Blue
- In her article, “Derek Jarman’s Blue: Negating the Visual”, Jenna Carine Ashton states “The auditory comes to replace the visual; with Blue there is a sensory tussle as we are forced to listen.” Reflecting on your own experience of watching Blue, do you agree? Why/why not?
This idea is reasonable, but I do not agree auditory can replace visual. Visuals are as necessary as auditory in Jarman’s work. Although according to Jenna (2012) mentioned, the artwork Blue offers an overwhelming and invasive soundtrack of everyday noises, musical interludes, haunting voices, and mechanical clunks and clinks. However, at the same time, despite the sound, the dazzling picture catches attention. Blue colors flash so much and get into people’s eyes. As for the whole pure color picture flooding the screen. Colour has unpredictable power, it can cause a totally different effect from photographs in this situation. Photograph or normal video provides a quick way of apprehending something and a compact form for memorizing it in today’s era of information overload(Sontag, 2003). The blue screen attack audience’s the visual sense, works together with the auditory, and makes people feel uncomfortable.
- Consider this work in relation to González-Torres’ Untitled (A portrait of Ross in L.A.). How do these works engage the senses of the viewer to create a relationship with the subject of the work?
Jarman’s Blue and “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) both create a conversation with the audience to communicate with the kind of homosexuality and AIDS topic through different ways.Jarman uses a strong personal art style to communicate, Blue engages the senses of the viewer through solid blue, music, and mechanical metallic sounds;. which can affect in various ways like pain or suffering, to carry the weight of illness and disease (Jenna, 2012). The Untitled uses real interaction and an open way to maintain the connection. consists of a pile of candies individually wrapped in multicolor cellophane. The work encourages interactions with the audience like eating candies. As a result, to maintain this art, the handlers weekly added 15 or 20 pounds to the sculpture on average and would add candies to rebalance the piece’s color. (Weinberg, 2013)
Reference
Jenna, C (2012), Derek Jarman’s Blue: Negating the Visual, Journal of Applied Arts & Health, Volume 3 Number 3
Sontag, S. (2002), Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors, London
Weinberg, L (2013). “Art Institute candy sculpture | What’s up with that?”. Time Out Chicago. Retrieved 2020-08-01.
Reflection & Problem Scenario
“Embodied knowledge, while often denigrated and disavowed within the modern colonial episteme, confirms that Western scientistic validity comprises only one kind of knowing. Manifest through poetics, aesthetics, and other bodily attunements, sensuous knowledges open to alternative modes of relation. […] A sensory, embodied, affective, and imaginative relation to the world opens to a different kind of ethics and politics.
Based on the Problem Scenario above, we explore how sensory approaches may open up different ways of being in relation.
Visual approaches are not only the link related to the outer world, each sensor has its irreplaceable function. There are three reasons why the visual should not be recognized as so dominant from a series analysis of contemporary artworks.
First, this chapter has demonstrated that the body is a part of the world, and every sensory makes sense. Just as Neiman(2020) suggests, our body is connected with nature, human bodies are implicated in and constituting worlds, as well as dependent on the world. Such expositions seem kind of subjective, but it exists nowadays, take phenomenon in the art world as a sample. For example, the artist Schwab layers textures, touchable surfaces, and sculptures to create an exhibition that will invite tactile engagement and learning through play, one of her works The Seeing Hands, is a collection of materials with different tactile qualities, which was a touchable library Schwab made for children. The growing number of artworks with a mix of elements also shows that vision is no longer dominant.
The section below describes in certain situations, some particular senses surpass others. Take Derek Jarman’s (1942–1994) film Blue (1994) as an example, which is an Experimental film, created before the author’s death from AIDS-related complications, and plays with visual, noisy, and language communication. Responding to blue, it uses pure color (a solid blue) to pose a challenge to the visual, when articulating suffering and pain, there are obvious limitations of visual and language (Jenna, 2012), auditory sense here obviously provides far more effects. As Jenna (2012) mentioned, the work emphasizes that the absence of the visual is equally powerful in its ability to trouble us.
