ARTH2490 Take Home Test

Due Dec 10, 2021 by electronic submission to CourseLink

Label your submissions “YOURLASTNAMEARTH2490”
* Make sure not to repeat yourself in your different responses to the questions below;
you cannot receive marks for the same content in different responses. You may not
reproduce work from previous assignments in any of your answers. You may not quote
directly from our sources but you may paraphrase. You do not need to include citation in
your answers.

LONG ANSWER

Choose two of the following five essay options. Your answer should be essay length in
each case (3 paragraphs each, with an introductory and concluding sentence, 750 words
per answer). 15 points each, /30

1. Discuss Disability Arts, making reference to 10 points from our lecture slides on
“Disability Art in Canada” and using these points to make your own claims regarding 3
examples of disability art in Canada.

It is incredibly shameful for our society to only recently attempt to understand the
experiences of those living with conditions that society considers disabilities. It hasn’t even been
a decade since the word ‘handicapped’ was recognized as harmful by mostly everyone else
besides those labeled “disabled”. When faced with the adversity of a certain condition, illness,
disorder, etc. This community continues to show that their experiences as an individual is just as
valid as the experiences of an ‘able bodied person’. Some of these individuals work alongside
their conditions to improve their condition of life, some try to overcome them, some do both. Art
is innately human, it is a basic human behavior that everyone at some point participates in. To
break and get personal for a line or two. I feel like the term ‘disabled’ is still incredibly harmful, it
still promotes a stigma that these people are less than an able bodied person. Artists in what is
still called the disabled community, are plentiful and incredibly talented. The art made by the
disabled community, or the disability arts, is not all just simply about the experience of living with
a particular condition. However, it is more inspired by the experiences of disability, creating
entirely new perspectives and practices of art. At the same time, this community continuously
dismantles oppressive forces and stigma that is constantly being attributed to them. This
disruptive phenomena brought forth by disability arts is best summed up by a reclaimed term
‘crip’. The disabled community is an essential and valid community in Canada that deserves to
participate in the arts just like ‘able bodied people’.
Art’s ability to individualize and set free human experiences from de-humanizing
restraints set by society (stereotypes, stigma, xenophobia, etc.) is arguably the basis for the
disability arts. For those who live with certain conditions, the control of one’s personal and public
presentation of self is essential for an individual’s creative and human rights. This control allows
for one’s work to be presented in an accessible and digestible way. Access is an integral
condition of artistic practice. Accessibility for disabled artists and accessibility to the artwork of
the disabled shows that as a society, we are attempting to give them spaces they need, want,
and deserve. Accessibility in the arts provides disabled peoples with ways of validating and
exploring their identities. Vanessa Dion Fletcher’s performance Finding Language, exemplifies
this concept perfectly. The performance details Vanessa’s experience with learning disabilities,
her disconnect from native culture and her exploration of colonial oppressive systems in
Canada’s past and present. In the performance, Vanessa herself, as well as visitors, find written
words hidden in a room and translate them into the Lenape language of the eastern Algonquin
culture. The actions in the performance, as well as the invitation for visitors to participate
expresses how accessibility for the disabled arts details the many ways in which we as people
learn and communicate.
Disability arts does not necessarily need to be so serious in thought and intention, it can
also be fun and hopeful. Artist Erin Ball’s legs end just below her knees, however she has not let
this set her back and has become a professional circus artist and coach. In her act The World at
Your Feet, at the 2017 SummerWorks festival shows that disability is not a setback and can be
incredibly fun and expressive. In the performance she attaches confetti cannons to her legs,
hoists herself up on ropes, and fires the confetti into the crows. Erin Ball, and artists like her,
create fun and inclusive spaces for everyone to enjoy! This condition of the disability arts is
devoted to promoting equality, equity and expression.
The therapeutic nature of art rings true in the disability arts as well. The notion of
‘cripping the arts’ allows for individuals with disabilities to break down exclusionary
environments , behaviors and practices that may have contributed to someone’s wellbeing; to
crip the arts is important when using art as a tool for self improvement and therapy. If one can’t
recognize the forces that negatively impact their lives one cannot move forward and heal. To
disrupt, or to crip, ableist, oppressive practices through art, we can allow ourselves to dissect
and evaluate our own experiences with disability, or someone else’s. It increases the visibility of
the need for new terminology, new systems of aid, and education. Aaron Labbé’s installation
LUCID, crips the arts in a way that encourages self-care through multisensory experience. The
work speaks of the importance of finding terminology, language, and concepts that fit his view of
the world and mental illness, after his experience with psychiatric hospitalization. By regarding
the work as therapeutic, it calls attention to the assumption that all disability arts are situated in
therapy and self-care, but at the same time,the therapeutic nature of art is essential for healing.
LUCID crosses conventional boundaries of cripping the arts, and art in general. With use of
media like sound, coloured lights, movement and darkness do not require traditional
interpretation, one must look deeper for the underlying meanings this work presents.
The disability arts in Canada has existed from the Country’s conception, and will exist far
into the future. It is important for society, in order for everyone to understand and communicate
our differences and similarities. Disability arts break down barriers in society and will continue to
do so until it is seen on the same level as ‘able bodied people’ by everyone.

