12. The Home Page (The Website/The Personal Web Page)

The communicative purposes of the artist’s personal home page include

·         informing the public about the artist’s practice(s), experience, creative endeavors,

·         self-promoting,  advertising for own exhibitions, works, and blog,

·          marketing oneself (with the final business goal of selling works),

·         increasing visibility in the art world, creating an online identity as an artist (as opposed to being part of a network, like in the case of the services of social networking; of course, the artist may well choose to be part of these, too),

·          establishing contact with possible buyers (either directly or through the galleries representing the artists).

NOTE: the homepage is the first page (a kind of cover page) of the website. The site's web pages are accessed by clicking the provided menu buttons.

the moves

M1. Identifying the artist (through his/her name, and sometimes the type: e.g. painter, sculptor, etc.)  

M2. Introducing the contents list of the site (through a navigation menu) 

M.3.  Biography + credentials (as very short biographical details and a short text relevant for the type of art s/he creates; sometimes even an artist statement may be offered; also present is the list of exhibitions and awards)

M.4. Current and upcoming events (advertising for ongoing and future exhibitions or other events, by also offering exact information about location and time) 

M.5. “Bibliography” (actually a number of texts written by critics about the artist’s works and exhibitions; sometimes there may also be offered some exhibition catalogs; seldom, there are even texts produced by the artist) 

M.6. Online gallery +/- shop (images of the works produced by the artist +/- accompanying texts describing them, their location, the exhibition where they were displayed; when the artist uses the site as an online shop as well, the facility of buying the work are also offered here, or, in the case of represented artists, there may be a link to the site of the representing gallery) 

M.7. Establishing contact (address, e-mail, links to the representing galleries).

The lexical and semantic particularities of the artist's personal page differ from those of the blog in the use of the third person, as opposed to the first, signaling a lack of a “conversation” with the audience; instead, the artists prefer to display the credentials here as a list of exhibitions and awards (the longer, the better), and the texts art critics wrote about them (of course, the one praising the works); very short texts are offered under the form of exhibition labels, accompanying the images and informing about the work of art shown in that image.

            In conclusion, the artist’s personal page is both an informative and an advertising genre.

Task: Why should artists have their own websites/home pages? 
Deadline: May 28

11. The Artist's Blog

Definitions of weblogs (blogs)

• “a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser” (Harvard dictionary)
• “a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries (‘posts’) typically displayed in reverse chronological order” (Wikipedia)
• a journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption; informal; grouped by date; with links to older posts; informative and/or inspiring; frequently linked to other sites; addictive for bloggers (adapted from Blogger Forum)
• “a meandering, blatantly uninteresting online diary that gives the author the illusion that people are interested in their stupid pathetic life” (Urban Dictionary)

Previous research:

Susan Herring (Indiana University, 2004)

•Neither fundamentally new, nor unique genre

•Appeared in 1996 as a format, and 1997 as weblog (even 1991)

•A bridge between the multimedia HTML documents and text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC)

•A hybrid genre with multiple sources

•Made possible by free software (Blogger, Wordpress)

•Exponentially increasing in number (from 2.1 millions in 2004 to 181 millions at the end of 2011, our note)

•Classification: 4 main types (personal journals—70%; filters = reviewing other blogs—12%; k-logs= offering information on certain subjects, and mixed)

•Generic features: archives, badges, images, comments, links, calendar, guest book; frequency of posting cca. 5 days; reverse chronological order

Miller & Shepherd (North Carolina Univ.): the social function of blogs = the need to establish relations between selves

Herring & al. (2006): gender  and age study of weblogs (women and teenagers are active bloggers)

Laurie McNeill ( Univ. of Michigan, 2005): the journey of the written diary to the new web genre; the community of “netizens”

Jan Schmidt  (Bamberg Univ. Germany, 2007) compares the different uses of the blog format

Cornelius Puschmann  (Humboldt Univ. of Berlin, 2009) focuses on corporate blogs; in his 2010 published Ph.D. thesis he compares personal and corporate blogs; the “supergenre” of  the personal blog; “the genre of the people”; “the blog prototype”

