Akoka'tssini: September 2009

Sunday, September 20, 2009

"As A Means of Contact" WIP

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW)

"As A Means of Contact" was inspired by recent discussions with a friend of mine about the Sentinels, Jarawas, and other uncontacted tribes around the world that have yet to be intoxicated by westernization and technology; every indigenous peoples dream when it comes to cultural preservation and mentality.

The Sentinels live on an island of the coast of India, and have met any sort of outside contact with militant resistance of hailing arrows. There are a few coverages of their interactions with outside people and helicopters, and find it fascinating and recommend reading up on them as well as the recently discovered tribe during a flyover in Brazil a few years ago in 2007.
The Jarawas however don't live as separated as others do. Their island has become settled by Indians and have been exposed to technology. At first for a while they met outside contact with resistance as well, but soon opened up interactions with settlers and now openly go about their business with them. Though they have become a "nuisance" to settlers and are being treated less and less as human beings. A major island highway was constructed right through the middle of their homeland, and now encounter a lot of traffic in which they ask for rides and beg for food. Some have even stopped hunting and become solely dependent on handouts they receive from settlers and tourists. Its a pain I have, definitely.

Visually, I wanted to portray some Jarawas, one with a gas mask of course, and contemplating the rest of the composition. I've recently become interested in the heavy contrast between contemporary and untouched traditional culture. The mask itself provides a means of protection against westernization and technology, and to continue their traditional life uncorrupted, especially while they are still so close to their culture and way of life, a lot closer than most Indigenous people of the world can say for. I'm still trying to make artistic decisions in this one, and haven't quite laid it all out yet, but figured I'd post a WIP.

The Endangered Jarawa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlRSsvB4iLE

***Side note being my 6 foot canvas will hopefully be sent out here soon and I can continue that piece. Hopefully in time to somehow finish it before Spring semester and the Stillwell Exhibition.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Intro to Printmaking 1: first assignment

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Medium(s): Printmaking, X-Actoblade

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USD Printmaking first assignment of the semester included drawing anything to get a feel and look at how what you do effects the visual after rolling the ink on, etc etc. Personally boring for me because I've had plenty of experience with this and haven't been in the mood to do artwork that fits in the palm of my hand. Though finally got a little release on wanting my gasmasks done in my artwork. This isn't Native fallout related but figured I'd just wing this assignment with doing any old thing.
I really really disliked whatever this cardboard we used for a base. Paper is paper, and cutting and carving in paper isn't really that enjoyable, especially after being used to woodblocks and linoleum for making prints. Displeasure aside this was one of the best of my 5 or so prints that came out of this assignment, and think its ok. Nothing amazing, but ok. My professor did like it, and I did however like the etching effect of the x-actoblade for lines. It reminded me of doing scratchboards which can be a lot of fun and come out nice if effort is put forth.
Overall, first mini-intro to printmaking assignment, thought it came out ok so figured I'd post it.

