Number Of Artists Research Articles

Inhaling Memories

ABSTRACTSmell and taste are strong inducers of autobiographical and collective memories. Marcel Proust described a now famous taste memory almost a century ago. The main character in A la recherche du temps perdu suddenly gets transported back in time when tasting a madeleine cake dipped in lime tea. The flavor enables him to vividly relive moments long forgotten. According to Proust, consciously recalling an event by means of language or simply looking at the same object would not have had the same effect. What he understood intuitively is currently being explored by a growing number of artists and neuropsychologists. This article discusses two matters: (1) What are sense memories? (2) How are sense memories different from memories evoked by language? The analysis of works of art and scientific experiments with the closely linked senses of smell and taste demonstrate social, emotional, and aesthetic values. Finally, we reflect on the practical dimension of olfactory memory in society. Over the past decade interdisciplinary artists have increasingly been engaged in educational and care projects using the sense of smell. They appear to take a leading role in successfully applying the sense of olfaction in education and well-being.

Art and culture in contemporary South Africa

This article focuses on the complex ways in which artistic innovation and creativity have been fostered by the experience of living in late apartheid and post-apartheid society. It argues that contemporary South African artists, film-makers and performers have developed highly inventive formal and conceptual vocabularies in their effort to negotiate the ever-changing landscape of contradictory and sometimes irreconcilable realities they encounter on a daily basis, often attaining major international acclaim in the process. Blurring the boundaries between long-established artistic genres, and challenging racial, sexual and other stereotypes, they have refused to abandon the hope of achieving the ideals of a renewal and respacialization of the current socio-cultural landscape. Many of them have done so against the odds of vociferous opprobrium from state officials and legal challenges by the ANC, which in recent years has questioned the right to freedom of expression of a number of artists.

Music in U.S. Federal Education Policy: Estimating the Effect of “Core Status” for Music

This article reviews the political and empirical record within music education surrounding the Goals 2000: Educate America Act and reports a new study evaluating the effects of the law on music and arts education policies in U.S. high schools. School-level data (N = 670 schools) from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 were independently pooled to estimate the effects of Goals 2000 on the number of unique music courses high schools offered, the probability that schools would enforce a local arts graduation requirement, and the number of arts courses required for graduation. Results showed no effect on the number of unique music courses offered. However, for schools in states that prior to Goals 2000 had no arts education mandate or had a flexible arts education mandate, Goals 2000 significantly increased the probability of schools requiring the arts, as well as the number of arts credits required for graduation. The article concludes with implications for the arts in the current Common Core Standards movement.

Towards an Olfactory Art History

ABSTRACTIn seeking to expend the sensorium of art history, it is interesting to note that an engagement with the sense of smell was prevalent in a number of artists' writings prior to the actual creation of olfactory artworks. Despite its presumed marginality, scent was a preoccupation for a number of artists, and was integrated into the major trajectories of modern art, even ones dominated by painting and sculpture. This article examines the writings and works of one prominent artist from the modern era, Paul Gauguin, to explore the precedents for contemporary olfactory aesthetics.

La revue transition (1927–1938): Le modernisme historique en devenir.

<i>La revue transition (1927–1938): Le modernisme historique en devenir.</i>

Information and Atmospheres: Exploring the Relationship between the Natural Environment and Information Aesthetics

Information and Atmospheres: Exploring the Relationship between the Natural Environment and Information Aesthetics

Are composers different? Historical evidence on conflict-induced migration (1816-1997)

In this paper we explore whether, and to what extent, the incidence of war affects the migration intensity of 164 prominent classical composers born after 1800. We model the aggregate stock of composers in a country and find that periods of war correspond negatively with the number of artists. We also find that conflict-induced migration intensity is considerably higher for composers than for the overall population and demonstrate that the share of composers in the overall population drops due to the incidence of war. We further find that the observed outmigration substantially diminishes the country's creative potential in the long-run.

Crisis? Welke crisis? Kanttekeningen bij het economisch verval van de schilderkunst in Leiden na 1660

It is generally accepted that in all cities in the Netherlands the art market fell into crisis after 1660. Yet when considering the craft of painting in a broader sense, some modifications are in place. A reconstruction of the entire Leiden painter community on the basis of the records of the local Guild of St Luke shows that the rapid decrease in the number of artists after 1660 was accompanied by an equally rapid increase in the number of kladschilders . As a consequence the total number of painters remained about the same towards the eighteenth century. The growth in the number of kladschilders was caused by a shift in the demand from easel paintings to decorative paintings. This development offered artists who were out of work a new opportunity and – based on the situation in Leiden – apparently many artists took this opportunity.

