Surrealism and Paris Inner Worlds / Outer Space

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Archive for Surrealism and Paris Walter Benjamin on Surrealism and Photography
Posted in Art History/Theory, Critical theory, Photography, Reading notes, Surrealism with tags photography, Surrealism, Surrealism and Paris, Walter Benjamin on September 27, 2010 by melaniemenardarts

Surrealism The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia (1929) Life only seemed worth living where the threshold between waking and sleeping was worn away in everyone as by the steps of multitudinous images flooding back and forth, language only seemed itself where, sound and image, image and sound interpenetrated with automatic precision and such felicity that no chink was left for the penny-in-the-slot called meaning. In the worlds structure dream loosens individuality like a bad tooth. This I loosening of the self by intoxication is, at the same time, precisely the fruitful, living experience that allowed these people to step outside the domain of intoxication. But the true creative overcoming of religious illumination certainly does not lie in narcotics. It resides in a profane illumination, a materialistic, anthropological inspiration. perceive the revolutionary energies that appear in the outmoded, in the first iron constructions, the first factory buildings, the earliest photos, the objects .that have begun to be extinct, grand pianos, the dresses of five years ago, fashionable restaurants when the vogue has begun to ebb from them. [] No one before these visionaries and augurs perceived how destitutionnot only social but architectonic, the poverty of interiors/enslaved and enslaving objects- can be suddenly transformed into revolutionary nihilism. convert everything that we have experienced on mournful railway journeys (railways are beginning to age), on Godforsaken Sunday afternoons in the proletarian quarters of the great cities, in the first glance through the rain-blurred window of a new apartment, into revolutionary experience, if not action. They bring the immense forces of atmosphere concealed in these things to the point of explosion. And no face is surrealistic in the same degree as the true face of a city. No picture by de Chirico or Max Ernst can match the sharp elevations of the citys inner strong-holds, which one must overrun and occupy in order to master their fate and, in their fate, in the fate of their masses, ones own. The Surrealists Paris, too, is a little universe. That is to say, in the larger one, the cosmos, things look no different. There, too, are crossroads where ghostly signals flash from the traffic, and inconceivable analogies and connections between events are the order of the day. It is the region from which the lyric poetry of Surrealism reports. the deeply grounded composition of an individual who, from inner compulsion, portrays less a historical evolution than a constantly renewed, primal upsurge of esoteric poetry the philosophical realism of the Middle Ages was the basis of poetic experience. This realism, howeverthat is, the belief in a real, separate existence of concepts whether outside or inside thingshas always very quickly crossed over from the logical realm of ideas to the magical realm of words. And it is as magical experiments with words, not as artistic dabbling, that we must understand the passionate phonetic and graphical transformational games that have run through the whole literature of the avant-garde Apollinaire, Lesprit nouveau et les poetes: their synthetic works create new realities the plastic manifestations of which are just as complex as those referred to by the words standing for collectives about Dostoyevsky: No one else understood, as he did, how naive is the view of the Philistines that goodness, for all the manly virtue of those who practise it, is God-inspired; whereas evil stems entirely from our spontaneity, and in it we are independent and self-sufficient beings. I think the Surrealists moved away from this preoccupation and its rather George Bataille that continued to pursue this idea ? we penetrate the mystery only to the degree that we recognize it in the everyday world, by virtue of a dialectical optic that perceives the everyday as impenetrable, the impenetrable as everyday [] The reader, the thinker, the loiterer, the flaneur, are types of illuminati just as much as the opium eater, the dreamer, the ecstatic. And more profane. Not to mention that most terrible drugourselveswhich we take in solitude. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935) Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view. [] With the different methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to such an extent that the quantitative shift between its two poles turned into a qualitative transformation of its nature. This is comparable to the situation of the work of art in prehistoric times when, by the absolute emphasis on its cult value, it was, first and foremost, an instrument of magic. Only later did it come to be recognized as a work of art. In the same way today, by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental. This much is certain: today photography and the film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuse for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value. To have pinpointed this new stage constitutes the incomparable significance of Atget, who, around 1900, took photographs of deserted Paris streets. It has quite justly been said of him that he photographed them like scenes of crime. The scene of a crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence. With Atget, photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political significance. They demand a specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them. They stir the viewer; he feels challenged by them in a new way. At the same time picture magazines begin to put up signposts for him, right ones or wrong ones, no matter. For the first time, captions have become obligatory. And it is clear that they have an altogether different character