The Artist

MY THESIS - "By any measure, we live in an extraordinary and extreme time. Language can no longer describe the world in which we live like it used to. With antique ideas and old formulas, we continue to describe a world that is no longer present. In this loss of language, the word gives away to the image as the 'language' of exchange, in which critical thought disappears to a diabolic regime of conformity - they hyper-real, the omnipresent image. Language, real place gives way to numerical code, real to virtual; metaphor to metamorphosis; body to disembodiment; natural to supernatural; many to one. Mystery disappears, replaced by the illusion of certainty in technological perfection. Technological acceleration does not affect out way of living - it is our new and comprehensive host of life, the environment of living itself. It is not the effect of technology on the environment, culture, economy, religions, etc., but rather that all these categories exist in technology. In this sense technology is new nature. The living environment, old nature, is replaced by a manufactured milieu, an engineered host-synthetic nature. In a real sense, we are off planet, swelling on the lunar surface of stone, cement, asphalt, glass, steel and plastics, engulfed in the atmosphere of radioactive oxygen and electromagnetic vibrations - the soothing aroma of atomic nuclear energy, the soothing lullabies of the machine. The common notion tells us that technology is neutral, that we can use it for good or bad. Though, in my opinion, we do not use technology, we live technology; technology is our way of life. Being sensitive entities, we always have and will become our environment - we become what we see (or may not see), what we hear, what we eat, what we smell, what we touch, etc. Where doubt and questioning is prohibited (indigenous or not), we become, without question, the environment we live in. With our Indigenous origins based in the natural order, should this context radically change, the mysterious nature of the human being shall also radically change - a change that will reflect the transformation of nature itself, whether it be a turning point or vanishing point. Natural diversity becomes a burnt offering, sacrificed to the infinite appetite of technological homogenization. We now live in the fiction of science. We are most definitely now, not in some made-up future, cyborgs. As we always have been, we are at one with our environment - we are technology. In this 'wonderland', freedom becomes the pursuit of our technological, industrial, and material happiness. Our standard of living is predictated on commodity consumption, as the practice our new spirituality is "pray for more". In vehicles of ecstasy, with cinematic engines of inertia at audiovisual speed, trans-port and tele-port blend into one. The beginning becomes the end. The 'port' disappears in the speed of light. The nanosecond, technological speed, transforms reality as it creates an ecstatic phenomena of compelling and unparalleled intensity. By human measure, charismatic technique portends the miraculous, as it engenders the condition of 'exit velocity' - a condition that blurs human perceptions, shatters all meanings, drains all content and breaks our bonds with the earth's natural order. All locations are consumed into the startling terra firma of the image, a demonic conformity that is the genesis of man. In this shadow of the mass, all previous definitions crumble. The 'time' and 'space' of history exist to a homogenized zone of no return. In this supernatural implosion of g-force, human moorings give way, sending humans out-of-orbit into the void of technological space. The loss of original habitat and our subsequent relocation into accelerated space, throws nature into catastrophe, as it engenders traumatic stress syndrome as the now normal condition of post-human existence. Technology, while promising comfort and happiness as its 'result', means power, means control, means conformity, means destiny. Technology creates a condition of war that is at once both universal and unseen. The explosive tempo of technology is war; the untellable violence of genocide, relocation and assimilation in technology is war. All of us, are refugees driven from our human and indigenous state."
- 22 year oldart student at the University of South Dakota. Majoring in Fine Arts (double emphasis in Printmaking and Painting), and a minor in American Indian Studies.
- My medium strength would have to be ink mediums such as inkwash, pen & ink, printmaking, lithography, etc. The finer and sharper the point the better. Though I have an increasing strength and interest in color usage with pastels and painting.
- My grandfather was an amazing artist, focusing mostly on landscape and WWII Veteran topics and is well known and highly regarded in the surrounding communities he impacted in central Massachusetts. He spent a lot of his time teaching me to draw what I see, and I've taken that to many different levels.

Oscar Howe Letter to Philbrook Art Center, after being rejected for not being "Indian Art", 1958

"Whoever said that my paintings are not in Traditional Indian style has poor knowledge of Indian art, indeed. There is much more to Indian art than pretty, stylized pictures. There is also power and strength and individualism [emotional and intellectual insight] in the old Indian paintings. Every bit in my paintings is a true studied fact of traditional paintings. Are we to be held back forever with one phase of Indian painting, with no right for individualism? Dictated to as the Indian always has been, put on reservations and treated like a child, and only the white man knows what is best for him. Now, even in art, you little child do what we think is best for you, nothing different. Well, I'm not going to stand for it. Indian art can compete with any art in the world, but not as a supressed art. I see so much of the management and treatment of my people, it makes me cry. My father died here about three years ago in a little shack, my two brothers still living there in shacks, never enough to eat, never enough clothing. This is one reason I have tried to keep the fine ways and culture of my forefathers alive, but one could easily become a social protest painter. I can only hope the Art world will not be one more contributor to holding us in chains."

Sunday, September 20, 2009

"As A Means of Contact" WIP

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Intro to Printmaking 1: first assignment

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Oscar Howe Letter to Philbrook Art Center, after being rejected for not being "Indian Art", 1958