www.VaughnGarland.com

 

 


 
before, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, later
The Works included below are not meant for publication in thier current forms.
Any duplication of these articles are against the wishes of the author.

2011

Free, Open, and Pseudo Neutral: The Reliability of Wikipedia

Like with all new technologies the words “free,” “open,” and “neutral,” are used to drive society’s use and interest in the new advancements of the day.  These same words give us ease when we are confronted with new technologies.  They ask us to look past possible problems in order to advance growth.  Yet, when technologies change the way we collect information and construct language should we become more cautions of what we are doing?  Over the past several months the topic of research for this course has been language, but in almost every class discussion students discussed the numerous critiques about the community-based encyclopedia known as Wikipedia.  Much of the class discussion mirrored the current debates about the validity of Wikipedia as a source for legitimate information.  While the standing critiques of Wikipedia rest in the searchable information compiled by a community of editors, know as syops, this online resource has become a principal example of the problems with contemporary digital language, scholarship, and the supposed decline of language.  In most cases what becomes problematic in Wikipedia’s structure is the question of the authenticity and conception of the information presented.  Unlike other sources, where it is assumed that an autonomous and authoritative person, researches and writes the entries in an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is built by a group of volunteers that come together and construct a collaborative definition on a topic.  Even on its own page, the administrators of Wikipedia suggest that they do not know the background of many of its authors; “Wikipedia allows anonymous editing: contributors are not required to provide any identification, or even an email address.”   The critical debate around Wikipedia’s validity as a reliable source remains the focus for much of the larger debate on the changes in digital technologies and how language itself may be degrading.  Yet, I find that the crucial question to ask is how Wikipedia’s structure creates assurances in its information and reputation.  In this paper I hope to make clear the practices put into place by Wikipedia’s administration in order to address its negative perception amongst academics.  I hope to show how the community structure does exhibit failures and successes when questioned as a reliable source and at the same time makes assumptions of the “democratic” nature of the digital group and the nature of the digital environment... 


Wikipedia contributors, "Wikipedia: Reliability of Wikipedia”

 

Democracy, High School, and the Guillotine: How Wikipedia Deletes the Unworthy.

That humiliating image of a chubby awkward boy being picked to play in the game just because the team needed one more player has become a clichéd anecdote.  Seen over and over in Hollywood movies and peppering the pages of self-help books, this type of story captures the triumphs and failures of personal growth.   But, in the past, it was the pressures of childhood of trying to fit in at school—navigating various cliques, hierarchies and social situations—that could lead one to feel like an outcast or underachiever.  Once it was the playground or the high school dance that was the setting for rejection—that was until we wanted to be a part of Wikipedia.  The Wikipedia commons has arguably become the grown up’s outlet for communal social exile.  Yet, unlike high school, where a person might be bullied or rejected by a small group of classmates, Wikipedia deletes what it does not think is worthy of record, metaphorically decapitating the outcasts.  Though the guise of democracy Wikipedia deletes an extensive record of digital identities from their service daily.  The persons in charge of this deletion are amongst us, they are editors who scroll Wikis looking for offenders who lack importance/prestige.  Like historical kings who executed multitudes, we can publicly witness hundreds of Wikis being deleted before our eyes. Welcome to the digital guillotine...

 

How can you argue with Wikipedia?

Just after its tenth birthday, questions about the authority and reliability of the online community encyclopedia Wikipedia remain.  While this online databank of collected, searchable, and editable information continues to call itself “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” Wikipedia is not as easy to edit, change, or manipulate as one may think.  In fact, an extensive network of checks and balances is involved in the posting and editing of Wikipedia’s content.  Changes in content are overseen by a host of editors, archivists, and board members who participate through a type of governmental rule within the community.  Wikipedia’s multiple tiers of editors and managers contributed to Wikipedia emergence as a reputable source of information. However, the extent of the editing required for each fully-realized page illustrates the how difficult it can be to achieve accuracy. 

Since becoming a leading source of information on the web, Wikipedia continues to display the steps in the editing process that shape every entry, through a linkable, chronicled history for every entry.  It is through this active history that a truer picture of understanding of Wikipedia takes shape. What remains critical to Wikipedia’s purpose is a “free” way to access information, to change the record, and to create truth out of the mistakes of the past.

