After trying out Senses of Cinema, Vectors, and Afterall I have chosen to follow Afterall because it seems like I would be branching outside of what I would commonly be looking into, but am interested in learning more about. It seems to be about international contemporary works of art. The most current articles on the main page are about artists from London, Lebanon, Berlin, and Spain. Many of the articles on Afterall seem to be based around, but not limited to, contemporary video installations.
The first article I wanted to discuss is Tony Conrad: On the Threshold by George Clark. I feel this embodies this websites dynamics because Tony Conrad is recognized as a filmmaker, musician, and an artist; where he is not isolated to one particular artistic medium. What I learned was he was a central figure in New York's avant garde community in the 1960's, and he was at Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London where he was presenting his latest work Unprojectable: Projection and Perspective where he combines music, performance, and film into a highly dynamic installation. I felt that this way of formatting his work embodies every aspect of his individual works over the past 40 years can be uniquely combined to create an installation that I bet everyone enjoyed being able to experience.
The second article that I found to be representative of the artistic statement behind contemporary works was 'The Anxious: Five Artists Under the Pressure of War' at the Centre Pompidou by Sarah-Neel Smith. She examines five Lebanese artists work within the documentary The Anxious: Five Artists Under the Pressure of War. What I found appealing was the variances in the different artists opinions of videos medium and its subjectivity or objectivity. I think that this is one of the most intriguing arguements of the medium of video and filmmaking because each artist is going to have their own opinion on whether they feel that the medium serves as a way to embed a new way of thinking within the viewer ,or conversely, the medium only allows the viewer to be influenced as much as they don't settle for indifference, or feel too detached to care. I think that this arguement under certain circumstances could teeter back and forth depending on the variables at hand, but as 'The Anxious' artists ask at the end of Smith's article "if our comprehension and opinions of war are shaped by its increasingly fragmented mediation, have we lost the ability to take action?"
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NIck - After your reading your comments on three articles, I wish you'd go a little further in your comments. Your writing does convey a sense of engagement and curiosity;you are clearly getting something out of your reading of Afterall.
But the posts have a consistent vagueness. And I'd like to hear you grapple with an idea or consider an aspect from each of the articles a bit further. You are clearly capable of such considering. All of these posts testify to your thoughtfulness. As a reader, I'd like to see your thinking more specifically tethered to an idea from your reading. The quotation you get to at the end of your discussion of The Anxious.. for instance seems like a good start, a good platform for your discussion.
There's no need to be cursory in these posts, no need to remain on the surface. I appreciate your ongoing exploration of this publication that is new to you, and your investment in the new, divers terrains it explores. I just like to see you try taking your discussion of it a little further. But again - thanks for the reading you've dedicated to it.
I look forward to further posts.
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