Confusion will be My Epitaph

For those of you concerned about post-modernism's effect on your immortal soul (or transient corporeal life) there is an intriguing lecture at Grace Memorial Episcopal Church this week. I've cribbed the press release for you to peruse. . .

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Confusion will be My Epitaph: Cultural Disorientation, Social Fragmentation and the Post-Modern Experience— What Does Christianity Have to Offer?

In this inaugural lecture of Grace's Seminary-for-a-Night, Steve Clarke will take us on a journey beginning with the thoughts of 18th century moral philosopher Andrew Fletcher and 1960's rock band, King Crimson, through contemporary film and art, to pause before the canvasses of Edvard Munch, Andy Warhol, and Rembrandt van Rijn. Focusing on the signs of post-modern cultural disorientation and the resultant confusion experienced by many, particularly young people, Steve will explore ways in which the Christian story speaks to our time.

The Rev. Steve Clarke is currently the Ministry Development Officer in the Anglican Diocese of Willochra (Australia), Senior Lecturer of Theology and Mission at Flinders University, South Australia, and Visiting Fellow at St John's College, Durham University (UK)

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Grace Seminary-for-a-Night

Wednesday, October 28, 7:00-8:30pm

Grace House, 1511 NE 17th Ave.

Portland, Oregon

Serfs and Lords

This week in the classroom has focused on the social hierarchy of the Middle Ages. I have yet to encounter the sixth grader who isn't fascinated with the feudal system and its blatant disparities between the classes. 

As the divide between the rich and poor has never really closed, I suspect that this peek into the past allows a neutral ground in which to speak about fairness and equality among people. I find these conversations to be profoundly important to the students, and I don't recall anything similar in my own early educational experience. I suspect that it is only in an environment that honors all the players in history, rich and poor alike, that such a dialogue can occur. When I was a child learning history we were still under the sway of canonical conventions that emphasized only victors and land owners. So while post-modern thought hasn't been a boon in all cases, it has forced a more honest assessment of what actually constitutes the historical record.

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Each week I place a thematic drawing on the chalkboard to serve as backdrop for the lessons. This image of a peasant threshing spelt was one such drawing that I managed to capture with the digital camera about two years ago. In general, I try to derive the imagery for my chalkboard drawings from art history, so that the students are not only taking home thematic stories and activities, but a visual record of history as well. 

Whiteface

I don't shoot all the photographs that I end up creating as drawings. Some are just discarded memories sold for a buck or two in old cigar boxes at junk shops. A select few are actually images that are given to me by friends or family. I confess that I like mixing up the sources of my imagery (yes, I take ownership for the antiques as well as the gifts: that's the artist prerogative) as it challenges the viewer to formulate a narrative that encompasses different time periods, people, and places. Huge temporal shifts must take place to draw a story line between the images, and in many cases those pictures that appear to be taken at a certain moment in history might have been shot with a digital camera a week ago, whereas the most modern of compositions is actually a 100 year old negative salvaged from a shack in Idaho. There's no veracity in life, why should there be in art?

I could tell you that the image above was taken on a night when my wife and I were dubbed Prom King and Queen, but I would understand if you didn't believe me. If I shared with you that this image brings me equal parts joy and pain you might fashion a narrative as to why that may be, and your version could be just as intricate as mine. 

I won't go so far as to take credit for releasing the shutter, but when I finish putting this image to paper there can be no refuting that it will belong to me. If I have any skill as an artist at all then perhaps someone else will view it someday and the memory of it will belong to them. And in this way my fiction may be perpetuated indefinitely, like so many fictions that have preceded me.

The Week

GERALD FIGAL ON FLICKR

I ran across this image the other night on Flickr. It was part of a collection of pictures taken in the Edo-Tokyo museum by Gerald Figal and his images served as a catalyst for me to consider my own fascination with the conceptual implications of the miniature in contemporary art. More to come on this topic at a later date.