 

HTML5: The Next Step in Digital Coding Language

One of the ways in which technology evolves is that it becomes simpler in form, takes up less space, becomes easier to understand, and is more productive and complicated in structure.  While the use of digital web technology ranges between platforms and browsers, one of the hopes, like all language, is that the creation of a universal code will gives everyone the ability to communicate in a better and more efficient way.  But, what is critical to the advancements of all technology, especially with communication devices like web browsers, is that the latest versions find and fix the problems of the past and in doing so makes the language more minimal.  This simplification of coding recalls an important process in communication: language and technology evolve through the recognition that it mirrors life and becomes an extension of the individual’s relationship with the world.  One of the issues at the heart of any language progression is the abandonment of peripheral data not being used by a community.  This abandonment can be seen as both beneficial and detrimental to an understanding of language as a whole.  But, in most cases, the rejection of nonessential information makes room for language to evolve.  The recent development and launch of HTML5 is another advance toward a simpler, smaller, easier, and more succinct way of communicating.  This paper will isolate a couple of the changes taking place in the HTML code in order to exemplify how even computer code mimics the evolution of language...

 

Releasing Space: Relational Aesthetics and The Making of an Artist Removed from the Work

Very much like Duchamp’s re-contextualization of art, Relational Aesthetics, a contemporary movement, once again asks us to question labels, language and definitions.  Unlike the traditional viewing of an artwork that relies on the presence of an object, Relational Art of the 1980 to 2000s focus on the “work” of participation between viewer, artist, and location as the original moment of creation.  Relational art calls into question three fundamental characteristics of art; the negation of object d’art or performance; the way that object might be created – usually held within the artist studio or taking place in a designated area; and the location an art object usually resides – the location designated by either the artist or the art world.  Works by Relational Aesthetics artists vary in degree: from the personal engagement between two people seen in the billboards of Gonzales-Torres; to the private living and working spaces becoming public in the works of Corin Hewitt and Maurizio Cattelan; to the community dinners of Rikrit Tiravanija.   In this paper I will trace the development of work that calls into question the function of participation and the role that participation plays in a non-defined environment.  This lineage will outline contemporary artwork and practice, and compare those works to previous art theories starting with the Fluxus movement of the 1960s.    This paper will suggest that the focus of Relational Art is not on the object but on the functions consequential to participation...

 

Releasing Space: Relational Aesthetics and The Making of an Artist Removed from the Work (Presentation with Powerpoint)

When Duchamp entered “Fountain” to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917 the art world had to find ways in which they could talk about the work as an original piece of art.  Once “Fountain” became contextualized as an object d’art the art world was pressured to delineate the language used to define what is generally consider art.  The Duchamp’s urinal opened up the levees of art’s strict and developed definitions but it also challenged the domineering language of the artworld at the time.  By presenting his urinal into a exhibition filled with traditional paintings and sculptures Duchamp was able to place the burden of subjectivity not on the creative process but on language.   "The urinal is there – it's an invitation. As Duchamp said himself, it's the artist's choice. He chooses what is art. We just added to it."...


Phillip Hensher p. 2-5

Exam 2: Comprehensive Topics Part 1

During the past year as a doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University’s
Media, Art, and Text program, one of the main interests developed out of the debates concerning the relationships between an author/creator to the produced document/object.  As a student of the studio arts, with a Masters in Fine Arts in Painting, this question weighs heavily on my own interpretation of art object, specifically those objects constructed in context of being sole representations of the artist’s hand.  The debates concerning the role of the author/creator have produced some remarkable philosophies of ownership and presence among the reader, the text or the art object, and the author or creator; however, there are additional questions yet to be answered or even uncovered.  New concerns that emerge from these conversations appear when the position of the author moves from a sole, independent individual to one that shares responsibility as an contributor within a group.  While at first this idea—the transformation of the artist/author, changes from a sole creator to shared producer may seem odd within a culture that prizes the heightened position of the created object as a singular objet d'art.  With close reading into philosophies developed by some of the foremost scholars on the subject of authorship, it is compellingly argued that a shared environment is neither new nor abstract, and has been part of the creative apparatus for quite some time. With internet technology, documents can be easily shared, searched, redefined, erased, and even co-written within a community structure wherein a group of people not necessarily in contact with one another assume shared creative ownership over usable material.  What is revealed when we look at the transition from oral, to scribal and manuscript, to print – an ultimately to electronic – traditions, is a clearer picture of how Internet technology allows for the development of conversions about the reader, the viewer, and the conscious...