Art blog vs. artist's blog

Art blog vs. artist’s blog: art blogs may be written by other persons than artists (even institutions) and refer to art more or less in general; artist’s blogs are written by  artists themselves and refer to art in particular; art, here = visual art

An occupational-type of blog: occupations may include professional activities as well; art may or may not be the profession of the artist, but it certainly is his/her occupation; a “professional” blog may suggest that there are other blogs that could be negatively tagged as “unprofessional” 

Communicative Purposes:

 Keeping up-to-date with the art world (artists as readers and writers of blogs; their audiences)

Keeping in touch with the latest successful practices in your own field

Establishing oneself as an expert in the field (with possible professional and market benefits)

Marketing oneself (a cheap way of displaying own art and gaining public)

Advertising oneself (cheaply and efficiently)

Advertising another personal website (dedicated to sales)

Selling own works directly (“buy now” button)

Creating a successful artistic practice = creating art, showing it, telling people about it, interacting with the public and fellow artists; blogging as part of the practice

Arousing and maintaining interest in own art and practice (through frequent posts and good content)

Increase visibility in the art world (the networking of blogs, blogrolls, links)

Sharing own experience(s) and techniques

Getting to know oneself better (in-depth writing and thinking)

Recording thoughts, experiences, and practices (a kind of personal history)

Communicating with audiences (comments and replies)

Getting feedback (to keep, change, better market own art)

Adding to other writings about art in different media

Macrostructure:

•The software structure is usually maintained with some alterations; web-design graphic artists create their own blog designs

•The titles (not always the same as the URL) tend to contain the artist’s name; sometimes they offer information about the artist (“Belinda Joynes: Artist, imaginarian and daydream believer”, “Kelly Kilmer. Artist and Instructor”), sometimes they try to be as catchy as possible (“The haunted hollow tree”, “adripndrop.blogspot.com: Artsy fartsy life”, “Notes from the Voodoo Café”)

•Most of the blogs are independent; very few are part of other websites or homepages

        •Information about the artists is provided in almost all of the 30 blogs (more or less overtly), mainly through the “About” button (sincerity, authenticity)

       •Credentials and assuming some degree of expertise – present in the great majority of the blogs

       •Information about the intended content of the blog is offered in more than a half

•The life expanse of the blogs (from 3-5 years to 8-9 years) and the frequency of posting (from once to six-eight times a month) prove that blogging is perceived by their authors as part of their art practice

•All of the typical macro features of the blog are present (reverse chronological order, archives, blogrolls, badges, tags/labels, sharing tools, statistics of visitors) to a great extent, proving that the artist’s blog is a sub-type of the blog prototype

•The intensive use of images (photographs, drawings, sketches) and other visuals (videos) is a particularity of the artist’s blog, very consistent with the nature of art itself  

Microstructure:

Headers: title of the post (reflecting the work/event) + information about the date of post + reverse chronology

Footers: author + exact time of posting + tags + sharing tools + comments     ( = a typical blog microfeature, re-creating a conversation type of discourse)

Links: IntraLinks (to own posts) +/- hyperlinks (to other blogs/sites)

Intensive use of images

Texts/words are used to explain the process of creation, the progress of a work, are complementary to images

Artist blog types:

Mixed = journal entries + tutorials + reviews + advertorials + news

Filter = review of exhibitions and other blogs

Other = a “blogazine” (blog + magazine + forum + TV section + newsletter)

Discourse particularities:

Register: none of them was formal; they tend to range from neutral to different degrees of familiarity (consistent with the communicative purposes)

Modes of discourse: all of them, with a prevalence of the narrative mode (personal experience, descriptive narrative of the process of creation, of work-in-progress, reporting events); descriptions of the type “recipe-giving”; describing a work of art; expository and argumentative – mainly in the reviewing type of blogs

Discourse strategies: analyzing works (describing + interpreting + evaluating), reviewing, recipe-giving, labeling, story-telling, commenting, confessing, reporting, interviewing (taken from journalism), quoting, paraphrasing, acknowledging sources as footnotes (taken from scientific writing), monologuing

Rhetorical devices: metaphors, similes, hyperboles, rhetorical questions, repetitions, colloquialism, humor, (self-) irony, imprecation

Morphological features:

