25.11.20 Dexter's seminar 2:
Preparation:
'Don't forget to watch the two videos below and IF you want to watch the the film 'Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project ' that the interview is talking about
here is a link on Amazon : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.dabab2ff-759d-45b3-6619-c4b268be722a?autoplay=1&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb
Prior to the next session please
Watch : Old Mistresses : Women, Art and Ideology, with Griselda Pollock -
This is a very recent video - please spend time to watch the whole thing it is 55 mins long including a Q & A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXD2W7gP4w
Watch : The Documentary on the Documentar -
( This is an interview with the Director of the Marion Stokes Project ) - you could also watch the film BUT you would have to pay to see online - so it is up to you it is not necessary in terms of the discussion for the seminar )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb00vGaWa6c
think hard - dig deep'
'Don't forget to watch the two videos below and IF you want to watch the the film 'Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project ' that the interview is talking about
here is a link on Amazon : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.dabab2ff-759d-45b3-6619-c4b268be722a?autoplay=1&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb
Prior to the next session please
Watch : Old Mistresses : Women, Art and Ideology, with Griselda Pollock -
This is a very recent video - please spend time to watch the whole thing it is 55 mins long including a Q & A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXD2W7gP4w
Watch : The Documentary on the Documentar -
( This is an interview with the Director of the Marion Stokes Project ) - you could also watch the film BUT you would have to pay to see online - so it is up to you it is not necessary in terms of the discussion for the seminar )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb00vGaWa6c
think hard - dig deep'
Old mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology, with Griselda Pollock
This is a 30 minute lecture by Griselda Pollock followed by questions, hosted online by a UK Bookshop on 7 November 2020. Pollock co-wrote the book 'Old Mistresses' in 1979, with Roszika Parker. Sadly, Parker has now died. They are both Art Historians, feminists and academics.
I know the book and used it at various points during my undergraduate studies.
Their premise is that women have been written out of art history and that, traditionally, art history perpetuates the myth of the 'Great White Male Painter' and reinforces the hierarchy of paint and sculpture vs textiles and craft. She talked about the 'structural and systemic sexism'.
She started by giving an overview of the covers of the book over the decades as it was reprinted, and that, in itself was eye opening. As she said they were 'political, anti sexist, anti racist'. She also gave a precis of each chapter and there were several that I think I need to revisit.:
1. Hierarchy of art and craft, including the gendered value of materials.
2. Objectification: What she was saying made me think of Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze, and how that differs from the female gaze. How do women represent themselves? 'Self portrayal as the creative subject in art'. She talked about 'woman as body' and asked 'how do women figure themselves in art?' I feel that's highly relevant to my research into embodiment in my work at the moment. Whose body am I representing? Is it gendered? Does it add meaning that I am female?
Pollock also talked about the fact that there are groups of women-artists who are even less visible than white women, naturally - queer female and black artists, for example.
It's very shocking that as recently as 2019, female artists represented just 2% of the art market; 40% of that is 5 artists, in descending order: Yayoi Kusama, Joan Mitchell, Louise Bourgeois, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Agnes Martin. 4 of whom are dead, leaving Yayoi Kusama as the only living woman-artist in this group. In 1999 Pollock wrote another book which asked the question ' Why is the canon still in place?'.
Questions:
Q1. To what extent has art history changed?
A. No one else is teaching feminist ideology systemically in art history. Issues with galleries, museums, art market, books produced. People see far fewer artworks by many women artists in galleries etc. She tries to open it up to all the isms as she believes that gender runs through all isms - racism, ageism, disablism etc.
Q2. Hierarchy of art and craft?
Textiles crafts still regarded as women's work, gendered. (Look at the journal Textile, edited by Peninna Barnett and Jessica Hemmings.)
Q3. Why are the biographies of women-artists reductionist?
A. Women are still regarded as being PART of life, whereas men -artists are viewed as separate, maybe also suffering.
Q4. Art, feminism and textiles.