 

Exam 2: Comprehensive Topics Part 2

Unlike the debate about authorship, one figure has taken the brunt and backlash of the critiques and theoretical fortifications the theory of medium specificity has created: New York art and literary critic Clement Greenberg.  With his concept of Formalism, Greenberg, who started writing in the late 1930’s, posited the ideas that would become emblematic of media specificity.  For most of the latter part of the twentieth century, Greenberg’s ideas have caused much commotion in academia and personal studios, forcing some artists to take sides in order to address the position of their own material choice for production.  What is rarely discussed in academic studio seminars is that Greenbergian Formalism, and the larger debate about medium specificity, comes out of a long conversation that highlights the privileging of materials. Greenberg’s ideas are part of a long line of historical defenses on the true nature of art.  This line reaches as far back as the doctrines of art have existed.  This is why, even looking past Greenberg’s Formalism, it is significant we address medium specificity – to use as an historical marker that sheds light on the dialectics of Modernity and the development of art history itself.  Furthermore, while later multimedia responses have entrenched and further challenged Greenbergian Formalism, and medium specificity, I do not see that these responses challenge the validity of medium specificity.  The responses to Greenberg and the theories others have created in response to Greenberg, and medium specificity, have served to instigate additional directions and ideas on aesthetics.... 

 

2010

Realizing Avant-garde and Kitsch: Theodor W. Adorno and Clement Greenberg, 1933 to 1939

In the debates about aesthetics, culture, music and visual arts in postwar American Modernism, the names Clement Greenberg and Theodor W. Adorno appear frequently. Greenberg and Adorno championed a high modernist aesthetic that connected the avant-garde and the cultured elite. The simultaneous emergence of popular culture and new aesthetic philosophies, in terms of a national, social, and cultural identity, brought Adorno and Greenberg’s concepts to life. Despite what is typically thought about the origins of the arguments regarding avant-garde and kitsch argument in the art world and its theoretical reliance on Greenberg as the primary and original source, it was Adorno, not Greenberg, who began the discussion about the roles and responsibilities of the avant-garde.  While the ideas put forward by both Greenberg in his essay “Avant-garde and Kitsch” and Adorno’s work “On Jazz” are the impetus for many of the arguments made regarding the role of the avant-garde, I will suggest that the modernist discourse concerning popular culture and its relationship to the avant-garde began instead with an article published by Theodor Adorno in 1936...

 

Etics and Emics in America:  The Paintings of Michael Ray Charles

Many the works of Michael Ray Charles are gripping, overtly disgusting, and infuriatingly racist.  Yet, the artist would be the first person to tell you that that is the point.  In fact, the works of Michael Ray Charles hit such a chord within the dialogue about race, advertising, American history, and stereotypes, that without an understanding of the psychological and emotional interaction within the content of the work, one may be left ashamed when viewing his paintings.  For many, what they see seems hurtful and even offensive; so why does Michael Ray Charles continue to poke at these loaded images?  The reason, I would suggest, is that without the provocative imagery, the lessons of the past will not be learned.  In order to undertake a true and thoughtful engagement with the work, one is required to confront a multitude of influences, including those related to race, history, symbolism, advertising, American idealism, semiotics, and even the theoretical notions of painting and of art. Looking at Charles’ work it is difficult—the viewer is compelled to both look and look away.  So, why do we continue to look and why does the content of Charles’ work continue to make us upset?  I suggest that these questions lie in a much larger discussion on the way we look at art objects, and even the way we collect information about our own culture...

 

Becoming Significant: Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History
(Given as presentation)

How might I be able to start this presentation on Walter Benjamin?  How can I try to grab the energy right off the bat of a person who began his renowned article on the collection of books as “I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am”  (Benjamin, Walter 59).  I wonder how many times scholars, critics, and Benjaminians have tried to use his witty words to jump into a conversation of their own.  (Just researching this paper I have found more than enough.)  What might I do to add to the conversation without adding to the heap of waste Benjamin himself commented on in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History?”
Walter Benjamin, since his death in 1940, has remained a cultural and literary champion.  Scholars, critics, dialecticians, and historians have used Benjamin’s words, formats and concepts to define and describe a vast array of seemingly unrelated ideas: weather patterns, environmental destruction, book reviews, religious iconography and even criticism against or justifications for war.  There are immeasurable numbers of responses to Benjamin’s writings. 