Relacije umetnosti i video igara / Relations of Art and Video Games

When discussing the art of video games, three different contexts need to be considered: the 'high' art (video games and the art); commercial video games (video games as the art) and the fan art. Video games are a legitimate artistic medium subject to modifications and recontextualisations in the process of creating a specific experience of the player/user/audience and political action by referring to particular social problems. They represent a high technological medium that increases, with practically each new commercial game, the aesthetic potential of audio-visualperformances and includes more complex narrations and characters/avatars. A number of artists take part in their creation: designers, composers and actors. Video games are a medium through which the fans of commercial games are trying to secure their position in the contemporary technologised culture.

Multi-Tasking with Joint Semantic Spaces for Large-Scale Music Annotation and Retrieval

Music prediction tasks range from predicting tags given a song or clip of audio, predicting the name of the artist, or predicting related songs given a song, clip, artist name or tag. That is, we are interested in every semantic relationship between the different musical concepts in our database. In realistically sized databases, the number of songs is measured in the hundreds of thousands or more, and the number of artists in the tens of thousands or more, providing a considerable challenge to standard machine learning techniques. In this work, we propose a method that scales to such datasets which attempts to capture the semantic similarities between the database items by modelling audio, artist names, and tags in a single low-dimensional semantic embedding space. This choice of space is learnt by optimizing the set of prediction tasks of interest jointly using multi-task learning. Our single model learnt by training on the joint objective function is shown experimentally to have improved accuracy over training on each task alone. Our method also outperforms the baseline methods tried and, in comparison to them, is faster and consumes less memory. We also demonstrate how our method learns an interpretable model, where the semantic space captures well the similarities of interest.

'One Pair of Shoes, One Life': Steps towards Accountability for Genocide in Srebrenica

On 15 July each year, Women in Black, an antimilitarist and feminist organization based in Belgrade, organize or participate in events in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to mark the anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica. In 2010, in collaboration with a number of artists, Women in Black blocked the main pedestrian mall in Belgrade and, under police protection, laid out about 500 pairs of shoes given to them by Serbian citizens. Each pair represented the life and death of a person killed in the massacre, and each carried a handwritten message from the person who gave it. We analyse the meaning and significance of this campaign as a civil society mechanism of accountability and moral reparations. Although criminal prosecutions for war crimes in the Balkans have been taking place for nearly two decades, they have not been able to address the conflicts and animosities that persist in the region. We argue that by participating in ‘One Pair of Shoes, One Life,’ Serbian citizens have begun to take steps towards publicly accepting responsibility for failing to prevent the crime of genocide perpetrated in their name.

Calligraphic Animation: Documenting the Invisible

Calligraphic animation shifts the locus of documentation from representation to performance, from index to moving trace. Animation is an ideal playing field for the transformative and performative qualities that Arabic writing, especially in the context of Islamic art, has explored for centuries. In Islamic traditions, writing sometimes appears as a document or a manifestation of the invisible. Philosophical and theological implications of text and writing in various Islamic traditions, including mystic sciences of letters, the concept of latency associated with Shi‘a thought, and the performative or talismanic quality of writing, come to inform contemporary artworks. A historical detour shows that Arabic animation arose not directly from Islamic art but from Western-style art education and the privileging of text in Western modern art – which itself was inspired by Islamic art. A number of artists from the Muslim and Arab world, such as Mounir Fatmi (Morocco/France), Kutlug Ataman (Turkey), and Paula Abood (Australia) bring writing across the boundary from religious to secular conceptions of the invisible. Moreover, the rich Arabic and Islamic tradition of text-based art is relevant for all who practice and study text-based animation.