2. Discuss video art in Canada, using at least 3 examples and making 10 distinct points
about the way that video art has emerged, circulated and been interpreted in Canadian
arts discourses.
 No matter how hard anyone tries, no one will be able to characterize video art. We can
definitely associate each particular video with a label or genre, however, this artistic movement
is so broad and complex in each piece’s creation it is impossible to fix it to only one thing. The
vast number of Canadian video works published over the last four decades echoes the
dedication of various communities, artist-run centres, or solo-artists to produce and distribute
video art across the country. Canada's national attempts at understanding multiculturalism and
its acknowledgement of freedoms is incredibly important for understanding the development of
video art in the country. Canada is a nation built on its heterogeneity; founded on at least three
national cultures (English, First Nations, and French). This heterogeneity is a coalition of
identities but does not bind individuals to just one particular identity. This promotion of identity
difference has largely been the core both institutionally and thematically of Canadian video art.
Video art first started circulating with the formation of film and animation works by
Norman MacLaren showing this artistic movement in its infancy. Video art slowly into the 50s
and through to the present, gets more and more complex in theme, subject, display, and
meaning. In 1998, media theoretician Phillipe Dubois published an assessment on the historical
impacts video art has made on society. Dubois’ assessment states that video art occupies a
very fragile and transient position between two incredibly established media technologies; digital
video and film. This ‘in between’ status of video art resides in both the analogue world and the
digitized numerical world. He notes that video art speaks to how this particular form of media
lies between the object/subject and the process, visibility and invisibility, the live reality and the
prerecorded, and between over and under awareness. The assessment details how any one, of
any particular culture, society or age can participate in the creation and publishing of video art;
regardless of technological know-how or financial investment from any given source. This
inclusion of everyone, civilians to highly influential individuals changes video art in Canada for
the better. Everyday, menial, unimportant ambiguous tasks and perspectives exist alongside
extravagant themes and subjects from an entirely different social class. In the hands of anyone,
video tends to disregard complex social relations especially of oppressed groups/cultures.
Distribution of video, and technology to produce it, encouraged communication and interactivity
between production, publishing, and reception of a given video.
Video art exudes a great sense of distracted social attention, allowing for everyone to
participate in an artistic form alongside the likes of social activism and institutional art practice.
Video art in this regard has embraced and affirmed localized narratives and greater interest in
the exploration of identity; judging actions of these positions produces knowledge that is easily
accessible and digestible for the general public. This exploration of identity in video art is best
exemplified by Nelson Henrick’s 1992 Single channel video Conspiracy of Lies. The video
details the alienation of minorities and touches upon consumer culture, the thin balance
between mental order and chaos and the forms of social isolation that come with it. The video
opens with a voice recounting diary entries and lists written by an anonymous source. Twelve
distinct narrators recount these entries while attempting to destabilize pre-existing assumptions
concerning an absolute truth. In this video, identity becomes an enigma, a question which must
be addressed and formulated but can never be fully answered or understood. Black and white
photographs of familial memorabilia from the artist’s past, as well as their home in Calgary and
maps of the province exemplify an individual in search of himself by examining his past. Henrick
in this piece attempts to identify his sense of self that is nationally corrupt and ill-defined. Like
most video art in contemporary times, the video was published online, on Henrick’s personal
website for the general public to visit and view. Video art, when utilized properly like that of
Henrick, allows for a rhetoric of technology based nationalism in Canada which has the power to
create a nation by enhancing communication through video and film media; linking separate
parts of Canada to enforce a national identity and control over the country. Some academics
argue this statement, that Canada’s intention of providing a national identity did not work as well
as the government would have liked. It is argued that this process did not work because
Canada’s attempts at building a national identity through video focused more on the
technological processes with video creation rather than content and subject matter. Canada’s
video artists slowly started to Americanize their works, touching base on subjects like a fostered
military prescience, uniting through patriotism, and fostering immigration. In the present day
however, video art often seems entirely uninterested or against recognized nationalism. Vera
Frankel’s Body Missing, a work that combines both archival material and storytelling detailing
the fate of artworks that have been missing since World War Two. The video seeks to
complicate the interpretations of images in order to speak about identity as a question,
uncertainty or quest. A representation is yet to be revealed in its entirety, a sense of fogginess
lies between discussions of the self and the self portrayed by the nation. The video turns the
question of what it means to be Canadian into an aestheticized video.
Very few artistic practices in Canada’s past have dealt with the question of the country’s
identity itself. However, Video art seems to be the exception. Video art in Canada seems to
merge narratives, confused notions of identity, and reality into a fully completed work of art that
more often than not, details an artist's personal experience with how they fit into Canada's
national identity. Video art in Canada seems to provide a set of radical questions one can ask
themselves regarding their views of the world.

