week44:

why people collect?
why collections of artists are "an artwork" in museums, and collections of "not-artist" just collections?

here are answers:

http://collectingseminar.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/assignment-5-archive-of-contemporary-history/

http://www.formfollowsbehavior.com/2008/06/25/collecting-as-art/

 week44:

work in progress

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

About week43:

After the initial confusion in my head, and the next attempt to order this chaos, I have decided to return to one of my starting points. I tried to find out what my interests are, on which subject I feel very strongely, for working on it deeper. In addition I decided to take a direction, whose processing I enjoyed. The collection "23" which I built here in Gothenburg, has become very valuably for me, because I am very proud of some finds; and on the other hand, the collection corresponds to my picture, the form of the nature of Gothenburg. The attempt to pack this into plastic bags , and therefore to pack into my mind-bubbles.
At the beginning of the week 43 I have started to build an archive for my findings. A "thing" in which I can present my findings, at the same time, however shows which relation I have to this collection, and what they mean for the outside world.
The result was a sort of letter case or seed box (in german "Setzkasten"), made of brown cardboard, with 23 fields/boxes, in the dimensions of the plastic bags. The form remind me of my childhood, because my father built a letter case of wood for me, in which I kept a mingle-mangle of small, for myself valuable, objects. At the same time I associate to this archive the pushs/boards of the big cupboards in a miracle chamber, or it remind me of the butterfly's boxes in a natural-historical museum.
The next step will be that I will make for every field one little pillow with a velvet cover, to give to my findings the necessary esteem.
The fact to build/create now something for real, made me very contented. I think that I have found by this archive made of cardboard, a medium which expresses quite well, what I connect with the content in my work.
I discovered the material "cardboard" as a new material for myself . The work with it is very excitingly, it gives big pleasure to me. After some research I found out that many artists and designers deal with the materials paper and cardboard, and bring it in a new context, outside from writing material and packaging material.

Parallel with the construction of the archive I work with Gothenburg city maps.
The city maps, which I got when I came here, first and most important thing in a new city. An aim are spherical objects, folded from the paper-maps. At the moment I experiment with different folding methods.

The group meeting on Thursday was very motivating. I could see that everybody tries to work hard for finishing in a good way for the exhibition. It is good that each of us, has enough time to discuss with the group about the own project, and to get and to give assistances and other recommendations.

© Viktoria Gitzl

Wien/Vienna:

I'm presently dealing not just with our "Gestaltningsproject", but also with the preparing of one of my works, that I did last semester, for an exibition at my University at Vienna. Therefore I thought it would be interessting to show you the work, made by porcellain.
The pictures are just made by myself with the phone in the ceramic-workshop, but it's just to give you an idea of the work.
The text unfortunately is in german, but maybe you understand almost everything.

 

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

© Viktoria Gitzl

week42:

Aleatoric Composition 2

Matthew Shlian x Michael Cina

"The path to a finished work of art is often littered with the detritus of jettisoned ideas. Matthew Shlian and Michael Cina, two aesthetically distinct artists, find commonality in how they walk this path—stopping often, retracing steps, collecting, discarding, and finding surprising treasures concealed by the overgrowth along the way. When the two artists decided to collaborate on a series, we had no idea what to expect, but we knew that the combination of their unique styles would prove captivating.

The resulting series, a fusion of Cina's abstractionist canvas work and Shlian's organic formations, is titled in reference to the emphasis of chance in the process of creation. It is also a singular example of emergence at work: here the whole is not simply greater than the sum of its parts, but something altogether different. Aleatoric and emergent, yes—though perhaps the best word to describe it is simply, awesome."


More about the work:
http://www.theghostlystore.com/collections/art/products/matthew-shlian-michael-cina-aleatoric-composition-2#prettyPhoto

More about the paper-artist Matthew Shlian, and his works:
http://www.mattshlian.com/

week42:

Before the group-meeting on Thursday, I was quite contently, with the thoughts, which I gave myself to my work, and which direction,  I had taken. I was awake to the fact that from the outside in all probability a not too large step in the advancement was visible , because this is one of my “ innerer Schweinehund- innerl pig-dogs”, I tried to overcome:

Not always only to formulate the “perfect the concept” in thoughts, but finally act, even if its not 100%  clear, what the result will be, because in doing, and by the coincidence very interesting things can be developed. 

Nevertheless I was content with my thinking work. 

After the group meeting this construct of ideas/thoughts which I had arranged nicely for my collection, got a lot of new levels.  I got a lot of inputs,  in whose direction I had not thought at all. In addition my own constructs of thought began to totter, because I questioned them in another way.


Before the group meeting I could imagine my aim for this "Gestaltningsproject", where I want to go, . After the meeting I was inundated by new ideas, therefore I had, absolutely no more notion which direction is "my direction".

Where is my leitmotif, my central theme, my "red thread"??

To structure this chaos of thought and to get an overview, I have made mindmaps, which should help me now to decide me, or to produce conjunctions.

week42:

At the last meeting, we were talking about stories: inventing stories, collecting stories, stories which are combiend with memory-thougts and keepsakes (memory-things). It doesn't matter if stories are truthful or imaginery, but they can help you, to remember important things, things you shouden't forget. It's easier to remember a whole story, instead of a particular single item. By the use of stories you are able to conjure up a lot of visual images, connected with true-life-things.

After this thoughts, I did some research about "collecting stories". I found this great video, on the TED-homepage. A young software ingineer talk about his passion to collect things, and to collect stories too. It's about of different ways to collect stories of people, and the try to experience very personal storiesof them.
I like it so much, you should watch it. Follow the link for the video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_harris_collects_stories.html

Stories as an archive of people, situations, encounters, memories, things here in Gothenburg.