Rush's Introduction

While reading Rush’s Introduction, I really enjoyed learning about various artists and their contributions to new art movements throughout the 20th century. First of all, I found Muybridge’s work to be very interesting. His method of setting up a series of strings attached to the camera’s shutter and having the horse run over the strings was genius, especially for that time period. I also thought it was interesting how Muybridge’s photos were originally going to be used for scientific studies, and were not “adopted by artists” until later. I have always thought of science and art to be in two completely different realms, but after learning this fact and reading a statement made earlier in the Introduction (“All art is experimental or it isn’t art.”) I think science and art can go hand in hand. Now I can definitely see a connection between the two subjects. Rush’s description of Eisenstein’s “dynamic images” and “varied camera angles and sophisticated montage editing” also made me think about a connection between art and science. Rush stated that Eisenstein’s work depicts “multiple views of reality” which allows “for multiple understandings of reality,” which is a “key aspect of modernism,” or “enhancing perception by altering it.” I think these statements have a lot to do with science/technology, because they both allow us to have enhanced/multiple views of reality (compared to a world with no science/technology). I also liked reading about John Cage and how he “emphasized the element of ‘chance’ in art as a valid way of making a work.” I think this also connects subtlety to the idea of science and art going hand in hand, in that the furthering of science and technology is very dependent on chance happenings and experiments. In the past I have also learned about Merce Cunningham, and I thought it was interesting to learn about the other side of Cunningham’s dance pieces (aka Cage’s music that accompanies the dance). Here is a video that I found of a Cunningham dance accompanied by Cage’s music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2iVll-N0g I think this work definitely takes into consideration chance/experimental happenings, and it alters my perceptions and makes me question what is really happening with the dancers, the music, and the clips playing in the background/overlaying the dancers.