The media are not toys… they can be entrusted only to new artists, because they are art forms.
(McLuhan, 1954)
Heterotopias of Consumption
BA Fine Arts Thesis, Capstone ProjectVassar College, New York
Year: Spring 2018
+urbanism +heterotopia +commodity +consumerism +multimedia +painting +collage +thesis +experimentalart
This series explores the postmodern cosmopolitan image in a variety of collage and painting. Sometimes through architectural landscapes or internal visual systems and cognitive mappings, I juxtapose the objective reality of the city grid with my own subjective and personal lived experience of that same space. In between the architectural plan and the actual built space, the translation from a cognitively conceptualized space into physical space is an odd and undefined gray field. What is in the gray field? Through painting and drawing, I collide perspectival views that are both without scale and without direct representational reference. In the manner of Kevin Lynch, objective reality is juxtaposed with subjective lived experience.
Although these abstract paintings occupy an unfamiliar zone, the urge behind each is to realize the emotion of a familiar zone. This seeking for urban noise, visual impact, and excess is interlinked with the desire to consume both spaces and new commodities. It becomes not about the commodity object itself but about the refreshing feeling of owning something new (“in with the new, out with the old”) through impulse buying. The city spoiled me, and in turn I spoil my canvas with excess. Painting becomes a way to express desire for excessive goods and products. The color-objects become commodities which I consume by coming up with their form. The action of impulse buying things translates into impulsive mark making.
Although these abstract paintings occupy an unfamiliar zone, the urge behind each is to realize the emotion of a familiar zone. This seeking for urban noise, visual impact, and excess is interlinked with the desire to consume both spaces and new commodities. It becomes not about the commodity object itself but about the refreshing feeling of owning something new (“in with the new, out with the old”) through impulse buying. The city spoiled me, and in turn I spoil my canvas with excess. Painting becomes a way to express desire for excessive goods and products. The color-objects become commodities which I consume by coming up with their form. The action of impulse buying things translates into impulsive mark making.
