Course Description

This course is meant to be a space for you to examine and deepen your relationship to the field and your own practice through readings, discussions, and presentations.  The readings are meant to expand your perspective on the field of jewelry and metalsmithing, to define its particularities and concerns in relation to the discourses of the contemporary art world.

Together we will explore a series of seminal theoretical texts, seeking ways to relate them to our own practice.  Through these texts we will encounter a series of themes and historical perspectives that are crucial to the field of jewelry, while also delving into fields and areas of inquiry, that have not commonly been related to our field, but perhaps should or could be.  Our aim is to get a historical and interdisciplinary perspective on where we are as artists/makers today, how we got here and where we could go from here. The course aims to bring up critical questions on why we make, whom we make for and the meaning of our practice beyond the studio and the jewelry and metals world.

This is a chance to practice your skills in connecting theory, reading and writing to your work and to build a vocabulary and ground of reference around your ideas, interests and intentions. It’s a chance to take part in an intense discourse around your field, which you might be asked to do many times in the future of your career.

The Wednesday meetings will adopt the form of a reading/talking circle. Your role in the group is important and the success of our conversations will be based on your participation and engagement. We will all take turns in presenting and leading the discussion and also examine what “research through practice” might mean for us, by exploring some ways of connecting theory and making. 

Oct 14, 2009

THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE



Le Principe du Plaisir by Rene Magritte


The pleasure principle is a concept that originated from Sigmund Freud. The pleasure principle states that people seek pleasure and avoid pain to satisfy biological and psychological needs. An individual's id follows the pleasure principle early in life but as one matures, one learns the need to endure pain and defer gratification because of the obstacles of reality (This is known as the reality principle). Freud states that, "an ego thus educated becomes reasonable; it never lets itself be governed by the pleasure principle, but obeys the reality principle, which also at bottom seeks to obtain pleasure, but pleasure which is assured through taking account of reality, even though it is pleasure postponed and diminished."


As an artist my quest to obtain beauty is never ending. Although I think defining and capturing beauty is unrealistic. When making art how can we get closer to the pleasure principle? Can we ever return to a place (even for just a fleeting moment) where reality doesn't dictate how we view and express beauty? I think reality has a thick cloak of influence on the prospect of beauty and the means we aquire it.
Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)