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June 30, 2004
Trials for Elvis font
I've spent about a week now trying out different styles and approaches for this Elvis font. Initially they were looking too kitsch and 50s [below], and they weren't really presenting anything 'hybrid' ñ nothing you wouldn't expect to see Elvis looking like (although I do like the dot/screen reference to pop culture and might come back to this) . . .
so I thought I'd try inserting Elvis directly into the medieval examples that I was talking about originally . . .
I feel much happier with the direction this might take. Especially with the kinds of events I'm planning on using ñ the play between good and evil ñ skeletons could be good too . . . Elvis's dead twin brother for instance.
These are only trials and I'm thinking it could take a while to settle on a particular stylistic approach, so I'll be posting them here as they develop. I do intend for this to be a font, so I'll have to test how complicated the outlines can be ñ does anyone out there know anything about this?
Posted by Luke Wood at 02:51 PM
June 28, 2004
Hybrid statements
Man Ray 'Gift', 1921. Flat Iron with tacks.
Thinking about the Elvis font, and looking back I realise now that I wasn't very happy with my Hot Rod Biology book because I didn't really acheive what I would want to call a 'hybrid artefact'. Both elements (hot rod mag / biology text book) were in there, but not in a way that they formed one cohesive statement or 'voice'.
Having made some very quick and naive attempts at starting work on this Elvis font I've run into the same thing ñ which I think could be good topic wise? Fusing two disaparate forms/ideas . . . sounds easy, but I'm finding that it's not that simple actually.
I've included Man Ray's piece on this blog because I think it's a good example of a 'cohesive' hybridisation. Two disparate objects (and their associated conventions) are fused into one ñ the 'new' object appearing as a convincing whole (disrupting expectation/convention).
Posted by Luke Wood at 04:50 PM
June 25, 2004
The Elvis Presley Project
This is an umbrella title for different projects that will investigate the 'hybrid' nature of Elvis Presley. At the moment there are two projects I'm planning on doing . . .
1. a typeface comprised of a set of illustrated capitals based on certain hybrid aspects or moments in the life [lowercase] and death [uppercaes] of the King of Rock'n'roll.
2. A series of 5 record covers, each one investigating a different 'type', or form of appropriation [homage, theft, parody, pastiche, citation]
Posted by Luke Wood at 04:45 PM
Illustrated Capitals/Initials
I've had this book hanging around for a while ñ "Historic Alphabets and Initials" [ed. Carol Grafton]. I got it for about $5 last year, and have kept looking at it now and then . . . the potential to investigate the hybrid life of Elvis via the illustrated capital as a convention all of a sudden seemed to make itself apparent!?
These are from the Sixteenth Century, German, based on Holbein's 'Dance of Death'. Printed in Lyons by Melchior and Gaspar Treschsel, 1538.
These are from the Fifteenth Century, Italian.
It has occured to me, having done a bit of research on what I'll now refer to as "The Elvis Presely Project", that there might be an interesting project here. A set of illustrated caps ñ as a typeface ñ depicting certain aspects of The King's life, and perhaps, afterlife [upper and lower cases]? I like the religious cross-over ñ Elvis and Christ have often been linked [I'll add more about this later if this project actually takes shape]. This would definitely seem to be leading more toward the 'hybrid' side of my topic, which, at this point in time I'd say interests me more.
I do still intend to develop an appropriation project as a part of 'The Elvis Presely Project' . . . I'll try to clear this up in a following post.
Posted by Luke Wood at 04:02 PM
June 16, 2004
The Rockabilly Moment
Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Charlie Feathers, Greil Marcus, Tom Kreisler . . . and doing stuff!
This is long . . . and a bit of a rant ñ be warned.
[image: appropriated from 'Hatch Show Print: A Great American Poster Shop']
I had a great chat with Aaron Kreisler the other night about my last visit to Melbourne, my topic, and the fact I seem to be having trouble coming up with a project. We talked about Tom (Aaron's his son) and about how he never got too caught up in theorising ñ he just made work and kind of theorised through that. Aaron says Tom never really read much about anything that directly related to his work but just read about whatever interested him, which eventually of course would end up coming out through the work.
During this conversation it occured to me that last year (prior to beginning this research) I was extremely productive ñ I had two solo shows, started up three different bands, played live fairly regularly, and recorded an EP (not released yet though!). So what the hell's going on this year? It's funny how it's all of a sudden become so much harder to make work!
