global plantscape has been shaped by human economic “needs”. I’m still bubbling with the thoughts it triggered the morning after.


-How these works related to merchantilism?
That work relate to the concept of Mercantilism is Money.
Tender means a human emotion and currency.

-How merchantilism has continued from the Renaissance?
I will explain that how it has changed since Renaissance.
Since the Renaissance mercantilism has developed. Wealth's symbol changed that how much money who has from object such as gold.

Week3-blogging

'Tender' (2003-05)Fiona Hall's contemporary work relates to the Renaissance concept of Mercantillism.Research the two examples; 'Tender'(2003-05) and 'Leaf Litter'(1999-2003) to explain how they relate to this concept. First define mercantillism and explain how it has developed since the Renaissance. For each work you will need to describe the shape, form and materials of the work, and explain the ideas behind each example.These works were part of an art show titled 'Force Field' which can be viewed in one of the exhibition spaces on Youtube - Part Three: Fiona Hall: Force Field.