Pekka Niittyvirta (Artist) 1/31/11

Work

Pekka Niittyvirta Paris Hilton (Dog Chromosome X, Poodle) C-Print, Diasec 2010
*Image is created by inserting genetic data (dogs chromosome X) to the source code of digital image file.

Pekka Niittyvirta Broken Idyl (Bridge) C-Print, Diasec 2008
*Image is modified by insertion of phrases from the propaganda newspaper New Light Of Myanmar to the digital image file's source code.

Pekka Niittyvirta Ghost C-Print 2007
*Image is a result of cultivating plant seeds on film surface. The process takes place in total darkness. The film has not been developed.

Pekka Niittyvirta Spamworks #1 Amber C-Print, Diasec 2010
*Image is originally attachment from junk mail (Viagra, Porn etc.) The average colour of the image has been calculated and then colour opacity reduced to 99%.



Bio

Pekka Niittyvirta is a Finnish artist working mainly in lens-based media. His work often takes form using unconventional processes and methods of production, offshooting from a photographic basis. In his series, "Spamworks," Niittyvirta applies a process of color averaging and opacity changes to virtual spam advertisements, rendering them unidentifiable and eerily similar to one another. (The process turns the spam into various muted solid colors.) Niittyvirta's work mostly functions as "photographic" representations of a process that is often representational of social, political or biological concepts, which share a common connection to the medium of photography; sometimes digital and other times analog.


Quotations

"Critic Anu Uimonen from Helsingin Sanomat (the premier daily Finnish language newspaper), notes that Niittyvirta manages to create an atmosphere of mystery , which awake both questions and stories in viewers mind. She sees in the work the strangeness of manmade environment, especially where it meets nature."

Photographic Gallery Hippolyte

"Niittyvirta's creative work contains a very strong dimension of improvisation and intuition. His extensive production does consist not only of the various photographic works but instead reaches out far beyond his main tool - the camera."

http://www.niittyvirta.com/texts.html

Relates

Niittyvirta's work relates, at times, almost directly to mine. In his series, "Corrupted," Niittyvirta uses a similar process of manipulating image source code with information related to the concept of the image. He uses biological information, like I do, but also includes texts, words, and other information, commenting on social and scientific issues in the modern world. The result is also similar (digital disruption of the image and file degradation.) Niittyvirta's images are either partly or wholly altered with this process. The differences I noticed between my work and that of Niittyvirta lie in the subjects and concept behind the process. My series is more focused in a certain arena of genetic and biological alteration, whereas his takes more of a pop-culture/social stance.


Interview

http://iheartphotograph.blogspot.com/2011/01/pekka-niittyvirta.html


Gallery

Photographic Gallery Hippolyte
http://www.hippolyte.fi/en/


Website

http://www.niittyvirta.com/index.html

Alexandre Singh (Lecture Response) 11/17/10

Quotation

"Manhole mayonnaise"

This quote summed up Singh's performance to me. His performance, for me, was less about the individual things he was referencing, and more about the general theme to the presentation, free association. The premise was about dreaming and started with the act of free association in one's sleep, and then stemmed into a myriad of directions based on the different types of associations able to be made between, around, through, etc two separate "objects." Manhole mayonnaise is very important to the point of Singh's work, because, at first it sounds nonsensical and then various associations can be found, no matter "how many words are required" for such associations to be "talked about."


3 Words

1) Performative
2) Narrative
3) Intellectual


About Singh

An interesting thing I learned about Alexandre Singh that I didn't already know is how diverse his education is and therefore, experience and knowledge of cultural idiosyncrasies. He was born in France, brought up in England, and educated at the School of Visual Arts in New York. This diversity reflects on his performances, because he actually is able to tailor them to the specific audience to which he is performing. For example, he can use Florida in his associations because the audience yesterday would be able to catch on to his quick references to Floridian history and popular culture. This, in itself is a sign of complete knowledge and dominance over his work, because he is able to accurately manipulate it this way or that. Also, it shows his sheer capacity for absorbing so many complexities of multiple cultures.


Answers to Questions

1) My first question regarded the importance of the viewer in Singh's installations and performances. I gathered from the lecture the audience is meant to be an audience, qualifying the piece as a performance. "People enjoyed me speaking at them about the work." Singh is an artist as well as an intellectual, so the audience, for me, seems to function as a sponge to absorb the complex narratives in his performances. In terms of his installations, the audience is important because thet can choose what level of presence they will have in the gallery setting. For example, in his installation, The School for Objects Criticized, the audience is ironic, because they are in fact, the critics at the time, watching a narrative unfold between anthropomorphized objects about the installation of which they are a part. The audience can choose to enter the installation before the "performance" and criticize only the objects, or stay and be entertained, or stay and criticize the "performance." Either way, they are embodying one or multiple roles in which the objects play.

2) My second question addressed the type of media and the importance of that decision. After the lecture, though, I realized Singh only makes one type of media: performance, whether that form is obvious at surface level or not. (See above description.)