The 1st person pronoun “I”, expressing subjectivity is used to give the feeling of authenticity; in the relationship with

The 2nd person pronoun “you”- to re-create an “authentic” speech situation; the reader is part of the whole process of creation, actively involved

Very few cases of the 3rd person pronoun (with self-reference), trying to suggest some detachment and objectivity

Qualifiers are largely used (some less formal superlatives)

Tenses: mainly past (for narratives); present (for descriptions); future (e.g. for plans to develop certain themes, to use a new technique, etc)

Interjections (colloquialism)

Text entries:

 A relatively small number of paragraphs, coherently sequenced, accompanied by many images

Rather short (some exceptions range from no text at all to very large texts)

Special typing (upper case in some words to stress upon)

Unusual spelling (“little birdie in da house”, “y’all”)

Internet slang /Acronyms (XOXO=hugs and kisses; X=kiss; O = hug; XX = two kisses; LOL = laughing out loud, OMG = oh, my god!; DIY = do-it-yourself)

Repetitions of some letters (“Yiiiiii!”), suggesting some emotional state

Emoticons: J - smiley face; =)) - laugh;  L - sad face

Why should artists blog?

Task1: Answer the above question, after following the link (click on the question).

one more tip: (you need to click)

Deadline: May 28

g work of art, event

10. The designer's concept statement

—While artist’s statement refers to works already done (or, to artists’ works in general), the designer’s concept statement usually proposes future works, which will only become reality if the propositions are accepted by the customers; it may also refer to already concluded projects

—Note the use of the future tense and conditionals 

—Also starts from more general philosophies/aesthetics, sources of inspiration, becoming very specific to fit the exact customer (custom-made) project

—Presupposes a good knowledge of the customer’s interests, activity (previous research/documentation)

Task 1: What elements do the above statements contain?
Task 2: Write a design(er) concept statement for a project you are currently working on.

Deadline: May 21

9. THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT AND RÉSUMÉ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3uJlIseOU0

Communicative purpose:

• the self-assertion of the artist's personal aesthetics/philosophy underlying his/her work in general, or a particular work/exhibition
• stating the reasons for creating one work or the other, themes, identifying oneself with a style
• describing own techniques and giving reasons for own choices
• sharing all the necessary information in order to be better understood by the public
• advertising oneself
• arousing the reader's interest and curiosity

media: a short text used as

• marketing material on cards, flyers, mailers, posters
• accompanying slides, photos sent to different art curators, art dealers, etc, in order to get promoted or bought by them; participating in international art contests; applying for international creation grants
• quotations in art reviews, in different articles (to illustrate/support the critic's analyses, interpretations, and evaluations), in art history texts (as a research source)

move-pattern:

          Move I. Personal philosophy/ies and aesthetics

Step 1. Art philosophies and/or aesthetics the artist rely on; general ideas guiding the creation; perspective on art

Step 2. General themes, sources

          Move 2. Personal style and techniques

Step 1. Defining personal style

Step 2. Describing the favored techniques

Step 3. Suggesting originality

          Move 3. Commenting on current exhibition/work

Step 1. Stating the general idea (or the specific one), sources of inspiration

Step 2. Describing the process of creation

Step 3. Suggesting the meanings of the exhibition and/or the work (details, explaining metaphors, signs, symbols

discourse strategies:

• a very subjective genre, hence the use of the first person personal pronoun "I"
• a type of 'confession'
• using catchy words and expressions to attract the reader's attention
• avoiding prescribing a certain reading of own work while still offering some guidelines
• implicating the reader (suggesting a kind of conversation)
• avoiding obscurity (weighing the amount of the necessary"artspeak")
• writing with the audience in mind (who do you address? is it a professional public or a general public?)

TASK 1: What do you think about the following artist's statements? Which do you like best? Any reason why?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HlMATZOMv_IUZLFHIsjIkX65Jso20JOqdJrd9sWJ6DQ/edit?usp=sharing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/majasavic/5619671565/

http://www.wesleyfleming.com/about.htm

http://vimeo.com/10369690

watch?v=uzHXus7dQlw&feature=endscreen&NR=1

watch?v=7CFQY0Yf1iI&feature=fvwrel

TASK  2: Read through this article; the author seems to disagree with writing artist's statements by mentioning some dangers of writing them inappropriately; he expresses a personal opinion as to who should write the artist's statement. What do you think? Should it be the artist himself/herself to write the artist's statement, or should someone else write this text on his/her behalf? Give reasons.

anti-statement?

