MEDI 126 (Media Cultures - Presentation)

RUDOLF SCHWARZKOGLER

Background:

He saw his life as a priesthood with an artistic articulation"- Heinz Cibulka about Schwarzkogler

•  Rudolf Schwarzkogler was an Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese Actionism group that included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Hermann Nitsch. 
  

•  He is best known today for photographs depicting his series of closely controlled "Aktionen" featuring such iconography as a dead fish, a dead chicken, bare light bulbs, coloured liquids, bound objects, and a man wrapped in gauze. The enduring themes of Scwarzkogler's works involved experience of pain and mutilation, often in an incongruous clinical context, such as 3rd Aktion (1965) in which a patient's head enswathed in bandages is being pierced by what appears to be a corkscrew, producing a bloodstain under the bandages. They reflect a message of despair at the disappointments and hurtfulness of the world.
  

•  There is a myth that Schwarzkogler died by slicing off his penis during a performance. (The castration themes in some of his aktions — for example, in Aktion 2 he posed with a sliced open fish covering his groin — may have helped to fuel this myth. Ironically, the protagonist of this aktion was not even Schwarzkogler himself but rather a friend and model by the name of Hans Cibulka.)
  

• In reality Schwarzkogler died when he either fell or leapt from a window, possibly with the desire to emulate Yves Klein's 'Leap into the Void'
  

His influences:

• The Grand Guignol as a possibility? - From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, specialized in naturalistic horror shows. The name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment. –Since it is suggested that his works were not actual harm but more elaborate stage shows that were faked
  

• The theatre, who's actors were primarily homeless people, street criminals and prostitutes, specialised in recreating graphic scenes of disembowelment using nothing other than exceptionally well conducted live effects.
  

• The Grande Guignol closed its doors for the last time in 1962, shortly before Rudolf gained notoriety for his work. Also he himself visited it as a child and one scene bares remarkable resemblance to his works.

Possible links to Jewish death camps (AKTION):

• The term Aktion Reinhard was the code name for the extermination of Polish Jewry in the Generalgouvernement during the years 1942 and 1943. It should be noted that there were many different variations of this term, including Einsatz Reinhardt, Sondereinsatz Reinhardt, and Aktion Reinhard.

• Rudolf himself sighted the holocaust as one of his primary influences.

In depth look at the ‘Crystals and Fish’ performance:

• Along with Günter Brus and Hermann Nitsch, Schwarzkogler was among the leading artists associated with Vienna Actionism, a movement centred around anarchic, often violent and sexually charged performances that flouted the repressive socio-political conventions of post-war Austrian culture.
  

•  Hochzeit, the first of Schwarzkogler's actions, was performed on February 6, 1965, for a handful of friends and the camera (all of his subsequent actions were performed exclusively for the camera).
  

•  Standing before a table covered with a white tablecloth and accompanied by Gregorian chants, Schwarzkogler played the role of shaman/priest/alchemist, performing his private ritual with dead fish, a dead chicken, various animal organs, eggs, coloured liquids, a knife, and scissors.

Herman Nitsch’s background:

• In 1957, Hermann Nitsch’s idea for a radical theatre was conceived, which he called the Orgien Mysterien Theater. The O.M. Theatre took its shape from ideas about Aristotelian catharsis, Freudian psychology, conventional theatre, and Dionysic orgy. It is an attempt to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, a ’total art’, or mystical experience that involves all the senses. 
  

• The first performances of the O. M. Theatre consisted of Hermann Nitsch and friends using animal carcasses, entrails, and blood in a ritualistic way. The cloths, bandages and other fabrics used in these performances introduced Nitsch to the idea of making paintings. 1960 saw the first exhibition of his 'Aktion' paintings in Vienna. In the mid-60's Nitsch’s theatre pieces were also performed in Vienna. 

Collaboration: Nitsch + Rudolf:

•  Not only did Nitsch and Rudolf collaborate but also in the Vienna Actionists were Gunter Brus and Otto Muehl. 
  

• This groups work all has the same shocking themes and even common styles can be seen between them. Between them they made movies and art and gave performances that were then photographed with those photo graphs becoming art in their own right.

Artists from the 1960’s and how they compare and contrast:

•  Gustav Metzger -led a movement in the 60's called the auto destructive art movement
  

•  This could have been either as a result of / in inspiration to or just the same school of thought as Rudolf. 
  

