Philosophy of Education and Educational Philosophy
Gazing Upon oneself.pptx
1. GAZING UPON ONE SELF
the psychology and visual analysis of confronting our own image on
screen
2. REVIEW
• Sturken: Power of looking and looking as negotiating meaning + social interaction
• Mroué : erasure between viewing and making within media space
• Today – aesthetics vs. popular culture
4. I paint self portraits
because I am so often
alone, because I am the
person I know best.
Frida Kahlo
Self Portrait with Braid (1941)
5. • Self-portraits emerge in the early to middle
Renaissance era, some claim century with the
“Portrait of a Man (Self-portrait?)” painted by Jan
van Eyck in 1433 as the world's first self-portrait
(but not described as such until 1600s)
• The breakthrough for a broader development of
the genre was the establishment of a center for
the production of tin amalgam mirrors (tin-
mercury) in Venice around 1507
7. • Self-portrait = self-representation
• The notion of a self-portrait is intrinsically
linked to that of identity.
• Through self-portraiture, we become
representational figures in our works
(representations/subjects)
• Self-portrait = self-observation
• Self-representation = a portrait of Courbet
(i.e., it is not Courbet)
• Most often direct-gaze (intimate,
intimidating, power play)
The Desperate Man (1845)
Gustave Courbet
Self-portrait
10. BRUCE NAUMAN
Awkwardness of the mirror and moving
images pre-video
Art Make-Up: No. 1 White, No. 2 Pink, No. 3
Green, No. 4 Black
1968. 16mm film
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=393890
838044278
15. KEY VIDEO CHARACTERISTICS
INSTANT FEEDBACK, IMMEDIACY, LIVENESS
Feedback
“open circuit between
camera and screen”
Immediacy
“record and transmit
simultaneously”
Liveness
“transmit image in real-time"
16. “VIDEO AS A MIRROR”
KRAUSS
Instead, artist or audience responding to their image live, in real-time before a monitor, projection, or
other screen (laptop, mobile, etc.)
vs
Not talking about performing before the camera
17. TRANSFER (1968 )
WILLIAM ANASTASI
black and white video camera
and monitor -
feedback, immediacy, live
exhibited at Virginia Dwan
Gallery prior to the 1969
exhibition of video art at Howard
Wise Gallery
Poking a bit of fun at portraiture
19. ELEANOR ANTIN
REPRESENTATIONAL PAINTING (1971)
Antin applies make-up, while looking into a
monitor, instead of paint to explore video as
a mode of feminine/feminist self-
representation.
• https://www.ubu.com/film/antin_painting.html
• https://ubu-mirror.ch/film/antin_painting.html
20. VITO ACCONCI
CENTERS (1971)
In Centers, Acconci faces
the camera, his head and
arm in close-up as he
points straight ahead at his
own image on the video
monitor, attempting to keep
his finger focused on the
exact center of the screen.
https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=BIZOIoklszI
https://archive.org/details/
ubu-acconci_centers
21. HANNAH WILKE
GESTURES (1974)
“When my brother-in-law died, I set up the video camera
in Claes’s studio, and I touched myself, felt myself,
molded my face, and stroked myself until I got back my
body at a time when I felt emotionally lost.”
Hannah Wilke in PERFORMANCE ARTISTS TALKING IN
THE EIGHTIES
https://www.ubu.com/film/wilke_gestures.html
https://ubu-mirror.ch/film/wilke_gestures.html
https://vimeo.com/14760777
22. LYNDA BENGLIS
ON SCREEN (1972)
Benglis manipulates
generations of video footage
to confound our sense of
time; she implies an infinite
regression of time and space
— Benglis making faces in
front of a monitor of her
making faces…in front of a
monitor…
https://ubu-
mirror.ch/film/benglis_screen.
html
https://www.vdb.org/titles/scr
een
23. STEINA VASULKA
LET IT BE (1972)
“Featuring close-ups of
Steina’s mouth twitching
and grimacing in
accompaniment to the
Beatles' ‘Let It Be.’”
https://www.vdb.org/titles/l
et-it-be
24. PETER CAMPUS
THREE TRANSITIONS
(1973)
• Campus then uses the "chroma–key
effect" of superimposing one video image
onto a similarly colored area of another
image. He applies blue paint to his face,
and during this process another image of
himself is revealed; he then superimposes
his image on a piece of blue paper, which
he sets afire.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gUZCmER
poY
25. NAM JUNE PAIK
“OPEN CIRCUIT” (1966)
Open circuit = a feedback between camera and
monitor
Allows us to “remember the past”
“the present gazing on the past”
Aesthetics of contemplation
26. TV BUDDHA (1974)
NAM JUNE PAIK
Paik's most famous video work was
produced for the Galeria Bonino, New
York.
