Assignment #1

Gutenberg was a major contributor to the renaissance and the modernization of the western world. He gave people a way to spread words across the world. When he developed an efficient and inexpensive method of reproduction he essentially redistributed the power of influence. Information, thoughts and ideas could be printed much faster in a greater volume than ever before. The renaissance and modernization were born of knowledge. Without Gutenberg the word would not have spread so far and wide.

It seems that throughout history the printing press has been used as a tool for politics. I don't see that much has changed in that respect. The printing press sort of opened the doors for more people to express their views and share them with other people. Printing lends itself well to "propaganda", for lack of a better term, because one idea, one image, one statement, can be printed over and over again. With multiple prints you can send your message to a wider audience and not place restrictions on who is going to see it.

Photocopier art is just awesome. It is the modern day printing press. Everything I've said about the printing press can be said about the photocopier. The photocopier has made it even easier and cheaper for ordinary people to print. Anyone who wants to can run out to Kinko's and make their own zine, spread their messages far and wide! And the photocopier, just like the printing press was primarily developed as a means to reproducing words, not images. Human beings have always been creative enough to find other uses for tools. Experimenting and playing with tools to see what they do often results in advances in art, well, sometimes it results in explosions, or accidental dismemberment....

Contemporary Print Works

This is a 37.5cm x 46cm screen print image done by

Helen Aldous

Yorkshire England

"Future Worlds"

  

Here is a wood block done by

Maria Arango

Las Vegas, NV

"Floating World II"

16 x 12 inch woodcut

This is another piece of Arango's work. It is a woodcut done on a cross section of a tree that she did not cut down to block shape. The round, natural edges of the wood are attractive and Arango harmonizes her image with the nature of the wood.

Vocabulary

• Fluxus- apparently Fluxus is an art movement that I have not specifically heard of...

Here is an explanation of Fluxus from one of the early originators:  

" It is simple things, taking things for themselves and not just as part of bigger things" Dick Higgins "A Child's History of Fluxus" http://www.artnotart.com/