Clusterfuck Aesthetic

Luiza Benisano

Art 343

Clusterfuck Aesthetic

Cluster Aesthetic was about the new cacophony and the chaos theory. The series of art installations are more dominated by men than women since in the reading, it said that women don’t get off to making mess in making art work compared to men. The likes of these artists are Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy and Jason Rhoades. Jerry Saltz, who wrote the Clusterfuck Aesthetic, says that Mike Kelley’s work was a pioneering example of the Clusterfuck Aesthetic which meant the tendency towards overloaded multimedia environments in contemporary art. I saw Mike Kelley’s “Day is done” video and thought it was really weird and a perfect example of the Clusterfuck Aesthetic. His work was about pop culture and exhibited random things that did not seem to make sense when added together, but all exhibited pop culture. Examples of his images were angels, a woman dressed in the band KISS make up, Kate Winslet, and “slave day”. I thought his work really interesting and I personally would be interested in dabbling in works that could be considered the “new cacophony.” Most of my art works always seemed to have a message or meaning and that is why I would like to experiment in doing art work that consists of putting something together for the sake of putting something together. A Clusterfuck Aesthetic kind of work. 

Moyra Davey

Luiza Benisano

Art 343

Photography and Accident

Moyra Davey’s Photography and Accident was an interesting read. The whole notion of the reading was that accidents in photographs are the lifeblood in photography. Her writings were inspired by Walter Benjamin and how he states that “the viewer of the photograph feels an irresistible compulsion to seek the tiny spark of incident, the here and now.” I thought that was an interesting statement because I can relate to what he is saying.  As someone who likes to look at photos, I like to look at what’s on the background as opposed to just the direct focus of the photograph which are the people smiling. To me the accidental photograph taken or things in happening outside of the people smiling in the photograph paint more of a story of what was going on at the moment. I found those statements to very accurate. Personally, I have not come across work that deals with photographic accidents. But it would be interesting to find art works that take away the main image and actually focus on the background or what would normally considered to be the unwanted pictures. Creating that kind of work would almost resound with Dada in the sense that it can have no meaning to it but the images would pique so much interest because people looking at the word would probably try to find a common theme or meaning behind it. I personally would probably be the type to do so.

Tryptych

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysW9TI-Emwc - 3 panel video


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxu74U8Z5LM - Right panel


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq7uegtn-9o - Center panel


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQj_C1nfNc0 - Left panel

Artist statement: My video consists of coins being put in a piggy bank. This video is about consumerism. The video is inspired by the movie Fight Club. In Fight Club at one point, Brad Pitt’s character Tyler Durden rants about how we work so jobs to buy stuff that we don’t need. I took that to be an attack on consumerism. He also questions who dictates to us what kind of stuff we need to have or wear. I connect that with the video I made by repeatedly putting coins in my piggy bank. You would think that I was doing this to try to save money, but on the right side of the piggy bank, it says “fund for a girls night out.” In the video, I am depicting myself to be seemingly being smart by saving money, but really I am saving my money for something not important. This gesture is an ode to the movie Fight Club.

Marshall Mcluhan

Artist statement: Reading Response: I thought Marshall Mcluhan's work was very interesting and very preemptive. His work was made in the 60’s but nevertheless his predictions as to how people would be were dead on. One thing that he said that was very interesting and eerie at the same time is that we are overworked by technology and nothing more than that statement rings true today. We are saturated by pictures, images, billboards, TV commercials because it is the number one medium now. It is how people get to us. We do not read books in libraries anymore because it takes up too much time. We google it to process the information a lot faster by getting a snapshot of it as opposed to taking in complete information. We are definitely more than ever saturated and therefore overworked by technology. We are never not trying to be communicated to because we are easy access because technology in the same coin is easy access. 

Instrument

Artist statement: My instrument was inspired by drums. Because drums are my favorite instruments, I wanted to sort of make a tribute to it. I wanted to make an instrument that sounded similar to the drums but had a twist to it. Therefore, I added rocks and shells inside my own do-it-yourself instrument. It ended up being a like a dual instrument. If you shake the instrument, it sounds a lot like a tambourine. If you bang some sort of stick on the instrument it can resemble to the sound of drums. I used a can as a base and plastic water bottles as the base by burning it on around the can. 

Partner's visual score

 

Artist statement: The way I performed my partner’s piece was simple because the images in his score all symbolized how we wanted to the beat to be played. The curvy lines meant I had to play my instrument in an upbeat and slow motion until the curvy line ended. The circles were meant to be open for my interpretation. I played the circles by shaking my instrument and rattling it to give it a fast and loud beat. The two lines that are illustrated upward and downward that were meant to resemble staircases were interesting. The upward lines was supposed to be played high pitched and faster and the downward lines were meant to be played slowly, and calmer. 

My visual score

Artist statement: Below is my visual score. The triangles in the images are supposed to depict how the tempo of the instrument was supposed to be played along with the triangles. The triangles that were pointing downward were meant to play slower beats. The triangles that were pointing upward were meant to play a faster beat. The lines inside the triangles also play as to how the beats should sound. The longer the lines were in the triangle meant that I wanted the tempo to be longer. If the lines in the triangle were short, it meant that I only wanted the beats to be played a little more abrupt and slower. Lastly, the diagonal lines meant that they could be played however the person played my score wanted to. I thought he did a brilliant job in interpreting my score as well as incorporating his own interpretation of my score.