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than the title of a painting. The directives which the captions give to those looking at pictures in illustrated magazines soon become even more explicit and more imperative in the film where the meaning of each single picture appears to be prescribed by the sequence of all preceding ones. Severin-Mars: What art has been granted a dream more poetical and more real at the same time! Approached in this fashion the film might represent an incomparable means of expression. Werfel: The film has not yet realized its true meaning, its real possibilities. . . these consist in its unique faculty to express by natural means and with incomparable persuasiveness all that is fairylike, marvelous, supernatural. art has left the realm of the beautiful semblance which, so far, had been taken to be the only sphere where art could thrive the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art. The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses. this is at bottom the same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator. [] Distraction and concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows: A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into this work of an the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art. A small History of Photography The most precise technology can give its product a magical value, such as a painted picture can never have for us. No matter how artful the photographer, no matter how carefully posed his subject, the beholder feels an irresistible urge to search such a picture for the tiny spark of contingency, of the Here and Now, with which reality has so to speak seared the subject, to find the inconspicuous spot where in the immediacy of that long forgotten moment the future subsists so eloquently that we, looking back, may rediscover it. For it is another nature that speaks to the camera than to the eye: other in the sense that a space informed by human consciousness gives way to a space informed by the unconscious. optical unconscious photography reveals in this material the physionimic aspects of visual worlds which dwell in the smallest things, meaningful yet covert enough to find a hiding place in waking dreams, but which, enlarged and capable of formulation, make the difference between technology and magic. Atget was an actor who, disgusted with the profession, wiped off the mask and set about removing the make-up from reality too. [] He looked for what was unremarked, forgotten, cast adrift, and thus such pictures too work against the exotic, romantically sonorous names of the cities; they pump the aura out of reality like water from a sinking ship. What is aura, actually? A strange weave of space and time: the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how close the object may be. [] The stripping bare of the object, the destruction of the aura, is the mark of a perception whose sense of the sameness of things has grown to the point where even the singular, the unique, is divested of its uniqueness by means of its reproduction. a salutory estrangement between man and his surroundings The camera is [] ever readier to capture fleeting and secret moments whose images paralyse the associative mechanisms in the beholder. Leave A Comment

Surrealism, Photography, Cinema

Posted in Art History/Theory, Artists that inspire me, Cinema, Photography, Reading notes, Surrealism with tags Andr Breton, Antonin Artaud, Brassa, David Lynch, Documentary, Dora Maar, Eugne Atget, Louis Aragon, photography, Salvador Dali, Surrealism, Surrealism and cities, Surrealism and Paris on September 19, 2010 by melaniemenardarts

Notes from Explosante fixe, Exhibition Catalogue at Centre Pompidou Some notes are in French, I do not fully translate everything, only the most important bits. Ill translate later what will actually be used in the essay. Andr Breton, Lentre des mediums (1922) Definition of Surrealism un certain automatisme psychique qui correspond assez bien ltat de rve, tat quil est aujourdhui fort difficile de dlimiter. Breton hasard objectif George Bataille Linforme Bassesse-> chte Salvador Dali Photographie, pure cration de lesprit (1927) in Dawn Ades, Salvador Dali, Thames and Hudson 1982 Ils trouvent vulgaire et normal tout ce quils ont lhabitude de voir tous les jours, si merveilleux et miraculeux que ce soit Dali, Film Art, Fil Antiartistico, Gazeta Literacia (1927), in Dawn Ades Le monde du cinema et de la peinture sont trs diffrents: les possibilits de la photographie et du cinma rsident precisement dans cet imaginaire