3. http://hyperallergic.com/69378/in-defense-of-the-artist-statement/


TASK 3: What would you say about yourself and your art in your statement?

HELPFUL

The artist’s statements are sometimes supposed to accompany the artist’s résumés; therefore, the specific information provided in the latter should be avoided in the former unless that is relevant to the works. The résumé is a rather official document, a personal marketing tool through which the artist establishes credibility when approaching a gallery or any other institution.  It offers more precise information about the artist: a short biography, education, experience in the field, and recognition, all presented simply and neatly. It is not a full text; the information is supplied as a kind of title list, with the following headers:

The name à educationà previous experience (e.g. apprenticeships, scholarships, creative camps) à awards à exhibitions (solo, or group, the city and country) à recognition (newspaper articles, interviews, TV or radio appearances à representation (if the artist is represented by a gallery) à commissioned works (in private or museum collections)

TASK 4: write your own résumé. Below are some web examples:

https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/5-examples-of-beautiful-resumecv-web-templates--net-8895

            The two genres are meant to offer a clear image of the artist in relation to both the general audience (especially the first) and specialized audiences (both)

DEADLINE: May 21

8. The Art Review

Media:

• art magazines, newspapers of regional, national, international circulation
• journals devoted to different art forms
• radio + television broadcasts
• the Internet (including blogs)

Audience:

• the general public; educated, experienced readers, not necessarily art connoisseurs; people who are interested in art and possess some knowledge and/or intuition about art; people who expect to learn something new about art, or just see art from different perspectives
• the members of the artistic discourse community
• undecided people (as to whether to visit or not an exhibition)
• people who missed the exhibition, or are unable to visit it, because of its distant location or lack of time and who are counting on the intelligent writing of the art reviewer to get an idea about a specific art event

Communicative purposes:

• to inform the public about a current, or a just-concluded artistic event
• to promote an artist, an exhibition (gallery or museum, why not?)
• to offer the audience an evaluation of the show/exhibition (as personal, but expert opinion)
• to competently describe the most representative works
• to competently interpret the meanings of the works, by offering the necessary evidence to support interpretation (from within and outside the work; iconographic + iconological interpretations) -- the previous purposes are those of art critique
• to convince/persuade the public that the effort of visiting the exhibition is worthwhile, or, on the contrary -- similar to advertorials
• to persuade the readers to become art exhibition goers/expand the art public
• to educate oneself and the audience; develop artistic taste; fight against bad taste -- the last two purposes coincide with art education' purposes

Authors:

• art critics, art historians, professional writers, journalists, philosophers (aestheticians, art theorists), authors of TV and radio series and programs, bloggers, church people, etc.
• must have(s): enough experience to offer reliable evaluations; honesty; analytical, open mind; writing experience (offer that amount of information the audience needs; provide the right amount of scholarly insights without getting into too many boring details; maintain the reader's interest by varied rhetorical devices and discourse strategies); knowledge of the different (artistic) ideologies; knowledge of the art market.

Size: rather short, concise (500-600 words)

Move pattern and discourse strategies:

Move I (WHO + WHEN + WHERE)

1. catching the reader's attention by using the appropriate rhetorical devices (e.g. a rhetorical question, a paradox, a figure of speech)
2. offering specific information about the exhibition (when - the period; where - country, town, gallery, museum)
3. offering some information about the artist(s) (a very short biography)

Move II (WHAT; developing a controlling idea about the exhibition)

1. offering a general picture of the show and a first evaluation
2. different discourse strategies:

• the historical approach of the works (chronological)
• an unpopular opinion
• an analogy
• what one expected vs. what one got
• a comparison (between works of the same artist, of different artists, between styles)
• the first impression (initial impact on the viewer)
• the strength/originality of the artist
• a question (either rhetorical or one that will be answered in the following move)

Move III (transition)

• ensuring the coherence of the text
• relating the previous information to the following

Move IV (reviewing works)

• analyzing artworks
• offering partial evaluations

1. describing + interpreting +/- evaluating work 1
2. describing + interpreting +/- evaluating work 2, a.s.o.