This presentation, however, will focus directly on the definitions and descriptions that Benjamin himself struggled with in his own writing, in response to contemporary conditions and contexts, using as a primary example his idea of Angelus Novus, which ultimately appears as text IX of “Theses on the Philosophy of History.”  A historical analysis of the metamorphosis of this idea illustrates the contradictory character of Benjamin’s philosophy.  The strength of Benjamin is that we find ourselves in him; his angel becomes a history we use to define our own angels.  But that is also the problem.  Reading Benjamin’s text we see the dialectic process at work.  The problem for us is that we know, through the misappropriations, the crossing of terms, and the parallels that become circular there is no way out of the dialectic.  Why then, are we fine in it? .....

 

Dissolution and the Industry of Culture: The History of the Flash Mob

“In New York people will go where other people are just because other people are there.” 

The above statement came from Mike Epstein during his June 20, 2003 interview with NPR’s Robert Siegel on All Things Considered.  Mr. Epstein was referring to his participation in a recently held “strange” event that had just taken place three days before on June 17.  In what is now considered the first successful flash mob, which was actually the second mob orchestrated by the then-unidentified mastermind known as “Bill,” more than 200 people, including Epstein, met at a local rug store on a specific date at a specific time (Epstein 2003).
  Here’s what happened:  Epstein had taken part in a mass email exchange network, which group leader “Bill” had started days before.  Bill, who seemed to be just another interested party and not the individual who was orchestrating the event, asked his email friends to synchronize their watches with the US atomic clock. At 7 pm, participants were asked to meet at one of four local bars.  In order to keep the main event secret, Bill asked each participant to go to one of the designated bars according to the individual’s birth month.  (This is why the second mob was successful while the first was not.  By the time the first mob had convened on its target location, the Manhattan police were already waiting.  Unfortunately, the police had also received the strange first email from Bill concerning the whereabouts of the mob’s focal point and had decided that since a mob was to meet at this certain business something was up that might warrant their attention.)  In the second mob, once people arrived at their specified bar, they received slips of paper instructing them of their next move.
So, here they all were, not knowing who in the room was participating in the mob or just in the bar because of the drinks...

 

Toward Science or Technology: Rescuing The Space Between Gyorgy Kepes and Billy Kluver

Comparing historical movements can be a daunting task.  But, when it comes to defining the disparities between two cutting edge schools of thought from the 1960’s American art and technology/science movement, which many believe to be so interconnected, the task becomes even more difficult.  In Anne Collins Goodyear’s article from the international journal Science in Context, the author establishes a justifiable objective for the paper; ultimately, however, she fails to successfully support her argument.  In this analysis, I will not argue with Goodyear’s premise and purpose. I will assert, however, that her argument is one that should be researched and constructed further.  I wish to approach Goodyear with a critical eye and reveal how her own argument does not go far enough. 
Goodyear’s article addresses the misconceptions concerning how two influential systems of understanding are intertwined. Furthermore, she discusses the ways in which the two founders of these systems of understanding--  Gyorgy Kepes and Billy Kluver—are often incorrectly compared.   Goodyear lays out her objective by saying, “while these two (Kepes and Kluver) are generally linked due to their similarities, a close examination demonstrates significant difference in their outlook.”  (611).  In many ways, Goodyear’s defense of her thesis is superficial.  Trying to uncover how Kepes and Kluver are different, Goodyear ultimately reveals an argument that is based on surface relationships. While Goodyear’s article represents an important initial examination of these two figures and their theories, I think that there are some significant omissions....

 

“Ask Them” Clement Greenberg and the 20th Century (not final draft)

It is my intention to illustrate how Greenberg’s formalist theory, which developed as a critical framework, may now be characterized as a discipline; the theory evolved to become a self-critical exchange of dialogue on the issues that rise out of Greenberg’s viewpoints on art and modernism in the 20th century. Due to Greenberg’s influence on the visual arts during the 20th century, it is fundamental to understand how his views, ideas, and critiques were, and continue to be, used as either ammunition for critical backlash, mantras for sustained reverence, or the basis for egotistical gibberish. Arguably there is no one person who had so much pull with artists, critics, theorists, and historians alike in the 20th century. Major modernist movements, such as Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, Hard Edge, Pop Art, Assemblage, and Minimalism, all function as either followers or reactionaries to Greenbergian formalism.  Since we have moved into the 21st century, there continues to be a search for understanding concerning the full magnitude of Greenberg’s theoretical reach.  His views still permeate critical literature, articles, lectures, and university course syllabi. I find it safe to say that Greenberg’s presence has not dwindled, but only has strengthened; therefore we need to ask if Greenberg’s theories have become so important that they have become discipline...