THE WORKS OF CLAUDIA ANGELMAIER IN APERTURE MAGAZINE

The lastest issue of Aperture features an article about the reproductive artworks of German photographer Claudia Angelmaier. Her meticulously composed collections of open books turned to the same reproduction of a famous art work succeed on a number of levels: they comment on the fallibility of mechanical reproduction, critique the experience of educating through second-hand experience, continue the post-modern preoccupation with originality born of mimicry, and manage to reference the sparse spirituality of Modernist abstraction. While the addition of the replicated artworks contributes a greater conceptual depth to her work, the photographic compositions that feature only obsessive compositions of white space and colored lines are no less beautiful for their minimalism.

THE FIRST UNVEILING OF SMALL WILD THINGS (SWT)

Last year's artistic collaboration was laid out in its entirety for me this week on the floor of the new Disjecta exhibition space. This sparked an intriguing dialogue about: the longevity of hierarchical relationships, color aversion, classifying artistic "style," breaking and obeying imperatives, the totalitarian grid, and the spiritual implications of reproduction. 

BIG SPACESHIP PROFILE ON LYNDA.COM

With two gaping holes left in my skull from the extraction of pesky wisdom teeth my energy level hit negative numbers and I sought interludes of distraction from the pain at lynda.com. This website is an absolutely fantastic software tutorial site that, for a monthly fee, walks you step-by-step through the intricacies of most major software programs available today. It has been indispensable to me as a graphic design student. Until yesterday, I had limited my viewing to movies related to programs that were stumping me, and not bothered to delve into the interviews and exposes of well regarded companies/individuals. 

Big Spaceship has been a company reverently referred to since my first day in PNCA's graphic design certificate program. The major player in the field of new media, or interactive media, or integrated design, or whatever moniker of the moment that connotes a mixture of web, film, graphic design, and information design. There's no doubting that they are very, very, good at what they do and, while it's light on specifics, the lynda.com expose of Big Spaceship does give a general sense of the culture and structure of the company.

Sadly, without a subscription you can only watch the three introductory videos, which are heavy on the fluff, but you can follow links to some of Big Spaceship's more notable projects and see what all the fuss is about.

Indy Adapted

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation might be one of the most profound cinematic experiences for a person just beginning to consider making films. An obsessive recreation of Spielberg’s classic created by three Mississippi adolescents over the course of seven years during the Eighties, The Adaptation proves that inspiration and determination are the only requisite ingredients to making a movie. Using a home video recorder, a host of friends from school, and a tremendous amount of handmade decor Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos, and Jayson Lamb managed to re-create nearly every shot in the film. The massive rolling boulder that chases Indy out of a South American ruin: they have it. The fire-fight amid a bar engulfed in flame: check. That crazy series of scenes where Indy wrestles a truck containing the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazis and he falls down the hood, slides under the truck, and is drug along behind as he slowly crawls back on to the speeding vehicle: its in this movie, and it was done by a group of teenage boys without stuntmen! The sold-out audience at the Hollywood Theater gasped, cheered, and clapped at every iconic scene!

The Portland audience was comprised of a predictable demographic: the nerds were there, ready to bask in the achievements of fellow nerds who’d made good. The younger families were there so that parents might share a movie of their youth with their children. The hipsters were there, coiffed and hungry for another helping of elitist irony. They were perhaps the only ones disappointed. Those seeking a postmodern confirmation of a guilty pop-culture pleasure would find no support here. This was not a statement— it was an homage; and every minute of it was wonderfully sincere.

One left the theater aglow. Here was a validation that anything was possible. Life could be as large as we witness it on the big screen. We are all stars— if only we love something enough.

Paper Tree

During lunch today one of my students spontaneously suggested that it would be interesting to fashion a tree made entirely out of paper. The interest would, naturally, be tied to the fact that trees produce paper. Her classmates agreed that creating such a tree would be a unique project, while I forced myself to not blurt out some inane definition of irony or post-modernism. After all, such a good idea deserves to remain in a state of imagination for a child. If it ever came to pass that she actually created the tree then she would instantly be labeled an artist and susceptible to all the critical discourse that robs ideas of their purity.