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illimit qui nait des choses elles-mmes. Un morceau de sucre sur lcran peut devenir plus grand que la perspective infinie ddifices gigantesques. Dali, Psychologie non euclidienne dune photographie, Minotaure 7. La donne photographique est toujours et essentiellement le plus sr moyen dexpression potique et le procd le plus agile pour saisir les plus dlicates osmoses qui existent entre la ralit et la surralit. Le simple fait de la transposition photographique implique une invention totale: la capture dune ralit secrte. Salvador Dali Realit Secrte The image reflects reality but forces people to see the world without prejudice/preconception. Therefore the representation of the world presented by the image (i.e. By Art) is truer than the world directly gazed at. -> the reflection of the world in the mirror (=Art) is truer than the direct image. -> Alice Through the looking glass Benjamin Pret, Minotaure 12-13 Ruine des ruines Dawn ades, La photographie et le texte surraliste in Explosante fixe ces visions litteraires ou photographiques de produits de la civilisation engloutis par une nature triomphante et vorace traduisent symboliquement lopposition des surralistes leur propre culture. Et cel, chose curieuse, se situe dans le prolongement du culte romantique de la nature, propre lesthtique de la fin du 18me sicle, qui prend le parti de ltat sauvage contre la domestiqu, et celui de la nature contre la civilisation. Notes from La subversion des images: Surralisme, Photographie, Film, Exhibition Catalogue at Centre Pompidou I saw this show in December 2009. Les images du dehors, Michel Poivert definition de la photographie comme empreinte une odieuse laideur dont le pouvoir de fascination rvle la jouissance inavouable que procure le mauvais gout George Bataille Un photogramme, linstar dune photographie documentaire, exemplifie une relation interiorise au monde Le fantastique moderne, Quentin Bajac techniques denregistrement indicielles Louis Aragon ne conoit pas de merveilleux en dehors du rel un fantastique, un merveilleux moderne autrement riche et divers La ralit est labsence apparente de contradiction. Le merveilleux, cest la contradiction qui apparait dans le rel. Le fantastique, lau del, le rve, la survie, le paradis, lenfer, la posie, autant de mots pour signifier le concret La rvolution surraliste 3 sentiment du merveilleux quotidien About Eugne Atget, self taught photographer of Paris whom the Surrealist admired: Waldemar George: un quart de sicle avant Aragon, il a crit Le Paysan de Paris en sondant, en dpouillant de sa gangue et en mettant nu cet immanent mystre qui a pour nom: banalit. Albert Valentin: tout lair de se passer au del, dans la marge, dans le filigrane, dans lesprit une mme posie spectrale et populaire de la ville. Eloigns des utopies modernistes urbaines contemporaines, ils prennent leur source dans un Paris o seuls les lieux banals et suranns peuvent faire surgir un merveilleux moderne. une nouvelle mythologie moderne urbaine dont les clichs dAtget, dans leur brutalit primitive, fourniraient une des clefs daccs. autant de contenus manifestes, dapparences trompeuses quil convient de dchiffrer mettre au jour un contenu latent, souvent charg de mystre et de percer littralement lombre, lieu de tous les fantasmes Below some pictures by Atget:

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Dali, Le tmoignage photographique la nature intrinsquement fantastique du mdium photographique Pierre Mac Orlan, Masquer sur mesure , 1928 rvlateur dune puissance merceilleuse About the photographs illustrating Andr Bretons Nadja: hallucinations simples Andr Breton about night in Les vases Communicants : la grande nuit qui sait ne faire quun de lordure et la merveille This may refer to Brassais photographs of Paris by night. Below some photographs by Brassa:

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Random quotations: Henri Cartier Bresson p152: laisser lobjectif photographique fouiller dans les gravats de linconscient et du hasard Dali, Mes toiles au salon dautomne , 1927 p219 voir le monde dune manire spirituelle, dans sa plus grande ralit objective Freud: Schaulust = pulsion scopique p220 Andr Breton, Le Surralisme et la peinture p274 Loeil existe ltat sauvage = the eye exists in a savage state (he means that people see things instinctively, the sense of sight does not need to be educated, tamed.) about strange perspectives in Dora Maars collages p275: les dcors sont sombres et composs de perspectives dpraves: une fentre disparat derrire une colonne pour ne jamais reparatre; un couloir

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penche vers la gauche jusqu se tordre; une vote savre la fois concave et convexe selon le point de vue quon adopte. Ainsi les personnages chimriques ont-ils lair derrer dans des espaces qui, par leur contigut et leur htrognit, ne peuvent qutre mentaux. Warped spaces in Dora Maar collages:

