I think the theory of relativity was solved by rainbows. Green and Brood a tood.

For my research and art project, I am focusing on the work of artist Paul Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer works in a variety of media, including sculpture and photography, but focuses mainly on video work. Pfeiffer explores themes of identity, celebrity, spectacle, and interaction with the supernatural. One of his most common techniques is the removal, through digital manipulation, of elements of an image. Pfeiffer does this by digitally painting background over top of objects in the scene. I found this technique fascinating, as it allows the artist to explore the way we view the spectacle of sports by removing the sport, leaving only the spectacle.
Another common element of Pfeiffer’s work is the manipulation of perspective. Several of his pieces rigidly limit what the viewer can see. For instance, one work takes video of a basketball game and crops out everything but the ball and the area immediately surrounding it. By showing us such a small area of the scene, Pfeiffer displaces the ball from its usual context. All we see is a ball and a constantly changing blur of colors in the background. Another piece, Dutch Interior, features a live feed of one perspective inside a reproduction of a staircase while a peephole gives another perspective of the interior. I was especially fascinated by this piece and how, by only allowing the viewer to see the reproduction through two very specific viewpoints, the artist almost turns the three dimensional piece into a two dimensional picture. Pfeiffer can frame our view of the piece however he wants.
The use of a peephole in Dutch Interior was very interesting to me. After seeing the piece, I thought about how merely adding a frame can allow an artist to enclose a part of the world and show it as an image. Ordinarily, we move through three dimensional space and two people rarely see the world in exactly the same way, even as far as just the composition of the image before our eyes. By adding a frame, we can ensure that everyone who looks through it will see something similar. The smaller the frame, the more controlled the view. When the frame is small as a peephole, all viewers will see essentially the same composition of forms, even if their eyes perceive colors and light differently. For my studio project, I plan to experiment with this kind of forced perspective. I plan to place viewfinders, telescopes, or peepholes in specific places in order to frame elements of the three dimensional world in a way I find aesthetically pleasing or interesting. This will essentially create living photographs. These images will constantly change based on time of day and movement of objects, but the basic framing and immobile elements of the images will remain constant.
I would also like to experiment within the idea of the forced perspective. I may try frames of varying sizes, thus controlling the amount of variation of composition. Larger framing devices would give more power to the viewer to control their image while smaller ones would put the control more in my hands. I would also like to experiment with altering the image seen through the frame through magnification (telescope), refraction (kaleidoscopic lens), and other methods (paint on the lens). I might even explore Pfeiffer’s technique of removing part of an image by painting background over top of it. I could digitally paint the background of an object in the frame the same way Pfeiffer does, then print out that “background” and place it in the frame so that is covers up the view of the object. This technique would only work in an extremely restricted frame such as a peephole.

The Semester So Far

The first half of ART105 has helped me grow in confidence as an artist. First of all, I’ve simply learned that I can somewhat competently use a variety of materials to create something approximating my vision. This was a big step for me, as I’ve always considered myself “one of those” who can’t draw, paint, or generally function in the visual arts (excepting photography). Another thing I’ve learned, or really a part of the previously mentioned lesson, is that even when what I put on the page doesn’t match what I envisioned, it can still come together into something interesting. This is one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned to help someone like me (perhaps anyone?) get started as an artist: go with the flow. High school art classes tended to encourage exact replication of other works or objects without first allowing us to experiment and learn in a looser situation. This class has finally given me this opportunity. The combination of out-of-class drawing exercises, live model sketching, and interpretive drawings has given us a balance of experience in several different artistic mindsets, while always being loose and quick, making it a low-stress environment in which to discover ourselves a bit artistically.
Over the semester so far, I have also gained more confidence in my ability to conceptualize artworks. From the beginning of the semester, we’ve had frequent in-class exercises, both individually and in groups, that gave us limited materials or even limited shapes, and otherwise allowed us total freedom. These exercises have really helped me learn how to come up with ideas for the direction of a piece and discover the abilities of conceptualization that I already had.
The first in-class activity, the depiction of calm or tension with six lines, a circle, and two shapes of our making, was a real growing experience for me. I found that Rachel and I could come together and play with our seemingly out-there ideas and come up with something that really seemed to work as an interesting piece of art. I also found that we thought kind of similarly about creating the work, which was interesting and exciting (partially because she’s an art major. “Can I think like an art major?!”).
The drawings we did while listening to instrumental music were also fascinating. This time, we were forced to conceptualize very quickly, on-the-fly in fact. The pieces varied wildly in success, but all of them taught me something. I didn’t come particularly close to “finishing” any of them, but I was able to form an idea of what I wanted the piece to look like fairly quickly and adapt that vision as the I went, allowing the work to shape itself to some degree. A couple of the pieces actually turned out to be something I was quite proud of. These exercises also marked the beginning of what I think will be a life-long love of pastels.
Our first major studio project was a flipbook. The only “rule” with this assignment was that it must be, in some way, a flipbook. This kind of freedom was wholly new to me and very exciting. As I toyed with ideas in my sketchbook, I found myself really drawn to the idea of transformation over time. I soon had several ideas that I found interesting, all of which essentially came from redrawing a starting shape with something changed and seeing where it wanted to go. The idea I ended up using was actually the very first one I sketched, and I still have really no idea where it came from. It seems the best ideas are often this way.
The freedom of the flipbook project also meant that we had very few guidelines for the method by which to create our book. This meant that I had to solve problems on my own, another important lesson of this project. I devised my own tracing table and eventually, after a lot of struggling with ideas and frustration over poor flipping of the book, I came up with a method of binding that allowed the book to flip fairly smoothly. I am quite happy with my final product on this project. I have been sick and thus have missed the latest project so far, but after looking at the prompt, I am very excited for this project and the rest of the semester!