El Gato y las demás criaturas

Inspired by a series of works by Charles Csuri, particularly “After Cezanne”, these images portray people’s faces but with some type of distortion. In my opinion, it seems like a funny concept to grab an object and change its proportions; In this case I portrayed several cats with some sloppiness and simplicity with changes in their physique, also adding changes in the circles and rectangles and as a touch, adding a gray scale transition.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

The first mental connection I made to make this piece was—> make something with code? —> computer —> internet —> funny things —> cats. Now trying to make sense of all this, the biggest motivation for making the code was to think of something that makes me laugh and that has a certain simplicity, and what better than a cat synthesized in a few lines? Apart from being visually inspired by the essence of cat memes, this time in a grayscale pack and a few more details.

Actually, not only the lines are part of this work, there are a few functions, changes in the thickness of the lines, enough points to be able to give a freer shape to those same lines; push on one side, pop on the other and did I already mention the use of lines?

Now, conceptually when trying to find a background for my work, I found myself in a big problem writing some “academic” explanation of the matter, or a deep background; It caused me more confusion when reading several essays given in the course.

I want to focus on the text Heinich “The work beyond the object”, where he mentions that the work itself as an object, in contemporary art, relies heavily on the story to give meaning to the work, how important it is to use narration to further explore the work. Why do I have to give explanations? What is the point of writing about the piece I am making? I want to show something simple that causes a laugh, but upon rethinking it and writing, I realize that this is also valid as a story; All this root of thought contributes to the creation process.

I also find a certain relationship to what Brea said in “Redefinition of artistic practices” where she refers to works of art ”…There is work and practices that we can call artistic. They have to do with significant, affective and cultural production. And they play specific roles in relation to the subjects of experience. But they do not have to do with the production of particular objects, but only with the public promotion of certain circulatory effects: meaning effects, symbolic effects, intensive effects, affective…” Adding to the paragraph previous, the simple fact of producing a simple feeling of grace with my work and with what I write, is part of the experience of generating an effect on the viewer.

Literature

HEINICH, Nathalie. ([2014], 2017). “La obra más allá del objeto” en El paradigma del arte contemporáneo: estructuras de una revolución artística. Madrid: Casimiro, pp. 95-119.

BREA, José Luis. (2008). “Redefinición de las prácticas artísticas (s. 21)” en El tercer umbral. Estatuto de las prácticas artísticas en la era del capitalismo cultural. Murcia: CENDEAC, pp. 106-113.