Final Deadline for improving Coursework: MON 11 MARCH – Whole School!

Examination dates: 15 hrs controlled test over 3 days
Group 13A: 22. 25 & 26 April
Group 13B: 23, 29 & 30 April.

The Theme: ‘OBSERVE, SEEK, CHALLENGE’

Assessment Objectives

Definition in dictionary:

You should provide evidence that fulfils the four Assessment Objectives:

AO1 Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding
AO2 Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops
AO3 Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress
AO4 Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.

OBSERVE

VERB

1. a person who watches or notices something.”to a casual observer, he was at peace.
2. a person who follows events closely and comments publicly on them.”some observers expect interest rates to rise”
3. a person posted in an official capacity to an area to monitor political or military events.”elections scrutinized by international observers”
   

SYNONYMS: spectator, onlooker, watcher, voyeur, looker-on, fly on the wall, viewer, witness, eyewitness, bystander, sightseer, commentator, onlooker, reporter, blogger, monitor.

SEEK

VERB

1. attempt to find (something):“they came here to seek shelter from biting winter winds”
   SIMILAR: look for, be on the lookout for, search for, try to find, look about for.
2. attempt or desire to obtain or achieve (something):“the new regime sought his extradition” · “her parents had never sought to interfere with her freedom”
   SIMILAR: pursue, go after, go for, try, attempt, endeavour, strive
3. ask for (something) from someone:“he sought help from the police”
   SIMILAR: ask for, request solicit, call on, invite, entre, beg for
4. (SEEK SOMEONE/SOMETHING OUT)search for and find someone or something:“it’s his job to seek out new customers”
   SIMILAR: discover, detect find (out), unearth, uncover, disinte
   

CHALLENGE

NOUN

1. a call to someone to participate in a competitive situation or fight to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength:“he accepted the challenge”
   SIMILAR: dare, provocation, summons
2. a call to prove or justify something:“a challenge to the legality of the banning order”
   SIMILAR: opposition, defiance, ultimatum, confrontation with.

VERB

1. invite (someone) to engage in a contest:“he challenged one of my men to a duel” · “organizations challenged the government in by-elections”
   SIMILAR: dare, summon, invite,bid, throw down the gauntlet, to defy someone to do something
2. dispute the truth or validity of:“it is possible to challenge the report’s assumptions”
   SIMILAR: question, take exception to, confront, dispute, take issue with

Binary opposition

Binary opposition – a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning.

Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory in Linquistics (scientific study of language) According to Ferdinand de Saussure, binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. Using binary opposites can often be very helpful in generating ideas for a photographic project as it provides a framework – a set of boundaries to work within.

How to start

1. Read the Exam Paper and Exam Planner thoroughly, especially pages pages 4-5 and page 25-28 which details specific starting points and approaches to the exam theme – make notes! Look up the word in the dictionary, synonyms and etymology (the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.)
2. Brainstorm your idea and research artists listed – look also at starting points in other disciplines e.g. Fine Art and Graphic Communication etc.
3. Begin to gather information, collect images, make a mood-board and mind-map,
4. Make plans for photoshoots and write a specification.
5. Produce at least ONE PHOTO-SHOOT over H-Term as a response to tasks listed below and initial research and ideas.
6. You must show evidence of the above on your blog– complete at least 4-5 blog posts.

Each week you are required to make a photographic response (still-images and/or moving image) that relates to the research and work that you explored in that week. Sustained investigations means taking a lot of time and effort to produce the best you can possibly do – reviewing, modifying and refining your idea and taking more pictures to build up a strong body of work with a clear sense of purpose and direction

Preparatory Supporting Studies (Blog posts) – 7 weeks of lessons + 2 weeks Easter Break:

Prior to the timed examination you must produce and submit preparatory supporting studies which show why and how the supervised and timed work takes the form it does. You must produce a number of blog posts 15-30 that charts the development of your final piece from conception to completion and must show evidence of:

• Development of your thoughts, decisions, research and ideas based on the theme
• Record your experiences and observations
• Analysis and interpretation of things seen, imagined or remembered
• Investigations showing engagement with appropriate primary and secondary sources
• Experimentation with materials, processes and techniques
• Select, evaluate and develop images/ media further through sustained investigation
• Show connections between your work and that of other artists/ photographers
• Critical review and reflection

Controlled Exam 15 hrs over three days: (Final Outcome)

This time is for you to fine tune and adjust your final images for print using creative tools in Lightroom/Photoshop and/or complete a final edit of your photobook, film or video in Premiere. Your final outcome(s) must be presented in a thoughtful, careful and professional manner demonstrating skills in presenting work in either window mounts, picture frames, foam-board, and/ or submit pdf of photobook, or embed (from Youtube upload) moving image and video based production to the blog.

IDEAS > INTERPRETATIONS > ARTIST EXAMPLES
from pages 4 & 5 in exam booklet

After having visited the caves of Altamira, Picasso famously said:

In 15,000 years we have invented nothing.

