kelkes


 * Introduction:**

My name is Katharine Elkes; I am originally from Bethesda Maryland so I am local to the area. I am a junior majoring in English and transferred to GW at the beginning of my sophomore year (Fall 2016). I have taken art classes from about 4th grade through my senior year of high school so I have some experience in drawing, painting, and other traditional media. At my previous college, I also took a drawing course as well as an art history class. While I do have some background in art, I have no experience in digital art, graphic design, or photography and am looking forward to learning more about these subjects over the course of this semester.


 * Homework #1 Response: Bound By Law?**

This article opened my eyes to the complexities of copyright law in the digital age we live in. As an English major, almost all of my work in college has involved citing novels or scholarly articles in essays in order to support my own ideas, so I have not really had to deal with the issue of using copyrighted images or other digital media in any of my work. Even the published articles that I may quote in a paper have their own page of works cited, so this is the way I have been taught to think about incorporating other peoples’ work without plagiarizing. This article introduced me to many nuances of copyright law that I had not previously heard of.

Before reading this article, I understood that filmmakers had to get permission to feature copyrighted songs or images in their work. However, I always thought of this being important only when the song or image was clearly chosen to accompany a specific scene. It did not occur to me that a filmmaker accidentally capturing a few seconds of “The Simpsons” in the background of a shot could be a major legal issue, even if those few seconds are completely unrelated to the film itself. I was also surprised by the length of time that art can remain protected by copyright. The life of the author plus seventy additional years seems like an absurdly long time for something to be kept under copyright. Once the author or creator of the copyrighted work dies, who does one speak to about using the material for their own work? I understand that it is fair to let the creator of a song, image, or other work of art to determine how it is used and to receive payment for its use, but after that creator dies, it seems their work should then become part of the public domain. Otherwise, it is most likely large corporations who will benefit from the extended copyright, hurting new artists who are trying to enhance their own creative projects but may not be able to afford the extreme cost of using these copyrighted materials. Such was the case with the four-second Simpsons clip example: Matt Groening did not object to it being included in the documentary, but Fox still chose to go through with a lawsuit. It seems that creators should be allowed more control over their work in order to receive fair compensation for its use instead of companies taking legal action to make money for themselves.

Overall, this article was very informative and helped me to understand both the positive and negative aspects of copyright law. While I certainly see how it protects artists and can keep them from getting taken advantage of, I also think that the laws need to be reevaluated to keep up with the way technology is rapidly changing and allowing more and more people to publish their own work. I also really enjoyed the comic book-style format; it made it entertaining and easier to read. Its use of images also helped convey many of the ideas about how any small thing in the background can become a copyright issue more than a traditional text could.


 * Exercise #1: Absence/Presence**

Remove something leaving a white space:

Remove objects and put them in a blank area next to the original:

Remove objects and leave little trace:

Replace something with a portion of another image, leaving the original shape of the removed object:

Your Choice:


 * Homework #2: Colorized Black and White Image**




 * Progress on Old, New, Borrowed, Blue Project**



Final Image:

March 6th Homework:

Cinemagraph Pratice GIF:




 * Cinemagraph Homework Assignment:**


 * Conceptual Strategy Video Project**

Artist #1: Do-ho Suh

“Home within Home within Home within Home within Home,” 2013 polyester fabric, metal frame

This piece deals with ideas of home, public vs. private space, structure, transparency. For a conceptual strategy, I would think of ways to show buildings somewhere in the construction or deconstruction process. I would also try to incorporate themes of privacy/voyeurism into what the viewer is looking at.

Artist #2: Kiki Smith

Hard Soft Bodies Paper, papier-mâché

This piece deals with the body, anatomy, degeneration, decay, and the human female form. For a conceptual strategy for this piece, I would want to show detailed human anatomy exposed and unraveling in some way. I think playing with time and going forward and backward could also be interesting: forms falling apart and then moving backwards and coming back together or vice versa.

Louise Nevelson

Black Wall, 1959 Wood, found objects, spray paint

This piece is made up of found objects that are assembled into what the artist calls an “environment.” These different pieces are unified into one cohesive structure by being spray painted black. For this conceptual strategy, I think it would be interesting to show a bunch of different objects individually, and then at the end of the video show them all together in one shot being unified in some way. The pieces would each be shown on their own, then come together at the end. Possibly the pieces would all be the same color or have some other unifying factor to allow them to come together cohesively at the end. I like the idea of unraveling a piece like this to show the process behind it.

Response to Krauss's "The Aesthetics of Narcissism"

Krauss’s article “Narcissism” explores the medium of video as an art form and the psychological ideas behind it, particularly that of narcissism. She explains how the medium itself is in a way narcissism, stating that “video's real medium is a psychological situation, the very terms of which are to withdraw attention from an external object-an Other-and invest it in the Self… it is the condition of someone who has, in Freud's words, "abandoned the investment of objects with libido and transformed object-libido into ego-libido." And that is the specific condition of narcissism” (Krauss 57). She uses the psychological theories of Freud to explain narcissism as a concept and to point out how it is inherently present in the form of video itself. Throughout the essay, Krauss cites numerous examples of video that seem to be focused on the idea of the artist as a “Self.” One work shows the artist pointing into the camera for many minutes, another shows the artist addressing his own reflection in a mirror and performing a long monologue. Video projects focusing on the artist as a human subject are, to Krauss, a form of narcissism.

She also discusses the idea that the fact that more and more people are attracted to video as a form of art speaks to the narcissism of our culture as a whole. Video becomes more and more prevalent and popular over time as more people choose to use it as a medium to express and display themselves. She also talks about the media’s need for instant reply and people’s desire to be able to see something again and again, for which video is a perfect solution. She does point out that there are other uses for video, but her overall thesis concludes that narcissism is an inherent part of video itself and is part of the reason video is growing as a popular art form.

Krauss’s essay, published in 1976, would be drastically different it she wrote it today. When she was writing, video was a newer form of art and was used in an experimental way. She likely could not have foreseen the advent of the internet and social media as well as the way video creation and distribution would explode along with it. Nowadays, anybody can easily film their own video and then upload it to thousands of different websites where is can be accessed and viewed by anybody on the planet. People no longer need to own equipment or find venues to show their videos: anyone has access to create or to view video.

There is also a huge amount of discussion today about the effect of social media on our culture and the idea that it allows narcissism to run rampant. Many people believe that the accessibility of social media is turning us into a society of narcissists focused on displaying every aspect of our lives to others and getting feedback or reactions from them. If Krauss wrote this paper today, the idea of narcissism in video would be too general and overstated. She would likely have to narrow her focus and also include examples of video on social media.