As Buddha now watches his videotaped
image on the screen opposite – past and
present gaze upon each other.
28. CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS USING
MIRROR EFFECT
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cEkP3VMVRA by Lex Brown
• http://xaviercha.com/?projects=abduct by Xaaiar Cha
• https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=585876751491519 by Katrin Inga Jonsdottir
30. Narcissism
1. excessive interest in oneself and one's
physical appearance
2. extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view
of one's own talents and a craving for
admiration
31. 1. IMMEDIACY AND FEEDBACK AS NARCISSISTIC ENCLOSURE”
Video art = “narcissistic enclosure”
“Unlike the other visual arts, video is capable of recording and transmitting at the
same time-producing instant feedback. The body is therefore as it were centered
between two machines that are the opening and closing of a parenthesis. The first of
these is the camera; the second is the monitor, which re-projects the performer's
image with the immediacy of a mirror ”
32. PAIK
VS
KRAUSS
• Where Paik saw immediacy and feedback as
“aesthetic contemplation” in these video self-
portraits and portraits, Rosalind Krauss saw as
“narcissistic enclosure”
• She locates enclosure in video’s immediacy and
the ability to use the monitor as a mirror to see
one’s own image instantaneously “(image of
self-regard”)
• ”In that image of self-regard is configured a
narcissism so endemic to works of video that I
find myself wanting to generalize it as the
condition of the entire genre.”
• Narcissism as a genre of video art
33. 2. ERASING THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN SUBJECT AND
OBJECT/ERASING MEDIA BOUNDARIES
• What takes places is a merging between
the two terms in order to create a mirror
reflection
• “ In this case the subject (Acconci) and the
object (his reflection in the monitor)
cannot be considered different entities as
the two figures almost emerge as one as it
is difficult to see the “difference between
subject and object” (57).
• It isn’t just a representation of Acconci we
see, it is Acconci in the video pointing at
Acconci
• This conveys the narcissistic aspect of
video as we must analyze both the subject
and its double in depth, as one entity, in
order to understand the piece
• i.e., Acconci is not pointing at the viewer,
he is pointing at himself…
34. CENTERS
"By its very mise-en-scène, Centers typifies the structural characteristics of the video
medium. For Centers was made by Acconci using the video monitor as a mirror. As
we look at the artist sighting along his outstretched arm and forefinger toward the
center of the screen we are watching, what we see is a sustained tautology: a line of
sight that begins at Acconci's plane of vision and ends at the eyes of his projected
double."
35. 3. NARCISSISM A
PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE • Video art embodies a psychological state rather
than a material one.
• “the human psyche [is] used as a conduit” (52)
• Nancy Holt and Richard Serra’s Boomerang
(1974). In this scenario played out by Nancy
Hold, she becomes imprisoned in her own
thoughts as the audio feedback of her words
begins to distract her and slow down her thought
process, which is essentially trapping Holt within
herself.
• This ties into Krauss’ overarching theme of
narcissism as Holt becomes surrounded with
herself – it becomes inescapable, and thus
becomes centralized in the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z32JTnRrHc
36. 4. INSTALLATION AS NARCISSISTIC ENCLOSURE –
GETTING THE SPECTATOR INTO THE FRAME
37. VIDEO INSTALLATION
PETER CAMPUS, OPTICAL SOCKETS (1972–
73)
• (What does title refer to?)
• “My earlier education was in
psychology and my studies
were in cognition. In these
interactive pieces I was trying
to open up areas of thought
through the physical
experience of interacting
with the works.”
•
https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=ds0Q197xcZg&t=57s
. 3:30
38. OBSERVATION OF THE OBSERVATION:
UNCERTAINTY (1973)
PETER WEIBEL
“The cameras and monitors are
juxtaposed in such a way that
the viewers are unable to see
themselves from the front, no
matter how much they twist
and turn. The self-observers
see different parts of their
bodies, but never their faces.
