Working plan

Practice in Context

Why do I Care what Martha Rosler thinks? Looking at the legacy left by the ‘feminist revolution’ artists, in particular Martha Rosler and what this means to today’s generation of artists, with particular reference to how women’s roles in society are represented.

My practice is based around the representation of stereotypes of women through fifties advertisements, so to place my practice in context I began to look at

1. Artists who address roles in society
2. Artists who address women’s roles in society
3. Artists who address women’s roles in society and seek to dispel socially imposed stereotypes.

At point three there is still a vast amount of research as a topic for a dissertation. Primarily the vast amount of work lies within the seventies where there was a large amount of artwork emerging out of the feminist movement. During the seventies issues of feminism and women’s rights were still very much contemporary issues and consequently fairly radical pieces of artwork came out of the feminist art movement to alert people to the issues. In today’s world we are well aware of the issues surrounding feminism, so much so that the topic seems almost cliché and unoriginal as the basis of a piece of artwork. However although discrimination against women may have been addressed in today’s society, prejudice is still commonplace, as we often unknowingly make assumptions about social and gender roles based on society’s stereotypes. These new issues of prejudice are perhaps a little more complicated, and for this reason there has been a change of direction in order to gain the attention of the audience – perhaps a more subtle approach.

Therefore I propose to look at how a younger generation of artists are dealing with the issues that have arisen from the changing state of women’s roles in the last fifty years, coming from the perspective of a young female making art. What does the legacy left by the big players from the seventies means to us? Is it so different?

The artists that left these legacies include artists such as Martha Rosler; Cindy Sherman among many others, the work was avant-garde challenging relationships among many things in a vast arrange of subjects.

Within the discussion I hope to address the following issues;

Why do I care what Martha Rosler thinks?
What does it mean to look back?
How important is History?
What does that legacy mean to my generation?
Is it so different to now?

Written from my perspective and using other artists who address similar themes, I propose to examine what affect this legacy left by from these artists and the affect that this has played on their work.

To present this discussion I propose to use a magazine format, as this encompasses the ideas that can be gained from advertisements and mass media. This form of presentation would allow me use the same tools as the media to portray my ideas, as well as allowing me to break the discussion down into more specialised discussions in a format easily digestible to the reader. When it finally comes down to the distribution of the document I want it to be available through a wider means than that of a standard dissertation, possibly through sourcing, over periods of time. I hope it can become available to general public, i.e. inserting the magazine into local newspapers, available in libraries.

Take something in to your own hands

I think that this module has been my biggest headake of the year!! But after a couple of converstations i'm going to try and make it my own, whatever that means. I was going to make my own magazine but lets see if that gets off, this may just be a diary or a somthing that takes and gets pulled out of. Maybe this is my quest! lol

My search for "Why do i care what Martha Rosler thinks?" well do i is the biggest question, i'm not too sure at the moment
How to i answer this question that i have set for myself ? yuk....

Do i make a magazine, diary, documentary.......:s

Media Burn

Ann coxon came in last year and showed us about an exhibition that she has created at the TATE:



16 December 2006 – 18 February 2007
About | Visiting information | Video interviews

Media Burn exhibition, 2006 Photo: Marcus Leith and Andrew Dunkley © Tate
enlarge
Media Burn explores the boundaries between art, politics, protest and the media. It combines contemporary works with those from the 1970s and 1980s, all sharing a DIY, collage aesthetic that involves manipulating the images and techniques of the mass media. Some of the artists explore the relationship between politics and everyday life in the domestic environment. Others take to the streets, contemplating the effectiveness of protest and direct action in the twenty-first century.



Martha Rosler’s collages throw a spotlight on the media consumption of the Iraq war, while Peter Kennard’s satirical




photomontages provide a savage commentary on 1980s British politics and society. Sharon Hayes holds a one-woman protest using slogans taken from past political actions. Similarly, Jens Ullrich doctors documentary photographs of demonstrations to render their placards meaningless. Wynne Greenwood and K8 Hardy present a spoof feminist news report, while Valérie Mréjen creates a hypnotic and melancholy essay on the limited horizons of a 1970s housewife. Josephine Meckseper’s glittering shop window displays teasingly blur the relationships between politics and art, culture and advertising

Site: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/mediaburn/default.shtm#

First entry

first blog....
Practice in Context
Bit of a confusing module, weigh up whether a dissertation would be easier. At the minute my 'Practice' isn't really anywhere its all over the place, not to sure what i really want to do. Carry on from last year is the first place to start, but i kinda almost want to direct it in a new light, or expand it. For this idea of what form the form of the 'dissertation' should take i've been thinking about accessable distributions- Magazine/ Newpaper/on-line/ book Its kind of really imprortant part of it, the distribution, the wide accessible
looked at Emma Rushtons -Mule Mule
Also i went to Cyprus College of Art in the sumer and they had their own newspaper, i might have a go at getting one propely made up.

I think so far i want my dissertation to look at; how artists address and pose questions about the notions of the presented image from the media. If it has any part in how they look at reality,Is there a fine line between the two ?
Case study :Need to draw it closer to the home?? Why are you doing the home? Humour key point? Is there a need for a why?
Is it necessarily the media or rather a larger form of distribution??
Women, what does this mean, am I using this gender as a case study? Why do artists concentrate on what they do is there some kind of subconscious meaning or what??
What time do I concentrate it on now or then? Has anything changed or is it just another form of going with it, or is it slowly changing to another thing