•  They bare similar themes of destruction and although Metzger's work is not as shocking it carries the same destructive and anarchic feel.

Artists from the 1960’s and how they compare and contrast: 

•  Roy Lichtenstein (October27, 1923 -September 29, 1997) 
  

• A very light hearted artist, prolific with pop art and reflecting popular culture. Very outro-spective  as opposed to the strong contrast of Rudolf’s work.  

 Movements and music from the 1960’s and how they compare and contrast:

•  The ‘New Age’ movement - characterized by an individual approach to spiritual practices and philosophies, and the rejection of religious doctrine and dogma.
  

•  The Hippy movement –basically just expanded upon the new age movement turning it into a specific subculture.  
  

•  Psychedelic rock -is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among garage and folk rock bands in Britain and the United States.

Chris Burdens –The links of destructive performance: 

• Chris Burden filmed himself being shot with his own gun. 
  

• This work ties in with the aspect of the shocking destructive performance.
  

•  Rudolf's work was influential to this. 

Link to his video "Shoot"

What Schwarzkogler wants the viewer to experience:... 

• His work was, in the 1960’s, part of the Vienna actionist movement, and although he was the least publicised at the time, his work was just as interesting in the context of art then. The Americans were beginning to look at consumerist culture, commenting on the economy and broadening the spectrum of fine art into graphics, typography and illustration. His work, by contrast, is focused internally, on what it is to be human rather than what humans create around them. 
  

• In the modern day Schzarzkogler’s pieces still invoke a sense of horror and invite you to recoil, but with Damien Hirst displaying dissected animals we are becoming accustomed to facing death and horror in contemporary artwork. Perhaps his work would not be as affective or controversial now, or maybe art has come full circle and now Artists like Hirst are finding new ways of furthering his concepts.

My  interpretation:

• When I first saw the pictures I was gripped. They are compelling a nasty way. The sort of ‘cant take your eyes off’ reaction of a car crash. 
  

• Also it sickened me because originally we thought that he had actually done these things for real and taken pictures of them. 

• Research however seems to indicate that it is staged which is both a relief and a let down. 
  

•  It takes away some of the shock factor that was at first so compelling for me. I still however think the images are very unsettling.

Conclusion: 

•  Artists have defined the experience of Art as the ‘act of looking’, the emotional state induced by visual/auditory stimulus and the disruption seeded by causing debate and argument. 
  

•  Schwarzkogler’s work certainly encompasses all of these elements and as such is a good example of mid-late 20th century fine art. The experience of art work has changed since the early 90’s, leaving the gallery space and branching into our day-to-day lives; in some ways Schwarzkogler’s work pre-empts this. 
  

•  In all but his first performance piece he performed for no one but the camera, his environment totally controlled and only guessed at by the art critics and observers.
  

• He used this medium of presentation to limit the experience and focus the mind on the subject matter and the process instead of the locale of the work. 
  

• This lends it a timeless and consistently ‘real’ feel that stimulates even the most placid mind that happens to gaze upon his explorations of masochism, death, brutality and morality within the human condition.

(This is the text and images from my groups presentation. I have left out some images and information I didn't deem apropriate however.)

MEDI 118 (Story Breakdown)

Personal story action / event breakdown:

Opens to a mass of people, focus is on main character fighting her way through the battle dodging to not be hit. Main character is of a larger than average build yet seems to notice the physical exertion of her running.  She is searching for something
The camera dips violently to match her as it pulls back up with her dragging a man in a tartan kilt up off the ground.

She gets the man to his feet and places her hand on his chest and chants as she drags him back. “By the grace of Bronwyn I cure your wounds” She chants this around four times.  One they are out of the battle a little way she stops and he gets to his feet; thanks her and heads back into the battle, close up of her face with an expression of slight sadness and guilt.

Panning shot from her POV of vast rolling green fields broken here and there by trees and also a lake in the distance.  You can hear her sigh in a contented manner but then the camera snaps back to look at the battle and again panning shot in her POV.

A Skinny man in a white shirt with the sleeves ripped off and his arms covered in a spiralling woad pattern walks up panting and puffing.  “I think you better look at this Fionn, it feels broken” He flops his left arm at her to further show her it’s broken. 

The girl walks up to and places her hand on him mumbling a few words and then nods.  “Sorry Eric... All healers low on power have been given the order to save it for fatal wounds... I only really have about two shots left.”   She has a look of extreme guilt and shrugs when she says this. However she then picks up a booklet looking thing from around her neck and opens it to show him two blue cards and a load of others ripped halfway up. He nods with an understanding expression.

