Object Memory: Subtractive
You will create a sculpture using the SUBTRACTIVE method of carving for this project. The object you create can be based in common, every day objects but involves interpretation abstraction and distortion. Because your memory and emotion is going to influence how you create something, the sculpture can take many different forms.
The sculpture can be a simplification of a form to create a feeling or a simplification of something observed, like an object in nature. You can take small things and enlarge them, stretch them or turn them upside down. Do gesture drawings of different ideas and solutions. Stay open in the beginning. Depending on the material you choose, your final sculpture’s shape and form will be dictated by the original piece of material.
The first exercise is to let your mind go back to visual memory and write. You will bring in your writing along with drawings and visual references (PRINTED) and create small clay models in class from your sketches. You will then decide and acquire your material and enlarge it. The carved foam is very easy to work with, far easier than wood or stone. You can join pieces with skewers, etc. The work will be coated and finished. There are a few options we will discuss.
Materials and Schedule
Please see separate post with material sources links
November 1: Introduction to the Project. Homework: Review online images, write, create sketches, research materials, print any reference material you need.
November 7: Begin work in class, sketches of sculpture ideas in clay.
Bring writing (stream of consciousness- one half page) and research with physical printouts that you can work from.
November 15: Bring Foam and/ or other materials for creating your piece.
November 22, 29: Work in class.
December 6: Critique and Artist Research Presentations.
December 13: Final critique for ALL work.
SKETCHBOOK: BRING EVERY CLASS
Please start gathering sketches, images (printed and drawn), research and keep
them in your notebook. Do research, there is much information online, use it.
Print what you need to help you build what you want to make. Reference photos,
diagrams,I want you to see how ideas evolve and how to stay focused on the idea, developing it but retaining the initial excitement for something. The notebook will help you as you work on this project. This will be checked each class and also will be used during class to help you construct and problem solve in your process.
Materials: The object you will be carving should be at least 12” tall or greater. You will determine the scale once you have made your model, then you buy the appropriate amount of materials.
You are required to buy your own materials for this project. Students can choose to pool resources and share a sheet of foam, glue, etc.
Carving material if you decide not to use foam you will acquire the necessary tools for that material
Sharpie Marker
High Density Insulation Foam (blue foam 1” from Lowes or Home Depot)
Drywall hand saw. (under 3.00 and very helpful)
Bread knife from dollar general, something with serration - fine serrations work really well. Electric carving knife if you can afford.
Tape Measure
calipers for pottery and sculpture
Sureform
Gorilla glue or Construction Adhesive for foam(comes in a tube you need caulk gun to use)
Barbecue skewers and/or toothpicks- for joining pieces of foam.
Small tub of joint compound
Paint.
Writing Exercise: Think of some very strong memories that include objects What did it feel like? what did it look like? You can also ask yourself what your strongest memories were? or you may think of someone and flash through a series of memories about them. The more you do this, the more you will have to draw from. We may find something less obvious the deeper we go into memory. We may see things in a distorted way and not be able to decipher what we are making up and what really happened. These distortions will inform your project.
All that matters is that the object signifies a memory for you. The object has
power, weight (presence) to you and to others. The object you choose can be a
signifier of an event but not necessarily literal. ( for instance, You can make a
church if there is some event or memory of importance around that institution or
idea). The object can be triggered by nostalgia or affection for something lost and
the desire to remake something solid again in the present, something not
affected by time passing.
The object’s scale is considered as a part of its meaning. Its treatment is
synonymous with your feelings about it. What kind of care, what you bring to the
object in terms of emotional memory can be handled in the formal treatment of
its depiction.Scale is important, not only in how big your make your objects, but in the way you zoom in on a memory, and how close of a detail you want to depict.
You can zoom in and out of your memory and try to recall more in the visual
picture. Small objects, close up, or a large view of a structure. You may have
one memory that you remember more as it occurs in your mind than the visual
clues of the moment. You may remember an event but only remember it because
of the photo you saw of the event. Try to go beyond that flash of memory and ask
yourself questions about what was around you, how did it feel, did you feel large
or small...what was your own sense of scale? Start listing the objects that are in
these images, start listing any and everything of importance, large and small.
Rainer Marie Rilke writes about sculpture and Rodin 1903: (from The
Sculptural Imagination by Alex Potts):
“As a poet, Rilke was fascinated by the idea of the art work as autonomous
object. Sculpture appealed to Rilke because it was the very embodiment of the
work of art as a solidly grounded, primordial thing.”
“When, in a later essay on Rodin, he invites his audience to conjure up memories
of objects to which they had been particularly attached in their childhood.....He
wants them to delve into the distant recesses of their own memories and uncover
the residual traces of odd objects, mostly insignificant in themselves that had
formed an intimate part of their world as very young children..... He is trying to
plunge his audience into an imaginary space where things are not defined by
their functional or aesthetic significance, a scene of childhood fantasy where the
boundaries between inner and outer world are not yet sharply drawn, and where
those objects felt to carry a charge are still envisaged as extensions of the inner
self. ..... this mysterious thing could function as an embodiment of all that they
found puzzling and frightening in the world around them”
“ The stillness that surrounds things’ when ‘all movement subsides becomes
contour, and past and future close in on one another and something enduring
emerges: space, the great calmness of things that have no urge’
Memory
“‘Memory’ labels a diverse set of cognitive capacities by which we retain
information and reconstruct past experiences, usually for present purposes.
Memory is one of the most important ways by which our histories animate our
current actions and experiences. Most notably, the human ability to conjure up
long-gone but specific episodes of our lives is both familiar and puzzling, and is a
key aspect of personal identity. Memory seems to be a source of knowledge. We
remember experiences and events which are not happening now, so memory
differs from perception. We remember events which really happened, so memory
is unlike pure imagination. Yet, in practice, there can be close interactions
between remembering, perceiving, and imagining. Remembering is often
suffused with emotion, and is closely involved in both extended affective states
such as love and grief, and socially significant practices such as promising and
commemorating. It is essential for much reasoning and decision-making, both
individual and collective. It is connected in obscure ways with dreaming. Some
memories are shaped by language, others by imagery. Much of our moral and
social life depends on the peculiar ways in which we are embedded in time.
Memory goes wrong in mundane and minor, or in dramatic and disastrous ways.”
Sutton, John, "Memory", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer
2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/
sum2010/entries/memory/>
“Memory is a funny thing. Research has consistently found that our memories
from when we were kids are either extremely inaccurate, or didn't happen at all.
They are just elaborate constructions of a memory storage system that isn't very
good at distinguishing real memories from fake ones.”
Read more: 5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness | Cracked.com http://
www.cracked.com/article/127_5-ways-to-hack-your-brain-into-awesomeness_p2/
#ixzz1Z7cnDRQP
Emotion can have a powerful impact on memory. Numerous studies have shown
that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events,
which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than
neutral events. The activity of emotionally enhanced memory retention can be
linked to human evolution; during early development, responsive behavior to
environmental events would have progressed as a process of trial and error.
Survival depended on behavioral patterns that were repeated or reinforced
through life and death situations. Through evolution, this process of learning
became genetically embedded in humans and all animal species in what is
known as fight or flight instinct.
Artificially inducing this instinct through traumatic physical or emotional stimuli
essentially creates the same physiological condition that heightens memory
retention by exciting neuro-chemical activity affecting areas of the brain
responsible for encoding and recalling memory. This memory-enhancing effect of
emotion has been demonstrated in a large number of laboratory studies, using
stimuli ranging from words to pictures to narrated slide shows, as well as
autobiographical memory studies.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_memory
Interesting link on The Memory Process, Neuroscience and Humanistic Perspectives:
