MFA Symposium June 2013

1. Susan foster
combining the aesthetic of advertising and the materials of
signage to expand the possibilities in painting
MFA Painting
Symposium June 2013

2. agenda
• “Pacific Sun”, 2min stop motion video, Thomas
Demand
• Michael Fried’s analysis
• Relate the Cavellian model
• Considerations for my practice

3. “Pacific Sun” – thomas demand

5. Summary of Michael Fried’s analysis
Why this event? • challenges the PoMo tendency of indeterminancy
• uses mechanical causality to bring out artist’s conviction
• does this by use of
1. the single view allows for artist’s meaning
2. Stop motion video
Why are the humans
removed
• avoids potential distraction of slapstick
How is the soundtrack
significant
• replicated sound adds to the similacra of the visual
• equates with the abstract aesthetic of the visual
• adds character to the objects
• any use of music would diminish the visual intensity
Medium specificity –
photography, film
• photography or single camera view of sculpture allows the
artist’s intention to be the only way to view the work
• is a work which somewhat upholds the values of high
modernism and denies the indeterminancy of PoMo
Is the artist being skeptical?

6. Stanley Cavell b1926 and skepticism?
• A thought is either true or false or meaningless
– “I say, and you shall hear, only what I mean”
• [language is not just a set of words but worldviews]…
Cavell
– Evolves into thoughts of doubt and skepticism
about certainty
• [creating certainty about the world is actually a way of
escaping the world and all its abiguity]…Cavell

7. Relating the Cavellian model of Skepticism
Why this
event
• mechanical causality
• denies
indeterminancy
• mechanical causality = artificial realm of
absolute certainty (T/F) where thoughts and
actions are mechanical
•Returning to the ordinary world after this
encounter changes experience of ordinary
Why are the
humans
removed
• avoids slapstick • to deny the ambiguity of the real world in this
mechanically certain dreamworld
How is the
soundtrack
significant
• replication of sound
unites with visual
aesthetic
• abstract sound adds to the establishment of the
artificial realm
Medium
specificity -
film
• high conviction
•Artist’s intention
• “current of simaltaneous event reception”;
uninflected sensory stimulation = passive activity
of monitoring

8. How might these models relate to my practice
• My practice:
– “combinesthe aesthetic of advertising and the materials of signage to
expand the possibilities in painting”
• Process:
– Single drawing and an installation is photographed
– Digitally re-mastered into compositions
– Select what to print and what to paint
– Select material
– Print as ground then apply paint
• I think of my practice in terms of….. readymade materials, and how I can
confound how people see machined and man made images

12. How might these models relate to my practice
• Mechanical causation is in my work
– Digital process is a controllable environment
– Some surprises, but not a lot of chance
• High Conviction is in my process
– Thousands of artistic decisions are made in the composition and then in
the printing process, before painting starts
– Staring at the screen for hours/days = passive monitoring?
• Material is a key to meaning
– Billboards for art, in homes and on the street
• Am I being skeptical?
– Do my works create an artificially painted realm which returns to the real
via painting?
– Does the machine/man combination confound the eye, seem uncanny?