Room 2 - Site: Specific & Reactive [Art Video]

Youtube Link

For my Site Specific piece. I worked within my university building choosing rooms and areas which were rarely used. This included places such as corridors, old forgotten storage areas and unused classrooms.
The piece above Room 2 came about after presenting my art history presentation that year where we entered the room as such in to show off our selective talks and then we all left. This automatically linked with my ideas and themes I had been flowing and as such resulted in this piece of work.

It’s a simple piece showcasing an individual’s (me) walking up to the front of the room bowing to and applause and the action repeating. The fading figure helps reassured this idea of the room being used in a shorthanded sense producing the feeling of faded and repeated use of the same kind.
This piece was shown in the same room it was recorded in for the final presentation.

Let me know what you think down below. Thank you.

Brief extract:
Site: Specific & Reactive will see you making art work that is specifically for a particular site; it will, in short, be site specific.
Site specific work is that which is developed for, made for and seen at or in a particular site; as such, in some cases, (but not all), it is the antithesis of art work which we often encounter in a gallery or exhibition space.
The latter can often be nomadic, appearing in one exhibition space after another, and relating to one curatorial perspective after another in what might be called the ‘white cube’. Such work does not tend to take a lead from, or be informed by any particular site in which it is encountered. Importantly, site-specific work appears in one space or place and one space or place only. Its link and relationship with that space or site is integral and unequivocal.

MonoMania Research Clips: Victor Vasarely & Bridget Riley

Victor Vasarely:



First clip I watched is an 8 minute piece showcasing some of Victors work to music. The first thing i noticed about his work is that it is very crisp and clean. All the lines and colours a very prominent and his work feels very complete, it has a very mathematical feel to it. The pieces are very strong on your eyes because of his use of vibrant colours and visual effects. He uses scale to some other level, you tell can he has put a lot of time and effort into his work perfecting his scales of shapes to gives off these extreme illusions to the human eye making the pieces feeling and seem almost 3D.
I wasn't to fussed on the music as it felt like any other ambient transition music which at first worked with his pieces but ended up bringing down his work i feel as it drew my attention from looking at his work to zoning out because of the music. However his work is very pleasing to the eyes as long as you can stand the colours and illusions. I personally quite like it and I feel it has influenced me in such a way to try making more colour pieces out of just shapes and crisps lines/colours.



Next I watched a 4 minute interview with Victor Vasarely as he explains his mathematical concepts. This video very much speaks for itself and i can't really put it into better words. Victor Vasarely basically explains how he came up with his idea for his pieces by relating it back to the most common of human knowledge, maths, the alphabet, music and basic shapes the circle and square and with that in mind he added numbers to his colours creating his own colour alphabet and by studying basic geometry he came up with his idea. Honestly I'm not sure if its the way the translator spoke or just his metaphors but I can't take much away from this interview as it feels very lackluster to me and i can't put my finger on way. He used basic geometry to create shapes, maybe he was the first but in modern art and graphics of today you can create pieces like this is an instant. Maybe I'm over looking the fact but I enjoy his work but maybe i just don't like him.

Bridget Riley:



A short minute clip of Bridget Riley speaking on her work and how important the concept of movement and shape are. I really enjoyed this video the way it has been edited works really well as its showing everything she is saying in a visual way. For example how the camera pans out on a bunch of wavy lines to show the effect they have as lines groups of lines to being amassed together and the effect it gives. She very much has a way with words. The use of making the lines larger or smaller give the final piece a life of its own and the way its put across is very visual in this video and i think it work really well. It really make you think about your own work and how changing a lines thickness or thinness can give your piece and completely different look.



Finally I watched this video, a clip of the art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon enthusing about the work of Bridget Riley. What is really the most interesting out of the 4 videos I've watched and that is mainly down to the fact of the link to traditional art. How the traditional art show casted and Andrew clearly points out how it is extremely related such as the flowing 'musical' feel of the first piece shown and how that is represented in her own work with the flowing of her own wavy piece. The thing i most definitely take away most from Bridgets work is knowing when and how you can change lines to add more depth and feeling into my own work. Having seen how she was inspired by traditional art and adding her own ideas and style to create something related to the original but completely her own I feel nothing but motivation to dive straight into doing even more research.