Fritz Kahn

While reading into my chosen route for this assignment, I came across the late Fritz Kahn, a science writer who illustrated the form and function of the human body.

I really like his work and believe it links in with the cyborg assignment because he is trying to put across that. Due to his medical background, being a gynaecologist gave him an insight into the way the human body worked and  due to this he produced illustrations such as the one above to show the complexity of the human body. I think that this comes across as saying the human body is mechanical and that we are cyborgs. 

Useful links: 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9026531/Alexander-Graham-Bell-letter-to-parents-about-telephone-sells-for-92000.html
(The letter used in a practise collage, a letter from Alexander Bell the inventor of the telephone to his parents)


http://www.fritz-kahn.com/index.php?site=start&lang=en


http://www.led-r-r.net/portfolio_2011.pdf


http://www.bl.uk/learning/artimages/bodies/kahn/kahnmachines.html

1st Collage

I decided to start making straight away to help me to produce more ideas of what to look into. I am heavily influenced by the dada movement and i believe that the advancement of technology is put across in many of the dada artists work. The following images show the working of my collages, I used only photoshop to create this piece, utilising my growing knowledge of layering and using the blending options. 
I wanted to use the Fritz Kahn image in my piece due to the relevance of just how complex the human body is and I want to put a bit of humour into it by mocking Siri through using such a well known diagram of how complex the human body is. Made a true professional, gynaecologist Fritz Kahn. I have also decided to put the Apple symbol at the heart of the piece to show that apple are at the heart of this technology, again mocking this software. If this is how technology is advancing, so much so that they are selling this piece of software as a human, where will the future of technology lead? 

I also decided to add in the google logo and head bar to show that all siri does is connect to the internet and ask questions, in a way google is the softwares brains.

The above are the development of this piece, all done using photoshop.

DADA

I have researched the dada movement many times and have grown to become fond of the reasonings behind the reasoning for making this movement. It was a massive change in terms of the art world and it brought a whole new genre to the table with different ideas. In a way they were rebelling against the war through 'non-art' as they called it, they said that they were 'not artists'.
I want to use the style of some of the dada artists in my work for this assignment because I am against this particular advancement in technology and believe that technology will one day run our day to day lives. I will be making a gallery style piece as appose to an advertising style piece which would be pro the advancement of this technology. I would like to add some images that I found most striking from the dada movement. Some of my favourite dada artist are Hannah Hoch, mainly for her use of mechanical pieces in her work and her use of scale, as well as the way she really thinks about the way she layers each element in her collages. The other one of my favourite dada artists is Marcel Duchamp due to his abstract and impacting/ almost humorous style. 

One thing that I really like about the Dada movement was the use of text and numbers as well as photographs in some of the pieces, this is something that I will look to add to my final image if possible. 

Surrealism

Surrealism was a cultural movement started in the early 1920's which developed from Dada, the works are full of unexpected juxtapositions and can seem misleading at first. The main movement being based in and around Paris.

The founder of the movement, Andre Breton, was strongly influenced by the theories on Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. From what I can gather about surrealism, it was based upon dreams and being  unconscious and that this was shown through both art works and writings. I think that there is an obvious link with this movement and the dada movement due to the some what randomness of some of the pieces. Here are a few of some of the more well known pieces of surrealism, these are only one side of the works, the other being writings from the surrealist writers.

I like that the paintings are quite dramatic, what I mean by this is that there are strong uses of shadows which I feel gives these pieces depth technically. Also, this is shown through the use of quite rich bold colours which compliment each other well, as well as the fine detail of some of the paintings.






Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was a promenant surrealist artist of the 1930's. His work orientated around historical scientific and religious ideas. He got himself into states that he called 'paranoiac critical' where he went unconscious in order to see images that he would not be able to envision in a normal mind set. I think this is really apparent in his works due to the some what random placements of objects and ideas behind them. i have used the work 'random' several times during this assignment because I find it a good way to describe what I can see in both the Dada and surrealist artists work.

Again, I have included some of his pieces, these are also useful for me to come back to and look at if need to in the future as a reference. I like the randomness of his work, partly because it makes me think outside the box as to why he has put such things where and as to the reasoning behind it. This randomness is a new way that I have thought about in which to put across a 'different' or abnormal thought.

Initial Ideas/ Immediate Thoughts

When given the brief I was thinking of things to base my assignment on and I came across a particular technological advance that had happened over the last few months, the invention of 'Siri' on IPhones (Model 4S).

I had always been rather sceptical about this invention and after using it for the first time on a friend IPhone a few days ago, I realised that it was a big event in technological advances. I also thought that it was a bad event for technology because the programme/ application is portrayed and sold as a cyborg. It is sold to be 'a person' who you can talk to and who you are able to form a relationship with, some one that can help make your normal working day easier.

I started by looking into the advertising champagne where I had first seen the application advertised. In the advertisement video when Siri was asked a  “Hmm… let me think…” This immediately gave me the idea that they are selling the application as a human, or with the same capabilities as a human. This links with the theme of cyborgs. I am coming at this with a dystopian view initially.

Initial Ideas/ Research

So, the new brief that we have been set is on the theme of 'Syborg'. At first i thought that this wasn't for me but the more I think about it, the more I realise that there are many different avenues to go down for this brief.
During this brief, I will be using Photoshop to edit and manipulate images be it primary or secondary source. This will be very worthwhile for me because it will help me to add to my intermediate photoshop skills. This brief is a short 6 week course, I will post my research and trials out on this blog.


For our initial research iv decided to look at the following:

• Walter Benjamin's 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (Book)
• Franz Kafka's 'Metamophosis and other stories' (Book)

• Terminator 2 (Film)
• Metropolis (Film)