Shut inside a room, every point
in the room is the observer’s
jailer, perspective of their
deathly fate.”
• http://www.medienkunstnetz
.de/works/beobachtung/video/
1/
39. PETER CAMPUS
MEM (1974)
In her detailed account of Peter Campus’s mem (1975), Krauss
argued that the viewers were forced to act in a way that
perpetuated an “image of self-regard” as they struggled to
observe themselves within media space:
“In mem both camera and projector are to one side of the wall-
plane, stationed in such a way that the range of the camera
encompasses a very thin corridor-like slice of space that is
parallel to, and almost fused with, the illumined wall. Due to this,
the viewer must be practically up against the wall in order to
register. As he moves far enough away from the wall in order to
be able to see himself, the image blurs and distorts, but if he
moves near enough to place himself in focus, he has formed
such closure with the support for the image that he cannot
really see it.” (61–62)
40. PETER CAMPUS ON MEM
(ALSO DISCUSSES ENCLOSURE)
“Because we are conditioned to a reverse mirror image we are
constantly surprised when the direct video image is presented.
Any asymmetric movement causes loss of identification with the
projected self-image.
The answer to this is only apparent when the viewer becomes
aware of the whole mechanism: the camera-projector-screen-
viewer. He/She must be aware of the relative position of the
camera to understand the image (n.p.)”
Video installation as a social negotiation –locating oneself in
video space between the various apparatus – the open circuit.
42. SELFIE CULTURE
Selfie now a phrase in the Oxford
Dictionary
“A photograph that one has taken of
oneself, typically one taken with a
smartphone or webcam and uploaded
to a social media website.”
43. SELFIE CAMERA = OPEN CIRCUIT
PER BOTH PAIK AND KRAUSS’S
TERMS
• Feedback between camera and
screen (open circuit)
• Immediacy of Image
• Liveness
44. Art at Arm’s Length: A History of the Selfie
(2014) by Jerry Saltz
Compare to selfies to a history of artist self-
portraits, but key difference:
“This new genre isn’t dominated by artists.
When made by amateurs, traditional
photographic self-portraiture didn’t become a
distinct thing, didn’t have a codified look or
transform into social dialogue and conversation.
These pictures were not usually disseminated to
strangers and were never made in such
numbers by so many people. It’s possible that
the selfie is the most prevalent popular genre
ever.”
45. ERVING GOFFMAN
THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE
(1956)
• Individuals are actors on a ‘social stage’ who actively create an impression of themselves for
the benefit of an audience
• We have many roles we play/social selves – student, employee, friend, relative
• Some of the roles may contradict each other and require that we keep audiences separate –
some performances are only meant for certain audience members
• For example, a student might act serious at school and rowdy and undisciplined with friends
46. “Sometimes the individual will be calculating in his activity but be relatively unaware
that this is the case. Sometimes he will intentionally and consciously express himself
in a particular way, but chiefly because the tradition of his group or social status
require this kind of expression and not because of any particular response (other
than vague acceptance or approval)”
47. SELFIE CULTURE AND GOFFMAN
Different selves presented on different social media platforms
50. Amelia Ulman
Excellences & Perfections (2014)
“selfie performance”
Excellences & Perfections was the first
long-term extended Instagram project
by an artist – so the first time the
medium was used as a site for an artistic
performance - which took place in 2014
as a 5 month photo/selfies performance
51. • Created an online persona of an ‘Instagram Girl’ to ask questions
about gender online
• How is a female artist supposed to look like? How is she supposed
to behave? How do we consume images, and how do they consume
us? Are we judgmental? Maybe? Or not at all? Or absolutely yes"
• The three-part performance saw Ulman take on the roles of ‘cute
girl’, ‘sugar baby’ and ‘life goddess, “ characters chosen because
“they seemed to be the most popular trends online (for women)”
• Instagram Amalia moved to the big city, broke up with her long-
term boyfriend, did drugs, had plastic surgery, self-destructed,
apologized, recovered and found a new boyfriend.
• 90,000 followers over 5 months period of performance
• Many, it turned out, were fake accounts bought by the artist
Constant Dullaart as part of a project meant to highlight the art
world's "superficial attention culture.”
52. APPLYING GOFFMAN AND KRAUSS….
NARCISSISTIC ENCLOSURE AND/OR
PERFORMANCE OF SELF?