A. Look at the work of Lubaina Himid
Halperin, J. and Burns, C. (2019) Female artists represent just 2 percent of the market. Here's why. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/womens-place-in-the-art-world/female-artists-represent-just-2-percent-market-heres-can-change-1654954
Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema Available at: https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
Parker, R. and Pollock, G (1981) Old mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology London: Pandora
Pollock, G. (2020) Old mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology, online lecture, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXD2W7gP4w (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
I know the book and used it at various points during my undergraduate studies.
Their premise is that women have been written out of art history and that, traditionally, art history perpetuates the myth of the 'Great White Male Painter' and reinforces the hierarchy of paint and sculpture vs textiles and craft. She talked about the 'structural and systemic sexism'.
She started by giving an overview of the covers of the book over the decades as it was reprinted, and that, in itself was eye opening. As she said they were 'political, anti sexist, anti racist'. She also gave a precis of each chapter and there were several that I think I need to revisit.:
1. Hierarchy of art and craft, including the gendered value of materials.
2. Objectification: What she was saying made me think of Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze, and how that differs from the female gaze. How do women represent themselves? 'Self portrayal as the creative subject in art'. She talked about 'woman as body' and asked 'how do women figure themselves in art?' I feel that's highly relevant to my research into embodiment in my work at the moment. Whose body am I representing? Is it gendered? Does it add meaning that I am female?
Pollock also talked about the fact that there are groups of women-artists who are even less visible than white women, naturally - queer female and black artists, for example.
It's very shocking that as recently as 2019, female artists represented just 2% of the art market; 40% of that is 5 artists, in descending order: Yayoi Kusama, Joan Mitchell, Louise Bourgeois, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Agnes Martin. 4 of whom are dead, leaving Yayoi Kusama as the only living woman-artist in this group. In 1999 Pollock wrote another book which asked the question ' Why is the canon still in place?'.
Questions:
Q1. To what extent has art history changed?
A. No one else is teaching feminist ideology systemically in art history. Issues with galleries, museums, art market, books produced. People see far fewer artworks by many women artists in galleries etc. She tries to open it up to all the isms as she believes that gender runs through all isms - racism, ageism, disablism etc.
Q2. Hierarchy of art and craft?
Textiles crafts still regarded as women's work, gendered. (Look at the journal Textile, edited by Peninna Barnett and Jessica Hemmings.)
Q3. Why are the biographies of women-artists reductionist?
A. Women are still regarded as being PART of life, whereas men -artists are viewed as separate, maybe also suffering.
Q4. Art, feminism and textiles.
A. Look at the work of Lubaina Himid
Halperin, J. and Burns, C. (2019) Female artists represent just 2 percent of the market. Here's why. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/womens-place-in-the-art-world/female-artists-represent-just-2-percent-market-heres-can-change-1654954
Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema Available at: https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
Parker, R. and Pollock, G (1981) Old mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology London: Pandora
Pollock, G. (2020) Old mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology, online lecture, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXD2W7gP4w (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
Documentary on the documenter, Bric TV, 2019
'Marion Stokes famously recorded TV news 24 hours a day for 35 years. When she passed away in 2012, she left behind over 70,000 VHS tapes containing hours and hours of footage. Filmmaker Matt Wolf set out to document this obsessive documenter in his new film, "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"' (BricTV, 2019)
BricTV (2019) Documenting the documenter Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb00vGaWa6c (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Story, Directed by Matt Hoff
Zeitgeist Films (2019) RECORDER: The Marion Stokes Project - official US trailer Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJNUdz6wQ3w (Accessed: 25 November 2020)
Obsession? Paranoia? Eccentricity? 'A lot of craziness produces lots of brilliance' - did she have mental health issues? Obsessively recording and hoarding seem like aberrant behaviour. She is portrayed as having two distinct aspects to herself: the public face - potential communist leader, on TV and the private - her seeming inability to have relationships with those closet to her, her exclusive/reclusive relationship with her second husband, the clutter in her home- but then her curious attachment to her staff. She treated them more like family than her son and step daughters.