Note: only the most appealing works are to be taken into consideration (the most representative of the artist/for the show; the ones that the critic liked best, or, on the contrary, disliked)

• partial evaluations of the works are made according to some aesthetic criteria (implicit or explicit)
• are usually positive, or holding some reservations; when the lack of value is quite obvious, evaluations are negative
• rhetorical strategies include: avoiding ambiguity and clearly stating the value (using qualifiers and quantifiers- e.g. overstatements -hyperboles), or, on the contrary, cultivating ambiguity for the sake of politeness (e.g. understatements - litotes = saying too little); irony and rarely sarcasm.

Move V (concluding)

• offering a final, on-the-whole evaluation of the exhibition
• convincing the audience of the value of the show
• persuading the audience to visit the exhibition
• trying to predict the future development of an artist's work, based on the current show (speculating about future developments)
• implicitly persuading collectors to buy/or not some works

Tasks:


1. Find an art review. Give its title. Do you consider it a positive or negative review overall? Why? Which are the positive aspects, and which are the negative ones? Do you have a clear image of that exhibition based on this art review? Do the interpretations given to the analyzed works help you understand the artist's themes?

2. Choose an exhibition you have recently seen and try to write your own art review of that exhibition.  

 Deadline: APRIL 30

7.1. Using (Bibliographical) Sources

When writing a research paper (and not only that kind of paper) you are supposed to survey a lot of materials - books, specialized magazines, broadcasts, museum and art gallery publications, the Internet,a.s.o. All the pieces of information belonging to those sources that you may want to use in your own paper must be correctly acknowledged. This can be done in several ways; there are many models you can use. First, ask your teacher/publisher-editor which style to adopt. If you do not have to stick to one requirement  you may consider the following two most widely used styles:

The MLA (Modern Language Association) Style

also called "in-text"/parenthetical documentation - the bibliographical information is supplied in the text, in brackets, where that piece of information is used; however, the bibliography ("works cited") is yet to be given at the end of the paper.

• Peter Johnson claims that Raphael's works are ......(21), where 21 is the number of the page in the book you had previously mentioned, written by Peter Johnson.
• Raphael's works are ... (Johnson: 21)
• Turner's magnificent brushwork style can be considered a precursor of Impressionism (Johnson, Turner's Art: 38) -- this is another book by the same author, so you have to mention this other title.
• Pratt mentions that Picasso met Matisse in Paris,1906...(qt. in Johnson: 99) -- this is to acknowledge the fact that you used an indirect piece of information; you didn't actually read Pratt, but you found him quoted in Johnson; apud is another term for this)

IDEM / IBIDEM: there are different opinions about how to use these Latin terms when acknowledging sources; mainly, idem (id.) means "the same person who had been cited before", while ibidem (ibid.) means "at the same place" as cited before; some people use "op cit" (Latin opere citato) for "in the work cited before"

Works Cited (the bibliography in the MLA style)

• Johnson, Peter. Raphael's Art. Washington, Thomson University Press, c. 2006. (a book published by a university publishing house)
• Johnson, Peter. "Turner's Art." Art of the World Monthly, September 2008: 29-41. (an article in a monthly magazine)
• Johnson, Peter. "Impressions." 21 Apr. 2010, http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogeu#3456_top>. (Internet, blog post)
• Johnson, Peter. "The Book Illustration Art." The Art Bulletin 98 (2005): 201-203 (volume no. 98 of an art journal, pages 201-203)
• Johnson, Peter et al. "The New Realism", Ann Arbor UP, 2010 (there are other authors, besides Johnson)

The Chicago Style

- the bibliographical information appearing in the text is documented as numbered footnotes (at the bottom of the page) or as endnotes (a numbered list at the end of the paper; their content is more or less the same as in MLA style; use p. or pp. for the number/s of the page(s) where you took information from); notes are not exclusively used for bibliographical information; you may also add some extra information on your own, or personal interpretations and comments on the cited/mentioned ideas.


