A Los Angeles Aesthetic is definitely one of my favorite art bloggers. Her love for art has led her to Venice and she’s bringing shots of the Biennale to art lovers all of the world!!!
A few words for LAA…
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, and THANK YOU for sharing and I can’t wait to see more Pavilion shots and read more of your reflections! One day…I’m going to make it out to Venice myself. 2012, perhaps!? Again, LAA, you’re so awesome!
The Transmutations exhibition, at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA), closing show completely reinvigorated the art writing. I will definitely post thoughts and reflections of the show in the next few days including thoughts on GAFFTA’s awesomeness. It was one of the best closing nights I’ve EVER attended. I’m extremely proud to be a volunteer for this organization!! More to come…
In contemporary art, it’s not only about the retina, which disappoints a few people I’ve spoken with over the past week (I’ve got a lively post baking in the oven! You will just have to wait and see what I’m talking about). Truthfully, I’m unable to deny the sense of sight being that my day job involves assisting in the oversight of ophthalmic trials, which is quite the interesting parallel to my life outside of the office. Being such an avid follower of the Arts, it makes sense that I’m going to relate (almost everything in my life) to Art. However, recent conversations and suggestions have led me to believe that discussing one topic on a weekly is probably much more effective use of my brain and gives both of us (yes, you, dear reader) ample time to explore topics to have a deeper, richer dialogue.
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Our senses can deceive us, especially the sense of sight. With art evolving and constantly being re-defined, I wanted to start out with eye anatomy, primarily, because it’s the way in which many people engage and participate in the arts. People rely on their sight to give them the data and information required to form a perception. I am aware that this topic can and will go in many directions but I’m trying to create some foundation (more for myself than anyone else). As the week progresses, we’ll see how the other senses come into play.
In any case, I’ve attached the guide to “How the Eye Sees” (Courtesy of WebMD).
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Travel inside the eyes — our window to the world — and learn how they allow us to see objects both far and near.
In order to see, there must be light. Light reflects off an object and — if one is looking at the object — enters the eye.
The first thing light touches when entering the eye is a thin veil of tears that coats the front of the eye. Behind this lubricating moisture is the front window of the eye, called the cornea. This clear covering helps to focus the light.
On the other side of the cornea is more moisture. This clear, watery fluid is the aqueous humor. It circulates throughout the front part of the eye and keeps a constant pressure within the eye.
After light passes through the aqueous humor, it passes through the pupil. This is the central circular opening in the colored part of the eye — also called the iris. Depending on how much light there is, the iris may contract or dilate, limiting or increasing the amount of light that gets deeper into the eye. The light then goes through the lens. Just like the lens of a camera, the lens of the eye focuses the light. The lens changes shape to focus on light reflecting from near or distant objects.
This focused light now beams through the center of the eye. Again the light is bathed in moisture, this time in a clear jelly known as the vitreous. Surrounding the vitreous is the retina.
Light reaches its final destination within the photo receptors of the retina: the retina is the inner lining of the back of the eye. It’s like a movie screen or the film of a camera. The focused light is projected onto its flat, smooth surface. However, unlike a movie screen, the retina has many working parts:
Signals sent from the photoreceptors travel along nerve fibers to a nerve bundle which exits the back of the eye, called the optic nerve. The optic nerve sends the visual signals to the visual center in the back of the brain where the experience of vision occurs.
Now light, reflected from an object, has entered the eye, been focused, converted into electro-chemical signals, delivered to the brain and interpreted or “seen” as an image.
Art writer, Christopher Knight wrote an entry for his Los Angeles Times blog, Culture Monster, about artist Trevor Paglen last September. His work has been unforgettable since then. Chronicles of satellites and planes doing reconnaissance work in the night sky play an intriguing yet integral part in our collective understanding of our (militaristic) history. Paglen’s work is allegorical and shows how modern technology can affect our understanding of topics such as politics, economics, and the act of seeing. I find myself much more engaged with history than ever before through his illuminating (pun intended) work. It was great seeing an interview on dailyserving.com about his current show.
…the sublime arises from those moments where we can sense that we cannot sense let alone understand something. This brings us to the “aesthetic” dimension of the work….Historically, aesthetics has often been linked to notions of freedom: ambiguity and the sublime can be quite powerful and is something visual art can be quite good at dealing with. So it’s important to me that it’s a part of my work, but the underlying “relational” and ethical aspects of the work are crucially important. Without them, it’s just pretty pictures. And there’s no reason to care about pretty pictures. ~Trevor Paglen
The work seems simple to understand. They’re photographs. What’s so difficult about understanding a photograph? Nothing too distressing to the retina. Yet, Paglen’s work takes patience, knowledge of the landscape, as well a desire to comprehend our relationships to these vast landscapes. Meshed with his scientific background in geography, the work serves as a marker of the unnatural way in which human movement and action are surveyed.
