Actions speak louder than words
Tag Archives: Making Art
Items about making art
A Note About Attention
”Attention is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought…It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”
William James
Andrew Freiband is a filmmaker, producer, researcher, writer, educator, and multimedia artist who founded ALI based on several years of original research and development into the unique capacities – and imposed restrictions – of artists in contemporary society.
He has 20 years of professional experience in the film, television, museum, and fine arts fields, having worked in productions everywhere from the top of the unfinished skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan to post-earthquake Haiti to the slums of Nairobi and beyond.
Freiband is an advocate of art as research. In his Substack, he recently wrote a great article called ‘A Note About Attention’, about art as attention. In this article, he says..
“Paying attention is how artists channel experience into knowledge.”
Freiband has some interesting things to say about how attention has become a commodity. In broad terms, this may be referred to as the attention economy.
Approaching art making as intentional attention is an antidote to the attention economy.
Click the link below to visit his Substack.
To read the full article on a separate page, click page 2 below.
Richard long’s walking works as art
The artist Richard Long started a career in art by walking.
He has made a lot of indoor works, mostly in response to his outdoor experience, and these stand as conventional gallery works. But the work that intrigues me are his walks. These are many things, but essentially they are performance pieces that make a mark. In many cases, the marks made as art, like the walks made as art, are temporary. This is what makes them performance art. They are temporal.
Showing this is therefore difficult.
In many cases, Long has used text to stand in for experience. Click the word TEXT below to see this.
TEXT
There are a lot of videos of people talking about Long’s gallery work and his walking work, but there are few that simply show how Richard Long’s walking works as art.
These two below show his work well, without recourse to the opinion of third parties.
The link to his own site is below the videos.
Richard Long’s Personal Site
IT’S MADE UP…
Helping ND Brains Learn
This short article from Medium connects learning and brain activity and neurodiversity.
It revolves around neuroplasticity… ‘Neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections — is not a static trait, but a dynamic process influenced by environment, behavior, and technology.’
The risks to ND brains from the highly structured algorithmic online world of scrolling and swiping is highlighted. An emphasis on fluid rather than fixed intelligence is developed.
The article states that studies from ‘Trends in Neuroscience and Education’ emphasize the need for embodied, curiosity-driven learning models. When students engage through movement, emotion, and autonomy, learning is retained more deeply.’
This is just what art making does. This potentially makes it particularly useful to ND brains.
Click here or on the image below to see the article.
Imagination and action
This research connects imagination of future action and active visualisation, with intention and action.
In meditative practice, this is called the ‘Approach Mentaility’, meaning people tend to be more positive about approaching rather than avoiding things.
The article says ‘..the course of action people entertain in their imagination can influence the probability of actually taking that path.’
The study suggests limits of actions within a week of imagining the action. But regular art practice will involve regular imagining of outcomes. In meditation, Dr Dan Siegel calls this the act of ‘the state becomes a trait.’, a mental state becomes a behavioural trait.
Walking as art
walk · listen · create is the home of walking artists and artists walkers
WLC has been bringing creatives in the field of walking together since 2018.
Click the image below for the link.
Moving Space 