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Original Surrealist published material, reprinted Louis Aragon, Du dcor , 1918, p417 Doter dune valeur potique ce qui nen possdait pas encore Robert Desnos, Puissance des fantmes , 1928, p418: a poetic ode to cinema and the power of imagination Ns pour nous, par la grce de la lumire et du cellulod, des fantmes autoritaires sassoient notre ct, dans la nuit des salles de cinma le cinma ne saurait tre que le domaine du fantastique. En vain le ralisme croit-il rgner sur les films . Le merveilleux se manifeste o il veut et, quand il veut, il parat au cinma linsu peut tre de ceux qui lintroduisent. Heureux lhomme soumis ses fantmes. Certes, il connatra des nuits dsertes, dinexplicables nostalgies, des mlancolies infinies, le dsir sans raison, le spleen, limplacable spleen. Mais il remettra la terre sa place parmi les astres et lhomme parmi les cratures. Jamais lor ne le dtournera de son chemin. Jamais un boulet desclave nentravera sa marche. Mieux, tout ce quil dsirera, il lobtiendra par la magie mme de son imagination et les visites mystrieuses charmeront sa solitude. Libre, il agira librement en toute chose et sorti du ddale terrible de ses rves, est-il quelque chose sur terre qui pourrait lpouvanter? [] Initi au fantastique par la seule puissance de la surprise, son esprit connatra bientt la srnit, ne du conflit de son orgueil et de son inquitude. I translate this particular bit because it is very poetic and I like it: Fortunate is the man who submits to his ghosts. Sure, he will be prey to deserted nights, unexplainable nostalgies, infinite melancholies, mindless desire and spleen, the merciless spleen. But he will put the Earth back in its place among the stars, and man among the creatures. Never will gold sway him from his path. Never will he be hindered by a slaves ball and chain. Better, all that he may desire, he will get it by the mere magic of his imagination, and mysterious visits will charm his solitude. Free, he will act freely in all things and, out of the terrible labyrinth of his dreams, is there anything on Earth that could terrify him? [] Initiated into the Fantastic by the mere power of surprise, his mind will soon know serenity, born out of the conflict of his pride and anxiety. Note: ghost = fantme in French = fantasma in Italian (learnt from watching too many Dario Argento subtitled movies and also spanish Fantasme in French = a fantasy in English Fortunate is the man who submits to his ghosts. Im wondering whether there is some kind of pun here about fantme (ghost) -> fantasma fantasme Fortunate is the man who submits to his fantasies. May be worth looking into the latin root of fantasme and fantme Antonin Artaud, Sorcellerie et cinma , 1927, p419 cette espce de griserie physique que communique directement au cerveau la rotation des images cette sorte de puissance virtuelle des images va chercher dans le fond de lesprit des possibilits ce jour inutilises. Le cinma est essentiellement rvlateur de toute une vie occulte avec laquelle il nous met directement en relation. Mais cette vie occulte, il faut savoir la deviner. le cinma [] dgage un peu de cette atmosphre de transe minement favorable certaines rvlations. un certain domaine profond tend affleurer la surface Le cinma me semble surtout fait pour exprimer les choses de la pense, lintrieur de la conscience, et pas tellement par le jeu des images que par quelque chose de plus impondrable qui nous les restitue avec leur nature directe, sans interpositions, sans representations. Le cinma arrive un tournant de la pense humaine, ce moment prcis o le langage us perd son pouvoir de symbole, o lesprit est las du jeu des representations. La pense claire ne nous suffit pas. Elle situe un monde us jusqu lcoeurement. Ce qui est clair est ce qui est immdiatement accessible, mais limmdiatement accessible est ce qui sert dcorce la vie. Cette vie trop connue et qui a perdu tous ses symboles, on commence sapercevoir quelle nest pas toute la vie. I translate this bit because it is crucial: To me, cinema seems to be made to express thoughts, the inside of the consciousness, and not so much through the play of images than through something more fleeting that communicates them to us with their direct nature, without interpositions, without representations. Cinema was discovered at a turning point of human thought, at this very moment when overused language has lost all of its symbolic power, when the mind is weary of the game of representations. Clear thought is not enough. It paints a word overused to nausea. What is clear is what is immediately accessible, but what is immediately accessible is nothing but the mere surface of life. This life that we know too well, that has lost all its symbols, we start to realise that it is not the whole of life.

