Fashion

When thinking about this post, I originally planned on writing about the stereotype of the struggling/suffering artist. But. Then I stumbled upon this article while checking my email and have decided to rant about a different set of stereotypes instead.

So. What. Is up. With the majority of the male population being so terrified of any signs of "femininity" in their physical appearance and wardrobe? What is so "wrong" about shiny fabrics, tight pants, and the color pink? Why is taking the time to be perfectly coiffed and actually investing some thought into one's appearance strictly reserved for the female of the human species? Why is it so annoying to some that men's fashion is incorporating more "feminine" design elements? What does that even mean?!

From Wikitionary:

Feminine
Having the qualities associated with a woman or the female gender; suitable to, or characteristic of, a woman; nurturing; not masculine or aggressive.

Seriously? Seriously?? What ... I don't even know how to react to stuff like this anymore. What is "femininity" but a construct in our minds attributed to the stereotypes assigned to the female gender? Why is "feminine" automatically associated with "nurturing"? Even though we are capable of carrying babies, there are plenty of women out there who have children and completely fail at looking after them, disproving the myth of the nurturing female. And aggression is a characteristic solely reserved for men? We're not living in the 1800s--women need to be aggressive nowadays if they want to take care of themselves and take what in a fair world would be given to them freely: respect from their male peers, equality in vocational responsibility and reimbursement, and the independence to be comfortable in their position in society.

Back to "femininity" in current male fashion: our fashion landscape has changed so much through the ages, that what we now categorize as strictly female clothing may have once been worn by men. For example, the ancient Greeks and Romans almost exclusively wore togas, which anyone can see closely resemble dresses. Louis XIV was in the habit of wearing heels to bolster his height and show off his legs; and men throughout history wore tights and tunics and other items of clothing that would be considered extremely unmanly today.

It drives me crazy that anyone has the audacity to insinuate (or come right out and say) that it's inappropriate to incorporate "feminine elements" into men's clothing lines as though anything defined as feminine is inferior, and therefore an unsuitable choice for clothing a man's body. Art (and high fashion is undeniably artistic in its execution) that seeks to grow and make an impression on its viewers cannot restrict itself to any one category. It must push the boundaries we've constructed to make order of the world--whether they be gender, race, class, economic, or whatever other categories we use to pigeonhole people. I think it's great that fashion is taking a step in that direction and challenging our predetermined notions of what elements should be reserved for each gender's apparel. Maybe this will be one small step in the direction of eventually breaking down our gender stereotypes altogether. And I'm not just saying that because I like men in tight pants either :P

Directed Entry: Portraying the Nuances of Modern Life

Baudelaire speaks of a "daring nobility if the painter of modern life were imaginative enough to seize it, even in the mire..." .
Discuss how any part of the Baudelaire piece relates to your own world OR what is the "real, genuine" thing that today's painter of modern life needs to discover.

I'm not sure where to start for this entry. I enjoyed the Baudelaire piece as a written work, but I'm not sure I quite understood the second part of the reading. I think Baudelaire is trying to convey to the reader how even though things may look alike on the surface, a deeper more through examination is needed in order to see the true nature of an object or situation. He uses as an example the various types of women to be found in Paris in his time--from "young women of the most fashionable society" to "the poor slaves of those filthy stews"--and points out that even though on the surface they share the common facade of well-to-do proper ladies, a deeper look is needed in order to discern the actual from the counterfeit. Baudelaire believes that artists need to be especially diligent when observing the world around them, for there's no way they'd be able to convey the actuality of complicated, multi-layered subjects without comprehending the nuances themselves. I think the entire second part of the reading was just a giant, prettily worded case study to support his opinion.

So now that I've sort of worked that out for myself, how do Baudelaire's words relate to my world? I like to think of myself as a fairly observant person, but as of late, I've come to realize that I'm pretty oblivious to a lot of things. I do a lot of running around inside my own head, which causes me to miss some of the little things that are happening around me. Nuance is an important tool for an artist to have mastery of, whether observed or depicted. It makes one more sensitive to the people and environment around them, and makes their work more multifaceted and genuine to their audience. This is because life is steeped in nuance, in the little things our subconscious picks up on which makes each person's life experience different from anyone else's. Without this added layer of inflection and meaning, any resulting work falls flat of reality and is little more than a two dimensional representation of a subject.