She looks for a moment at his two handed axe and frowns.
“Your arms broken so you can’t use it. Take my stick and I will swap you your short swords, you can have more range that way.” She wiggles her left hip towards him where the stick in a leather holder. He does so. 
He looks shocked when she very quickly unsheathes both short swords faster than he could react too.
She sticks her finger in the air and he follows suit. She leans in and says “I’m really bored and I want to hit go hit things, Fionn has had enough she can be angry now she’s not much use as a healer anymore. “ 
They then put their fingers down and each nod and dart into the battle in separate directions.
Close up of her face smiling.

Ends on a dream type sequence / thought bubble of her at a campfire at night laughing and drinking. 

Note: Music is very fantasy-like apart from where they have fingers in the air.

Note: The weapons are latex throughout.  

MEDI 127 (Black and White Photography Critical Evaluation)

Critical Evaluation:

For my black and white photography project I eventually chose to go with a theme on my experiences of Plymouth and although I had a lot of ideas I wanted to do none were feasible due to technical errors. The first idea I had was to focus on the struggle or balance of nature and manmade but there is also manmade nature to consider in this and although I wasn’t able to cover it in the detail I wanted it is still prevalent in my work as a whole. The second idea I had was based on lyrics from a song and in specific “Hear the call of your ancestors of blood and bone, of womb and tomb and standing stone” It’s a very haunting song and one that I like and I have written in my workbook was all shot on the film that didn’t develop with a pregnant friend of mine even offering her belly as the’ womb’ and I do have the particular shot that I wished to represent the standing stones although the enlarger didn’t seem to work for me and it kept going blurry as I enlarged. It was gutting when the film didn’t develop because all of my best ideas were on it. Also I had the idea of doing a photo series all about my ‘pet skull’ Marv.  I took a lot of shots with him in funny and odd places around Plymouth. Sadly of all my ideas fell through however I am overall pleased with the shots I have. I have never used a wet dark room before and due to the printer in dry dark room breaking I have had to use the wet dark room for nearly all of my prints. Also no one actually showed us how to use the wet dark room so I’m really pleased I actually got any prints at all. I would like to have a better grasp of all the technical equipment and I do still feel like a novice but I feel I have done very well considering I have no prior experience in anything like this before.  I should really in hindsight have shot much more film. I’m pleased mostly with the compositions of my shots but there is always room for improvement. I have enjoyed using the SLR cameras and feel that I have picked them up fairly quickly. Overall I have enjoyed this project but think that with a better grasp of the equipment involved I could have done better. Most of the pictures had an average exposure time ranging form about twelve to fifteen minuets and also the black and white filtration of the pictures ranged from three to around four. I feel this project went well but I need more technical awareness of the apparatus I also need to ensure I have enough film to shoot my ideas again if the film doesn’t develop, as stated in my workbook I believe the issues to have been camera side but there is no way of knowing.

MEDI 114 (Subverting Image: Critical Evaluation)

Critical Evaluation:

We chose to focus in specific on the weight issue within the modelling and celebrity world. We did extensive research on our subject and collated it into a presentation. I started off the project with researching ‘Twiggy’ because her appearance in the fashion industry not only changed the way fashion lovers imagine a perfect model, but it also changed the general understanding of how  a woman, should look like; replacing the curvy pin up girl with a thinner look. This spiralled vastly out of control and as a result the media and especially the modelling industry is rife with eating disordered and has sparked a very startling trend of anorexia with many young girls making ‘Thinsperation’ videos and aspiring to be like models and celebs. The question of how thin is too thin has been prevalent since Kate Moss made her modelling debut 20 years ago, ushering in an era of "heroin chic." In 2006, at least two models died from complications linked to eating disorders, which prompted some in Europe to try to ban skinny models from the runway. Kate Moss herself is cited to encourage the skinny trend coining and using a new ‘buzzword’ of ‘rexy’ a combination of anorexic and sexy as a positive affirmation of how thin her and her friends look. Other models and celebs yet still follow this trend with increasing fervour, with many teen models confessing that they starve themselves, purge or use diet pills. We had a huge amount of ideas including having models peeling off their skin to symbolise that she is losing herself in the quest to be thin. Also we had ideas such as an Image of a model with bones exposed –to emphasize upon the thin look being unhealthy. There were also some ideas we had that we dismissed fairly quickly like having a mass production line of models and photoshoping their heads on Barbies but we wanted to focus on anorexia. We did produce our idea of photo shopping Victoria Beckam into the picture of Venus and although the image looks really good we feared that it may be pitched over the heads of the general public, the image can really be viewed and interpreted in one of two ways. The way we did not want it interpreted was in a positive light that we feared was all too easy to do. I think that it would require a vast amount of editing to make our point and even then I fear it may not. In the end we decided to go with an idea inspired mainly by the quotes "There is no torture that a woman would not endure to enhance her beauty” -Montagne. Our final idea is based on the quote “The resulting hallucination materializes for women as something all too real. No longer just an idea, it becomes three-dimensional, incorporating within itself how women live and how they do not live: it becomes the iron Maiden.” So we did a huge amount of research on said iron maiden and decided to combine it with an anorexic model for a very shocking image.  We could have possibly been more adventurous with Photoshop but I wouldn’t really change the image since it’s very shocking and proves its point. Our group all worked really well together and it was a pleasure to work with them, I really enjoyed this project.