It seems as if she had some kind of attachment disorder - the acquisition of 'stuff', obsessive relationship with husband, rejection of son and step daughters, intense relationship with secretary/housekeeper/chauffeur - presumably all as a result of her childhood in foster care.
Son: 'She overdid it... until the day of her death.'
Hoarding vs collecting:
The archive her obsession has created is intriguing and I can see that 'you only know afterwards what's important to keep.' It only became a 'collection' when someone else had a value for it all. She was wealthy, which meant that she could afford to spend her time doing this. ( and she had staff to help too.) Talking of women and collectors: ' We shouldn't ascribe rationality to those in power and irrationality to those without.' ie if a man had done this would it be seen more readily as a collection?
'Collecting or accumulating goods helps ensure survival when resources become scarce, and is therefore an evolutionarily adaptive behavior in animals and humans.... however, saving behavior becomes excessive and disconnected from any apparent function or purpose. In these cases, the reasons for acquiring and saving goods are irrational or extreme, and the collecting behavior becomes maladaptive and even dangerous. Recent investigations suggested that compulsive hoarding is a serious psychiatric problem that significantly disrupts the life of the hoarder and his or her family and friends' (Grisham and Barlow, 2004)
The film didn't portray her as having a mental health disorder, however., maybe rather as an eccentric. She was clearly extremely intelligent, rational and high functioning in the other areas of her life.
'Obsessed with the mediation of the media':
She was interested in information vs misinformation and she thought that the mass media intentionally influenced people through deliberate choices of signifiers, manipulating minds and emotions. She maintained that the 'news' is filtered by governments and the media, so that public opinion is moulded.
So why record this seemingly unreliable news, obsessively, for 30 years? She said that 'people need reliable information to make informed decisions' but if she thought that the news was biased, why did she record it? Was it to have evidence of this unreliability? Or was it a kind of triangulation, to discover some kind of truth? Her staff said she also read 11 newspapers a day.
How much of this was paranoia? (Her Communist background, she had an FBI file etc) She was under surveillance, was she 'surveilling the surveillers'?
Fake news?
Much of these ideas resonate with Trump's obsession with what he calls 'fake news'. In an era of growing digital globalisation,
'If you use social media, the chances are you see (and forward) some of the more than 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video shared daily. When faced with such a glut of content, how can we know what’s real and what’s not? While one part of the solution is an increased use of content verification tools, it’s equally important we all boost our digital media literacy. Ultimately, one of the best lines of defence — and the only one you can control — is you.' (The Conversation, 2020)
'Misinformation (when you accidentally share false content) and disinformation (when you intentionally share it) in any medium can erode trust in civil institutions such as news organisations, coalitions and social movements. However, fake photos and videos are often the most potent.For those with a vested political interest, creating, sharing and/or editing false images can distract, confuse and manipulate viewers to sow discord and uncertainty (especially in already polarised environments). Posters and platforms can also make money from the sharing of fake, sensationalist content.
Only 11-25% of journalists globally use social media content verification tools, according to the International Centre for Journalists.' (The Conversation, 2020)
The Conversation website suggests a number of digital tools to ascertain whether an image, for example, is reliable but says that many of them are time consuming or expensive, and not 100% reliable either. They suggest instead these simple questions:
'Think:
The MMU questions are much more detailed.
I think another issue is omission and bias in the news. The BBC News for example seems to have presented the Coronavirus pandemic in a very particular way. It definitely has felt like propaganda at times. It's worrying!
Archiving history
I was astonsihed that news footage is not automatically archived, but why would it be? This obsession has led to the creation of an astonishing historical record, which is now being digitised so will be available to the public and searchable. Although it's US-Centric, it will be an amazing global resource. It is now being digitised by the Internet Archive here. She also wrote a journal (and many lists!) The journalis being digitised too. It's like a time capsule.