We're so separated from each other in this Information Age; paradoxically, even though technology has made the world smaller, it has also crippled genuine human interaction. To take something mentioned in lecture, commuters on public transportation are a prime example of this. Those who ride regularly most often carry some form of distraction, whether it be a newspaper, iPod, or cell phone. Even those looking out the window are shut off from sensation, as like the "half-wit peacock" and his mistress, their gazes are unseeing, blank stares (I know I'm guilty of this one). No one really looks at the people around them. It's as if there's some unspoken rule that each person must exist separately, making no contact with their fellow riders unless absolutely necessary. Technology makes it easier to slip inside yourself, away from the outside world and the enjoyment of simple observation.

I think the paradox of technology creating a new type of global community while simultaneously perpetrating human isolation is the "real, genuine" thing that today's painter of modern life needs to portray. Technology evolves so fast, causing the world gets smaller everyday; but we continue to insist on existing separately from one another, doing things as small as shutting out our companions on a train ride to work or as large as functioning so deeply inside of ourselves that we fail to notice the details of those living around us. Hopefully modern artists are more observant than the masses and see this retreat from traditional human interaction--and in seeing are portraying these events in their artwork.

Directed Entry: Sterotypes and Visual Culture

Linda Nochlin's article "The Imaginary Orient" was very interesting to read. I was aware that there were certain liberties taken by artists when depicting the Orient during the Romantic movement, though not to that extent and not with the aims laid out by Nochlin in her article. It's very interesting to think about how the artists manipulated the reality of the situation, and how easily their audiences accepted their depictions as true. This was likely possible because the majority of their viewers had never themselves been to the Near East; and also because the artists' truth was what they wanted the Orient to be like: dangerous, romantic, and different than anything they had experience with in their daily lives. They had a preconceived notion of the Orient in their minds, and artists were happy to reinforce their patrons' stereotypes in the name of commercialism.

As much then as now, we as a society tend to associate certain stereotypes with specific groups of people. For example, to have pop culture tell it, all black people are thugs, all Asians are martial arts experts and/or do nothing but study, and all Jews are rich. Those previous statements are obviously not always true, but for someone who has never had personal contact with someone from any of those groups, they have nothing to base an opinion on but the information that is provided to them through media. We're all capable of forming snap judgments of people before even getting a chance to know them. It's something that we all do, though some of us more easily let go of our assumptions than others.

For example, I think the media's preoccupation with celebrities' love lives is incredibly dumb. There are plenty of other interesting things going on in the world, but for some reason they choose to focus on Brad and Angelina's inevitable break-up (apparently, they've been on the verge of a split ever since they started dating. It's really going to happen any day now). And while I couldn't care less about what some movie stars I'm never going to meet are doing with their personal lives, for some reason I hold onto the notion that all relationships are flash-in-the-pan affairs and will be over with at any moment. Deep in my mind, there is the little voice fueled by movies and media and pop culture that men (and women) only want One Thing, will inevitably be unfaithful, and will quickly move on to the next hot body without a care for crushing their former partner's tender heart. Now, on a conscious level I know this silly notion of rampant infidelity and people's inability to form lasting commitments to be untrue. My parents have been together for 28 years. There are millions of strong, happy, long-term relationships existing in the world. But I continue to have this knee-jerk reaction in response to relationships, and whenever I'm introduced to a friend's significant other, some little part of me is waiting for the inevitable break up. It's kind of sick actually.

Though we all have our biases and preconceptions, if we acknowledge their existence, we can better work on eradicating them. By relying solely on stereotypes for information about unfamiliar situations, one ends up with a very two-dimensional view of the world. Going out, interacting with people, and trying new things are the best ways to form informed opinions of the world. I'm working on following this advice myself--trying to refrain from being so quickly judgmental--and hope to be a richer person for it.