Finally, moving on now to consider vision can produce different effects when mixed with other senses. This is exemplified in the work undertaken by British-Finnish artist, composer, and performer Hanna Tuulikki and Scottish music producer Tommy Perman, Echo in the Dark, an example of how artists use sensory approaches to encourage different ways of relating to nature and each other in the context of climate breakdown. The project intricately weaves bat echolocation and artists’ work into a letter to dance. Firstly, it shows the common sensors between humans and nonhumans, artists here create a hybrid space that raised our senses like a voice with bats echolocation, emphasizing the co-existence with ‘more-than-human’(Tuulikki, 2022). Secondly, this artwork’s system includes color (visual) and voice. It makes use of the evening’s peach sunset to accentuate the majestic red sandstone of the 19th-century gothic-style building and create a natural stage atmosphere for the dancers’ performance combined with music for the audience. The audience put on headphones and with the push of a button and the glow of blue light from the transmitter. Following by, from a perspective of the interaction between body and mind: Echo in the Dark offer a sense of collectivism as human bodies danced with synchronicity, participants’ movements like a radical act in navigating the climate crisis together. Which provide an uncertain notion that people carry and implement in daily lives; the interaction show idea that human being is an intrinsic part of nature. The project Echo in the Dark is not just a momentary experience that concludes music stops: it demonstrates a new way of being in the world. One of awareness, optimism, and learning to be ecological.
In conclusion, visual approaches should not be regarded as the most important senses in the outside world; each sensor serves an important purpose.
Should galleries consider the multi-sensory? Why / why not?
I think multi-sensory should be considered as part of exhibitions for galleries today. The key aspects of the necessary can be listed as follows: the limitation of visual works, technology development, and special visitors’ reactions.
First, there are limitations to visual works. On the one hand, multi-sensory is an important experience for visitors. Nature has given us many senses for perceiving and interacting with our surroundings. On the other hand, the exhibition with pure visual works can be replaceable to some extent. For example, many museums offer virtual tours online, visitors can drag the position in the 3D website through click the mouse to see pictures and artworks in any direction. Which can basically be close to the real museum experience.
Secondly, the tendency of contemporary art these days to become more multi-sensory. Arts develop with technology. Contemporary art is evolving in the direction of appreciation beyond simply looking at works, and the development of various sensory technologies has had a great influence on culture and art(Cho, J. D, 2021). Meanwhile, the use of vision and audition for interaction dominated the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) for decades (Obrist, M,2017). As Obrist raises, to some extent, they also learn from the sensory experimentations done by contemporary artists.
Finally, galleries should consider multi-sensory for special visitors from a moral perspective. Some visually impaired visitors may encounter numerous restrictions when seeing museum displays, such as a lack of cognitive and sensory access to exhibits or reproductions. (Cho, J. D, 2021). This group lives with some form of blindness, and their limited access to artwork cannot be ignored in a world of increasing inclusion. The developed use of multi-sensory is a wise strategy to show respect to each person.
Overall, in the contemporary world, multi-sensory is important for galleries to consider as part of exhibitions.
After this theory work, we have the opportunity to experiment with the idea with methods in our basho work, we explore through sensory carried from somewhere just beyond vision. With our Basho group, we meet together and visit Calton Hill. After which we create a 15 minutes presentation to create a Calton Hill trip from hearing, smell, taste, and touch in an immersion method.
In addition, one thing we were required to think about is when we do activities that require the participation of the audience, we need to get other people’s consent instead of directly inviting the tutor as an audience without thinking about consent and the ethics before.
Process of our presentation
To create the sensory of smell
Reference
Ashton, J. C. (2013) Derek Jarman’s Blue: Negating the Visual. Journal of applied arts & health. [Online] 3 (3), 295-307. https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/1viuo5v/cdi_ingenta_journals_intellect_jaah_2013_00000003_00000003_art00005
Astrida Neimanis,( 2020) “The Body is the Site of Climate Catastrophe”, Terra Batida
https://terrabatida.org/derivas_one.php?id=20
Cho, J. D. (2021) A study of multi-sensory experience and color recognition in visual arts appreciation of people with visual impairment. Electronics (Basel). [Online] 10 (4), 1–37.