I had a conversation with a student of mine recently about how she "just needs to chill out, trust herself, and focus on making work that interests her" . . . ha ha talk about practicing what you preach.
One of the things that came up from my seminar was that I should worry less about theory and focus on making some work. I replied to that by saying that I found it hard to make work without having some kind of theory to base it on . . . but looking at last year I can see that's not true. I guess the difference is that there's supposed to be some kind of 'topic' that my work relates to this year and I'm always thinking about how best to do this . . .
Anyway, to cut a long story short ñ I've decided to ditch (for now) the theory (Bakhtin, Jameson, etc) and just immerse myself in stuff I enjoy ñ and maybe use some of this as material (content) for a potential project.
I'm borderline obsessed with 1950's youth culture at the moment. Why? (Don't ask questions that's not what you're doing right now ñ questioning everything can be very much like applying the handbrake)
So, I've got the band back together, we've got a gig next Friday night, and I'm reading about Elvis and the rockabilly movement. There's obviously links to my topic here, but I'm trying to just read and enjoy rather than taking constant notes etc (which actually to be honest is pretty hard ñ I'm a Virgo!) . . . so,
Have come across Greil Marcus and his term 'the rockabilly moment'. This links directly with what I was describing as the 'hybrid moments' in my talk. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Charlie Feathers . . . all were 'Hybrid Practitioners' . . . all appropriated aspects from various sources to create a new music . . . all have been heavily appropriated since.
Actually that reminds me about what Cameron said about appropriation being the greatest form of flattery.
Elvis. Who has been appropriated more? What I find so bizarre about Elvis is how he;s not really even a person anymore. I put up the Elvis mask I made next to an image of Jesus and it just sat there perfectly happy as though Jesus had just cut a deal at Sun!
My appropriation of McCahon only works if you know who he is. It's communicative potential is limited by McCahon's presence really only in fine art culture ñ NZ fine art culture. Elvis is a whole other ball game! Elvis IS pop culture, Elvis is Coca-Cola, MTV, the World Cup, fast food, marketing, sex, rock and roll . . . Elvis, the idea and the image, exists in an extremely broad cultural memory. Perhaps that should be 'multiple' cultural memories . . . 'hybrid' cultural memory . . .
And there I go thinking about my bloody topic again. Maybe that's good? Maybe that means my topic's right for 'Luke the Researcher' as it's obviously something that's relatively pervasive in what I do? I'm sorry (Lisa) but I'm going to mention something, a word, here that I thought had long gone but that keeps creeping into things . . . nostalgia. There it is! Like a big bloody scab, that won't quite heal. I just am quite nostalgic. And I'm pretty sure it's primarly what drives a lot of my own appropriation. At the moment I'm putting it down to the influence my grandparents had on me. I'm not sure it needs to come back into the topic as a 'statement' ñ I guess I feel like it's probably going to be there anyway . . . so maybe it should? Shit I don't know . . .
Right now I'm going to try and make something ñ might not be 'design' as such. I've been asked by a magazine to make a cake for their first birthday party so that could be somewhere to start . . . Elvis loved cake I bet!
If you've read this far, please take the opportunity to tell me I'm not losing it.
I feel ok, fine in fact!
Posted by Luke Wood at 10:06 AM
June 12, 2004
Cubism
In my seminar I discussed appropriation starting with Duchamp's readymade. I am interested in conceptual art's use of appropriation to disrupt conventions and make hybrid statements. The image here is Picasso's 'Still Life with Chair Caning' from 1912 [MusÈe Picasso, Paris ñ reproduced without permission ñ ha ha]. Cubism is interesting in that it predates conceptual art in a number of ways . . .
1. The introduction of EVERYDAY images and objects into works prefigures Duchamp's readymades.
2. It was about EPISTEMOLOGY, an inquiry into representation, and how we know what we know
3. It attempted to foil or DISRUPT the expectations of the viewer
4. It was about FUSING the life of the street with the traditionally hermetic life of the studio.
. . . while I was completely ignorant of this it sounds very similar to where I'd been going with this notion of a hybrid practitioner.
Posted by Luke Wood at 11:40 AM | Comments (1)
The Hybrid Practitioner [12.06.04]
To refocus this project on the practitioner, I'm going to try to keep defining/redefining what exactly this hypothetical 'Hybrid Practitioner' might be.