Sleep and Dreaming

Francisco Goya, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"

I've decided there are not nearly enough hours available for me to accomplish all I'd like to in each day; therefore I've recently attempted to cut down on the amount of time I spend sleeping in an effort to maximize productivity. The plan was to see how well I'd do averaging six hours of sleep a night instead of my usual eight or so, giving me an extra two hours for schoolwork, schlepping around the house, or whatever random things might need doing. So far, things haven't been working out so well.

I'm a person who enjoys her sleep. This is likely because I tend not to get much quality sleep time. It takes a while for me to settle in and get comfortable: I have to make sure my pillows are situated correctly taking into account neck support, ear restriction, and respiratory ventilation; I need to make sure that I'm properly covered according to the climatic conditions, with extra layers added as necessary; and I definitely have to swim around changing position several times until I find the one for that particular night which best suits me. Once I've settled and do finally manage to doze off, I usually float in that half space between waking and unconsciousness for an undetermined amount of time. I also have a tendency to wake up at least once a night, though sometimes it happens more often.

The most certain method of guaranteeing I have a good night's rest (disregarding outside variables) is to physically exhaust myself over the course of the day. That way my body is so tired out it has no choice but to rest soundly. I remember one summer where several long work days piled up one after the other, and when presented with a long stretch of unaccounted time, I managed to sleep almost uninterrupted for twelve hours, waking briefly only once when my housemates returned from an outing. The one disappointing thing about exhausting myself physically though, is that under those circumstances I tend not to dream.

Being one who enjoys sleep, I also enjoy dreaming. I find it to be an escape from the mundanity of reality and a chance to revel in the abstract situations produced by my brain space. I'm not sure what others' dreaming is like, as it varies from person to person, but my dreams tend to happen in segments, progressing from one to the next with some sort of common thread. As someone who has always loved the escape offered from fantasy novels and imagination, I look forward to each dream as a chance to discover something new, and am constantly amazed at the strange and wonderful things my sleeping mind produces.

In dreams the limits of the "real world" (for who can truly describe the nature of Reality?) are thrown off; people can fly, or walk through walls, and become capable of all sorts of impossible tasks; animals talk; the landscape of the earth changes before your eyes, or you leave this sphere completely. I find in my dreams I'm more easily creative, composing music and poetry, choreographing dances, making art without the effort that's inherent in the waking world. This leads me to wonder if this creativity is just an illusion created by a bored mind--or if in sleep, when cut off from the distractions of the outside world, we are at our purest intellectual form, and free to create unconstrained. This may be why many flashes of inspiration come when you least expect them; once you've stopped over-thinking an idea, your unconscious mind is given a chance to work on it without conditioned assumptions and expectations, leading to some ingenious solutions. I think artists who can tap into that unconscious creativity have a distinct advantage when it comes to creating their work, with the results being, on a subconscious level, more immediately relatable to the viewer.

My lack of sleep however, has done me no favors in terms of energy or creativity, and after a week of averaging only six hours of sleep a night, I caved and temporarily abandoned my quest. I found my dreams during that week to be stranger than normal (and even under regular circumstances, my dreams are fairly odd), and upon waking I realized I couldn't hold onto them as easily. Having given up my plan of reduced sleep, I'm currently in need of a new method of increasing my daily productivity. Perhaps the trick to dealing with the buildup of daily tasks is to stop dwelling on them, letting go of my anxiety, and allowing inspiration for dealing with them come when it will--whether in life or in dreams.