MEDI 114 (Subverting Image: Final Image)

MEDI 111 (Black and White Photography)

Ok so the photo project isn’t going to badly, it could be going better but due to technical issues such as an entire film not developing and the dry dark room not working it’s not been as smooth as I would have liked.  So we shall start with the film that didn’t develop, it could have been for any reason that it didn’t however  I do think it may have been a small error camera side as opposed to actually developing the film. For that film I had a lot of good ideas and would have gotten a lot of good shots.

The Ideas: Basically I was sitting drinking tea (as I often do) when I noticed my ‘pet skull’ Marvin sitting on my desk. He was a Halloween decoration that I brought a few years back now and is just so full of character that he has never really been put away, he is also a firm favourite with my friends and frankly you need a skull on your desk in case the urge to quote Shakespeare takes you!  So anyway I had the idea to take Marv out and have a photo shoot with him, placing him in trees and on pavements as sort of an account of his wild adventures in Plymouth. Sadly only one of these photos was on the reel that developed. The print came out really well in my opinion too. 
Idea two came to me in a very odd way. I already have the print of the ‘tomb’ that I simply adore because of its ambiguity and a song went through my head all day during the shoot. It’s called ‘Caldron Born’ by Damh the Bard and the main line that was going through my head all day was “Hear the call of our ancestors of blood and bone, of womb and tomb and standing stone” I already had the shots of the ‘tomb’ and there were plenty of nice ‘standing stones’ in Plymouth that I would have had really nice shots of if they had of developed. The main thing I wondered about was what I could use for the ‘womb’ of the piece. It was at that exact time that my pregnant friend just happened to bump into me! What better way to showcase a womb than a pregnant belly? She agreed to let me take pictures and it’s a huge shame that the film didn’t develop because she would have loved some prints for herself. I’m not to heartbroken I couldn’t go with this idea though since it’s always a reserve and I’m not entirely sure it fits the brief.

Main Idea now: I have some nice and fairly nature based pictures of Plymouth. I have decided to follow the original take on the brief and just make it about the personal way that I view and experience Plymouth. This obviously includes some of my prior ideas of mysticism, spirituality and ambiguity because that is the way I perceive things and part of what makes me who I am, also included is contrast between manmade and the natural world because that’s something I consider important.

Technical side of things: It’s really soul destroying when films don’t develop so that has been a massive down point for me. However seeing my prints turn out fine has been a huge thrill. Especially so in the wet dark room because no one has shown us how to use it really, I’m proud that I have been able to print in there and using it has been immensely fun! Seeing the prints show up after you have exposed them is just so incredibly satisfying and although it’s a very lengthy process it’s well worth it to see your prints appear like magic on the paper. 

MEDI 114 (Subverting Images: The Presentation)

Subverting Images

Representation of women in the media

Origins:

• A lot of our group for the prior project did work based on Twiggy.
• She was the first model to start off the skinny craze
• She is naturally this thin however nowadays most models go to great lengths to emulate this 

 The thin model debate:

•  As a new model at 15, Coco Rocha said she went to Singapore and lost 10 pounds in six weeks. When she returned to the U.S. she was so obsessed with food, she beat herself up over eating an apple.
• "I'll never forget the piece of advice I got from people in the industry when they saw my new body," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "They said, 'You need to lose more weight. The look this year is anorexia. We don't want you to be anorexic but that's what we want you to look like."
  