Grisham J and Barlow, H. (2004) Compulsive Hoarding: Current Research and Theory Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Grisham/publication/226012928_Compulsive_Hoarding_Current_Research_and_Theory/links/0fcfd50ca62503d0a4000000.pdf (Accessed: 25 November 2020)
Internet Archive (no date) Marion Stokes Available at: https://archive.org/search.php?query=marion%20stokes (Accessed 25 November 2020)
Internet Archive Blogs (2019) 71,716 video tapes in 12,094 days Available at: https://blog.archive.org/tag/marion-stokes/blog.archive.org/tag/marion-stokes/ (Accessed 25 November 2020)
The Conversation (2020) 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake? Available from: https://theconversation.com/3-2-billion-images-and-720-000-hours-of-video-are-shared-online-daily-can-you-sort-real-from-fake-148630 (Accessed: 25 November 2020)
It seems as if she had some kind of attachment disorder - the acquisition of 'stuff', obsessive relationship with husband, rejection of son and step daughters, intense relationship with secretary/housekeeper/chauffeur - presumably all as a result of her childhood in foster care.
Son: 'She overdid it... until the day of her death.'
Hoarding vs collecting:
The archive her obsession has created is intriguing and I can see that 'you only know afterwards what's important to keep.' It only became a 'collection' when someone else had a value for it all. She was wealthy, which meant that she could afford to spend her time doing this. ( and she had staff to help too.) Talking of women and collectors: ' We shouldn't ascribe rationality to those in power and irrationality to those without.' ie if a man had done this would it be seen more readily as a collection?
'Collecting or accumulating goods helps ensure survival when resources become scarce, and is therefore an evolutionarily adaptive behavior in animals and humans.... however, saving behavior becomes excessive and disconnected from any apparent function or purpose. In these cases, the reasons for acquiring and saving goods are irrational or extreme, and the collecting behavior becomes maladaptive and even dangerous. Recent investigations suggested that compulsive hoarding is a serious psychiatric problem that significantly disrupts the life of the hoarder and his or her family and friends' (Grisham and Barlow, 2004)
The film didn't portray her as having a mental health disorder, however., maybe rather as an eccentric. She was clearly extremely intelligent, rational and high functioning in the other areas of her life.
'Obsessed with the mediation of the media':
She was interested in information vs misinformation and she thought that the mass media intentionally influenced people through deliberate choices of signifiers, manipulating minds and emotions. She maintained that the 'news' is filtered by governments and the media, so that public opinion is moulded.
So why record this seemingly unreliable news, obsessively, for 30 years? She said that 'people need reliable information to make informed decisions' but if she thought that the news was biased, why did she record it? Was it to have evidence of this unreliability? Or was it a kind of triangulation, to discover some kind of truth? Her staff said she also read 11 newspapers a day.
How much of this was paranoia? (Her Communist background, she had an FBI file etc) She was under surveillance, was she 'surveilling the surveillers'?
Fake news?
Much of these ideas resonate with Trump's obsession with what he calls 'fake news'. In an era of growing digital globalisation,
'If you use social media, the chances are you see (and forward) some of the more than 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video shared daily. When faced with such a glut of content, how can we know what’s real and what’s not? While one part of the solution is an increased use of content verification tools, it’s equally important we all boost our digital media literacy. Ultimately, one of the best lines of defence — and the only one you can control — is you.' (The Conversation, 2020)
'Misinformation (when you accidentally share false content) and disinformation (when you intentionally share it) in any medium can erode trust in civil institutions such as news organisations, coalitions and social movements. However, fake photos and videos are often the most potent.For those with a vested political interest, creating, sharing and/or editing false images can distract, confuse and manipulate viewers to sow discord and uncertainty (especially in already polarised environments). Posters and platforms can also make money from the sharing of fake, sensationalist content.
