Sculpture size 50 cm.
Continuing the theme of mobile life, I decided to look at the portrait of a person taking a photo with his phone. I painted the girl portrait making Selfie or taking a photo of someone, and next step, I wanted to imagine how it would look in three-dimensional space.
The clay is pliable, soft, natural material. This is one of the oldest mediums for creating art objects. The sculpting process is very personal for me, you need to shape it with your hands, interact with every centimetre. Tactility comes first here.
The construction of the girl's torso and head could have been further improved to perfection, but my task was simply to feel the gesture and movement in space. Later, I saw many flaws in the construction of the skull and figure, but this is a technical issue and I will not discuss it here.
I was interested in the distance between the phone and the face itself. In previous work with Angel, the phone was close to the head. This has been the case with photo cameras in the past. Now, probably only professional photographers bring the camera close to the eye in order to see only the framed picture.
In the Angel work, this moment (phone on the head) was, as it were, exaggerated. I copied the painting, so I deliberately didn't separate the phone from the face. Now, using the example of current work, it seems to me that this is the main element and idea. The phone cannot be separated from the face because it can be that this is the face.
When a person takes pictures with a phone, he sees in parallel two images of what is on the phone screen and physical surrounding. The main thing for us is the image on the phone. It gets further life and remains in the history of social networks and the Internet. And behind the scenes, our real hidden life remains.
How are these two women different? Drawing and sculpture. Not taking into account the external dissimilarity and colour, we naturally mark the space and the flatness. Due to this, the tension of the fact of observation disappears in the sculpture. As soon as we change our position in relation to the girl with the phone and stand in front of her, then we become the object of observation or shooting, but if we change our location, which is possible with a sculpture, then we are rather accomplices in the shooting process. For the girl on the picture, we are always an object, because it is not clear - the girl is looking through the news feed or takes our photo.
It seems to me that the important point for work is the method of looking, the point of view or the Scopic regime.
In modern science, the term often used in the interpretation of Martin Jay, who introduced in 1988 the article "Skopic regimes of modernity." Martin Jay discussed ... to the ocular permeation of language, there exists a wealth of what might be called visually imbued and cultural social practices, which may vary from culture to culture and epoch to epoch. Sometimes these can be construed in grandiose terms, such as a massive shift from an oral culture to a "chirographic" one based on writing and then a typographic one in which the visual bias of the intermediate stage is even more firmly entrenched. ... Somewhere in between, historians of technology have pondered the implications of our expanded capacity to see through such devices as the telescope, microscope, camera, or cinema. (Jay, 1994, 2,3).
An additional device appears between the person and other objects. This is a phone. But in the semblance of how we wear glasses to improve vision, the phone becomes our assistant in seeing the world. We look at friends, family, or just the same object in the room, but through the phone's camera or through its screen. Our vision and perception of reality adapt to this tool. For instance, it is usual to make square photos; to describe your mood with Emoji; to obtain fast information; to be in a need of activity in social networks for ratings; to compete in the number of subscribers and so on.
Remember, as it was in the icons, the eyes and pupils of Jesus are slightly darkened and blurred to create the effect - the universal eye. He looks at the viewer from any position.
Christ Pantocrator; Byzantium. Constantinople; location: Egypt. Sinai, monastery of sv. Catherine; 45.5 x 84 cm; material: wood, gold (leaf), natural pigments; Technique: gilding, encaustic (VI century) [Icon] At: http://www.ruicon.ru/arts-new/icons/1x1-dtl/monastir_sv_ekaterini/hristos_pantokrator5/ (Accessed on 09.07.19)
Can it be that Smartphone took place of this “universal eye”? Girl's eyes on the sculpture piece are not detailed, which leaves room for thought about her seeing ability. But since the face of a person is hidden behind the telephone, we automatically perceive the entire painting as if it would be the picture observes us. The Smartphone with connection to the Internet is a kind of “universal eye” for everyone because we can see the results of everyone’s social activity in an open account.
And if we remove the image of a person and leave only the phone itself? It looks like a black rectangle on a coloured background. But now the sense disappears, there is no man, so no one is watching, no action happening. The phone is motionless, it becomes meaningless. It, of course, can conduct independent filming, but the painting now is still and deprived of life. If we do the same in sculpture ...
The phone will remain as it is. Then it's easier to use a real phone. But why do artists recreate, for example, cardboard box in bronze?
Mungo Thomson, Snowman, 2020, Painted bronze, 46.4 × 48.6 × 65.4 cm [Sculpture] At: https://dailyartfair.com/exhibition/11688/william-leavitt-ari-marcopoulos-stefan-rinck-mungo-thomson-blair-thurman-group-show-galerie-frank-elbaz Accessed on 18.01.21)
We are used to perceiving objects in a certain material. This material was most likely given by nature (for example, the state of water, or wood) or developed by man (cardboard is the most practical and suitable for transporting parcels). If we change the material of a popular object, and at the same time, we would still be able to recognize it, then such a change will make us ask questions.
Not to mention, that sculpture will always remain as an object in the world. And actually, the painting in its nature is a canvas on a stretcher with colours on top, in other words, it is also a three-dimensional object. The difference between the two is what Greenberg wrote in Modernist Painting: ...For flatness alone was unique and exclusive to pictorial art. ... Because flatness was the only condition painting shared with no other art, Modernist painting oriented itself to flatness as it did to nothing else.