• Rocha is one of the few models to speak out about the issue, even as ultra-thin models find their way into pro-anorexia "Thinspiration" videos. The question isn't just about model health; it's about who will win the hearts and minds of the teenagers and young girls who look up to them.
• "Thin is going to be the ruling look until someone says, 'I want voluptuous,'" said Fish. "I don't know if that ever is going to come back."

 Ideas we had…

We had a lot of initial ideas about what to do. None of us liked the way women are portrayed in the media and found some shocking things when researching into the subject. Our Ideas are as follows:

•  Image of a model with bones exposed –to emphasize upon the thin look being unhealthy.
•  Image of a model in an out of context house wife situation –to show the unrealistic idea of beauty and irrelevance in day to day life.
• Image of a model peeling  layers of her skin away –to show that she is loosing herself in the quest for perfection.
•  Birth of Venus idea –To show the changing attitudes towards beauty.
•  The Iron maiden idea –which is the one we finally picked.   

Venus in detail:

•  For a long time we toyed with the idea of using the Birth of Venus as a basis for subversion.
• The Birth of Venus depicts a fairly curvy healthy looking woman that was obviously the idea of ideal beauty in that time.
•  We chose to pick a famous thin person that was iconized as perfect by the media and settled on Victoria Beckham
•  Although the image itself is good we were worried that it might not reflect the statement we wanted to make and may be pitched over the heads of some of the general public.
•  Although its good its just not shocking enough.  

Back to phase one:

•  We then had to pick a new idea and direction.
•  We did some more research and came up with the idea that it is torture for most women to achieve a skinny body.
• We found that anorexia and problems related to it were very common in the modeling world and also in the world at large with extreme cases of diets leaving women brain damaged
•  Women world wide are literally DYING to be thin.
•  "There is no torture that a woman would not endure to enhance her beauty” –Montagne   

Our final Idea:

• Our final idea is based on the quote “The resulting hallucination* materializes for women as something all to real. No longer just an idea, it becomes three-dimensional, incorporating within itself how women live and how they do not live: it becomes the iron Maiden”
•  * the beauty stereotype promoted by media = a hallucination
•  So we decided to use the iron maiden as we liked its imagery and symbolism. 

The Iron maiden:

• An iron maiden is a torture device, usually an iron cabinet, with a hinged front. It has a small closable opening so that the torturer can interrogate the victim and torture or kill a person by piercing the body with sharp objects (such as knives, spikes or nails), while he or she is forced to remain standing.
•  The condemned would bleed profusely and weaken slowly, eventually dying because of blood loss, or perhaps asphyxiation. It would be a very slow horrible death!
•  They were often used for religious conversion torture and we liked the metaphor of this since being thin is fast become religion like in and of itself with a very fanatical following. 

The final Image:

• The way it is styled looks slightly like a motivational poster and we liked this idea.
• We added the words “Dying to be thin?” as an extra statement
• We think it would work without the words but wanted to make it have that much more of  an impact.
• The model we used is an anorexic girl that is not a celebrity. We chose a normal person for the shock factor that this could be anyone however we feel its clear she is a model
• We also decided to crop the picture and open the iron maiden to draw the focus primarily towards the spikes.   

That is all the content of my groups presentation.

MEDI 114 (Subverting Images)

I started of the project with researching ‘Twiggy’ because her appearance in the fashion industry not only changed the way fashion lovers imagine a perfect model, but it also changed the general understanding of how a girl, or a woman, should look like; replacing the curvy pin up girl with a thinner look. This spiralled vastly out of control and as a result the media and especially the modelling industry is rife with eating disordered and has sparked a very startling trend of anorexia with many young girls making ‘Thinsperation’ videos and aspiring to be like models and celebs.
The question of how thin is too thin has been prevalent since Kate Moss made her modeling debut 20 years ago, ushering in an era of "heroin chic." In 2006, at least two models died from complications linked to eating disorders, which prompted some in Europe to try to ban skinny models from the runway. Kate Moss herself is cited to encourage the skinny trend coining and using a new ‘buzzword’ of ‘rexy’ a combination of anorexic and sexy as a positive affirmation of how thin her and her friends look. Other models and celebs yet still follow this trend with increasing fervor, with many teen models confessing that they starve themselves, purge or use diet pills.

Some examples of thinsperation videos:
Thinsperation pretty in pain
Thinsperation -Perfect