What does it mean to be an “outsider’ artist?
Adam Shahrum bin Zainal Abidin
BA (Hons) Fine Art
Unit 4 Essay 2
23 April 2014
Outline
I. Introduction
A. Artist Statement: There is an advantage of being an “outsider” artist because it pushes the boundaries of how art is meant to be perceived
II. How an “outsider” artist views and interprets what they see
A. Fiona Tan’s artwork:The Changeling
III. By using “Hybridity” as a form to communicate with different cultures
A. Rasheed Newsome’s Shade Composition 2012
B. Kejak or Balinese Monkey Dance with Federico Fellini’s Sytropism
IV. Conclusion
“No name is yours until you speak it; somebody returns your call and suddenly, the circuit of signs, gestures, gesticulations is established and you enter the right to narrate” (Bhabha, 2010, pg. xxv). Starting with this quotation from Homi K. Bhabha makes me wonder weather if it is true for a person who has moved from one familiar culture to another can actually be heard. Especially with artists who have the time to experience, explore and absorb such different atmospheres and have new ideas. How then when making artworks from what they are accustomed to change by the new world that they are experiencing? There are sometimes questions or fears of what they are showing could be either exotic or unfamiliar which distance themselves from an identity of whom they are representing and what they might loose. For my thesis, I will argue that there is an advantage of having to create an artwork that is different and not be identified to a particular region, ethnicity or style because to negotiate what it means to be an international, transnational or an ‘outsider’ will then push the boundaries and limits to what art is perceived as and what the artworks can do to create new bridges of not being placed in a particular group and space.
Firstly, starting with a person who migrates to a new country, there is foreignness to where the person is. The artist could be considered an ‘outsider’ or foreigner with the customs and traditions involved. With this it is an advantage. Taken from an understanding of John Clark’s essay on Asian Artist As Long-Distance Cultural Specialist In The Formation Of Modernities, explains how the artist becomes a “technical specialist” of having local visual outlook with the “other” and moving back into the world that is either new or imagined (Clark, 2013 pg. 21). It is an interesting perspective to how artists who does not have a sense of seeing what is normal or not normal for viewing is picked up and can be used differently adapted to the beholder. An artist who over the years acknowledges and realizes the potential of being an outsider even though living and being in a country for so long is Fiona Tan. In 2006 Tan exhibited The Changeling in different galleries around the world, the work consisted of more than 200 portraits of Japanese schoolgirls from the 1930’s, to be used as a video installation with having local actors from the following country to speak in the native language for the voice-overs and narrate a fictional story of the girl, her mother and the girl as a grandmother (Lo, 2014, pg. 62). What I find interesting and described from Jacquline Lo’s essay, Moving Images, Stilling Time on Fiona Tan’s work is the need for an outsider who does not share the same interest or ideology presented from the space the nation is projecting to create new forms of understanding and movement to a different location from the archives of history presented. Looking back at Tan’s own historical background gives an indication to how she would be preferred to be described as a “professional foreigner” and not be categorized into one particular type of artist. This was discovered by Tan when she was making a documentary called May You Live in Interesting Times, it consisted of Tan traveling to China Indonesia, Scotland and Australia to interview her Chinese relatives and ask ‘Family or culture: Which determined my identity more? (Lo, 2014, pg, 57). What is shown by Tan’s The Changeling, is the combination of the representation of the schoolgirls in their formal and structured setting to the narration of actors especially with their ascent to allow a better understanding of the works for the viewer to connect to with the intentions of Tan and Lo describing as:
“The diverse sets of spatial-temporalities converge in the gallery, where biographical time and fictional space rub against time and historical place to foreground diverse and contending co-presence not usually permitted in official political discourse.” (Lo,2014, pg.63)
There is a connection with Bbhaba’s use of liminal-space for artists to use or looking to comprehend to. It is a term used by Homi Bhabha as a third space that the artist uses to see how they see world which first, not their familiar world, secondly the world that they are in now and thirdly a world that is only to them as how they see in the new world with their eyes, very similar to Clark’s description of the “technical specialist” but more on the space itself. I do question however when allowing a ‘local’ actor to play the roles of the schoolgirls, does it then losses it’s meaning when a different language is used or connections between the imagery and the actor to the viewer as it only relates to the normal behavior of the relations they have and not the picture itself because the whole idea is to allow the outsider to speak and make the local understand the difficulties and challenges faced with how people relate to one another.
