Case Studies

What are Case Studies?

In the HSC Visual Art course, you will look at a series of case studies. These are in-depth studies that will help you in your course of the understanding artist, artworks and art movements. This will help the student to have a greater understanding of the artworld.

Case studies provide an opportunity for you to cross examine artists approaches

• Artists intentions

• Use of materials

• Particular process to make artworks and looking at ‘key issues’ that affect the world, audience, artist, and the artwork.

Key Issues include aspects of:

• Styles, themes, genres, critical theories, historical narratives and use of technology.

You must study a minimum of five case studies for your HSC. The selection of the case will be completed throughout the terms and must be completed throughout your course assessments.

Planning your case studies:

Planning your case studies will include raw information about the artist, designers, critics, artist historians and their works combined the HSC Visual Arts course – Practice, Conceptual Frameworks, and the frames.

You can continue to use these artists or begin new artists of interests. I will give you an example of past case studies done by past students to give you an idea to write and complete the case studies.

Think about these four points:

1. How can I maximise my knowledge of the visual arts through these case studies?

2. How can I structure my case studies so my understanding and written expression best prepare me for examination?

3. Are there any exhibitions I can visit that may be incorporated into my case studies and major work?

4. Are you interested in these artist models that they will help you in your Major work?

You will be marked on:

1. Evidence of research (Has the student taken initiative to display and demonstrate evidence of research)

2. Does the student understands the use of the HSC frameworks within HSC

3. Explaining the artist/s approach.

4. Explaining the artist/s intentions/ideas.

5. Explaining the artist/s use of materials.

6. Explaining the artist/s process and key issues.

Based on HSC Course Descriptors

H7) applies their understanding of practice in art criticism and art history.

H8) applies their understanding of their relationships among the artist, artwork, world and audience.

H9) demonstrates an understanding of how frames work which provides for different orientations to critical and historical investigations of art

H10) constructs a body of significant art histories, critical narratives and other documentary accounts of representation in the visual arts.

Case Study 1

Choose one question from below:

Question 1:“Examine how artworks and artist inform their audiences about periods of time.”

For example, I have composed Pop Art and Op Art examining what Pop Art is and Op Art how it provided an insight into the time, place and their influences on society during the 1950’s and 60’s.

Or

Question 2: "Examine and discuss artist models you have studied approaching ideas of identity and belonging."

You will need to choose and select artists that reflect “Identity and Belonging” approaching ideas of identity and belonging through different mediums of artworks.

I have inserted a power point presentation reflecting “Identity and Belonging” using Australian and New Zealand artists.

You too will create a power point presentation choosing and select artist that use similar narratives within the context of identity and belonging.

Or you can use the artists below but create an in-depth study of identity and belonging.

• Ani O'Neill

• Dagmar Dyck

• Imants Tillers

• Joanna Fieldes

• Paddy Stewart

• Wi Taepa

• Zhong Chen

Assessment criteria

Case Study 1 / Raw Mark Total: 100%

Assessment Weighting 15%

Outcomes: H7 H8 H10

Rachel Mercy

Rachel Mercy Case Study 1 Essay

Question 1:“Examine how artworks and artists inform their audiences about periods of time.”

Throughout history artists have used artworks to inform their audiences of different periods of time. Through their artworks artists use different forms of art to represent various periods of time. This can representation can be created by the technique of the painting, the meaning behind the artwork, the place that is displayed in the artwork, or the impact the artist the artists is trying to make with the created artwork.

Art forms that can assist artists to inform their audiences of periods of times include:

Appropriation Art, Internet Art, Gothic Art, Happenings, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Op Art, and Photography.

Appropriation art:

The form of appropriation in art has been used extensively by artists since the 1980’s. Appropriation refers to the creation of a new work that has borrowed some or all elements of another work of art or object. Appropriation art is believed to have originated in 1912 by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque who used real objects on their artworks to represent themselves.

In 1915 Michael Duchamp further developed the art of appropriation through artworks he created and labelled readymades. Readymades were works of art that he created with the use of already manufactured objects. Artworks by Duchamp in this collection include Bicycle Wheel (1915) and Fountain (1917).

Appropriated art has also been used in conjunction with other forms of art; including the use of appropriation in Pop Art, the use of Found Art in Appropriation Art, and the use of appropriation in Conceptual Art and Street Art (Graffiti Art).

Appropriation Art has developed throughout time and can help people relate to changes in time. Appropriation Art also gives audiences the chance to experience a connection between two or more different objects or artworks that are not from the same period in time, as each of the time periods are displayed in the one artwork.

Appropriation art was initiated in the early 1900’s but has been most popular since the 1980’s. This form of art has been popular with many artists as it allows them to create a new meaning from a familiar object or image. Appropriation art often raises questions on originality, authenticity and the nature of art itself.

