Ugly Renaissance Babies-the kids Aren't AlRight

Ugly Renaissance Babies is a blog dedicated to the ugliness of kids' representation in renaissance paintings.

Every picture is followed by a 'comment'

"Oh… Oh god. They’re fucking that lamb, aren’t they? THAT’S GROSS, JESUS."

Imperfection

Bernd Stiegler started a blog on 'Photographic Realism' and he devoted one of his posts to the 'Imperfection'.

"In looking at both contemporary exhibitions as well as photographs as they are used in everyday aesthetic applications, one notices that imperfection plays a key role. Far removed from the ideals of the Group f/64, New Objectivity, or even the Bechers and their school, to name a few positions, photographs that consciously employ technical errors have become common sense in photography. There are photographers who use deficient cameras;..."

"Imperfection is the new ideal of contemporary photography, even if celebrated, staged, and represented in a kind of perfection. My thesis is that imperfection serves as the contemporary modus of the real in photography. For this very reason photography has become enamored of and committed to inaccuracy, because it enables a form of representation that aims to conceptualize reality in a unique aesthetic manner."

Read the rest of the post here and don't miss to read the huge correspondence in the comments

Labyrinth of Living Exhibits

In May last year, Art Catalysts co-organised an event with the disability arts group Shape at the Hunterian Museum, titled ‘Labyrinth of Living Exhibits.

"The event addressed the issue of human specimens in such collections. There are thousands of specimens on display, the remains of the once vast collection made by Hunter. Many still carry his classification as either ‘morbid’ or ‘normal’. The unsettling collection contains many human parts, including whole skeletons and human foetuses. The focus of Hunter’s collecting was clearly biased towards ‘the different’ – extreme cases of growth, “abnormality” and disease. In the Labyrinth of Living Exhibits, artist Aaron Williamson curated four simultaneous, specially commissioned, site-specific performances, which infiltrated and responded to the collection, performed simultaneously by disabled artists Aaron Williamson, Sinéad O’Donnell, Brian Catling and Katherine Araniello.

A lively panel discussion followed the performances. Aaron Williamson opened the discussion by explaining his curation of the performances, explaining his interest in the responses of artists who are “set apart from the norm” through illness or medical prognosis.

You can watch video recordings of the full panel discussion here.

Video recording of the panel discussion "Exploring the Autistic Mind" can watch here.

Read full article here.

Louis Wain's disorder and his fractal patterns

This is work of Louis Wain, who lived between 1860 and 1939, and is frequently held up as an example of the progression of schizophrenia, and the effects of the disorder on the perceptions of an artist.

But as you can read here, Wain may instead have been suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, because his skill as a draughtsman remained plain to see throughout his illness.

The similarities of his late paintings to fractals is striking. Fractal patterns that we are familiar with today were not produced until the 1970s. There would appear to have been something about Wain’s condition that allowed him to perceive and represent these invisible natural patterns long before anyone else had seen them.

From Head To Sky

"What bothers you more? Being a dwarf or being a Moroccan?" This is the first question, Mohammed Al Masmoudi asked by the voice of a man off the camera within the first minute of the documentary "From Head To Sky". The answer runs 58 nice minutes, and its his story narrated by him in voice over.

"What makes us so alike? The need to love, the impossibility of escaping from life’s complexities, and often the feeling of being on the outside of the physical and psychological “locations” we find ourselves in, and the conflictual relationships with those responsible for bringing us into the world. Mohammed is a young man. His body has imposed serious reflection on the meaning of life, as well his own very particular perspective. He once set out on a journey from Morocco, leaving his Homeland in search of a new dimension, in search of himself. Detachment, distance, growing, mapping out one’s life. In short… "From head to the Sky"."

Winner of the second place of the "New Horizon Award" AlJazeera International Documentary Film Festival 2011.

This initiative was born as part of the Discrimination Awareness project financed by the European Social Fund. The project aims to give people considered “different” the chance to share their experiences through their own intimate and personal stories, in the firm belief that awareness is an essential condition for all forms of integration and mutual acceptance among individuals. This initiative began thanks to one person’s desire to tell his story – a person doubly discriminated against, being both a foreigner and physically challenged. Other Discrimination Awareness activities have included conferences, concerts, book presentations, and talks with experts, as part of the Mother Earth program, a cultural initiative promoting respect, acceptance and harmony.

You can watch for free the documentary and its web version "Mahammed's journey"

http://www.my-story.it/

Sigur Rós - Svefn-G-Englar

Sigur Rós made this official video for Svefn-G-Englar song from Ágætis byrjun album (1999) with members of the Reykjavik's Perlan Theatre Group.

There is also a making of Svefn-G-Englar video you can download

13 Outsider Artists

A collection of 13 Outsider Artists titled "The 13 Most Amazing Outsider Artists of All Time"with one of their artworks had a brief presentation in Flavorwire.
Among them Judith Scott,

Henry Darger (i didn't know that Henry Darger considered an outsider artist),

Miroslav Tichý (Miroslav Tichy and Henry Darger thought to be naive artists, not outsider artists, but...)

Digital Distorted Paintings by Jens Jesse

Jens Hesse, usually paints with oil and acrylic.

In his website you can see the paintings grouped by different kind of digital distortions such as influenced by digital distorted satellite signals, datamosh videos, interlace effects, and by anaglyph images. He uses corduroy for two of his painting series (digital distorted satellite signals and interlace effects) to get a excellent digital looks.

via triangulation blog

Eyeball Replacement with Webcam

News about an U.S. artist's plan to replace eyeball lost in car accident with webcam made headlines some days before after the project posted on Kickstarter.