Only 11-25% of journalists globally use social media content verification tools, according to the International Centre for Journalists.' (The Conversation, 2020)
The Conversation website suggests a number of digital tools to ascertain whether an image, for example, is reliable but says that many of them are time consuming or expensive, and not 100% reliable either. They suggest instead these simple questions:
'Think:
- was it originally made for social media?
- how widely and for how long was it circulated?
- what responses did it receive?
- who were the intended audiences?
The MMU questions are much more detailed.
I think another issue is omission and bias in the news. The BBC News for example seems to have presented the Coronavirus pandemic in a very particular way. It definitely has felt like propaganda at times. It's worrying!
Archiving history
I was astonsihed that news footage is not automatically archived, but why would it be? This obsession has led to the creation of an astonishing historical record, which is now being digitised so will be available to the public and searchable. Although it's US-Centric, it will be an amazing global resource. It is now being digitised by the Internet Archive here. She also wrote a journal (and many lists!) The journalis being digitised too. It's like a time capsule.
Grisham J and Barlow, H. (2004) Compulsive Hoarding: Current Research and Theory Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Grisham/publication/226012928_Compulsive_Hoarding_Current_Research_and_Theory/links/0fcfd50ca62503d0a4000000.pdf (Accessed: 25 November 2020)
Internet Archive (no date) Marion Stokes Available at: https://archive.org/search.php?query=marion%20stokes (Accessed 25 November 2020)
Internet Archive Blogs (2019) 71,716 video tapes in 12,094 days Available at: https://blog.archive.org/tag/marion-stokes/blog.archive.org/tag/marion-stokes/ (Accessed 25 November 2020)
The Conversation (2020) 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake? Available from: https://theconversation.com/3-2-billion-images-and-720-000-hours-of-video-are-shared-online-daily-can-you-sort-real-from-fake-148630 (Accessed: 25 November 2020)
That Apple ad!
Mac History, (2012)1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial (HD) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I (Accessed: 25 November 2020)
25.11.20 My reflections after the seminar:
Link between the 2 videos? Both are looking at the history of the past 35 years, but in different ways.
Q. What have been the influences on my practice?
A. My life experiences, who I am, the family I grew up in, the family I'm part of now, my friends, old and new, Christian upbringing, reaction against that, doing Medicine, being thrown out of Uni, working in the bookshop, meeting Dave, things I've read and seen, places I've visited, conversations, art I've seen, other artists....
Q. Is my art feminist art?
A. I regard myself as a feminist, although I'm not very militant.... My art isn't explicitly feminist, but I am a feminist.
Q. Why am I an artist?
A. I'm a maker and I love exploring ways to communicate through form, colour, material, surface. I love the freedom that being an artist gives me to make work that provokes a range of responses.
Q. How do I present my work to others?
A. It depends on the situation. I'm usually quite cautious as I don't want to intimidate people, so I will normally say something like ' I make soft sculptures using knitting and stitch.'(... but that's changing....) Often, though, I think most people don't want too much detail. They just want something they can understand. If they ask for more detail, of course, I'll give it!
Q. How do I communicate my experiences through my art?
A. Sometimes in the past, the subject of my work was quite explicit, usually through the title, or a statement eg All the babies I might have had 1 (2012) & Nobody 1 (2014) Now, however, I think it's becoming more subtle. I hope so anyway.
Q. How has my art been transformative?
A. It has enabled me to know myself better and understand others better too. It also gives me meaning and purpose and helps me to work things out. It is really hard at times, like a rollercoaster, ( and I hate rollercoasters!). It can be extremely challenging but it's also absolutely wonderfully absorbing, rewarding, intriguing and it makes me happy. I put my heart and soul into my work.
Q. How do I use the language of art to communicate?
A. I seek meaning in process and product, in materials, colour, form, surface, and method of installation, researching combinations and contrasts to endeavour to communicate complex ideas.
