Final Project

Blog Response

Blog Response #1

“How else can one write but of those things which one doesn’t know, or knows badly? It is precisely there that we imagine having something to say. We write only at the frontiers of our knowledge, at the borders which separate our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms one into the other.”

-Deleuze

Although Giles Deleuze is talking about “writing” in his quotation above, it applies too to making art. As a visual artist, I believe that making art isn’t just a straightforward process of relating to something you know badly and creating it simultaneously. Curiosity and ignorance always play an important role too. There’s always the combination of knowledge and ignorance and a specific border where they meet and intertwine. As I relate this to my process of creating artwork, I often also wonder what will happen if I do this, and what will happen if I do that. The fact that I wonder while creating artwork speaks a lot about Giles’ quotation. For example, my artwork on “Map” started out with just one single idea of creating an overview of something that related to me the most, but this overview got enlarged to a map of my room when my ignorance and inquisitiveness exchanged ideas with my knowledge. I wanted something more than just an overview of a single object; I wanted to illustrate everything, even things that mean nothing to me. I came to the conclusion that it is these known and unknown objects in my room that precisely tell a story about me. It is precisely these that satisfy both my knowledge and my ignorance, and ultimately fulfill my urge of saying something.

Blog Response #2

“To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can’t be separated.”

-Jean Luc Goddard

When filmmaker, Goddard, said that style and content “can’t be separated”, I agreed with his statement. What Goddard meant is that two elements come in a package, and without one or the other, the artwork does not mean as much. He is also saying that “style” and “content” depend on each other, and the emphasis of one will only affect the other. As for myself, I have the intention of making most of my photographs well contrasted, shadow accented and with unique angles. Although these are skills that help a picture “look” good, these are also important skills to have in order to concentrate on a particular content. For example, my clothing project photographs are very contrasted in color and shadow accented, but these skills not only ended up making the photograph look “good” but also allow the shadow of my body part to emphasize the content of self-portrait on the project “Clothing”.

Alter Ego