Sunday, January 15, 2012

worrying away at wilding

well. I've got a lot better at Rhino...
Have generated incremental values for the upper sheet assuming a base sheet of 11. Need to print that out in the morning.
Have also generated incremental values for density of 11 lines per cm - will print those out too.
Then I will be in a position to work out which upper sheets to put through the density variation exercise.
wondering whether to do that now....
no!
;-)

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

wilding wonders

well
today I have learnt that the optimum relationship to give strong depth illusion is...
if the spacing of the lines on the top layer is 13% denser than those on the bottom layer, the lines appear to rise
if the spacing of the lines on the top layer is 13% denser than those on the bottom layer, the lines appear to fall away
however, a key difference seems to be in the overall density or tone given by the lines in the top layer relative to the density of the lines in the bottom layer. I should be able to check that in Photoshop...

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

thoughts

wondering about the idea of resonance in the void, space, vacuum - wondering about the sounds of the spaces inside the body - the gurgling and burbling of the stomach- the crunching in the jaw, the beating of the heart - the first sounds we hear.
Wondering about the way that the spaces inside the ear capture - and extrapolate sound - is it the shape of the empy space itself - or the quality of the material that frames the void that makes the sound? its tension and texture - or the thing that disturbs or 'makes waves'...
sounds exist in water as well as in sound - our ears are just not designed to hear them - but if we could, would cell division or apophyis make a sound?
and what about the idea of waves or frequencies - when light becomes visible and invisible - and when sound becomes audible and inaudible
and what about the idea that the body is always in a performance / activity in sensing sound and sight

and what about the idea that the modernist aesthetic arose from the horror of war - the way that 'sentimental' narratives, passion, can lead to terrible destruction - wonder if it is any coincidence that the formalist traditions came from Germany?

wonder if we are going through a similar implosion with a feeling of insecurity, the loss of the material

Sunday, January 8, 2012

more references

http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/postmodernism.html
http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html

references

lots of things to think about and to follow up
some notes are below

References 
1) Gerald Oster and Yasunori Nishijima, "Moiré Patterns," Scientific American, May 1963, pg 54. 
2) Gerald Oster, Mark Wasserman, and Craig Zwerling, "Theoretical Interpretation of Moiré Patterns," Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol 54, No 2, Feb 1964, pg 169. 
3) Milton Stecher, "The Moiré Phenomenon," American Journal of Physics, Vol 32, No 4, Apr 1964, pg 247. 
4) Gerald Oster, "Moiré Optics: A Bibliography," Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol 55, Oct 1965, pg 1329. 
5) "Who was Moiré?," Applied Optics, Vol 7, No 4, Apr 1968, pg 625. 
6) Bliss, Sands & Co., The Magic Moving Picture Book, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1975. 
7) Jearl Walker, "Moiré Effects, the Kaleidoscope and Other Victorian Diversions," Scientific American, Dec 1978, pg 182.

catalogues for...
 "L'oeil Moteur, art optique et cinetique 1960-1975 (Musee D'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France, 2005); "Op Art" (Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany, 2007); "The Optical Edge" (The Pratt Institute of Art, New York, 2007); "Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s" (Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, 2007).
also find
Other artists associated with Op-Art include: Yaacov Agam, Josef Albers, Richard Allen, Getulio Alviani, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Tony DeLap, Gunter Fruhtrunk, Julio Le Parc, John McHale, Youri Messen-Jaschin, Reginald H. Neal, Bridget Riley, Jesus Rafael Soto, Julian Stanczak, Günther Uecker, Ludwig Wilding, and Marian Zazeela. 