Leaving the City: Artist Villages in Beijing

Leaving the City: Artist Villages in Beijing

Each Sense Has Its Image: Observations on Lesson No. 4 Delivered by Florensky at VKhUTEMAS in 1923

This article is based on a lecture given by the Arte Povera artist Luciano Fabro (1936-2007) in 1995 at the Brera Academy, Milan. It is a response to an earlier lecture on space and time in art given by the Russian art historian, priest, and engineer Pavel Florensky in 1923–4 in Moscow. Fabro, although allusive, appears in accord with Florensky’s skepticism toward the Euclidean-Kantian rationalization of realism as leading to scientism. To illustrate his ideas on the artist’s relation to and perception of things represented through art, Fabro discusses a number of artists, including Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, and Edvard Munch, and concludes that when “we see a work of art that attracts our senses and initiates a participation, observation without end, we do not hesitate to call such a work a masterpiece.”

Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva: Russian Encounters and Mutiny in the South Pacific (review)

Reviewed by: Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva: Russian Encounters and Mutiny in the South Pacific Max Quanchi Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva: Russian Encounters and Mutiny in the South Pacific, by Elena Govor. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8248-3368-8, xi +301 pages, bibliography, index, black-and-white illustrations. Cloth, US$49.00. The history of Russian expeditions in the Pacific has not attracted much attention in the English language, so it is important that an account of the first Russian circumnavigation led by Adam Krusenstern and Urey Lisiansky in the Nedezhda and Neva in 1803-1804 has been given such fine treatment in Elena Govor's Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva. Govor analyzes the naval and intellectual precursors, the naval and scientific personnel, and the meetings on the deck and ashore in Nuku Hiva. In so doing, she traverses a wide range of historical fields including cultural encounters, European fascination with Oceania, the science of collecting and observing, naval protocol, the significance of prior scientific and expedition experience, and the problems caused by personality clashes in shipboard relationships. The word "mutiny" in the title is slightly misleading. The contest over command [End Page 258] while the ships were anchored in Nuku Hiva is a diversion that lasted after the voyage ended, and it is reminiscent of the leadership struggles that troubled other expeditions, right back to Mendaña and Quiros in the seventeenth century. But this fine book is really about relations between Nuku Hivans and the two ships' crews as they went about seeking artifacts, specimens, water and firewood, and companionship, both male and female. The events, and the subsequent logs, journals, and published essays by officers and crew of those twelve days at Nuku Hiva offer a concentrated historical moment, a window into all the European voyages that have long fascinated scholars and are still able to generate heated debate and differing interpretation, seen recently in two more big books on Cook's voyages, by Nicholas Thomas (Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook, 2005) and Anne Salmon (The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas, 2003). Govor begins with the background of the main observers and recorders of what happened during those twelve days: the two captains; the Russian envoy who was en route to Japan; numerous scientists, aristocrats, and several literate crewmen; and a number of artists. These twelve days have a rich archive and Govor expertly weaves citations from most of these accounts into her analysis. This approach is repetitive at times and several versions of the same event seems unnecessary, but the reader is richly rewarded with an intimate and detailed account of events on board as Nuku Hivans followed a daily ritual of swimming out to the ships, or as the Russians ventured ashore to meet the other: the noble savage and the men, women, and children of nature they had read about back in Europe. Govor divides this material into four sections. The introduction reveals some fascinating detail, common to other voyages but useful here as a reminder that Russian expeditions were more German, English, and French than Russian in language and training, due to the wide trans-Europe education, training, and adventures of the officers and scientists. That many on board could only communicate in German or French is just one example of the detail Govor brings to the reader's attention. Part one is long, and after reviewing voyage literature and the work of several key historians, it covers the purpose of the voyage, the protagonists, and the voyage out to the Pacific. Days one to nine at Nuku Hiva are then covered in part two in great detail—onboard, ashore, and in the minds and writings, and art, of the visitors. A wonderful parallel story is the role and fate of the two, now well known beachcombers on Nuku Hiva at the time, Edward Roberts and Joseph Kabris. The last three days are treated superficially in one chapter. The aftermath of the voyage in scientific outcomes and in terms of empire, and the resolution of the leadership challenge—the so-called mutiny—are covered in part three, followed by...

The Art Institution in a Globalizing World

How do “classical” big art institutions (museums, the ballet, the opera, symphony orchestras) react to phenomena of globalization such as migration flows, the “denationalization” of artistic movements, the enormous growth of the number of artists, the trend of a global cultural branding of cities, etc.? And which cultural policies do governments develop to interfere in the relationship between those art institutions and their changing environments? Those were the central questions I asked while doing research about the position of art institutions in society today. The research concentrated on a very diverse sample of big art institutions in Europe. The research begins with the insights of Actor Network Theory and the political philosophy of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt and leads to an ideal typical two-dimensional model to classify the possible strategies that such institutions and their responsible governments can use on the local, national and international level.