Read more about Banksy’s mural here

Read about why Jackson Pollock gave up painting here

The Definitive History of the Soviet Propaganda Poster. Read more here

The Russian avant-garde
A large, influential wave of avant-gardemodern art that flourished in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, approximately from 1890 to 1930—although some have placed its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that flourished at the time; namely Suprematism, Constructivism, Russian Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Zaum and Neo-primitivism. Given that many avant-garde artists involved were born or grew up in what is present day Belarus and Ukraine (including Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandra Ekster, Vladimir Tatlin, Wassily Kandinsky, David Burliuk, Alexander Archipenko), some sources also talk about Ukrainian avant-garde, etc.

The Russian avant-garde reached its creative and popular height in the period between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and 1932, at which point the ideas of the avant-garde clashed with the newly emerged state-sponsored direction of Socialist Realism.

Exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
Covering the period of artistic innovation between 1912 and 1935, A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde traces the arc of the pioneering avant-garde forms  after Socialist Realism was decreed the sole sanctioned style of art.  The exhibition examines key developments and new modes of abstraction, including Suprematism and Constructivism, as well as avant-garde poetry, film, and photomontage.

Read article here in the New York Times

Russian avant-garde and photomontage

Ai Weiwei’s colored vases: Clever artwork or vandalism? read article here

51 ancient Chinese vases covered with brightly colored paint

Exhibition visitors have expressed feelings of uneasiness or even pain and nostalgia when seeing Colored Vases by Ai Weiwei¹. The 51 vases that make up the artwork are originally treasures from the Neolithic Age (5000–3000 BCE) and the artist has dunked them in common industrial paint.

Why did Ai Weiwei do it?

By doing this, he commented on the devastation caused by the Chinese Cultural Revolution² and the disregard for centuries-old craftsmanship³. By covering the surfaces, the history of the vases is no longer visible but still there, beneath the dried layer of industrial color. Some viewers have felt provoked by this audacious act, in their eyes destroying something rare and precious instead of safeguarding and worshipping it.

Conclusion

Like many other works by Ai Weiwei, he uses irony to challenge viewers’ assumptions and perspectives. As China’s most notorious artist, he finds himself in constant confrontation with the Chinese authorities, and Colored Vases is an essential piece in his rebellious oeuvre.

Sunflower Seeds 2010 consists of millions of individually handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds. The work has a volume of nearly ten cubic metres, weighing approximately ten tonnes. The artist has stipulated two different configurations for the work. In the first, the seeds are arranged in a continuous rectangular or square field to a depth of ten centimetres. This ‘bed’ of seeds conforms to the dimensions of the display space, with walls confining the work on three sides. Alternatively, the work is presented as a conical sculptural form, approximately five metres in diameter. In this second configuration, there is no containing structure or support for the conical form, which is installed by carefully pouring the seeds from above to form the shape. Any uneven edges can be adjusted by hand at the time of installation.

This work is derived from the Eleventh Unilever Series commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall for which Ai created 1-125,000,000 2010, a bed of ceramic sunflower seeds installed across the floor of the space. The Unilever Series commission was the first time Ai Weiwei presented this multitude of sunflower seeds as a continuous rectangular field to create a ‘unique surface’, and the first time he proposed an interactive element, in which the public was invited to walk on the seeds. In the event, after the initial days of the exhibition, it was not possible for viewers to interact with the work by walking on it due to the health risks posed by the resulting dust.

The fabrication of the seeds was carried out in the city of Jingdezhen in northern Jiangxi, a region of China south of Beijing. Historically famous for its kilns and for the production of imperial porcelain, this region is still known for its high quality porcelain production. The sunflower seeds were made by individual craftspeople in a ‘cottage-industry’ setting, rather than in a large-scale factory, using a special kind of stone from a particular mountain in Jingdezhen.

The symbol of the sunflower was ubiquitous during the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s and 1970s, and was often used as a visual metaphor for the country’s Communist leader Chairman Mao (1893–1976) and, more importantly perhaps, the whole population. In Sunflower Seeds Ai examines the complex exchanges between the one and the many, the individual and the masses, self and society. Far from being industrially produced, the sunflower seeds are intricately and individually handcrafted, prompting a closer look at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon commonly associated with cheap mass-produced goods. The myriad sunflower seeds – each unique yet apparently the same – can be seen toevoke the quest for individuality in a rapidly transforming society.

In his proposal for the Unilever Series Commission, Ai commented on the significance of the sunflower seeds:

[In] the times I grew up, it was a common place symbol for The People, the sunflower faces the trajectory of the red sun, so must the masses feel towards their leadership. Handfuls were carried in pockets, to be consumed on all occasions both casual and formal. So much more than a snack, it was the minimal ingredient that constituted the most essential needs and desires. Their empty shells were the ephemeral traces of social activity. The least common denominator for human satisfaction. I wonder what would have happened without them?
(Ai Weiwei, unpublished proposal for Tate Modern Unilever Series, March 2010.)

Ai’s practice is increasingly driven by issues facing contemporary China, such as the exercise of autocratic power, the disappearance of Chinese cultural and material history, and concerns about human rights, hard labour and poverty. Sunflower Seeds explores the complexity of the Chinese individual’s relationship with society, the authorities and tradition.