6. Sustainability and Ecology as keywords: a decade of contemporary art

Cinema plays a major role in contemporary art, yet the deeper influence of its diverse historical forms on artistic practice has received little attention. Working from a media and cultural studies perspective, Screen Presence explores the intersections of film, popular media, and art since the 1950s through the examples of four pivotal figures – Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Mona Hatoum and Douglas Gordon. While their film-related works may appear primarily as challenges to conventional cinema, these artists draw on overlooked forms of popular film culture that have been commonplace, and even dominant, in specific social contexts. Through analysis of a range of examples and source materials, Stephen Monteiro demonstrates the dependence of contemporary artists on cinema’s shifting applications and interpretations, offering a fresh understanding of the enduring impact of everyday media on how we make and view art.

Download Full-text

Screening Statues

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410892.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Steven Jacobs ◽

Susan Felleman ◽

Vito Adriaensens ◽

Lisa Colpaert

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Interdisciplinary Approach ◽

Film History ◽

Two Dimensional ◽

Artistic Practice ◽

Experimental Art ◽

Broad Scope ◽

Art Practices ◽

Extensive Reference

Sculpture is an artistic practice that involves material, three-dimensional, and generally static objects, whereas cinema produces immaterial, two-dimensional, kinetic images. These differences are the basis for a range of magical, mystical and phenomenological interactions between the two media. Sculptures are literally brought to life on the silver screen, while living people are turned into, or trapped inside, statuary. Sculpture motivates cinematic movement and film makes manifest the durational properties of sculptural space. This book will examine key sculptural motifs and cinematic sculpture in film history through seven chapters and an extensive reference gallery, dealing with the transformation skills of "cinemagician" Georges Méliès, the experimental art documentaries of Carl Theodor Dreyer and Henri Alekan, the statuary metaphors of modernist cinema, the mythological living statues of the peplum genre, and contemporary art practices in which film—as material and apparatus—is used as sculptural medium. The book’s broad scope and interdisciplinary approach is sure to interest scholars, amateurs and students alike.

Download Full-text

Transformative Encounters and Uncanny Intimacies: Biotechnology and Contemporary Art – A Practitioner's Approach and Perspective

Somatechnics ◽

10.3366/soma.2012.0061 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 263-283 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Svenja J. Kratz

Keyword(s):

Tissue Culture ◽

Human Skin ◽

Contemporary Art ◽

Skin Equivalent ◽

Biomedical Innovation ◽

Equivalent Models ◽

Science Projects ◽

Insight Into ◽

Human Skin Equivalent

Abstract: Presented from an ArtScience practitioner's perspective, this paper provides an overview of Svenja Kratz's experience working as an artist within the area of cell and tissue culture at QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI). Using The Absence of Alice, a multi-medium exhibition based on the experience of culturing cells, as a case study, the paper gives insight into the artist's approach to working across art and science and how ideas, processes, and languages from each discipline can intermesh and extend the possibilities of each system. The paper also provides an overview of her most recent artwork, The Human Skin Equivalent/Experience Project, which involves the creation of personal jewellery items incorporating human skin equivalent models grown from the artist's skin and participant cells. Referencing this project, and other contemporary bioart works, the value of ArtScience is discussed, focusing in particular on the way in which cross-art-science projects enable an alternative voice to enter into scientific dialogues and have the potential to yield outcomes valuable to both disciplines.

Download Full-text