Kirkhope, B.(2022) “Echo in the Dark”. [Online] Caught By the River https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2022/09/echo-in-the-dark-hanna-tuulikki-review/
Obrist, M.; Gatti, E.; Maggioni, E.; Vi, C.T.; Velasco, C. (2017), Multisensory Experiences in HCI. Ieee Multimed. 24, 9–13.
7th November 2022 at 3:43 pm
You’ve answered each of the questions in turn and it’s great to see you engaging with the materials we’ve looked at.
I really enjoyed your descriptive writing on the experience of watching Jarman’s Blue. I think you’ve captured something of the effect of the colour in this work well. To strengthen your writing about the artworks, you could extend your answers to include greater degree of analysis. For example, in your response to the question considering Jarman’s work in relation to González-Torres’, you begin with a clear statement connecting the subject matter of their work. However, in your discussion of González-Torres’ work you note that visitors are invited to eat the candy but you don’t consider what this does – what effect might eating candy have in the context of this work?
You’ve put forward a multi-faceted answer to the question of whether galleries should consider the multi-sensory, highlighting three factors which you suggest mean galleries should consider the multi-sensory. There are places in this response where the points you are making are completely clear or where the connection between material is not evident to the reader. For example, you discuss the limitations of visual works and then bring in the possibilities offered by virtual tours. This is certainly an expanding area of museum practice but in your response this is not clear how you think virtual tours address the limitations of the visual you have highlighted, particularly as they are still visual.
It’s good to see you thinking about how a multi-sensory approach could improve access. A number of contemporary organisations are looking at this at the moment – Lux, an organisation focused on artist moving image have a project around audio description of moving image work with a great (and highly accessible) website: https://slowemergencysiren.org.uk/. There are also approaches to audio description in the gallery, for example, this tour at Dundee Contemporary Art https://www.dca.org.uk/whats-on/event/live-described-exhibition-tour-with-juliana-capes.
A note on terminology – you’ve used the phrase “special visitors”; here, disabled visitors would be more appropriate. There’s a useful discussion of language and disability on p. 11 of this guide to the Social Model of Disability: https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FactSheets_TheSocialModel.pdf.
27th November 2022 at 3:14 pm
This blog enumerates a wealth of examples to logically prove the importance of multiple senses in art curation. I was deeply impressed by the discussion on multi-sensory art practice from the perspectives of technological development and ethics. But this post ends a bit abruptly, and it would be nicer if the author could go on to talk about how these thoughts were embodied and put into practice during your trip to Calton Hill, and whether the trip gave the author any other unique discoveries of your own.
4th December 2022 at 8:15 pm
Through the author’s article I can see that she has a great understanding and rich ideas of the theme. The author cites relevant examples well, which makes the article more convincing. I like the author’s point that galleries should consider visually impaired viewers. In fact, there are already some visually assisted exhibitions for the visually impaired. However, most galleries don’t take this into account, which makes the visually impaired a lot less accessible to art. I appreciate the author’s group presentation on Calton Hill in class, which was special and intuitive. I would like to see the author express some of her thoughts on the visit.
6th December 2022 at 7:06 pm
The blue color in the author’s pen is of unpredictable power. In this case, it can produce a completely different effect from that of a photograph. Photographs or ordinary videos offer a quick way of understanding things, exploring different ways of opening up the sensory approach. In response to the blue color, it uses solid color (pure blue) to pose a challenge to the visual, which has obvious limitations when it comes to expressing pain or feeling pain, and here the auditory clearly offers more effect. The development of various sensory technologies has had a huge impact on culture and art.
Galleries should ethically consider the multisensory needs of special visitors, and multisensory development uses equal respect for each individual.
11th December 2022 at 6:06 pm
The explanations in many of the books can be seen in the author’s blog, proving that the blogger has read the required literature and has a clear understanding of the commons. The author has responded to each of the questions. And in it one sees a reading of much of the relevant literature that provokes one’s own thinking.