If I leave my phone with a wrist, the viewer may have a natural instinct to look into someone else's phone. An instinctive desire caused by the object itself. Curiosity. What does it mean? The person will definitely go around the sculpture and look at the phone.
I enlarged hands in both cases (painting and sculpture) because, after a few decades, I think our fingers will naturally lengthen from the frequent practice of using a computer and telephone. As the fingers of pianists are thin and graceful or the feet of a ballerina, broken and ugly from constant work, so our thumb is involved in typing SMS and the little finger supports a mobile phone every single day, which was not the case before.
Through this piece, I discussed Smartphone as an object, influence on our daily life, the difference in the presentation via sculpture and painting. Having said that, it does not investigate the issue of seeing the world through the phone in an original and new way.
I come to this conclusion after researching several artists.
Anna Uddenberg
Anna Uddenberg, Journey of Self Discovery, 2016, Mixed media. © FAM editorial Courtesy: Anna Uddenberg and Sandy Brown, Berlin [Sculpture] At: https://fineartmultiple.com/blog/berlin-biennale-9/ (Accessed 18.08.2020)
The artist uses gestures and movements of people brought to the point of absurdity, thereby provoking the viewer. The materials used in the work are plastic, polyester and others, the most popular in our everyday life. Colours are muted, often grey or unnaturally bright, which also refers to the current moment in time. With such a combination of materials and “uncomfortable” gestures and forms of people, Anna Uddenberg raises the question of individually designed products and gestures which ultimately transform into something universal for each individual. In other words, we think that we are individuals, but we express this individuality through a newly established system.
Matthew Mohr
Another artist is changing the medium of the selfie, thereby changing the perspective of this new way of thinking. Using new technologies (LID screens), the artist discussing the issue in a new way.
"The intent is to reconsider oneself in a unique context, to consider that representation in a public setting, and to re-contextualize people from different cultures. Matthew Mohr looks for a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion in simple, inconsequential moments, magnifying them as a reflection of humanistic ideals." (Maria Erman, online)
Matthew Mohr, ‘as we are’ is permanently installed in the greater columbus convention center all images © ellen dallagher [Sculpture] At: https://www.designboom.com/art/matthew-mohr-interactive-sculpture-12-04-2017/ (Accessed 18.08.2020)
Another example, Stéphane Simon explores new Selfie gestures against the Greek statues. After many years of studying the types of behaviour with the phone, the artist left only the human body and deduced a new canon that had developed in the conditions of a new reality.
In addition to selfies, Stéphane Simon adds an interactive element for viewing these sculptures. He uses the human body/body of the sculpture as a blank sheet of paper for drawing, and with the help of a smartphone or an iPad, the viewer can see the tattoos of each of the sculptures. In my opinion, this takes reflections away from the topic, but on the other hand, it provides additional material for reasoning.
This approach is similar to my 2019 work. In the third drawing, I used a selfie of a girl in an elevator (also a new kind of photo). In the beginning, the projection represented the original face and the surrounding structure, but then the drawing disappeared, and the viewer had to reconstruct the face of this girl at his own discretion. Thus, I propose to create your own personality in the already set conditions. Just as a person tries to emphasize his individuality with clothes, makeup, but he always remains within the framework of the established practice.
In my clay sculpture, the narrative character, the figurative form feels not right. On the canvas or paper, it does not bother me, but in sculpture, I lack unpredictable edges. Something which I can use to cross out recognizable forms, and go into abstract reflections.
I practically feel like Rachel Harrison. The artist works with ready-made objects as well as with popular materials used by sculptors. I do not see aesthetic beauty in these works, the sculptures themselves look like Chinese forgeries to me. The colour is neither deep nor noble. The combination of objects sometimes makes me think of a garbage dump. In my opinion, first of all, art should be aesthetic, although this is a subjective assessment.
And yet, in the way the artist alludes to the image of a person (seller with selfie sticks) or a situation (stone age), I understand how the material embodied into the idea. The associative array and my representation are formed not by means of a direct picture or object, but due to the form of objects, their structure and material. With this, I would like to work further.
Rachel Harrison, The Vendor (detail), 2015, wood, polystyrene, chicken wire, cement, acrylic, selfie sticks, 70 1/4 × 28 1/2 × 22". [Sculpture] At: https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201508/rachel-harrison-54998 (Accessed 18.08.2020)
Bibliography and references
1. Jay M. (1994) Downcast Eyes The Denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought, University of California Press, Berkeley
2. Forum Lectures (Washington, D.C.: Voice of America), 1960; Arts Yearbook 4, 1961 (unrevised); Art and Literature, Spring 1965 (slightly revised); The New Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Gregory Battcock, 1966; Peinture-cahiers théoriques, no. 8-9, 1974 (titled “La peinture moderniste”); Esthetics Contemporary, ed. Richard Kostelanetz, 1978; Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, 1982; Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism vol. 4, ed. John OʼBrian, 1993. From: http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/modernism.html (Accessed 18.01.2021)
3. Maria Erman, Designboom, Matthew Mohr, ‘as we are’ is permanently installed in the greater columbus convention center all images © ellen dallagher [Sculpture] At: https://www.designboom.com/art/matthew-mohr-interactive-sculpture-12-04-2017/ (Accessed 18.08.2020)
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