Dexter talked about Anni Albers, whose sensibilities and knowledge and language of materials, he thinks, gives her work 'an aura.' He compared her work to Tracey Emin's , where everything is exposed. Then he talked about the development of Eva Hesse's work - from painting to £D painting, then floor sculpture and finally hanging sculpture. She was continually pursuing her goal with self criticism and her internal monologue. I recognise this obsession.
'Remain curious about the now.'
'Blow on the embers of enthusiasm.'
Gabor Mate mentions 'gut feelings'.
Q. Can I trust my gut feelings in my work?
A. I think I'm learning to recognise when gut feelings might work, and when they won't, but I see much of my work as research, so trying things and the subsequent 'failures' can be interesting and often feed into another piece. I often think ' What if...?'
It was an interesting and thought provoking session, although the Zoom set up is extremely intense and I find it harder to contribute than I would in real life. I barely spoke. That's ok, but I'd like to be able to get better at expressing my thoughts and opinions in a safe environment. Next time? I think it will be easier if we have a task to present, so that it's not so intense.
Link between the 2 videos? Both are looking at the history of the past 35 years, but in different ways.
Q. What have been the influences on my practice?
A. My life experiences, who I am, the family I grew up in, the family I'm part of now, my friends, old and new, Christian upbringing, reaction against that, doing Medicine, being thrown out of Uni, working in the bookshop, meeting Dave, things I've read and seen, places I've visited, conversations, art I've seen, other artists....
Q. Is my art feminist art?
A. I regard myself as a feminist, although I'm not very militant.... My art isn't explicitly feminist, but I am a feminist.
Q. Why am I an artist?
A. I'm a maker and I love exploring ways to communicate through form, colour, material, surface. I love the freedom that being an artist gives me to make work that provokes a range of responses.
Q. How do I present my work to others?
A. It depends on the situation. I'm usually quite cautious as I don't want to intimidate people, so I will normally say something like ' I make soft sculptures using knitting and stitch.'(... but that's changing....) Often, though, I think most people don't want too much detail. They just want something they can understand. If they ask for more detail, of course, I'll give it!
Q. How do I communicate my experiences through my art?
A. Sometimes in the past, the subject of my work was quite explicit, usually through the title, or a statement eg All the babies I might have had 1 (2012) & Nobody 1 (2014) Now, however, I think it's becoming more subtle. I hope so anyway.
Q. How has my art been transformative?
A. It has enabled me to know myself better and understand others better too. It also gives me meaning and purpose and helps me to work things out. It is really hard at times, like a rollercoaster, ( and I hate rollercoasters!). It can be extremely challenging but it's also absolutely wonderfully absorbing, rewarding, intriguing and it makes me happy. I put my heart and soul into my work.
Q. How do I use the language of art to communicate?
A. I seek meaning in process and product, in materials, colour, form, surface, and method of installation, researching combinations and contrasts to endeavour to communicate complex ideas.
Dexter talked about Anni Albers, whose sensibilities and knowledge and language of materials, he thinks, gives her work 'an aura.' He compared her work to Tracey Emin's , where everything is exposed. Then he talked about the development of Eva Hesse's work - from painting to £D painting, then floor sculpture and finally hanging sculpture. She was continually pursuing her goal with self criticism and her internal monologue. I recognise this obsession.
'Remain curious about the now.'
'Blow on the embers of enthusiasm.'
Gabor Mate mentions 'gut feelings'.
Q. Can I trust my gut feelings in my work?
A. I think I'm learning to recognise when gut feelings might work, and when they won't, but I see much of my work as research, so trying things and the subsequent 'failures' can be interesting and often feed into another piece. I often think ' What if...?'
It was an interesting and thought provoking session, although the Zoom set up is extremely intense and I find it harder to contribute than I would in real life. I barely spoke. That's ok, but I'd like to be able to get better at expressing my thoughts and opinions in a safe environment. Next time? I think it will be easier if we have a task to present, so that it's not so intense.