This then directs us to when a person slowly or easily adapts to the new environment or surroundings they are in. Do they then deconstruct and reconstruct the space they are in? If so, is integration a way at looking of allowing two cultures to combine to create a new type of space. “Hybridity”, the term used by Homi K Bhabha as a way to have more than one culture for a person to live in could be the answer as it is a very interesting term for an artist to use as well. Whereby using two mediums that are totally different to one another that is from different cultures and combining to communicate new ideas with ways of releasing tensions or understanding to what the art is to the space that it is shown. It is a form of progression and confronting what we are facing with in todays world as earlier noted by Lo. An artist who created and highlighted the potential of creating such movement to me was Rashaad Newsome with his Shade Compositions 2012 video of live performance at SFMOMA screened at the Carroll/Fletcher Gallery exhibition recently. The video consists of a group of performers dressed in fashionable clothing to create a sound score of repeated gestures of dissatisfaction or annoyance which was conducted by Newsome himself with a Nintendo Wii remote for him to dub and control the sounds that were recorded. Newsome explains his process on Vimeo whereby he was dealing with the non-verbal communication and body language of African and Latino women in different parts of the world. He noticed the similarities with the sounds and body language they made when recording and making his earlier Shade performances. The uses of different sounds and tones worked quite well and it is very interesting to see how possible it would be to show that diaspora of cultures to have a resemblance and especially when he incorporated other different types of races as well. For the SFMOMA show, it was a site-specific show with the identity of the people in San Francisco where he notice local populations of Koreans and Philippines playing a part to the city of San Francisco.
With the use of taking and making new identities relates similarly to the Kecak or Balinese Monkey Dance by Balinese men to how the performance itself has changed and adapted to other forms. A brief history of the performance itself as it was to tell stories from the Ramayana tales which, consists of a group of men that is around 200 circling in a group and chanting the word tjak in different tones and movements for one hour. Micheal B. Bakan observes the differences of when the Kecak is used in a film score to which has no indication towards the identity of the music is when being played in an European and American film in his essay on The Abduction of the Signifying Monkey Chant: Schizophonic Transmogrifications of Balinese Kecak in Fellini’s Satyricon and the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple. What was interesting from this essay is when he uses the phrase ‘schoziphonis mimesis’ for which he explains from Steven Feld:
“For Steven Feld, the phrase ‘schizophonic mimesis’ encompasses ‘a broad spectrum of interactive and extractive processes’ that ‘produce a traffic in new creations and relationships through the use, circulation, and absorption of sound recordings’ (Feld 2000, 263). Consideration of these processes compels us to ask ‘how sound recordings, split from their source through the chain of audio production, circulation, and consumption, stimulate and license renegotiations of identity’ (ibid.).” (Bakan, 2009, pg. 85)
With this, Bakan makes the comparison of Federico Fellini’s 1969 film ‘Satyricon’ where in the scene of a student facing against a mighty gladiator. The setting itself is set like the Greek mythology with the battle between Theseus and the Minotaur in a Labryinth complemented by the soundtrack of the Kecak that only plays when the student is facing danger and when trying to flee the music disappearing and appearing whenever the gladiator is near (Barak, 2009, pg. 93). The music makes the whole atmosphere tense and thrilling but to be subjected into a violent theme totally changes the whole context of the music itself. To what the Kecak is actually meant for has no resemblance with the image that is projected to what Bakan is arguing for with the ‘schiz schizophonic mimesis’ theory.
Looking back to The Changeling and Shade Composition 2012 makes a substantial idea for why there is a need to look differently as works from the past and to change the perspective of it. The integration and hybridity involved in making art can have the consequences of maybe being generic for society but there will be always a negative impact to whatever is being change for either the sake of good or bad. There is though an important element that is highlighted by John Clark’s essay, he describes when artist are ‘motile’ is in fact a further than being mobile however applying the movement as well but virtually moving as well with that visualized imaginary because to move in ones imagination space is much more complex for creation in any space the artist is in (Clark, 2014, pg.22).
