Friday, April 26, 2019

Being an Artist at Duke University

Being an artist at Duke is not easy. Everyone is talented in their unique way and there are so many people; also at times it feels like most of society does not care about Art. Thus, it is difficult to make people care about what you do, when there is not always an interest in the first place.

What is something that most of us posses? For most, it is language and the ability to speak. Daniel Webster once said “If all my possessions were taken from me, with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication — for with it, I would regain all the rest.”

I also argue that most of us posses some art work as well. Whether it is the building(s) you inhabit, clothing, a painting, picture, furniture,  all of these objects or places created can be seen through a lens in which they are a bi-product of someone's aesthetic or artistic approach. But then am I claiming that Art is not a product but an aesthetic? Maybe?

Manifesto: A public declaration, often political in nature, of a group or individual’s principles, beliefs, and intended courses of action.

Am I placing an emphasis on the aesthetic experience or the emotions evoked?
Is there something specific to the work’s aesthetics and politics, creativity and criticism, visual vocabulary and emotive universe?
1. Don’t make Art in a vacuum or in a room with no windows.
2. Don’t kill your ideas before you test them
3. Don’t get distracted. Curiosity did not kill the cat, hesitation did.
4. It is OK to recycle or just reinvent

An Artist’s statement:
Hannah Faye Waleh is an Iranian-American filmmaker and visual artist who is interested in how language works and when language fails. Compelled to experiment with video, text and illustration, her work coalesces oral and visual language.
Her work is the culmination of her research interests and the development of her artistic practice here at Duke.
The process of making film is what I can only describe as an activity, a daily habit.
Genres are defined as categories of artistic practices having particular forms, contents, or techniques. Albeit, they are useful when browsing Netflix, in my opinion I find that genres are constrictive. Film, the medium, inherently crosses genres, and blurs the boundary between fiction and nonfiction. “In all the arts, there are those moments that are as though somebody has made the gesture of raising a palm, which is not a stop sign, but a — 'Attend, hush, listen.” I think those are the moments we really live for in art, the moment where the artfulness falls away, and all that is left is that thing we don’t have a better word for beyond poetry.” - Teju Cole

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