Internet Art:

Internet Art, or Net Art, is a form of art where the internet is its primary area. Internet art does not only refer to artworks that are based on the web, but refers to the internet as a whole.

The form of Internet Art is relatively new but is now a large aspect of art in today’s society.

Internet art is known to have had ‘five generations’ in its process, this is where the first generation of ‘net artists’ worked with electronic interconnectivity (using networked art i.e. fax and videotex), but not with the proper Internet.

One of the earliest forms of Networked art was La Plissure du Texte (1983) by Rov Ascott, which was displayed in at an exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Between the years 1994 and 1999, several venues in the public were formed to promote the concept of Internet Art.

Internet art (often referred to as net art) is art which uses the Internet as its primary medium or platform. Artists working in this manner are sometimes referred to as net artists.

Internet art can happen outside the purely technical online structure of the Internet, such as when artists use specific social or cultural Internet traditions in a project outside of it. Internet art is often, but not always, interactive, participatory, and based on multimedia in the broadest sense. Usually, the internet art can be used to spread a message, either political or social, using human interactions.

The term Internet art typically does not refer to art that has been simply digitized and uploaded to be viewable over the Internet. This can be done through a web browser, such as images of paintings uploaded for viewing in an online gallery.[1] Rather, this genre relies intrinsically on the Internet to exist, taking advantage of such aspects as an interactive interface and connectivity to multiple social and economic cultures and micro-cultures. It refers to the Internet as a whole, not only to web-based works.

Theoriest and curator Jon Ippolito defined "10 Myths" about Internet art in 2002.[1] He cites the above stipulations, as well as defining it as distinct from commercial web design, and touching on issues of permanence, archivability and collecting in a fluid medium.

Internet art can be actualized in a variety of ways: for example, through websites; e-mail projects; Internet-based original software projects (sometimes involving games); Internet-linked networked installations; interactive and/or streaming video, audio, or radio works; and networked performances (using multi-user domains, virtual worlds such as Second Life, chat rooms, and other networked environments).[2] It can also include completely offline events, like the performance by Alexei Shulgin, Real Cyberknowledge for Real People in Vienna, in 1997. Shulgin printed out copies of the online publication of Beauty and the East' / ZKP4, published by the mailing list nettime, handing booklets out to passers-by on the streets of Vienna.[3] Internet art overlaps with other computer-based art forms such as new media art, electronic art, software art, digital art, telematic art and generative art.

The terms Internet art, net-based art, net art, Net.art, Web art, and even networked art have all been used to classify this type of work. However, the term networked art has a history of usage for artworks that were connected through closed networks before the Internet's popularization and commercialization in the early 1990s (such as many Telematic art projects)[1]. Net.art -- "Net-dot-art" -- was a more popular term in the 1990s, often referring to some of the first net artists who were critiquing the structures of the Internet [4]. Critic Rachel Greene states that the term originated "when Slovenian artist Vuk Cosic opened an anonymous e-mail only to find it had been mangled in transmission. Amid a morass of alphanumeric gibberish, Cosic could make out just one legible term -- "net.art" -- which he began using to talk about online art and communications." [2].Greene lists several artists as early experimenters of the form: Vuk Ćosić, Jodi, Alexei Shulgin, Heath Bunting, Shu Lea Cheang, VNS Matrix and Olia Lialina. In her book Internet art, Green places Internet art after 1993, with the popularization of graphical web browsing.

Other notable net artists and net art organisations include: Agricola de Cologne, Mark Amerika, Natalie Bookchin, etoy, Fred Forest, Valéry Grancher, Bob Holmes, G. H. Hovagimyan, Jaromil, Marc Lafia, Sergio Maltagliati, Lev Manovich, mez, Mongrel, Furtherfield, MTAA, Antiorp, Cary Peppermint, Plaintext Players, Vivian Selbo, Superbad (Ben Benjamin) and Thomson & Craighead.

Case Study 2

Choose one question to discuss:

Question 1: Discuss appropriation within artworks?

Refer to "YouTube Videos and other sources that you have studied."

or

Question 2: Art History: 'Digital Art’ Refer to "YouTube Videos and comments " and discuss

Digital art controversy. Is it freehand?

Assessment criteria

Case Study 2 / Raw Mark Total: 100%

Assessment Weighting 15%

Outcomes: H7 H8 H10

Internal Assessment

1. To present a sustained and well-reasoned point of view is represented which may acknowledge that other opinions are possible.

2. To have relevant aspects of content explained and interpreted.

3. To have the significance of examples are explained and used to support your arguments.

4. To present critical arguments and historical explanations are complex and logical and reveal an extensive understanding of the visual arts

Resouces: Revise HSC visual art in a month - Craig Malyon

Example Students Works