The Artist Best Known for Breaking Out on Instagram

Daniel Arsham is an artist who is thought to have made his career happen via Instagram. His Arsham Studio site has 703,000 followers. How does this happen? Maybe because his post-apocalyptic yet nicey-nice work is consistent and easy to recognize. He's not afraid to 'sell-out' to the fashion industry. And this is a medium that wants to support the underdog rather than 'old hat'. And he has a good story to give what he's doing relevance.

New Media 340/540; The 1970s revival of the 1950s

In Simulations p.23-37 Baudrillard references quite a bit of then-recent phenomena, including Disneyland and Watergate. Disneyland may be the most profound example in the book. I've never been there, but have had many friends with children report on it and try to explain how you are overwhelmed with stimulus but the place still feels "empty" "soul-less" "surreal" etc. For a theorist to be able to unwrap how hollow nostalgia culturally exists is a monumental act, as we spiral into this being the new normal.

I've experienced similar phenomena attending 'rockabilly car shows', the nearby one being the Symco Weekender. (we got into this a bit with our intro pptx) Just a few years ago Symco was a mix of the authentic and recreations, but as of last year I was the only person there with an authentic 1950s built hot rod Ford. (the year before there were three) The nostalgia here is clearly now more about the 1970s revival of the 1950s (this link is really good) than the 1950s rockabilly period itself. There are brightly colored 'stop staring' brand fashions made of 70s-ish polyester fabrics and cartoonish, chemically rusted 'rat-rods' that parody the simplicity of a junkyard-built hot rod Ford.

The PowerPoint link below gives a bit of background on Watergate and the odd involvement of June Carter and Johnny Cash in the whole process for a little extra added hyperrealness;

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_4yV_5W77fbVx1ZE9I8-Tvwv7G3EE5hW?usp=sharing

YOU WILL NEED TO DOUBLE CLICK nixon.pptx AND THEN SELECT THE CloudConvert APP TO OPEN THE FILE OR DOWNLOAD TO YOUR HARD DRIVE.

Email me if you're having technical difficulties with the PowerPoints, getting the videos to play, etc. My newer computer opens these so effortlessly that it's not clear to me what it's doing!

340/540 New Media; The Tasaday People

Edited 1993 Nova Tasaday Documentary Part 1

If you need some background on the Tasaday (controversy) for the p13-23 Simulations reading this is good. The YouTube description by rghwd46gf sums it up quite well.

340/540 New Media; Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising

Last term we watched Kustom Kar Kommandos, Anger's short that featured Hot Rod culture. Here's another by Anger, again think about the possible circumstances of making the film, and what may be unsettling about it, or maybe it just seems corny!

Okay, get the whole scoop on this one from a quite elderly Kenneth Anger...

How was a hyperreality created here?

340/540 NEW MEDIA IN ART: The Divine Irreference of Images

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse at Disneyland,
Anaheim, California, Christmas 2007 by Mouse Planet
"This deep-frozen infantile world happens to have been conceived and
realized by a man who is himself now cryogenised, Walt Disney,
who awaits his resurrection at minus 180 degrees centigrade."
© 1983 Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (p. 24) 

 © 1983 Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (p. 11) 

It might be interesting to think about this image in terms of the phases of the image:

-Suggesting reality

-Distorting reality 

-Only hinting at a possible reality

-Transforming our sense of reality by not relating to anything we consider real

Here's our next ppt;

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wwOmtaMUlEC0l7tYL8X-6GFB3a2vDKRv?usp=sharing

YOU WILL NEED TO DOUBLE CLICK color history online.pptx AND THEN SELECT THE CloudConvert APP TO OPEN THE FILE OR DOWNLOAD IT TO YOUR HARD DRIVE. 

Art 330/530 What do Photographs Tell Us?

RPPC is an acronym for real photo post card, referencing a post card made in a photographic darkroom. These were somewhat faddish from the turn of the 20th century until WWI, although many were still made up into the 1970s. They often include text done with lettering paint on the actual negative or with some sort of overlay. You can image search many subjects along with RPPC and see consistently porportioned images mostly from the earlier 1900s. Although Route 66 was opened in 1926, well after the time of most RPPCs, searching on route 66 gas station RPPC does yield many images...

All of these images were made to promote these businesses, all likely no longer operating. They are taken by different photographers, but adhere to the same compositional formula.

What exactly is being promoted here, as we move beyond the original purpose of the post cards and think of these images in the grander scheme of things? How do they factor into the contemplation of certain American obsessions? What do they tell us now, and what questions are they asking us?

In 1963, in the midst of Pop Art, Ed Ruscha decided to publish a book of his photographs of Route 66 gasoline stations, taken as he drove between LA to his boyhood home of Oklahoma City, something he did five times a year. Although they emulate the deadpan post card view somewhat there is much more variation in these compositions.

 

The first edition was numbered and occasionally signed, which Ruscha later admitted was a "mistake".

Art 340/540 Introduction to Simulations

The idea of the replica can be seen in our earliest cultural artifacts. But when did the simulation become our only reality, when did the real cease to exist? When did we begin to live entirely in simulation? Some see the fictions of Borges an important cultural moment.

 This short piece was written in 1946, but the theme emerged in Borges writings in the 1930s. Then in 1955 we have Disneyland, an actual place based on fictional places.

VIEW THE ENTIRE POWERPOINT HERE; https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EYlK49ChpuQ0a_MtGpTu8cneae6Z0cZU?usp=sharing

YOU WILL NEED TO DOUBLE CLICK simulation_online.pptx AND THEN SELECT THE CloudConvert APP TO OPEN THE FILE OR DOWNLOAD IT TO YOUR HARD DRIVE.