Art At Work

I have the privilege(?) of working for a social networking site, where my main duty is to screen artists' skin designs they have submitted for acceptance into the public gallery. If you don't know, a skin is a way people can customize their little page within the site--like the custom themes you can use here on blogger, or sites like LiveJournal or MySpace. We receive countless submissions from people who want their art to be shown off on the site, and I usually end up going through several hundred skins each day. Most of them are crap. Not in the sense that they're not "artistic" enough, or they don't cater to my personal aesthetic tastes, but in the sense that the person who created the skin wasn't paying attention to the functional aspects of their designs. Such as choosing font colors that are legible (you have no idea how many black text on black background submissions we get); or using graphics that are so compressed and blurry that it becomes a game of "guess what you're looking at!" And since most of our users tend to be emo and/or twelve year old girls (or catering to that demographic), we tend to see a lot of pink, black, skulls and stars.
So it was completely unexpected when I came across a skin Monday afternoon that thrilled me right at first glance. It was done in varying flat shades of green, each section different from the one next to it; and vertically, down the sides of each section (the basic layout is basically a grid, with a large, screen wide box at the top, and two columns of of boxes varying in size depending on content extending to the bottom of the page directly below) was a box-like font also in green simply labeling the function of each section. Headers, footers, navigation, main modules--all were named the demarcation between each clean and simple. Here was Modern Art, staring out at me from my computer monitor. In its simplicity, the virtual object and structure of the skin became the focus of attention, instead of the frills slapped on top of it. It was like taking a blank canvas and simply writing "CANVAS" on it, or going around with a sharpie and labeling the objects in your daily life. Words are merely symbols used as placeholders for the actual things in our minds, and by physically attaching the word to the object in front of us, the word becomes the object and in a sense it is more solid and real.
I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Showing the skin to my coworker, I hoped she would be as excited as I was, since we're always looking for something different from the usual pink stars that predominate the gallery. She wasn't impressed. She thought it was more instructional in nature rather than decorative, and therefore not a proper match for the gallery. I suggested that she didn't recognize artistic genius. She countered that I'm pretty weird. She did have a point about the simplicity of the design though, and since the fairest way to deal with our submissions is by holding them to the same guidelines, I unfortunately had to reject this person's effort. Still, it was about the most exciting day art-wise that I've had since I started working there two months ago, and I hope to stumble across some more little gems in my daily work.

Directed Entry: Art Shaping Reality

Greuze's "Beloved Mother" is an example of art not reflecting reality but instead being used to construct a new reality. Give an example of visual culture used in that way today. What does this imply about the power of art; what does it imply about society; and what does it imply about us as consumers of art?


An example of visual culture being used in an attempt to construct a new reality is one that was mentioned in class on Wednesday: the various military ads used to promote enlistment into the armed forces. These ads are mostly targeted to young high-school graduates, exalting the benefits of joining the army. The benefits are not bad things in themselves--leadership, money for college, learning a skill, a chance to see different parts of the world--but in all cases the ads completely fail to mention the much more weighty negatives associated with being exposed to death on an almost daily basis. Obviously if the ads were to say something along the lines of "Join the Army! You'll learn a cool skill that can be applied to general society, but be so messed up after your tour of Iraq that you'll never be able to put it to use!", it's certain their enlistment rate would see a drop in numbers.
The thing is though, most people do know these things. They know joining the military right now, when your chances of being deployed to an area in turmoil are very high, is probably not the best idea, but they do it anyway. In this sense I don't believe the visual material is in itself shaping reality, but letting people justify in their minds a decision they were going to make anyway (or in some cases a decision that through life circumstance was made for them, but that's a whole different rant). Our Western society is shaped by guilt, constantly in need of a paternal figure approving our actions; we have a need to feel that we are always doing "good" and are in the "right" when acting on decisions. And if our art and visual culture reflect this, we can be content in making choices that we know (whether subconsciously or not) will eventually lead to disaster, because it has been sanctioned by our leadership.
What this implies about us as consumers of art is while we know what the reality of a situation is, we still desire the fantasy--in some cases we want to be lied to. It makes it easier to justify our actions, it makes it easier to see ourselves as martyrs and saviors; it makes it easier to wake up in the morning and shut out all of the unpleasant or inconvenient situations in the world and be content with our own existence. Sometimes people need that separation between self and reality, because if one spent all their time dwelling on the reality of humanity they'd go crazy from remorse. I don't think that in any way justifies the creation of ads such as those used by the Army and armed forces--which intentionally mask the unpleasant parts of the reality of military service--but I understand their motives, why they see it as a necessity for their continued operation, and why some people are easily swayed by this construct of reality.