 

Final Lab Notes MATX STUDIO LAB SPRING

Over the past two semesters my interest in how the visual art object corresponds with its relation to the external language used to interpret, state, and or describe it.  This interest has compelled me to examine the role of the object in comparison to the role of the language.  Does the object rely on the documentation?  Is the documentation a true knowledge source for the object?  Is one documentation style more significant than another?  Where would the document rest in juxtaposition to the object?  Finally, can the document call for the death of the object, or vice versa?  The question of the reliance of the object to the documentation solicits an inquiry into the notion of what is object and how the object might chance according to the language used to describe it.
            It is my aim, and my hope, to illustrate that the document and the object are two separate articles of data that may at sometimes exist concurrently, but not always be limited by each other.  I am more interested in objects that are in some ways become disassociated with their language: whether it be website that is hard to navigate, performance art like Tino Sehgal, who have created objects without the presence of a physical object, or imagery/sculpture where the attached apparatus of data given is not easily located.  For Example, when one would conduct a Google search of the Mona Lisa, does the “Mona Lisa Restaurant” support the painting’s meaning?  Does the website titled “Monitoring Agents using a Large Integrated Services Architecture (MonA LISA)” define what the Mona Lisa is? Or what if people put primacy on the document? Is seeing a postcard of the Mona Lisa equated to seeing the painting in person? Sometimes, the documents distract from the source.

            Over the summer it is my aim to rework my website to build an online environment that, by function, is removed and disjointed from the idea of object.  I want to focus on how one may be challenged by the notion of an object’s reliance on language or vice versa.  It is my hope to submit a website for my eportfolio review that will challenge the notion of object and document. .....

2009

Fair Use: Shepard Fairey vs the Associated Press

Visual artist Shepard Fairey is currently suing, and is being counter-sued by, the Associated Press (AP) over the interpretation of Fair Use and Copyright. This case is being closely watched, as its outcome will arguably have an enormous impact on creative culture. At the same time, and in the same case, both Fairey and the AP are fighting for the rights of ownership, during a time when legal and ethical ownership are questionable and nebulous issues.  Importantly, both sides of the argument in this case present philosophical, ideological and legal issues regarding the use of creative material...

 

Recession by Gun: An Interview with Hamilton Glass


Last week my girlfriend and I went to buy a “deal-buster” dishwasher for our house.  It was one of those packed-aisle days where people rush in trying to get the cheapest deals of the year and we were right in the middle of it.  We had spent the entire morning driving from place to place in a total rush with no luck in finding something we could afford on a shitty budget.  Between the yelling at other drivers and making plans to see our families for the upcoming holiday season, we chatted about President Barack Obama making plans to announce his troop addition to the war in Afghanistan. Talking about the war is a normal event between my girlfriend and I.  In fact, it seems like conversation about the war is everywhere these days.  Every radio and TV station describes what is going on in the Middle East as if we are talking about local high school football games.  You can read about the war in great detail in almost every newspaper and blog out there without even realizing the gravity of the situation or, for that matter, the truth.  Clothing stores even have a claim to the war momentum as they sale goods referencing uniforms of the armed forces. Store advertisements that spur buyers to purchase in the name of prosperity are now more exciting than they are controversial.  We also have Hollywood feeding our needs of violence in powerful dramatic big bangs adventure movies where machines try to take over the world. It seems like everywhere we go the idea of violence is near and that everyone wears a gun around their neck.  Violence has become so prevalent that we forget about its presence, in almost every way.  So, why is it when an artist paints a gun on the side of a building and calls it a mural, the shit hits the fan... 

 

Open Space: A Magazine about Public Art
(A Grant Proposal)

Open Space seeks a visual arts grant to support a bi-annual publication that highlights contemporary cultural and artistic trends in public art.  This cutting edge publication looks to ask the question: What is public art? With a structure that focuses on the way art can begin conversations in communities across the globe, this publication promotes artistic and organizational projects by covering public art projects found in places ranging from city centers to rural towns. Published in both print and online formats, Open Space is an original artist-designed publication that documents, comments on, and addresses the role of public art and public art issues and their ethics.  In doing so, this magazine will raise questions that will change the way artists, public art commissions, and the general public looks at new projects...

