Print tradition
Aesthletics Artist Statement: Final Wiki Post (Late Wiki posts for Nov 28th and Nov 30th)
I originally considered a couple of ideas for the final project, these included—a) create 100 holiday cards with various poor quality Santa Claus images/ haikus on the back which could be circulated through the mail to add to the metaphorical piling debris of Christmas cards people stash during the holiday season and b) re-work the Humanities Department into the E-Lit Department to make an argument about the current Humanities/ Education System.
The idea that I went with was to create an alternative art-fitness guide—inspired on Troemel’s ‘aesthlete’ from Art After Social Media—which was edited and reworked from ping-pong articles taken the website ThoughtCo. Using critical sources including Craig Dworkin’s Tectonic Writing, Florian Cramer's Post Digital Writing, Megan N. Liberty’s Reading as Art and Publishing as Artistic Practice, Aesthletics uses techniques from E-Lit and Post-Digital Lit including deformance, post-digital writing and post-digital object production via printmaking. Finally, Aesthletic’s argues that the contemporary artistic process—which relies on “fast-paced attention economy” of social media—is performed or rather played as a game of its own.
After creating 100 Haikus in Defense of the Poor Image, I fell in love with the simple, old school techniques of the Deformed Humanities and wanted to create another deformative work. Inspired by Craig Dworkin’s Tectonic Grammar, Aesthletics uses deformance to replace key words like Ping-Pong, player, ball, racket, etc with their appropriate new context: social media, artist, post, device, etc. Similarly to Tectonic Grammar, Aesthletics uses deformance to emphasize the materiality of a non-material object (grammar, social media post) by using language that constantly describes the subject in physical motion. For example, read chapter ‘Speed of a Social Media Post.’ This effect provides the original work with a new poetic context—as ping-pong becomes a metaphor for the artistic process.
Similarly, I wanted Aesthletics to embody post-digital writing—as defined by Florian Cramer—“materiality, craftsmanship and personal exchange” by turning a deformance work and into a super sleek, utilitarian print guide. To legitimize this process I experimented with a few of the most elegant, ‘post-digital-esque’ typefaces I could download for free. Overwhelmed with choice, I settled on a Berlin-originating typeface called Baton. I opted for a minimalistic cover page with a black rubber ping-pong paddle against an all white backdrop. If publishing goes correctly, the backside cover of the book will feature the red rubber side of the paddle to complete the design. By taking the time to consider book aesthetic, I hoped to also demonstrate the argument Megan N. Liberty presents in her article Reading as Art, which is that “the act of publishing is an artistic product over a means of production” and “through the rich, tactile experience of the page the act of reading is a work of art.”
Finally, the book embraces reading as an act of art while commenting on the contemporary status of art after social media. Adding to Brad Troemel’s metaphor, Aesthletics argues that contemporary art is a popularity game. Ping-Pong—which requires great attention, technical control and ability to make quick strategic plays—mimics the landscape of Social Media, where artists use the same skill-set to create content and win popularity. The erratically quick motion of the ping-pong ball also mirrors the speed of content, which is constantly in motion—rallied back and forth by users from infinite parts of the Internet.
I laughed out loud a few times while editing these articles—most of the passage reworkings unfolded very organically and hope they at least induce a chuckle. For the parts that were difficult, I tried to embrace the creative challenge and not delete any of the material. I’m looking forward to flipping through the print copy and the first book I’ve published—which is exciting. If the print turns out well, I will hide copies in the bookstores of major art galleries across Los Angeles, beginning from the Hammer Museum, Getty, MOCA and on and on and on...
File:Pingpong1.jpeg
--Andy
