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About SAIC
- Janis Jefferies
- Janis Jefferies is an artist, writer, curator, and Professor of Visual Arts in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is Artistic Director of Goldsmiths Digital Studios and Director of the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles. Jefferies was trained as a painter and later pioneered the field of contemporary textiles within visual and material culture, internationally through exhibitions and texts. In the last five years she has been working on technological based arts, including Woven Sound (with Dr. Tim Blackwell). She has been a principal investigator on projects involving new haptic technologies by bringing the sense of touch to the interface between people and machines and generative software systems for creating and interpreting cultural artifacts, museums and the external environment. In the spring 2009 semester, Jefferies will be a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies.
Work for work's sake (busy work) may have personal value to the maker but it may not translate to the audience. yet, putting time/work/labor into an art practice can have meaning. Just because you spend time on something doesn't mean anyone else will care. There is more to value/caring about art than the labor that went into creating it.
ReplyDeleteD + A (word)
The process of working allows for the initial idea to morph into something completely different from itself. It's rare that an artists begins a project and finishes it so that its completely in sync with the starting point. A major piece of the process is the research that could either narrow or broaden possibilities in terms of materials, logistics, historical contexts etc. Both the physical labor and the research make the final product transform what the piece was and what the piece is and from that change comes the inherent value, even if it isn't necessarily prevalent to the viewer.
ReplyDeleteThere is a wonderful text that arcs over the entrance to the V&A museum in London that I feel is entirely applicable - it reads: "The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose." So, in art school, in making conceptually generated work - the craft (the technology or method of fabrication) be it refined, or very sloppy, is most appropriate in its critical relationship to the intended concept.
ReplyDelete-Anne Wilson