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Benjamin Fondane Du muet au parlant: grandeur et dcadence du cinma 1930 un nouveau moyen dexpression qui non seulement remplacerait la parole mais la mettrait en chec, soulignerait son creux; exiger dautre part du spectateur une sorte de collaboration, ce minimum de sommeil, dengourdissement ncessaire, pour que ft balay le dcor du signe et que prt forme sa place le rel du rve. Que le spectateur perdit pied, cest tout ce que le cinma voulait. Albert Valentin Eugne Atget, 1856-1927 1928 tout a lair de se passer au-del Le reste est au-del, vous dis-je, dans la marge, dans le filigrane, dans lesprit, la porte du moins perspicace . Brassa Images latentes 1932 juste cette expression images latentes Dali le tmoignage photographique 1929 essentiellement le vhicule le plus sr de la posie percevoir les plus dlicates osmoses qui stablissent entre la ralit et la surralit lenregistrement dune ralit indite Raoul Ubac Lenvers de la face 1942 Une image, et surtout une image photographique, ne donne du rel quun instant de son apparence. Derrire cette mince pellicule qui moule un aspect des choses, lintrieur de cette image il en existe ltat latent une autre, ou plusieurs autres superposes dans le temps et que des oprations le plus souvent dues au hasard dclent brusquement. Jean Goudal Surralisme et cinma 1925 Au cinma comme dans le rve, le fait rgne en matre absolu. Labstraction perd ses droits. Aucune explication ne vient lgitimer les gestes des hros. Les actes succdent aux actes, portent en eux mmes leur justification. Et ils se succdent avec une telle rapidit que nous avons peine le temps dvoquer le commentaire logique qui pourrait les expliquer, ou tout au moins les relier. hallucination consciente cette fusion du rve et de ltat conscient ces images mouvantes nous hallucinent, mais en nous laissant une conscience confuse de notre personnalit et en nous permettant dvoquer, si cest ncessaire, les disponibilits de notre mmoire. Dans le langage, la donne premire est toujours la trame logique. Limage nat propos de cette trame et sy ajoute pour lorner, pour lclairer. Au cinma, la donne premire est limage, qui, loccasion, et point ncessairement, entrane sa suite des lambeaux rationnels. Leave A Comment

Project Proposal draft 1

Posted in Project Proposal, Surrealism with tags Andr Breton, automatic writing, Immaculate Conception, Immacule Conception, Le Paysan de Paris, Louis Aragon, MA Digital Arts Camberwell, madness, Mtaphysique des lieux, Metaphysics of places, Nadja, Paris Peasant, Paul Eluard, Surrealism, Surrealism and cities, Surrealism and Paris on October 11, 2009 by melaniemenardarts

I am writing the first draft of the project proposal for tomorrows chat and will update the latest draft page, as well as in this post so a record of successive drafts is kept. Two interesting research discoveries (need more research in books, as little about it online): - the surrealist concept of Mtaphysique des lieux (Metaphysics of places). Apparently originating from Louis Aragons novel Le Paysan de Paris (The Paris Peasant). It is the reinterpretation of space using imagination. From various critics, the novel highlights the Surrealists ambivalence towards the city, an attitude that distinguish them from other modernist movements such as Futurism or Constructivism who worshipped everything modern (cities and technology). It seems there are more complex things to be dug up than the love for Paris one usually reads about in introductions to Surrealism. It is definitely a concept I need to research as it relates to my interest in exploring backward and rural places. I only have second hand comments about the book, so cannot write much about it yet. Paris Peasant seems to be the key text about ambivalence towards cities, and possibly some bits from Bretons Nadja in a lesser measure. - In 1930, Andr Breton and Paul Eluard wrote a collaborative poem Limmacule Conception (Immaculate Conception). They had studied various psychiatric textbooks and real writings from mentally ill people, and attempted to put themselves in a state of simulated madness before using automatic writing to produce texts similar to the ones written by real patients. They wrote a couple of texts simulating various mental conditions. The goal of the experiment was to prove the line was very thin between the normal and insane mind, and the possibility of madness was present in any mind. I feel this experiment relates to my two installation ideas: the autistic box simulating the experience of a self-sufficient inner world, and the installation simulating the feeling of being lost in order to create disquiet in the viewer. ************************************************************************ I was not yet able to write a proper proposal. I need to read more things in order to have a clearer idea. What Ive done is reread everything Ive written in this blog (and on random notes), isolate what I think are the most importance concepts, and sort them in order to fill the different sections of the project proposal. I did not try to write an organised text at this point. I was not able to find anything for paralell theory, and did not write anything for methodology. I think I am not sure what should be in methodology: it seemed like a mix of generative theory and outcome to me. Working title Outer space/inner worlds : borders, invasions, warfare tactics. Aims (1 or 2) + objectives (6) Research the way our subconscious reinvents reality and our surroundings. the various dynamics between the outer world and the individuals inner worlds.

