After the critique ...

I found the critique to be very interesting, inspiring and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed hearing about Hart's journey (not only his journey to Skinner's Butte, but the whole 'journey' through his thought process) and the process of which he went through. Very inspiring!

The other pieces were also very interesting, but maybe more so, the explanations and thoughts from everyone that talked about their pieces, but also how we, the spectators, viewed the pieces.

I found it extremely useful and informative to listen to everyones initial reactions to my piece. I was taken by surprise at one point: the fact that several of the girls were offended by it. In retrospect, I can totally understand it, and I find it very interesting. This is actually one of several reasons why I find producing art to be so difficult and challenging. In this case I wanted to make a piece of art that was communicating something I was against, i.e. the male dominance of the Church (also in religion in general, and in turn, in society in general) by showing a very typical attribute for the Church, a reliquary, or a shrine, with a not-so-typical relic, a pair of testicles. I see now that this can be interpreted as something personal, that I actually was worshipping my own 'manliness', the power I have through being a person with testicles. So, how can I make something that clearly can't be misunderstood? I don't want to make things so obvious that they don't have any room for interpretation. Maybe the ambiguity actually is what makes a piece interesting, that it is something I should try to achieve more than to erase. 

Reliquary, or not ...?

I don't know what will make most sense in trying to communicate what I want to communicate with my reliquary piece. Dilemma: should I try to make it 'realistic'–which by itself can prove to be difficult, since there are very few things that makes a reliquary a reliquary design wise–or, a more 'artistic' approach with a 'freer' form. I think I should go for the last option, since that gives me more freedom (so to speak) and also, there are strong limitations of what I'm capable of doing with clay at this point. There are also a few things that I can say about how reliquaries look in general.

• They contain a 'relic' (which will be the testicles ...).
• They often resembles buildings, like a church or a temple.
• They are gold plated (or similar).
• They sometimes have 'windows' to let you see the relic, but not always.
• They vary immensely in design (which is good for me)

The important thing is that I make something that looks like it can contain something really valuable and sacred ... :)

Reliquary, not Shrine ...

So, it turned out, that what I was looking for, or meant to be looking for, was in fact reliquaries, and not shrines. Thank you, dear wife, for the tip on that :)

With that sorted out, it was much easier to find the stuff I was looking for, that had the look and function that I'm trying to resemble in my piece.

Interestingly, but maybe not surprisingly, I also found reliquaries made by contemporary artists. Here are some examples of both, with the two last ones being contemporary art.

Shaping The Sacred

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sacred |ˈsākrid|
adjective
connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration : sacred rites | the site at Eleusis is sacred to Demeter. See note at divine .
• religious rather than secular : sacred music.
• (of writing or text) embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion : a sacred Hindu text.
• regarded with great respect and reverence by a particular religion, group, or individual : an animal sacred to Mexican culture.
• sacrosanct : to a police officer nothing is sacred.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


My initial reaction to 'sacred' is that it is something related to myths, religion and rites (even before I looked in the dictionary :) ... People are, of course, entitled to define their own meaning of what sacred means to them personally, and so, there is no general, all encompassing answer to what the sacred means to them. Still, I would say that most people probably agree that sacred for most people is connected to the before mentioned myths, religion and rites. Personally, I would define 'life' as sacred, if anything, but no more sacred than knowing that all life has to come to an end. So, for me, the notion of something sacred is almost absurd in that sense, especially because I don't believe there is a life after death. If you actually do believe in a life after death, the sacred becomes much more important. If you believe in eternal life after death, you better be careful not to do things that can upset the Gods. Sacred places, sacred things, sacred rites are all designed to keep the Gods (or God) happy, and to give you an opportunity to think you can do so (keep them happy).

Now to the real problem: How can I use clay to say anything about this? What is it with clay that makes it useful for this purpose? Traditionally, gold and other valuable materials have often been used in the setting of pleasing the gods (Maya, Egypt, Christendom etc...).

Can I make a symbol that resembles the 'religious'? Maybe I can find a symbol for the new religion we encounter today (Apple, SUV, $$$)... This is, of course, to go back to my old friend Cliché again ...

This is not easy ...

Progress towards process?

After the discussion today with Brandon, I felt like I got a better understanding of what I could do to get the whole project starting... At the same time, Brandon did confirm my fear that we actually are asked to invent the wheel all over again. Of course, it is always easier to invent something that has been invented before, but never the less ... What really helped me though, was when he told us about a project he had been doing himself, in collaboration with another artist from Sweden, that made me think much more about process, and the process itself, and not so much the finished 'product' ... I think that, maybe, this is also some of the key to this class, that we are supposed to think 'process' and not so much 'product' ... Still, there are parameters that can be altered and should be considered even for 'process' works also, like: is it just about the process, and not about the end product? Is it important that it 'looks interesting' (whatever that means) or does it also have to 'be interesting' in that it creates some sort of reaction to the viewer other than just 'looks nice' ... I have a suspicion that artists that manage to make something that looks good, much easier gets away with it in terms of what an artwork 'is' or communicates or creates reactions in the audience. I sort of hope I am wrong about it, and I know of course that there has been a lot of art that has been praised (especially after a period of time, ala Duchamp) but much of the art that only 'looks good' will never even have to be questioned as good art or not... OK, I know this can be discussed, and I will try to get back on it later ...