So there could be a limitation to how an artist to create and relate to the works they are doing. However if to be different is difficult to mold into a classification or sending a message through is a problem then it will be creating a two-way communication instead of accepting the works into belonging in one category. With that thought however, it would take a long time as history has shown throughout with the time and movement of ideas to be accepted but even then how much would it be shown or accepted. Or to even use history might not be the answer at all to it because it can be changed, manipulated or erased in time by the ones who hold authority. However with the amount of visual archiving that technology has given us. The reconstruction of images and ideas will always develop into new imagery to what both Fiona Tan and Rashaad Newsome have made. Understanding what a culture is and how to adept it to and artist’s own benefits could be useful to show a way of communicating to the audience. It can though be considered a specialty or even exotic to which then does break down that barrier. Going back to my first quotation from Bhabha, it would be an accurate statement to where making the right noises or actions will lead to an acknowledgement or recognition when entering a different space and using the mediums to make a discussion of the things we do or see are not always parallel to everyone’s perception.
Bibliography
- Bakan, M. C. (2009) The Abduction of the Signifying Monkey Chant: Schizophonic Transmorgrifications of Balinese Kecak in Fellini’s Satyricon and the Coen Brother’s Blood Simple [Online]. [Accessed 21 April 2014]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411910902778478>
- Bhabha, H. K (2010) The Location of Culture. Cornwall: TJ International Ltd.
- Clark, J. (2013) Asian Artists As Long Distance Cultural Specialist In The Formation Of Modernities. Krisher. O, Nakamura. F & Perkins, M (eds). Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Pp. 19-32.
- Carrollfletcher (2014) [Online]. [Accessed 18 April 2014] Available from World Wide Web:
< http://www.carrollfletcher.com/exhibitions/24/works/image_two534/>
- Lo, J (2014) Moving Images, Stilling Time [Online]. [Accessed 5 April 2014]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.880552>
Adam Shahrum bin Zainal Abidin
BA (Hons) Fine Art
Unit 4 Essay 2
23 April 2014
Outline
I. Introduction
A. Artist Statement: There is an advantage of being an “outsider” artist because it pushes the boundaries of how art is meant to be perceived
II. How an “outsider” artist views and interprets what they see
A. Fiona Tan’s artwork:The Changeling
III. By using “Hybridity” as a form to communicate with different cultures
A. Rasheed Newsome’s Shade Composition 2012
B. Kejak or Balinese Monkey Dance with Federico Fellini’s Sytropism
IV. Conclusion
“No name is yours until you speak it; somebody returns your call and suddenly, the circuit of signs, gestures, gesticulations is established and you enter the right to narrate” (Bhabha, 2010, pg. xxv). Starting with this quotation from Homi K. Bhabha makes me wonder weather if it is true for a person who has moved from one familiar culture to another can actually be heard. Especially with artists who have the time to experience, explore and absorb such different atmospheres and have new ideas. How then when making artworks from what they are accustomed to change by the new world that they are experiencing? There are sometimes questions or fears of what they are showing could be either exotic or unfamiliar which distance themselves from an identity of whom they are representing and what they might loose. For my thesis, I will argue that there is an advantage of having to create an artwork that is different and not be identified to a particular region, ethnicity or style because to negotiate what it means to be an international, transnational or an ‘outsider’ will then push the boundaries and limits to what art is perceived as and what the artworks can do to create new bridges of not being placed in a particular group and space.