On 6 January 2012 17:08, Shelley James <shelley.james@network.rca.ac.uk> wrote:


thoughts on music

the conference yesterday got me wondering about the similarities between arts and music research - there were so many questions that seem to have some common ground -

  • the idea of the need (or not) for the source of a work to be apparent 
  • the role of the maker / composer in transforming, assembling or framing 'raw materials' (sound, noise...) to present a narrative or  perspective
  • the role of the composer and the performer in creating - and recreating the work - wonder whether this could be analagous to the relationship between the maker and the viewer in contemporary / post modern practice where the beholder is central to constructing meaning
  •  whether the gallery or curator could be seen as analagous to that of the promoter of the concert hall in selecting and presenting work in a form or product that is understood by a 'consuming' public
  • the tension between technique and emotion in judging the quality (or dramaturgical impact?) of a work
  • the problem for researchers by practice of the balance between publication and performance or exhibition
  • the question of the need (or not) to set up situations where normal or natural ways of working with a tool or instrument are subverted or challenged in some way
  • the question of where the image or the sound exists - an intellectual or physical / phenomenological experience, both for the performer / maker and for the audience - Schaefferian analysis...?
  • the question of narrative in a piece of music (and  in a piece of work)-  whether notes on the process of producing a work (such as a graphic score or directions for installation) are art works in their own right
  • the problem of documenting a performance or the experience of seeing / being with an art work that may traditionally have been created with an emphasis on one sensory mode (the eye or the ear) but is increasingly being presented / curated as a multisensory (time-based?) work
  • the shift from narrative to abstract aesthetic ideals- perhaps from the particular to the 'essential'


on wilding

Some notes, mostly taken from the website of the Aras gallery (http://www.arasgallery.com/profile.php?id=49)

Wilding was a German, born in a small town called Grunsdtadt (Greenstate?) in the Rhine (south west Germany) in 1927. It looks like a small industrial town in the wine growing region that had an especially large Jewish community that was completely obliterated by the Nazi persecution - note in Wikipedia mentions a memorial service held in Grunstadt in 2007 to commemorate the victims of Kristallnacht, August 1933. I wonder how that affected Wilding? - perhaps explains some of his interest in art as a 'democratic' phenomenon?

He studied History of Art at the Academy of Arts in Maintz (called Magonza in the Aras note, the Spanish name for the town). Maintz is also in the Rhine region, not far from Grundstadt - interesting because as well as a big wine-growing reputation (founder of French champagne house Krug was born there). the town is also centre of the glass company Schott and chemical factory Werner and Mertz.

The Aras gallery notes that he also attended courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart to the south. It looks as though this is a place where a number of big names in early op art / geometric abstraction were teaching or studying - the Art School website notes Adolf Hoelzel, Willi Baumeister, Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer.

Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer seem to have been celebrated artists of the Bauhaus movement - started by Walter Gropius in 1919 and formally ended in the 1930's - although probably still influential in Wilding's time. Based in Weimar and then moved to Dessau - northern Germany. for citation, use Griffith Winton, Alexandra. "The Bauhaus, 1919–1933". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm (August 2007)

the basic idea was to integrate art and design and production, to 'dematerialise' traditional forms and reduce them to their essence.

Itten did teach in Stuttgart but had moved on by then to Vienna. but his theory of contrast seems relevant
'Itten developed a general theory of contrast, the main theme of which was the "clair / obscure contrast", as the basis for this course (at the Bauhaus). This was treated in various assignments: first in the form of checker-board patterns, then in abstract and finally in realistic works. Classical pictures were also analysed with the same aim in mind. By dividing it up into squares, the student was induced to work through the entire area of the picture with awareness, and to make a new decision each time regarding the respective grey value.http://froebelweb.tripod.com/web2018.html'

Wilding was taught in Stuttgart by Willi Baumeister - clearly a very influential figure on the German scene just after the war when Wilding was getting started: Baumeister died in 1955, but In 1949 he became the co-founder of the artist group Gegenstandlose (The Group of Nonrepresentational Artists), which threw its first exhibition called ZEN 49 in 1950. see http://www.willi-baumeister.com/
He sounds like an incredibly inspiring artist and individual - for more, see

May also be worth looking at Hans Sedlmayr's thesis of a “loss of the center” (“Verlust der Mitte”). Art in Crisis: The Lost Center- Hans Sedlmayr, Art In Crisis: The Lost Center (New Brunswick, 2006 [1948/1957]). ISBN 1412806070