Live Art in the UK

This past March, the National Review of Live Art, the longest running international festival of performance art in the world, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. The National Review of Live Art, or NRLA, is part of New Territories, a larger, month-long festival devoted to experimental performance work in theatre and dance. It is a celebration of the most experimental live art, whether it is dance, theatre, film/video, or site-specific/installation. This year’s NRLA paid homage to the history of the festival. For the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary, Nikki Milican, the artistic director, invited a number of artists and artists’ collectives who were involved with the NRLA from its earliest years, including Alastair Snow, Alastair MacLennan, Neil Butler, Stephen Partridge, Anne Seagrave, Anne Bean, Robert Ayers, Richard Layzell, Akademia Ruchu, Marty St. James, Forkbeard Fantasy, and Forced Entertainment. Neil Bartlett, the first emcee of the festival, donned his traditional gown and heels once more to emcee the festival on Saturday night. Younger artists who had began their careers at the NRLA in the platform program such as Curious (Helen Paris and Leslie Hill), Sam Rose, Richard Dedomenici, FrenchMottershead, Kate Stannard, Francesca Steele, Sheila Ghelani, and Kira O’Reilly performed as well. International artists included Varsha Nair, Stelarc, Guillermo Gomez-Pena/La Pocha Nostra, Istvan Kovacs, Esther Ferrer, Ron Athey, Jamie MacMurray, Lee Wen, La Ribot, Monali Meher, Wladyslaw Kasmierczak and Ewa Rybska, Yann Marussich, Silke Mansholt, and Zoran Todorovic.

Searching for the Center of a Sound: Bill Dixon's Webern, the Unaccompanied Solo, and Compositional Ontology in Post‐Songform Jazz

The solo has been a crucial element of jazz throughout this tradition's development. Unaccompanied solo works by single‐line instruments, however, have a more recent lineage. Saxophonist/composer Anthony Braxton's 1968 For Alto was the first full‐length album of unaccompanied solos. The 1970s brought a plethora of solo recordings from an ever‐increasing number of artists, many in the vanguard stream of the music. This aesthetic development brought with it a number of issues to consider. In the absence of a score or standardized repertoire, as is often the case in this genre, what gives a composition its identity? What are the ontological implications of music that deviates from cyclical harmonic structures and the theme‐and‐variations format? This article examines aspects of these issues through a close look at both the unique compositional processes of trumpeter and composer Bill Dixon, and his unaccompanied solo trumpet piece, “Webern.” Based on extensive interviews with Dixon, I explore three performances of Dixon's composition, none of which sonically resemble one another. If the sounding result of a composition is not its central identity, how does one examine or define such a work? The problems in locating an essence or “center” of non‐notated music, and how to analyze and represent it, are not specific to Dixon's work, they are major issues that have limited the amount of scholarship that has focused on this approach to music‐making.

The Spectacle of Seismicity: Making Art from Earthquakes

Representations of earthquakes in visual art have the potential to function as spectacles (defined as striking or dramatic public displays); this in turn provokes consideration of how viewers construct meaning from such representations. The author examines the work of a number of artists arguably concerned with going beyond spectacular representations in their portrayals of earthquake activity. Particular focus is placed upon performative techniques meant not only to engage audiences with the properties of seismic phenomena but also to stimulate reflection on the complex psychological responses they may trigger, as well as their analogous relationships to conditions of environmental and cultural crisis.

Art for animals

ABSTRACT‘Art for animals’ intends to address the ecology of capacities for perceptions, sensation, thought and reflexivity of animals. In cultural theory, the capacity for art is part of the rather mobile boundary line that performs the task of annihilating the animal in human and in demarcating the human from animality. The purpose of this article is not so much to legislate upon the placing of this line, but rather to suggest that the sensual and cultural capacities of various kinds of being, whether ordered into species or not, can be explored and to follow a few ways in which this has been done by a number of artists working in various ecological and technical settings. Some of this work is rightfully absurdist, whimsical, self-trivializing. But all of it moves towards setting up actual, multi-scalar and imaginal relations with animals that involve a testing of shared and distinct capacities of reflexive perception