Compelling Piece

I found the performance Singh made for us yesterday extremely compelling, probably because I am also searching for an avenue to make an audience understand complex associations between issues in my own work. The facts he is describing fall into the background the first time viewing the performance, which I think is the point. Singh's work becomes about the theme of connecting seemingly disconnected "objects" across history, culture, and popular culture within a culture. These associations are fascinating, and I plan to read more about them to understand better, but the performance is what I found compelling, because Singh was really successful in making the act of delivery a crucial aspect of the concepts within the work. It really felt like dreaming because I lost track of how I got to the particular slide, but it didn't matter, I knew it made sense somehow.

Alexandre Singh (Lecture Questions) 11/15/10

Question 1

From what I gathered online before the lecture, it seems Singh's work is very intellectual and comprised of installations and performance. My first question is, again, about the importance of the viewer in this work. For example, is the reaction from the viewer part of the piece?


Question 2

When deciding between media for a piece, what process does Singh use? For example, why is installation appropriate for some pieces and others, writing a book or performance? I would like to know the reasons for the media and how it informs the whole piece.

Roger Ballen (Artist) 11/15/10

Work

Roger Ballen Outland (Series) Silver Gelatin Print

Roger Ballen Shadow Chamber (Series) Silver Gelatin Print

Roger Ballen Boarding House (Series) Silver Gelatin Print

Roger Ballen Boarding House (Series) Silver Gelatin Print

Roger Ballen Boarding House (Series) Silver Gelatin Print



Bio

Roger Ballen is a South African photographer working exclusively in black and white film processes. Ballen's work is infused with a documentary-like style, however, also portrays the balance between realism and theatrics, living and inanimate, humans and animals. Ballen's use of carefully arranged objects allows the viewer to place the human existence within the environment without the presence of a human subject. He is a master of human psychology and portrays the depths of the mind through collaboration and directing, documenting and sculpting environments. The most recent series becomes increasingly tableau, including elements of sculpture, and increasing theatrical ambiguity. In a lot of ways, Ballen's process reminds me of Zoe Beloff's, like the blur between documenting and projecting. Ballen is represented in Johannesburg and worldwide.


Quotations

" The artist intends these miniature blasted landscapes to represent a psychological state dwelling somewhere within all of us. His descriptive precision, image to image, makes that claim to universality more plausible than most made by artists. "

Sholis, Brian. "Roger Ballen, Gagosian Gallery" Artforum. Feb 2010. Accessed 15 Nov 2010. <>

"The art of Roger Ballen is impossible to forget. It goes deep. Gets at places we didn’t know were there. Maybe hoped weren't there. It makes us wild. It opens us up to those uncertain, shocking and frighteningly banal aspects of the waking dream, twitching between animal and human, the clean and the unclean, the animate and the inanimate, the lived and the imagined, the natural and the performed."

Cook, Robert. "Robert Ballen.com Introduction" RobertBallen.com. Accessed 15 Nov 2010. <>

Relates

The work of Roger Ballen relates to my work through his use of animal imagery to represent, qualify, implicate or contextualize the human condition. All of his photographs contain a human presence, whether or not a human actually exists within the frame. Ballen's use of animals is one of the tools he uses to describe the human psychological condition. I feel my work is getting at this, through a more scientific approach. My images are meant to place humans into the scope of the evolving planet in a truthful, but also performative way. Ballen's environments in which he is contextualizing are much more confined than mine, however, my concepts sometimes deal with confinement in an evolutionary context. His methods of portraying humans without the presence of human subjects is very interesting and inspiring for me, and I hope to achieve this in my future work.


Interview

Gagosian Gallery

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/roger-ballen/


Website

http://www.rogerballen.com/

VMFA Fellowship Submission 11/11/10

Application Materials




Statement

The works submitted are portions of multiple series within the over-arching concept of interspecific (cross species) relationships with respect to the human condition and identity. Informing the work is a sense of connectivity humans experience with animals spanning across specific boundaries, which often materializes itself in taxidermy, the main subject component of my work. In all my work, I seek to portray the conundrum taxidermy creates within discussions of the “natural” world, in an effort to explore not only human causality and connections to such “objects,” but also the place of humans in the same natural context which produced the animals, later preserved by them.

Two major conundrums are addressed in the overarching work: artificial evolution and trophy culture, both which involve the process of taxidermy. For example, the “nature” inside natural history museums poses a conceptual issue for the missions of such places, with respect to the artificial preservation of animals. Humans seem to affect the natural selection process through various acts, such as trophy hunting and genetic engineering. Considering the interconnectivity of human and non-human species in relation to my work, themes of heightened instinctual awareness and an integrated animality materialize into compositions addressing the duality of human nature.

