Practice

From the study material:

You will be introduced to a variety of short texts, some that you will be guided through in depth, others that will be offered more like a taster for ideas that whet your appetite. It is possible that an essay from a particular author or anthology resonates with your work and you may become compelled to read the rest of the book. This might lead you to discover other texts that could become important to your studio work. Texts can affect your practice just as your practice can affect what you read and perhaps write yourself. Depending on the kind of work you make, you may even develop a practice of writing that helps you to understand what happens in the studio. Writing can help you to work things out, in the same way, that yourstudio practice does.
Do not be put off if you feel like there are parts of a text that you find difficult to grasp; take from it what you can. There are suggestions for a range of texts (in terms of difficulty and length) for further reading. These can introduce you to different voices if you wish to explore the topic in more depth. Think about the overall argument and how it is relevant to you rather than getting bogged down by a term or concept that you are not familiar with. Discussing a text with someone is a really good way to understand how someone else approaches it and working out what it means to you. You could also create your own glossary of the new terms that you learn throughout the course. The wider aim of the course is to show that there is no right way to understand an artwork or text and to enable you to gain confidence in your ability to interrogate and analyse your own and others’ responses. Artists often read texts in new and interesting ways. The information presented in this course is by no means definitive but aims to generate questions and initiate an open-ended enquiry.
Please read through the whole course before you begin and use your learning log and sketchbooks/notebooks/developmental process work throughout the course as they will help you to see how your ideas change and develop and also help you to think about how you approach the assignments. Be creative about the different ways in which you show your
thinking.

Looking back at work done to part 3 (currently busy with part 4) I decided to make a blog – words and language are becoming important contributors to my learning and making. I need to take ownership and think through my practice. It could start with writing about what I want to say in my practice of making which is mostly done with paint and or charcoal.

PART ONE:

The idea of praxis in art: we talk about an ‘artists practice’ rather than their ‘work’. We find that this process entails a wide range of activities of the artist, which includes thinking, making and acting all striving for some form of transformational. My practice is in many ways around things found. I learnt in an exercise that to harness the potential of the unexpected will enable me to consider material as in a more open, hopefully a temporary way – as I want to consider things as fleeting, momentary and becoming displaced over time and action. Questions arising is how to extend my material enquiry or process – how do I explain these questions in a physical way. Ideas need to be entangled and reflected upon. My position should become known in my practice.

intra-action through painting – my tutor wrote about this when she commented on a researchpoint on failures and how conceptual approaches plays out in my work. She writes, “think less perhaps of making representational work and think more about intra-action through painting.”

PART TWO:

test material intentions and centering myself within the work – about taking back these steps needed to consider how I get myself in the making, whilst also contemplating my very existence. It is about going back to some exercises as a way into extending and developing ideas into outcomes.

asking questions often opens up the dialogue to a wider or broader audience

Passage:

Passage describes a faceting technique used to break up the contours that define objects or scenes, so that surfaces appear to flow together, blurring the distinctions between solid form and space, foreground and background. The technique itself consist in create a graduation of colors through stains of paint but leaving a thin white space between each stain.  Passage means areas “bleed” into each other and this locks the elements together on the picture plane

Paul Cézanne employed passage throughout his work but was also used by cubist painters as Picasso and Braque because that allowed to create images with different perspectives overlapped  at the same point.

“Passage” is a way of linking the foreground, middleground and the background).
There is a dialog between the thing represented and the means of representation. There are parts of a Cezanne picture that could be foreground or background. He is recording what things are like when looked at. There is a vague sense of “aerial perspective” – the use of colours to suggest distance. The background is bluer and the foreground is redder.
(Linear perspective is showing distance by parallel lines meeting at the horizon.) Passage means areas “bleed” into each other and this locks the elements together on the picture plane. Braque recognised the techniques used by Cezanne. The other thing, especially with his still life, is his distortion of perspective Note:
the still life genre developed in the 17th century and the skill was to closely observe every surface and texture. When you look at something you move your head and your eyes and assemble the view from the jigsaw puzzle of views.
Cezanne wanted to record the process of looking. His art was to do with what it means for man to look at the world, understand it, and represent it. A man is “a hand, an eye and a brain”. His paintings are a report of a process – the process of looking. Braque was a Fauvre but after looking at Cezanne he moved in a new way. Fauvism had liberated colour but not form. Cezanne had liberated form.

Reading about SOFT POWER: The term was first coined 27 years ago by Professor Joseph Nye. The nature of power has never been more complex. It had long been held that traditional hard power involving armies and economic might ruled the day. This resulted in a straight-forward power exchange – whoever was stronger was dominant.
Now, we are living in an increasingly complex, multi-dimensional, and
interdependent world. Power has become more diffuse, moving from West
to East, as well as away from governments altogether as more non-state
actors leverage international influence. This is in large part due to the digital revolution, which has eroded national borders, creating challenges and opportunities in equal measure. It has also allowed citizens to mobilise in new ways, and build bridges across geographical divides.
What does this mean for global affairs? Countries are realising that old-world hard power can no longer influence outcomes and achieve their foreign policy goals as they might desire. Instead, it is the ability to encourage collaboration and build networks and relationships which is the new currency.

As Professor Joseph Nye, who first coined the phrase “soft power” 27 years ago said, “power with others can be more effective than power over others”. But while there is a growing enthusiasm for soft power in global capitals, it has not always been matched by the understanding and capability required to deploy it successfully.
Fundamental to deploying this is a clear and accurate measurement of a
nation’s soft power resources. This is the aim of The Soft Power 30 index – the world’s most comprehensive comparative assessment of global soft power. It combines objective data and international polling to build what Professor Nye has described as “the clearest picture of global soft power to date.”

At the same time these major geopolitical shifts are playing out, there are two further major contextual and practical drivers of the global rebalancing. The first – a theme touched on in this report – is the devolution of power. This is an established trend that Joseph Nye and other scholars have argued – that power is moving from West to East, as well as away from states towards non state actors. These non-state actors can be corporations, NGOs, multilateral institutions, civil society groups, municipal and regional governments, or even individuals.

The ongoing devolution of power away from national governments effectively means the ability of non-state actors to engage in international debates and ultimately shape the outcomes of global affairs is growing.

INTRODUCTION 23
institutions, civil society groups, municipal and regional governments, or even
individuals. The ongoing devolution of power away from national governments
effectively means the ability of non-state actors to engage in international
debates and ultimately shape the outcomes of global affairs is growing.

The Soft Power 30 framework

Education
Polling
Data
Objective
Data Government
Cuisine
Tech Products
Friendliness
Culture
Luxury Goods
Foreign Policy
Liveability