Firstly, starting with a person who migrates to a new country, there is foreignness to where the person is. The artist could be considered an ‘outsider’ or foreigner with the customs and traditions involved. With this it is an advantage. Taken from an understanding of John Clark’s essay on Asian Artist As Long-Distance Cultural Specialist In The Formation Of Modernities, explains how the artist becomes a “technical specialist” of having local visual outlook with the “other” and moving back into the world that is either new or imagined (Clark, 2013 pg. 21). It is an interesting perspective to how artists who does not have a sense of seeing what is normal or not normal for viewing is picked up and can be used differently adapted to the beholder. An artist who over the years acknowledges and realizes the potential of being an outsider even though living and being in a country for so long is Fiona Tan. In 2006 Tan exhibited The Changeling in different galleries around the world, the work consisted of more than 200 portraits of Japanese schoolgirls from the 1930’s, to be used as a video installation with having local actors from the following country to speak in the native language for the voice-overs and narrate a fictional story of the girl, her mother and the girl as a grandmother (Lo, 2014, pg. 62). What I find interesting and described from Jacquline Lo’s essay, Moving Images, Stilling Time on Fiona Tan’s work is the need for an outsider who does not share the same interest or ideology presented from the space the nation is projecting to create new forms of understanding and movement to a different location from the archives of history presented. Looking back at Tan’s own historical background gives an indication to how she would be preferred to be described as a “professional foreigner” and not be categorized into one particular type of artist. This was discovered by Tan when she was making a documentary called May You Live in Interesting Times, it consisted of Tan traveling to China Indonesia, Scotland and Australia to interview her Chinese relatives and ask ‘Family or culture: Which determined my identity more? (Lo, 2014, pg, 57). What is shown by Tan’s The Changeling, is the combination of the representation of the schoolgirls in their formal and structured setting to the narration of actors especially with their ascent to allow a better understanding of the works for the viewer to connect to with the intentions of Tan and Lo describing as:
“The diverse sets of spatial-temporalities converge in the gallery, where biographical time and fictional space rub against time and historical place to foreground diverse and contending co-presence not usually permitted in official political discourse.” (Lo,2014, pg.63)
There is a connection with Bbhaba’s use of liminal-space for artists to use or looking to comprehend to. It is a term used by Homi Bhabha as a third space that the artist uses to see how they see world which first, not their familiar world, secondly the world that they are in now and thirdly a world that is only to them as how they see in the new world with their eyes, very similar to Clark’s description of the “technical specialist” but more on the space itself. I do question however when allowing a ‘local’ actor to play the roles of the schoolgirls, does it then losses it’s meaning when a different language is used or connections between the imagery and the actor to the viewer as it only relates to the normal behavior of the relations they have and not the picture itself because the whole idea is to allow the outsider to speak and make the local understand the difficulties and challenges faced with how people relate to one another.
This then directs us to when a person slowly or easily adapts to the new environment or surroundings they are in. Do they then deconstruct and reconstruct the space they are in? If so, is integration a way at looking of allowing two cultures to combine to create a new type of space. “Hybridity”, the term used by Homi K Bhabha as a way to have more than one culture for a person to live in could be the answer as it is a very interesting term for an artist to use as well. Whereby using two mediums that are totally different to one another that is from different cultures and combining to communicate new ideas with ways of releasing tensions or understanding to what the art is to the space that it is shown. It is a form of progression and confronting what we are facing with in todays world as earlier noted by Lo. An artist who created and highlighted the potential of creating such movement to me was Rashaad Newsome with his Shade Compositions 2012 video of live performance at SFMOMA screened at the Carroll/Fletcher Gallery exhibition recently. The video consists of a group of performers dressed in fashionable clothing to create a sound score of repeated gestures of dissatisfaction or annoyance which was conducted by Newsome himself with a Nintendo Wii remote for him to dub and control the sounds that were recorded. Newsome explains his process on Vimeo whereby he was dealing with the non-verbal communication and body language of African and Latino women in different parts of the world. He noticed the similarities with the sounds and body language they made when recording and making his earlier Shade performances. The uses of different sounds and tones worked quite well and it is very interesting to see how possible it would be to show that diaspora of cultures to have a resemblance and especially when he incorporated other different types of races as well. For the SFMOMA show, it was a site-specific show with the identity of the people in San Francisco where he notice local populations of Koreans and Philippines playing a part to the city of San Francisco.