Work Submitted

Kathleen Jones A Short History of Mammals 2010 Archival Inkjet Print 11 X 17 inches

Kathleen Jones Trophy 2010 Archival Inkjet Print 11 X 17 inches

Kathleen Jones Storage 2010 Archival Inkjet Print 11 X 17 inches

Kathleen Jones Bones 2009 Archival Inkjet Print 16 X 24 inches

Kathleen Jones 40 Million Years 2009 Archival Inkjet Print 16 X 24 inches

Kathleen Jones Forever Together 2009 Archival Inkjet Print 16 X 24 inches

Kathleen Jones Kingdom 2009 Archival Inkjet Print 16 X 40 inches

Kathleen Jones Species 2009 Archival Inkjet Print 16 X 27 inches

"Hybridism" (Idea) 11/11/10

"Zedonk" Offspring of Donkey and Zebra

Defined

1: an offspring of two animals or plants of different races, breeds, varieties, species, or genera

2: something heterogeneous in origin or composition hybrids of DNA and RNA> hybrids of mouse and human cells>

MerriamWebster.com

Quotations

"Between his self-knowledge, which was considerable, and his vanity, which was immense, he had created a strange hybrid animal, and called it by his own name."

Stevenson, Robert-Louis. "Tales and Fantasies" Farlex. Accessed 11 Nov. 2010. <>

"The mule always appears to me a most surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here outdone nature. Of our ten animals, six were intended for riding, and four for carrying cargoes, each taking turn about"

Darwin, Charles. "The Voyage of the Beagle" Falex. Accessed 11 Nov. 2010. <>

Annotated Bibliography

Lemmon, Emily Moriarty, and Alan R. Lemmon. "REINFORCEMENT IN CHORUS FROGS: LIFETIME FITNESS ESTIMATES INCLUDING INTRINSIC NATURAL SELECTION AND SEXUAL SELECTION AGAINST HYBRIDS." Evolution 64.6 (2010): 1748-1761. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Nov. 2010.

This article discusses findings in experiments on hybrid species reproductive viability, frogs in particular. It was found that in this species, the sterilization of hybrid individuals was only partially attributed to natural selection against reproduction. Another cause of limited viability is the species sexual selection against hybrid individuals.

"Maladaptive hybridization is hypothesized to be an important force driving the evolution of reproductive isolation between closely related species."

This article was interesting because it describes a natural safeguard process against specific hybridization, in this case, scientifically imposed by humans. The article was scientific in nature and absent of any bias.


Relates

This idea relates to my work because, for one, genetic engineering across species to produce hybrids is commonplace in human societies. (Mules) Also, often in my images, I pose an anatomical conundrum between humans and non-human forms, symbolic of the power struggle between man and wild. Scientifically, hybridization causes a natural filtration process to occur to prevent the viability of such genetic traits, which is an interesting conceptual defense mechanism I think relates to this grotesque struggle I am portraying.

Columbia University (Graduate Profile) 11/8/10

Interest

My primary interest in Columbia University, like any graduate school in New York City, is the location. Secondly, the MODA (MA in Modern Art, Critical and Curatorial Studies) program combined with the school's reputation for academic greatness are the practical reasons for my interest. I was always interested in Columbia because I have alumni in the family, so when I came across the MODA program, I was even more interested. The attractions of this program in relation to competing critical art survey programs is definitely the access the school provides for their students into the art world, starting in NYC. Also, from reviews I have read, the program offers the students intensive professor resources, if needed, which is very valuable in my opinion.


Interesting Professor (David Freedberg)

"David Freedberg spent the fall term as Fellow of the Wissenschafskolleg in Berlin, working on his book on art and neuroscience. His Power of Images appeared in a new Italian edition (containing four prefaces translated from other foreign editions). He was elected a corresponding member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti."

Fall 2010. "826 Schermerhorn: Columbia University Dept. of Art History and Archaeology" Fall 2010. Accessed 8 Nov 2010. <>

David Freedberg is the Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art and Director of The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. He as previously researched in the areas of 17th Century Dutch and Flemish printmaking, but has recently taken a different conceptual direction in his scholarly research. Freedberg is working on a book in which he intensely examines the relationship between art and neuroscience, especially with regards to historical allusions. (Galileo, for example, and the relationship between science and art.) He spends most of his researching time teamed up with neuroscientists to discover the connections between the conscious or unconscious mind and art. What I find interesting about his question is the focus on censorship and what role it plays in the discussion.




Interesting Student (Catherine Roach)

Catherine Roach graduated from Columbia's Art History Department in 2006.
"Catherine Roach ’06 PhD is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of the History of Art, Cornell University. She curated Seeing Double: Portraits, Copies, and Exhibitions in 1820s London at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven."

Fall 2010. "826 Schermerhorn: Columbia University Dept. of Art History and Archaeology" Fall 2010. Accessed 8 Nov 2010. <>

As her first curatorial exhibition, Roach directed the exhibition based on John Scarlett Davis' Interior of the British Institution, in which he carefully painted himself and others into alluded images of English "high art", hoping for an access point to this elite group. The exhibition is based on the historical British art practice, and its intricacies, especially with respect to forgery, replications and fraud. Walker is now a Postdoctoral Associate in the Art History Dept of Cornell University.