Our assignment this weekend was to read the Christian Paul article and then select one artist to research and learn more about. The article was interesting in how it gave a brief history of Digital Media, or should I say "new media art". The most intriguing part of the article to me, was that it explained the process of changing and appearing in the art world occurred, starting almost 60 years ago. The list of terms used to describe the art that is now under the umbrella term of "new media art" ie. computer art, multimedia art, and digital media, shows the confusion the art world has about how to classify this form of art. I found this segment of the article helpful because it helped me to understand why I myself find digital art so confusing. This I now know is because this form of art encompasses art movements like Dada, Fluxus, and conceptual art and is created through the use of a medium that confuses me in general, computers and computer programs. The reason I believe I find digital art to be so confusing is that it is always changing because technology is constantly changing. It's not consistent like oil painting, which has been around for hundreds of years.
Though Digital Art has always seemed to bypass my personal art interests, it does not mean I do not appreciate the art that is created in this sub-section of art. While reading the article, there were multiple artists that I was drawn to, either because the messages their art conveyed were thought provoking, or because the image itself was beautiful and i couldn't take my eyes off of it, but the artist I chose to research for this blog assignment is Annu Palakunnathu Matthew.
Annu Pallakunnathu Matthew is a Professor of Art (Photography) at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island. She is a British born photographer who is based in the United States. Matthew uses her photographs as the base of her artwork. Her work focuses on the politics of gender and race. The article illustrated two of her pieces in her Bollywood Satirized series. These included Matthew's Bomb (1999) and What Will People Think? (1999), both of which are "'Bollywood' posters that use the traditional visual language of the movie industry's 'dream factory'". Both images are "inscribed with text that draws attention to gender and cultural stereotypes as well as nuclear politics, Matthew's posters deconstruct the creation of message and context through visual images (Christian Paul reading)".
Specifically of Matthew's Bollywood Satirized series, she chose to focus on how commercial films in India reflect and reinforce stereotyped gender roles in Indian culture. The images she uses are from real cinema posters and are combined and altered to create works that, in the artist's words, explore issues such as the position of women in Indian society, the dowry system, arranged marriages, discrimination based on skin color, the stigma of pre-marital relationships and inter-racial relationships. Matthew uses a software program that allows her to create unusually large images that mimic the size of movie posters, which adds to the effect Matthew is attempting to make.
I find race and gender to be a touchy topic to base her work off of, but I am also envious that Matthew can manage to get her point across in an informative and thought-provoking way rather than an offending attack of the subject matter. It is a delicate balance between informing the public of what is wrong and accusing the public of committing those wrongs.The image she compiled in What Will People Think? (1999)I feel, takes the idea of recreating and altering a movie poster to a whole new level. The placement and sizing of images, as well as the font used mimics the generic romance movie posters. If you can't think of what these may look like, how about a trashy romance novel cover? To me these two images are almost . The text Matthew added is placed in such a way that it is intriguing to the eye and draws your attention throughout the scene. The viewer is now spending more time looking at Matthew's art then they would the average movie poster, hopefully during this time, the viewer will interpret the information in the image and understand the message Matthew attempts to draw attention to.
Above is the image, Bollywood Satirized: What Will People Think? (1999). As you can see, the contours of the text she added to the subjects is placed in peculiar and interesting positions that require the viewer to spend an extended period of time observing the image in order to be able to see every detail. This time, I feel, allows the viewer to draw connections to the terms and the stereotypes of gender and race in Indian society that Matthew wants to convey. I believe Matthew succeeds in getting her message across to the audience. I at least caught onto the message, even before I learned more about the image and Matthew as an artist in general.
Sources:
http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2001/06/07/28666.html
http://www.annumatthew.com/about/index.htmlhttp://www.annumatthew.com/PortfolioBollywood_Satirized/index.html#_self
Christian Paul reading
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