Tanya Vlach's prosthetic eye can give her 'endless artistic opportunities' and can transform her into a cyborg with an app of webcam views externally controlled.

If it sounds terrifying for the future of what can be done with the proliferation of prosthetics into everyday life and the implications can have upon us, then anyone can think about how much more terrifying can be the thought of having to leave a life with disabilities by accident. Both thoughts can hardly give satisfactory answers to the problems and the questions raised by such actions and we need to see more works like that before we can evaluate more clearly on their consequences.

Glitch Artwork at Google Books

Calibration failure at Google Books leads to glitch artwork.

http://books.google.com/books?id=go05AAAAcAAJ&pg=PR8-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Article in Rhizome also.

Pam et Jenny’s de Design Graphique Bruxelles

"As part of ‘Share/d Heritage,’ a recent symposium at the Royal Library in Brussels, examining the digitalization of cultural heritage, design team Pam et Jenny created these oddly fascinating mis-scanned versions of classical portraits and what appear to be vintage film stills..." via flavorwire

Pam et Jenny’s website for more.

Francoise Gamma's Animated gif's

Francoise Gamma is a Spanish artist and seems to be a master of animated gif art.

Look more of his animated gif's on his site http://francoisegamma.computersclub.org/

Disability Aesthetics and Politics

There is always a connection between art and politics and so it is with disability aesthetics and politics. Disability is connected with politics as long as there is a discourse around the identity of the disabled people and as long as it refers to the struggles of disabled people to be free to identify (or not) themselves in order to be accountable and visible in the social arena. The connection between aesthetics and politics (or art and politics) is so huge that I wish I could properly analyze it here, but as long as aesthetics are referred to the constituents of beauty and to the power of this beauty to subvert the existing orders of perceiving and understanding the world, or to emancipate the people, or to give the power to the people to emancipate themselves, then the connection of aesthetics (or art) and politics is quite obvious. The relation of disability aesthetics and politics came into my mind as I was reading the post of 'Spananart's Blog - Information about visual art in Suriname' to a work of Mona Liza from the Surinamese artist Kurt Nahar.

"Every image, every word that does not fit within the general consensus of what is considered socially acceptable, is excluded, deleted, literally removed from sight. The result? Cultural flatness: Productions, exhibitions, that are easily digestible, to the taste of a wider public and described by the majority as being ‘beautiful’.

Is this true beauty? No. But it does teach us something about the general view on ‘beauty’. It thus could have something to do with being proper, acceptable,…This is where the relation between ‘the good’ and ‘the beautiful’ comes into play. It also clearly ascertains that there are standards, generally accepted amongst the majority of people, for what is considered ‘beautiful’. Even though it is true that this only applies when these people have also been brought up with the same rules about what beauty is. Because beauty is of course culturally and socially determined. A Chinese person has other ideas about a beautiful vase as does one from African descent. Kitsch is beautiful to the art lover as long as it’s from Jeff Koons or one of his followers. For a “similar” statuette on the mantel of the retired laborer he shows only disdain."

Read the rest of the post here.

Specimens and Superhumans

A copy of a press release just received.

Specimens to Superhumans is a series of events curated by The Arts Catalyst and Shape exploring contemporary issues around biomedical science, disability and ethics, and how these are explored, represented and critiqued in art.

The events provide creative opportunities to show the work of and to provide mentoring, development and networking opportunities for disabled artists. The series hopes to identify and nurture artists who could participate in future programmes, with the long-term aim of commissioning a series of new artists’ projects.

Labyrinth of Living Exhibits, Hunterian Museum, London 12 May 2011

Bye Bye Kitty!!!-Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art

The "SP Extra: Malformed Noh-Mask Series Half Skeleton’s Twins: Tosaka", (2008) is series of works by Motohiko Odani exhibited at the Bye Bye Kitty!!!-Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art exhibition, launched a few days before in NY's Japan Society.

In light of the recent tragedy in Japan a number of related programs are taking place in conjunction with the exhibition. The donation of 50 percent of all ticket sales to aid victims of the devastation announced and the organization’s Japan Earthquake Relief Fund has already raised over $500,000; you can also contribute directly by making an online donation.

What is also striking regarding the interests of this blog, is the inextricable relation of disability aesthetics and the ways that devastating disasters get into the realm of aesthetics (although this is might not be a very clear example). The relation of disability aesthetics and the introduction of any disaster into an analysis of its aesthetic impact seems to be one of the most controversial subject matters of disability aesthetics and needs a lot more close and careful examination or study.

"Photo Opportunities" by Corinne Vionnet

Series of photographic works entitled "Photo Opportunities", from hundreds of snapshots of tourist locations found on the Internet.
Corinne Vionnet explains "...These pictures are on the Internet, to be seen by any eventual visitors. I am just one of those visitors. It is the sheer quantity of these almost identical pictures that gave me the idea of superimposing them. I do not think I would have had the idea if I had made all these pictures of the same places myself. Anyway, the work would loose its meaning."







via flavorwire & mymodernmet

"Tactile Mind" book by Lisa J. Murphy

"Tactile Mind - A Book of nude photographs for the blind/vission impaired", is a handmade thermoform book consisting of 17, 3-D tactile photographs on white thermoform plastic pages with the visual image and descriptive Braille accompaniment.

Braille reads, “tactile mind, A book of photographs by Lisa J. Murphy”. Tactile image is a large open vagina.