Artist Tony Oursler works in several media, but he is best known for his fractured-narrative handmade groundbreaking videos of eerily painted dummies. His art deals with topics from Multiple Personality Disorder to corporate power and media http://www.tonyoursler.com
His work has been exhibited in a variety of different environments such as museums etc, he has many methods of moving and removing video monitor using mirrors, reflection of water, glass and other devices.Since the mid-1970s Oursler has been a pioneer in New Media Art
Tony Ourslers work 'Eye in the sky' is a fibreglass sphere which projects a single eye watching television. Oursler has not made the rest of the body visible but has the sounds of somebody channel surfing, through commercials sitcoms game shows etc. even though the facial expressions are not shown you get a sense of them when he the eye twitches, moves etc.
The fragmentary nature of the piece - The disembodied eye, the reflected television screen and the rapidly changing channels -- parallels features of mental illnesses that signal the disintegration of the personality and the inability of the individual to identify with and function in the real world.
Tony Ourslers work relates to the Enlightenment in many ways such as freedom, individualism, progress and science. The way his work comes across to me is that the progression of science and modern technology has in a way stopped us as thinking as an individual. In all truth and honesty you see things happening on the television and it influences the way you see things it could even change you perspective on the matter. We do have our freedom of thinking and saying what we want, but we can all relate to this that we are all influenced one way our another by he media wether it be television, radio or newspapers. The world has progressed in a big way and generations have all been affected by this.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your Blog Stacy. I found i felt the same sense of Knowing or seeing the persons reactions and body movements through the flickering of the eyes. So i fid it quite interesting that we experianced the same feelings. I like how you relate the work back to the enlightenment era. In ways of progression and science, stopping us from thinking as individuals. That point really made me stop and think abut the concept of Ourslers work.
ReplyDeleteI really like your insights on the work 'Eye in the sky'. It made me understand why the work sends a shiver down my spine.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to how technology has stopped us thinking as individual I noticed Oursler has deliberately used technology in a particularly detached and dehumanized way. He is not so much just making a point but doing so by mirroring and emphasizing it.
It makes me wonder if he was revealing 'the disintegration of the personality' within everyone rather than just those deemed mentally ill.
I think on top of the Enlightenment concepts you've listed he has also explored the concept of Empiricism.