To cite directly from the wikipedia research page:
"It is in the nature of an ever-changing work like Wikipedia that, while some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are admittedly complete rubbish". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_things_you_did_not_know_about_Wikipedia ).
In years ten, eleven and twelve I study an artist by the name of Salvador Dali; particuarly his painting 'The Persistence of Memory'. When researching this artist and his work in books and reliable internet sources I learnt a great deal into the depth of this mad man and his strange work.
When looking in Wikipedia however, the write up on 'The Persistence of Memory' was false and i knew this for a fact. It states:
The original idea of this painting came from a memory of Dalí's from childhood. While undergoing a routine physical, the Doctor asked Dalí to stick out his tongue. This phrase in Spanish sounded much like the words for "melting clocks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_Memory
Infact, Dali had an infatuation with the idea of soft and hard. The original idea of this painting came to Dalí on a hot summer's day. He was at home with a headache while Gala was out shopping. After his meal he noticed some half eaten Camembert cheese and how runny it had become on account of the heat of the sunny day. That night, while he had been searching his soul for something to paint, he had a dream of clocks melting on a landscape. He went back to the unfinished he had been working on, which had a plain landscape with rocky cliffs in the background and a tree on a platform. Over two or three hours he added in the melting pocket watches which made this the iconic image it is today.
It is easy to see that this article is incorrect because there are no resources listed so you don't know where the information is coming from.
Wikipedia is a useful site in the sense that if you are unsure as to what something is, searching it on wikipedia will give you some idea. However, it's important to keep in mind that not all the information will be correct as anyone can go into the site and change the information.
The article on Anothony Kiedis in Wikipedia however, has a large list of sources and having read his autobiography I can see nothing wrong with this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kiedis
When researching on wikipedia it's important to look for the sources to find out if someone has put solid research into the article or whether they are talking rubbish.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Is art really art?
Walter Benjamin states in his "Art in the age of mechanical reproduction";
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.”
In the age of digital manipulation it comes as no surprise that we can question the authenticity of a work of art. Benjamin considers the idea of an artwork having an ‘aura’ – “We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life.
Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.” – and by manipulating or reproducing a piece of art it is safe to say that the aura of the piece is lost or diminished. Everyday we see magazines and advertisements with beautiful, ‘perfect’ models pasted all over. Society observes these “people” with the desire to obtain their perfect appearance. What most don’t know or even more alarmingly, do know is that these images have been airbrushed, photoshopped, cut, pasted, and altered. The original aura of these people and the raw photo that has captured their unique beauty for a millisecond has been changed and lost. Beauty is in imperfection however, by digitally manipulating an image we are trying to create beauty in perfection which is seemingly impossible to obtain in reality.
Similarly, when composing a piece of music- a piece of art – with raw instruments and genuine voices there is no doubt that the notes and pitch will not be perfect; this imperfection is the beauty in the music. With the ability to digitally alter a composition it again diminishes the aura of the art; the music. Someone with an amazing voice or an amazing instrumental talent used to be deemed “talented”. Nowadays, if someone has the ability to digitally create music, they are talented. You don’t even need to be able to sing or play an instrument because a computer can compose and alter the music to perfection. Each note is perfect. The pitch is always right. Yes, someone is talented to be able to compose such a perfect sound on a computer; that is skill. The ‘aura’ of the musicians however is lost, or it never really existed.
I think that raw digital art – composition of raw colours, effects and shapes – can in some sense have an ‘aura’ as the ‘artist’ has put artistic thought into the creation of the digital piece. When reproducing and altering a piece of art however, I believe the ‘aura’ is lost.
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.”
In the age of digital manipulation it comes as no surprise that we can question the authenticity of a work of art. Benjamin considers the idea of an artwork having an ‘aura’ – “We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life.
Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.” – and by manipulating or reproducing a piece of art it is safe to say that the aura of the piece is lost or diminished. Everyday we see magazines and advertisements with beautiful, ‘perfect’ models pasted all over. Society observes these “people” with the desire to obtain their perfect appearance. What most don’t know or even more alarmingly, do know is that these images have been airbrushed, photoshopped, cut, pasted, and altered. The original aura of these people and the raw photo that has captured their unique beauty for a millisecond has been changed and lost. Beauty is in imperfection however, by digitally manipulating an image we are trying to create beauty in perfection which is seemingly impossible to obtain in reality.
Similarly, when composing a piece of music- a piece of art – with raw instruments and genuine voices there is no doubt that the notes and pitch will not be perfect; this imperfection is the beauty in the music. With the ability to digitally alter a composition it again diminishes the aura of the art; the music. Someone with an amazing voice or an amazing instrumental talent used to be deemed “talented”. Nowadays, if someone has the ability to digitally create music, they are talented. You don’t even need to be able to sing or play an instrument because a computer can compose and alter the music to perfection. Each note is perfect. The pitch is always right. Yes, someone is talented to be able to compose such a perfect sound on a computer; that is skill. The ‘aura’ of the musicians however is lost, or it never really existed.
I think that raw digital art – composition of raw colours, effects and shapes – can in some sense have an ‘aura’ as the ‘artist’ has put artistic thought into the creation of the digital piece. When reproducing and altering a piece of art however, I believe the ‘aura’ is lost.
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