3. Discuss 10 points on the subject of Canadian multiculturalism and the arts, drawing on
the work of Monika Kin Gagnon and/or Himani Bannerji.

4. Discuss the brief history of Canadian arts institutions, making 10 points about the role
of nation building in the Canadian arts discourses.

5. Discuss how the contemporary arts in Canada have represented the land, making 10
points and using 3 examples, considering how representations of the land have enacted
or queried relationships of power.

SHORT ANSWER
In full sentences, name, locate, and situate 5 of the following 10 terms and provide a
definition that makes 4 key points about the term, using at least one work of Canadian art
as example with which to make your points. 5 points each, /25

Disability Art
Disability art is not art for the “disabled” or just about the experience of it, but instead it is more
about the experiences from disability. It is not just participating in an artistic culture, but it
creates a distinct and unique one. Disability art exposes the ways in which bodies, lives, minds
and any given ‘disability’ are actively being ignored and pushed from the art world and society in
general. An example of an artwork that falls under the label of disability art is Aaron Labbé’s
LUCID installation; details the experiences of finding language and terminology to identify as
mad or ‘insane’ after his experience with psychiatric hospitalization.

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art attempts to dematerialize art itself in order to resist intense societal
commodification. The basis for conceptual art takes place around a complex (or very simplistic)
overarching theme or idea, in which this theme or idea is more important than the completed
piece of art; its creation process, form, etc. Conceptual art opposes the status of commodity and
reproduction capitalism places on the art world. This type of art may use unconventional
materials opposed to traditional media. An example of conceptual art that I personally find
moving is John Baldessarl’s 1971 lithograph I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art. I believe
Baldessarl may have felt like he was being forced to conform to artistic practices he found
boring, fed up with it, he writes the line over and over like a child in detention.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is an artistic movement that is first thought to have developed alongside the pop
art movement of the mid to late 60’s into the 80’s. Artistic intentions and focus turned towards a
grandly commercialized world-image, like that of the post-war era. Postmodernism borrows
imagery and products of pop culture and with non-traditional materials create stunning and
ephemeral pieces of art. This artistic movement can be seen as a reaction against modernist
ideals and practices; experimentation with form and technique were questioned and instead art
focused more on experience and interpretation of said experiences. It distrusts and reintensifies
pop culture’s purposes of aesthetic, consumption, entertainment and pleasure. Betsy Ross, look
what they’ve done to the flag you made with such care, a work by Canadian artist Joyce
Wieland utilizes brightly coloured plastic scraps about the war, collaged with personal
mementos, flags and photographs. The eye catching work with elements of pop culture and
images of war speak on how war is always eventually packaged for consumption for the public,
in ways we may not fully understand.

Visual Sensitivity Information

Visual Sensitivity Information, or VSI, is a term that was created by University of British
Colombia professor Iain Baxter, while he worked with the N. E. Thing CO. (NETCO). Baxter
hoped this term would replace the word and terminology for art. He developed this sensitivity
system inspired by theories from McLuhan and the activism that arose from the Dada
movement. VSI is part of a set of sensitivity systems by Baxter, it emphasizes that aesthetics
and other experiences have and always will take place across existence. The term seeks to
expand the field of art experience and purge it of itself-importance. An attempt to formalize an
account of culture while developing its own discourses on art and art theory. This idea is best
pictured in his work VSI Pool Flower and VSI Cirrus Cloud. These works depict a plasticized
landscape made from common materials associated with consumption and the mundane. It’s
phenomenological in a way that it makes you think about how the rejection of precious or
expensive materials to make a work of art its not nearly as important than the experience of the
conventional, pop culture, mundane, or the extravagant.

Commodity

Commodities are defined as objects meant for exchange with a set or fluctuating monetary
value. Commodities emulate the labor that went into their production while also reflecting
societal relations of production in which the work was completed. Commodities market values
are inherently determining of its meaning and purpose. In our current contemporary society, as
well as our past, we only regard commodities based on their monetary value in relation to other
commodities. Brian Jungen’s 2006 sculpture installation Furniture Sculpture, is a perfect
example of utilizing commodities in art. The piece is recreating non-alienated, self-determined,
non-commodified objects and relations using found, ready made commodities.