Month: August 2018

2016

Mike Leggett

On Stage : the Theatrical Dimension of Video Image : Matilde Roman : Intellect, Bristol, and University of Chicago Press (2016)
(trans. Charles Penwarden, from On Stage: La Dimension scénique de l'image vidéo, Le Gac Press, 2012)

Between the original French title and the recent English translation of this lucid commentary, there are indicative shifts in meaning between the terms 'stage' and 'theatrical'. These point towards the nuanced domain of contemporary video installation where the audience are often given agency to determine the duration and quality of the encounter, not exactly actors or stage props nor seated audience; 'Far from acting in the space of the work, they are acted by it.'

 

2017-18

Mike Leggett

One and Five Ideas: on Conceptual Art and Conceptualism : Terry Smith : Duke University Press (2017)

and

Image and Text in Conceptual Art: Critical Operations in Context : Eve Kalyva : Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature (2016)

Reaction could be dismissive as there were careers and investments embedded in institutionalised structures where the role of the critic was to affirm or deny the efforts of the artist hero according to a historical sense of aesthetic revision; or in the context of Cold War politics, national prestige. Critical theory in practice became the antidote, where the context of production and its point of reception were considered a part of the artwork, thus placing meaning-making into permanently contested space. …. Creating interpretive space can be regarded as a radical assault on the sensibilities of gallery goers who, prior to a range of practices emerging under the rubric Conceptual Art, were attuned to the appreciation of an artwork rather than its interrogation. Both writers acknowledge the primacy of language as a component of the experience of art, having roots in the philosophical work of Wittgenstein among others. 

2018

Mike Leggett

Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above : Caren Kaplan : Duke University Press (2018)

The spectre of the aerial photograph, imaging the surface of the planet beneath, is riven with emotional response; as much for what is imagined than what is actually seen. Bombarded with looping footage of claimed precision interdictions, our lives and those of others are enmeshed with images that obscure and deny causation and affect. Wartime aftermath is the aphorism applied throughout this stimulating volume, specifically the technological approaches taken to envisioning warfare and the social outcomes following wars leveling affect.