With the use of taking and making new identities relates similarly to the Kecak or Balinese Monkey Dance by Balinese men to how the performance itself has changed and adapted to other forms. A brief history of the performance itself as it was to tell stories from the Ramayana tales which, consists of a group of men that is around 200 circling in a group and chanting the word tjak in different tones and movements for one hour. Micheal B. Bakan observes the differences of when the Kecak is used in a film score to which has no indication towards the identity of the music is when being played in an European and American film in his essay on The Abduction of the Signifying Monkey Chant: Schizophonic Transmogrifications of Balinese Kecak in Fellini’s Satyricon and the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple. What was interesting from this essay is when he uses the phrase ‘schoziphonis mimesis’ for which he explains from Steven Feld:
“For Steven Feld, the phrase ‘schizophonic mimesis’ encompasses ‘a broad spectrum of interactive and extractive processes’ that ‘produce a traffic in new creations and relationships through the use, circulation, and absorption of sound recordings’ (Feld 2000, 263). Consideration of these processes compels us to ask ‘how sound recordings, split from their source through the chain of audio production, circulation, and consumption, stimulate and license renegotiations of identity’ (ibid.).” (Bakan, 2009, pg. 85)
With this, Bakan makes the comparison of Federico Fellini’s 1969 film ‘Satyricon’ where in the scene of a student facing against a mighty gladiator. The setting itself is set like the Greek mythology with the battle between Theseus and the Minotaur in a Labryinth complemented by the soundtrack of the Kecak that only plays when the student is facing danger and when trying to flee the music disappearing and appearing whenever the gladiator is near (Barak, 2009, pg. 93). The music makes the whole atmosphere tense and thrilling but to be subjected into a violent theme totally changes the whole context of the music itself. To what the Kecak is actually meant for has no resemblance with the image that is projected to what Bakan is arguing for with the ‘schiz schizophonic mimesis’ theory.
Looking back to The Changeling and Shade Composition 2012 makes a substantial idea for why there is a need to look differently as works from the past and to change the perspective of it. The integration and hybridity involved in making art can have the consequences of maybe being generic for society but there will be always a negative impact to whatever is being change for either the sake of good or bad. There is though an important element that is highlighted by John Clark’s essay, he describes when artist are ‘motile’ is in fact a further than being mobile however applying the movement as well but virtually moving as well with that visualized imaginary because to move in ones imagination space is much more complex for creation in any space the artist is in (Clark, 2014, pg.22).
So there could be a limitation to how an artist to create and relate to the works they are doing. However if to be different is difficult to mold into a classification or sending a message through is a problem then it will be creating a two-way communication instead of accepting the works into belonging in one category. With that thought however, it would take a long time as history has shown throughout with the time and movement of ideas to be accepted but even then how much would it be shown or accepted. Or to even use history might not be the answer at all to it because it can be changed, manipulated or erased in time by the ones who hold authority. However with the amount of visual archiving that technology has given us. The reconstruction of images and ideas will always develop into new imagery to what both Fiona Tan and Rashaad Newsome have made. Understanding what a culture is and how to adept it to and artist’s own benefits could be useful to show a way of communicating to the audience. It can though be considered a specialty or even exotic to which then does break down that barrier. Going back to my first quotation from Bhabha, it would be an accurate statement to where making the right noises or actions will lead to an acknowledgement or recognition when entering a different space and using the mediums to make a discussion of the things we do or see are not always parallel to everyone’s perception.
Bibliography
- Bakan, M. C. (2009) The Abduction of the Signifying Monkey Chant: Schizophonic Transmorgrifications of Balinese Kecak in Fellini’s Satyricon and the Coen Brother’s Blood Simple [Online]. [Accessed 21 April 2014]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411910902778478>
- Bhabha, H. K (2010) The Location of Culture. Cornwall: TJ International Ltd.
- Clark, J. (2013) Asian Artists As Long Distance Cultural Specialist In The Formation Of Modernities. Krisher. O, Nakamura. F & Perkins, M (eds). Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Pp. 19-32.
- Carrollfletcher (2014) [Online]. [Accessed 18 April 2014] Available from World Wide Web:
< http://www.carrollfletcher.com/exhibitions/24/works/image_two534/>
- Lo, J (2014) Moving Images, Stilling Time [Online]. [Accessed 5 April 2014]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.880552>
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