1. Johnson, Peter.Raphael's Art (Washington, Thomson University Press, c. 2006), 21 (this can be a footnote or an endnoWorks Cited (Chicago)

Johnson, Peter.Raphael's Art. Washington, Thomson University Press, c. 2006

Johnson, Peter. "Turner's Art." Art of the World Monthly, September 2008, 29-41

Johnson, Peter."Impressions" [21 Apr. 2010]. Available from http://www.bloger.com-post-create.g/?blogeu#3456_top.

Johnson, Peter. "The Book Illustration Art". The Art Bulletin 98 (2005), 201-203



Note 1: All the above names and titles are construed. They cannot be found in reality. They were meant only as examples.

Some publishers have very strict rules as to how the documentation should be given. Personally, I consider only the correct, truthful acknowledgment of the sources to be important, and not so much the style, which should be the writer's choice. Either way, do not forget to always mention where you have taken your information from, no matter if you quote it exactly or you paraphrase it, you summarize it, e.t.c.

Note 2: However, notice that such "works cited" entries as the following cannot be accepted at all:

• album arta 'Mari personalitati- Leonardo da Vinci (quoted exactly)
• Sabrina Laurnt, "Was Dali a Genius" (quoted exactly)    

AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

7. The Research Paper

main communicative purpose: to contribute to the existing research effort in the field
secondary purposes:

• to persuade readers that the proposed thesis (opinion, idea) is right (expository research paper)
• to persuade readers that the proposed thesis is the correct/better one as opposed to another thesis (argumentative research paper)
• to survey the most valid and convincing of  the existing research on a subject (descriptive research paper)

main differences between the critical essay and the research paper: the research paper is not merely a personal opinion about a subject (like in the case of the critical essay); it is the result of thorough scientific investigation, of many readings on the researched subject; it is the result of conscious and objective choices of the previous findings; it is longer in size; it requires the correct documentation of all the sources used for investigating the subject.

instances of research papers:

the seminar paper, different papers throughout the MA and PHD programs, the graduate course thesis, the M.A. thesis/dissertation, the doctoral dissertation, the feature / scientific article (in specialized magazines, bulletins, journals, on the Internet), the lab/scientific report, the scientific lecture


standard move pattern:

expository research paper:

Move I: Introducing the present research

Step 1: Introducing the general topics and the specific content
Step 2: Introducing research findings so far
Step 3: Stating the thesis / proposing new findings/approach
Step 4: / Move II: Transition: Presenting the points of proof (at least 3)

Move III: Developing points of proof

Step 1: Developing point of proof 1
Step 2: Developing point of proof 2
Step 3: Developing point of proof 3

Move IV: Concluding by reinforcing the thesis

Move V: (not optional) Works cited

argumentative research paper:

Move I: Introducing the topics

Move II: Acknowledging opposition

Step 1: Acknowledging counterthesis
Step 2: Acknowledging counterpoint 1
Step 3: Acknowledging counterpoint 2
Step 4: Acknowledging counterpoint 3

Move III: Stating the thesis

Move IV: Transition:

Step 1: Acknowledging disagreement with counterpoints 1,2,3
Step 2: Proposing constructive arguments 1,2,3

Move V: Developing refutations and arguments:

Step 1: Developing refutations 1,2,3 (why the existing counterarguments are not valid, or why they are now superseded)
Step 2: Developing constructive arguments 1,2,3 (insisting upon why the proposed constructive arguments are valid, or why they are better, newer, a.s.o. , than the existing counterarguments)

Move VI: Concluding upon the validity of the thesis

Move VII: Works cited

Specific discourse strategies (besides those employed by the critical essay): 

• inserting other opinions (other authors) on the same subject
• synthesizing previous research
• assuming the voice of authority (with rights and obligations)
• commenting upon sources (by agreeing or disagreeing with them)
• paraphrasing
• quoting
• acknowledging to sources (notes + bibliography)

Task: Read the research paper Marina Abramovics--Between Art and the Extreme by Roxana Andonie.

What type of research paper is it? Which were the previous findings on this subject the author had access to and presents in her paper? What is the new insight she proposes here? What do you think about her use of sources? Are they relevant? Are they well-acknowledged?

Rhythm 0

Rhytm 0

Rhythm (series)

Deadline: April 9