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- the subjective perception of things around us. using photography and video, media ironically considered documentary and objective - the surrealists said cinema was like dream made physical. explore the possibilities of video to make dreams/inner worlds (mine or from imagined characters) real and share them with others. Especially immersive video installations can create more real feelings than just video on a screen. explore than as way to engage in a deeper level of communication with the audience. - how private space is a physical projection of the occupiers inner world (both liberating and oppressing projections) - the house and more generally private space and its importance for the intellectual freedom of individuals - as a consequence, tactics of controlling individualsminds by manipulating the private space available to them. madness/sanity border questioned from an external viewpoint: i.e. undesirable but sane people locked up to get rid of them (political illness) - coping tactics developed by individuals in response to that. madness/sanity border question from a more internal viewpoint: i.e. alienation slowly becoming madness, where exactly is the border ? mental escape (fugues) to avoid unpleasant things. Context Historical Above all Surrealism and its aim to reconcile the accepted reality with the individuals imagination, in order to reach a superior reality, encompassing more levels of perception especially: dreamscape paintings, wandering and metaphysics of space, simulation of madness. 19th century visionaries such as Blake Dada and its critic of the absurdity of modern life German expressionist cinema, and its interest in madness Antipsychiatry philosophers Urban exploration and psychogeography within situationnism and beyond Cinema exploring consciousness (Lynch, Bergman, Polanski etc ) Contemporary Contemporary art aiming to reclaim public space, it is usually performance art. For example: it is forbidden to take photographs in malls, and some outdoor city centre streets are sold for private use because they mostly contain shops. Simon Pulters projections on the Houses of Parliaments and the white cube gallery. Modern psychogeographers such as Iain Sinclair. David Lynch Critical theory The surrealist concern of Art not being made exclusively for the cultural elite to discuss it between themselves, but open to everyone. This has nothing to do with paternalist attitude of making simple art (such as social realism) , but making Art that is open to be enjoyed on different levels. The key to that is that Art refers to Life (Ado Kyrou against the Auteur cinema) not just previously made art, so that a person without cultural reference can enjoy the piece relating to their life experience. Obviously, because previously made art is a very important part of an artists own life, the piece will be influenced by various art references. This is OK as long as it is just an innocent reflection of the artists love for previous art, not a way of testing the cultural knowledge of the audience. The same way, politics are part of life, so most artworks will have some political connotations to them. If the artist is concerned with a political issue, they will naturally express it in their Art. But a piece should not be made solely to advertise a political idea. Art is not propaganda or advertising. Art should engage the audience into thinking for themselves, not tell them what to think. Parallel theory Maybe contemporary, much more moderate versions of antipsychiatry sush as the people who criticise the hegemony of cognitive behavioural therapy in contemporary mental health systems ? Generative Theory Automatism: -unstaged compositions -used of pictures seen in dreams/visions without attempting to find out what they mean and without modifying them artificially in order to make them fit a model. Methodology collect photographs and footage from derelict places, and more generally strange places (Freuds the uncanny) 1) for some pieces, these collected images (after processing and editing) are the artwork in itself 2) for other pieces, they cause an idea association in me and I need to create artificial images (from scratch) to make a physical representation, and edit them in 3) for other pieces I have an inner vision (i.e. dream) and Im aiming to make it real. so I either go out and find real things that fit it, ot if they dont exist, I create images from scratch maybe it is 1) the outside invading the inside 3) the inside invading the outside 2) the time/place where they clash, where the border is. Im not sure about this yet Outcome Photographs Videos Immersive video installations. Work plan ? Leave A Comment

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Surrealism and Paris Inner Worlds / Outer Space

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