Nevertheless, carrying on with the masterplan this week (18th February) I introduced the group to the early work of Rebecca Horn and specifically her body extension work from the early 1970's.
The first part of this video was shown on the data projector and when I asked the group to think about exactly what it was that they were looking at.
suggestions were:
Long Fingers
A Body extension
Contact with Surroundings
Interaction
Ballance
An Attempt to Measure Space
Different Sensations
A Nutcase Walking up and down with Long Fingers!
All of these suggestions can be said to be correct but more specifically, exactly what are you looking at right now?
...another mediated form of the artist's work, or just another nutcase walking up and down with long fingers?
On the data projector we watched at a BBC2 clip concerning Rebecca Horn's 1994 retrospective exhibition at the Tate.
We then discussed body extensions as body modification and talked about what other examples of this exist in our contemporary society:
Plastic surgery
Glasses
Earings / Jewellery
Body Sculpting
Body Symetry
Prosthetics
Wheelchairs / Mobility Aids
(what can you add to this list?)
We then briefly looked at the term Cyborg and how these extensions to the body can be mechanical... and where exactly is the divide between human and machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg
The group was then asked to Post a Blog concerning their own personal ideas on Body Extensions / Augmented Senses. Bearing in mind that in early 70's Rebecca Horn was using cutting edge technologies in her art practice. What would she use if she was to repeat her early work today?
Finally we watched this video by Chris Cunningham (music by Bjork)
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