1. Every communication is to some degree hybrid ñ an appropriation from various/mixed sources.
2. The appropriation occurs somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. The statement can be what I'd like to call an 'active' hybrid [one that is created through intentional appropriation ñ consciously] or a 'passive' hybrid [where the act of appropriation occurs naturally, is unintentional ñ unconscious . . . and often the approriation in this sense goes unnoticed].
3. The Hybrid Practitioner seeks hybridity beyond the unconscious. The Hybrid Practitioner's work ñ design ñ is intentionally hybrid . . . considered . . . active.
4. The 'active' or intentional hybrid is sought as a vehicle for new experiences, processes and artefacts via the disruption of existing conventions . . . borders/boundaries.
Posted by Luke Wood at 11:11 AM
June 06, 2004
Seminar [first review at RMIT]
PDF attached of the 20min talk I gave on my topic at RMIT last weekend.
Read extended entry here for feedback from talk . . .
Initially I kind of felt like I wasn't sure whether my topic was well received or not. Now I see that it was a little more complicated than that! I got quite positive feedback from members of the audience after the seminar was over, but having since talked to Lisa, and having listened to the questions from the panel again, I can see problems . . . I'm not sure this is that bad though, as I knew there were problems when I was writing the talk.
1. The talk didn't really define my terms used in my title ñ the lack of differentiation between 'hybrid' and 'appropriation' was brought up by the panel. Lisa later questioned what I meant by 'generative' and I couldn't answer very well!
2. Panel suggested I focus on 'Practitioner' approach ñ process of appropriation, instead of theory/politics/ethics of appropriation.
3. Also suggested I need to take a position on either the 'hybrid' or 'appropriation' . . . and flesh out the 'third entity' idea.
4. Suggestion that I undertake projects to develop this along following lines . . .
Homage / Theft / Parody / Pastiche / Citation ñ approach each type of appropriation with the same content/convention to exercise through designing ñ asking which acheives hybridity.
To quickly respond to these here . . .
1. I think is very valid and became quite obvious as I was attempting to write the talk. I will be aiming at developing and refining my use of these terms. Particularly 'generative'. It really bugged me when Lisa asked and I couldn't really answer! It does seem to be key to the topic after all.
2. The 'Hybrid Practitioner' should have been discussed more in the talk . . . I think I just thought I didn't have a comprehensive understanding of what I meant by it, so avoided it! The practitioner and the process should be at the core of this topic. This is also where I need to be able to ditch the ethics side of this topic . . . Lisa suggested focusing on the practice of appropriation rather than theory as a way to do this . . . I must admit I have trouble divorcing the two!?
3. I think I'll be able to sort this out by dealing with 1.
4. Developing a project, or projects to come out of this . . . I had imagined that from here I would try to develop a project with which would begin to question my topic along the lines suggested by question 1 here ñ developing my notion of appropriation/hybridity as 'generative', so I think that much of the panels concerns could be approached via this. I can see the value in approaching different types of appropriation, although I'm not totally sure about the exact types they propose? I'd like to look into this more and be sure that I can make distinctions between the different types I approach.
. . . apart from all this Cameron made the most helpful observation. He said my topic is in danger of "evaporating", and he's quite right! He's refering to my attitude [ref. Bakhtin] that every statement is hybrid, and that all design is appropriation [ref. Michl].
This problem is HUGE! Fundamental. And potentially derails my whole topic. I think this is what Lisa's worried about too?
I'm not so sure this is the end of it though? I feel like there's something here about realising what we actually do ñ and the inherent value in that ñ this is partly what Jan Michl's piece is about. Can we then act/practice in a fundamentally more 'savvy' way? Seeing something for what it is, without trying to impose what it should be.
I'm wondering if I can stop my idea from evaporating via the distinction that Bakhtin makes between conscious and unconscious hybridity? I have been thinking that if I can locate generative appropriation on the side of the conscious [or what I'd like to call 'active'] hybrid, that my project follows from there.
I tried to make this point in the discussion following my talk when Jonty mentioned something about all communication being subconsciously hybrid ñ we appropriate without knowing or meaning to. I stated that I would be focusing on the conscious or intentional hybrid ñ that which is 'designed', ie. the decision to make things hybrid, as opposed to things being naturally so.
While I can see my topic appeared relatively wide open, I think [I hope!] that I can refine it down from here. Stay posted . . .
Posted by Luke Wood at 08:26 PM