 

Going Viral: Art in the Media

In the past several years, social media websites, chat rooms, and personal blogs have taken on new life by dispensing the news of the day as short, highly charged viral accounts.  These viral accounts, or stories, are created and defended by the people who are not traditionally in charge of the news media, but by those who are the recipients of the media.  Through social media outlets, people not only receive information, they also have the ability to share the story in sharing online posts and videos.  These websites, such as youtube, arguably give their participants the ability to reach the world more rapidly and with more translucency than any previous technological advancement.  Just the act of “logging in” to the conversation and then sharing that conversation to friends or email groups allows the story to expand, reach additional people, and potentially take on additional significance.  The more controversial the story is the more potential it has to “go viral;” in other words, the more potential it has to be shared to thousands of people in online communities within a few short seconds...

 

2008

Broadcast System Failure: Assimilation in Simulacra and Simulation and The Matrix

Much of the world was watching intently for the announcement on the news  describing the end of what then seemed normal life.  The end of the 20th century brought new fears concerning the importance and presence of a new age coded in 1’s and 0’s.  The computer age was then still mysterious to a mass audience that truly did not understand the potential threat to the global computer network.  In 1999 the world sat in front of the TV waiting to see if everything would fall apart because of a technological phenomenon- a glitch known as Y2K.  The full force of The Matrix revealed a deep unanswered concern regarding the nature of reality.  Here in the wonderful world of magical wires that transported strange new abstractions of reality into private homes, Baudrillard’s theory of challenging reality worked perfectly.  Here, the masses were exposed to and experienced a new type of hysteria.  The assimilation of this world with our own was as tantalizing as it was radical.  Within this assimilation, one could become anything and have the answer to any question with the press of a finger.  The Matrix, with its tip of the hat to Baudrillard, not only gave a new signpost to the question of reality, it allowed our minds to run wild without a signifier, which is the true genius of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation.  With The Matrix, Baudrillard had his ideas broadcast through the perfect backdrop and the perfect stage.  Yet, as I will discuss, the problem with both movie and philosophy is not the radical viewpoint expressed by Baudrillard, but the absence of the reason behind the cause.  Baudrillard disregarded the importance of where the red and blue pills come from and what they do, the information revealing the assimilation.   Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation constructed a rigid disparity between what is considered “Real” and what is considered a copy or a simulation of the original.  The problem with Baudrillard’s argument, as it is in The Matrix, is that to deconstruct freely the philosophical environment,  one must evaluate how and where the journey begins. One must consider the reasons why Alice found herself tumbling down the rabbit hole... 

 

Three-Pennies: Bohemian Culture of Tom Waits and Nan Goldin

Tom is standing on the piano with a megaphone that reaches across the room toward a lone microphone screaming about hot dog sandwiches, sexual discomfort, and Pontiac apple pie.  In the next room, a stack of dingy Polaroids scattered in small piles secretly reveals a portrait not usually seen by the outside world and whose sitter would as easily give the finger to that world than care about what it thought.  In these two rooms, a counter-culture continues to push through the smoky haze of cigarettes and stale coffee.  It is an ideal that has evaluated the masses, a check and balance on current moments.  The importance of bohemian culture is that it continues to live, to breath, and to re-evaluate the principles of the time. Tom Waits’ music and Nan Goldin’s photographs deconstruct current cultural norms by either approaching the world through subtle shifts of musical bars made from home grown instruments or by slapping the face of considered pictorial composition and content. Both Waits and Goldin live in the world of bohemian ideals that continue to reshape what it means to be an artist, an intellectual, a peasant against the elite, and someone who lives for passion...

 

Cut and Paste: The Blackface Stereotypes of Michael Ray Charles and Al Jolson

The problem with a stereotype is not its ability to persuade or to transform definition from one position to another, but its systematic suspension of definition to create a copy.  The essential point of a stereotype is that it creates an indirect or flat atmosphere, a caricature.  In the moment when an identity is remodeled into a description, the individual or group is seen as a mirrored version, neither full of life nor reflective in thought.  What remains in the mirror is a shadow of reality, a misfire, a picture, and a voucher.  The possibility, or lack of reflection in a stereotype, is that the stereotype gives up definition for a multilayered manipulation of the traditional identity for the copy, the cast, and the caricature.  The stereotype succeeds by removing all remaining definitions of and connections between the copy and the original, leaving a second meaning to reside as the sole survivor of the connection.  In this moment, where the definition and description intertwines, one finds the paintings of Michael Ray Charles and the real life representation of Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer...

 

Back to Home

Back to Archives