About the Kuleshov Effect

It would be cool to make a claymation variation on the Kuleshov short. I will see if I can do that at some point, though it might not be a direct assignment for it ... I was thinking I might be able to use it for the "sacred" assignment, but, neh, I don't really think so ...

Kuleshov

http://web.archive.org/web/20040803184354/http://www.ouc.bc.ca/fina/glossary/k_list/kuleshov.html

KULESHOV EFFECT: Robert Butz offers the following: The name given to the mental tendency of viewers to attempt to figure out how filmed shots fit together, even if the shots are totally unrelated. This effect was noted and articulated by Soviet director and film theoretician Lev (Leo) Kuleshov, who was appointed head of the newsreel section at the Moscow film studios early in the post-revolutionary period. Around 1919, Kuleshov began a series of editing experiments which led to a startling discovery (in what has become known as the "Mozhukhin Experiment"). In separate sequences, shots of various objects (a bowl of soup, a smiling child, and a dead body), were juxtaposed against identical archive clips of a famous actor (Ivan Mozhukhin). The audience read a different meaning into Mozhukhin's expression with each combination. This discovery demonstrated the power of editing to alter the perception of the subject, in this case, the actor's emotions and thoughts. The experiment also, implicitly, advanced the verisimilar acting style as the ideal for film; purportedly, Mozhukin was praised by the audience for his subtle acting abilities.

In another experiment, Kuleshov spliced together another series of shots which had been filmed entirely out of sequence and in different times and places: a waiting man, a walking woman, a gate, a staircase, and a mansion. The audience read spatial and temporal 'sense' into the sequence, deciding that they saw the man and the woman meeting in front of the gate at the same time. This demonstrated the viewer's essential role in creating a film's continuity and advanced the notion that a filmmaker creates a 'fictive space', with the freedom to shoot out of sequence and join together unrelated shots. Kuleshov used these discoveries to advance the theory of montage as the central device of cinema, later adapted by Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevelod Pudovkin.

Problem 2 - Shaping the sacred ...

I guess one very simple approach to this could be to shape some letters in clay, say "LIFE", let it build up like growing up from the ground, then, somehow make it go away again, as to watch it die ... (somewhat like Elisas piece that has an even more direct and real form of life in it ...) 

This approach would at least be doable in the relative short time we have for it, and even though I would like to have a much more 'intellectual' or 'smart' answer to this assignment, I can always live with this one ... 

One way to add a little spice to it, could be to do the whole thing in the street, and then let it disappear by letting cars run over it ... or maybe not ...

When I was thinking of sacred, I thought of a tribe I learned about in an anthropology class. They were called the Trobriands (from the Trobriand Islands, where they were made famous with the help of the polish anthropologist Borislaw Malinowsky, who were forced to stay there for a longer period of time, two years I think, because of the outbreak of WW1, but that is another story ...) These people had a sacred place. Namely cave on the Island they believe is the origin of their ancestors ... This, I guess, would be much the same as Christian religion, and other religions, as in what is seen upon as sacred. As I mentioned in class, I am not religious, so I haven't thought of anything in my life as 'sacred'. That is not to say that I don't think of things in my life as important, or 'very important', and some things will always be 'sacred' even though you haven't labeled it as such. I mean, it all depends on how you define sacred. As I check the dictionary now, it actually states it as 'connected with God', which was pretty much the way I interpreted it as well. The problem with words, and definitions, are as always, they can mean different things, to different people. Is there such a thing as 'more sacred'? I don't think so, but listening to the discussion in class, I felt that that could be the case for some. In that case then, to me, the word 'sacred' looses its meaning ... 

Anyways, one can agree upon definitions and meanings of words in the discourse of smaller groups and settings as well, I just feel it is important to be aware of the differences people can have towards special words and definitions, since we all have different backgrounds, be it cultural, political or religious.

I do feel, though, that it is very useful to think about what it is that is 'sacred' for one self, and why that is ... 

still some ...

and more ...

Research ...

My First Claymation Movie Ever!

Thoughts about clay

This blog is about my experience with clay as I progress through the 'clay research' class at UO winter 2008. My first experience with clay came two days ago (well, I made a small figure in clay about 25 years ago, but that is a loooong time ago, so I count that out for now) when we were supposed to do some clay sketches. It sounds simple enough, but it is a little bit harder than what you might think. First off, it dries out after a pretty short time, and then it gets pretty hard to work with. The easy fix is of course to add some water. I didn't quite know where to start, so I just started playing with it, without thinking of making specific things, just hoping that something would magically pop out of the clay as I was 'working' with it. That didn't happen. I was surprised, and understood that this actually was going to be a bit harder than I first thought. Then I got this fantastic idea, that I could set up my DV-camera to do a stop-motion kind of thing, so that maybe that would force me to come up with something creative and fun! Well, I'm not sure if it turned out to be just that, but at least, whatever I made was caught on tape! (well, actually, it was caught on my hard drive, but just the same ...) So, that actually meant that I had made my first claymation movie, and I had some experience with how clay was to work with. I realized pretty soon that this type of clay was not the right sort of clay to do claymation with, but that is just a minor problem. Hopefully I will be able to upload the movie to this blog also, so that everyone can see the masterpiece. It is a classic, I can tell you! :)

--

Knut Einar Skjaer