Class #3 Followup:

Homework: For HW, please spend at least one additional Hour and complete on your Mutu-style self-portrait collage for class next week. Bring the collage to class and be prepared to discuss your decisions about how you made the portrait, both in formal terms and you how it responds to the culture of beauty and the ideal.  If you weren't in class #3, please watch the lecture above and go here for a more complete description of the assignment.Class #3 Lecture  



ONLINE Class#3 Followup 
Please complete the assignment below and post on your blog by the end of day next Sunday.

 PART A: Watch this 9-minute interview with Wangechi Mutu, the excerpt from her video collaboration with musician Santigold, then answer the below questions in a blog post.


1. How do Mutu's Human/insect/machine-like distortions of the body relate to conventional notions of female beauty?

 2. Describe how one of her works functions formally. How is the work beautiful and how is it ugly?


PART B




Culturally-defined Beauty, or "Taste". : Part of this conversation on society's standards of beauty, perfection, taste, must cover the separation between "high" and "low" culture. Questioning why some cultural productions deserve the classification "art", and others do not, is at the heart of Jacob Ciocci's project (and his former collaborative group Paperrad)

Read his essay on "The Value of Being Trolled", here:

http://jacobciocci.org/2013/12/the-value-of-being-trolled/


 Did you watched the embedded video of Rebecca Black's cringe reaction to her former video? Whether you believe in Ciocci's viewpoint, clearly the power of the cringe, public failure broadcast widely on the internet, is part of all of our experiences. Like  "Ugliness", this sort of Cringe-culture is freeing for artists, because they don't have to play by the rules of conventional aesthetic conversations. For the final part of your class followup:

 Cringe-Factor 

a.Find an image of yourself several years ago, or,even better, a drawing or painting or artwork that you made a few years ago and are embarassed by:

 b. Post it on your blog. 1. Write a paragraph detailing everything that embarrasses you about the image, about the out-of-step fashion, haircut, attitude, drawing style, everything that your eye goes to and makes you want to cringe. Give yourself some time to think about it and write at least a few sentences.

 2. What about you, or culture at large, has changed since you made this/this was how you presented yourself to the world?