love the longer, denser videos :)

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

If you have any requests. Lemme know

i am so happy I have found this channel.

I liked the analogy and the reasoning to arrive at the definition of critique makes sense. But a rubric should (also) be judged by what kind of incentives they create for the artist. So what does the ADSR method incentivize? Discourse, trendiness and attention it seems. So as an artist optimizing for a high ADSR score they should make controversial art on the latest hot topic that screams for attention. Personally I don't think those features necessarily make good art, and art scoring low on ADSR could very well be 'good'.

I love the ADSR analogy for reasons that go beyond your use of the concept. Perhaps one of the most useful ADSR modules is Maths by Make Noise. Understanding how all the knobs and patch points on this amazing instrument can sculpt a sound or sequence is one of the true joys of designing, making, exploring and listening to music. The ADSR graph you drew could be seen as the initial settings of the work being critiqued. This graph can then be used by the artist in the studio to change the shape, direction and size of the envelope to make the piece more interesting, more relevant, etc. This approach successfully avoids the issues you raise of prescription, false praise, or comparisons to other works while giving the artist a tangible tool they can use to further explore their ideas and change what is manifest. Thank you! This is really nice way of thinking about all critique in general.

My undergrad program's critique methodology was so bad and I really dig this way of approaching it. It's similar to how I did it in my highschool program, where we'd go one by one: form, context, context. But I like this because its about deconstructing it through the time spent with the work. And the expansions on the principle of correspondence is soooo vital, not having that explained in college drove me crazy. Thank you for your work on this

Thanks for the video Elliott!

lets go dude hell yeah thanks as always elliot

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

You bet!

This video was rich and refreshing, exactly what I need right now and has a very long tail. I feel like I finally have a way to think about my work that will (hopefully) improve it and stop the fruitless (and brutal) echo of knowing it isn't "good enough" and struggling to put my finger on exactly why it isn't working. Appreciate the hope, thank you!

Thank you for making this video! Given how many activities are called “critique,” I am astonished how little interest there seems to be in seriously grappling with what critique is and why we might do it in the first place. Any attempt to defend an answer to these questions is refreshing indeed. There are two things I took from this video that I think would help anyone trying to participate in critiques well. First, the critical role time plays in understanding the success of the work. I think the division into attack, decay, sustain, and release is genius. The temptation to unreflectively comment on work without considering its unfolding over time, I think, tends to lessen the value of critiques. Second, your relentless insistence that we focus on the actual object in front of us-not the one we think it could be, or what the artist thought it would be, or, God forbid, the person of the artist-could, if heeded, make critiques far more fruitful, both for the artist and the viewers. Having said that, I remain ambivalent about how you describe the sustain and release in particular. In particular, if we are to evaluate the work partly based on its sustain in a critique, and sustain here means that the work engendered fecund conversation, then do we end up rewarding a kind of work that is easily “converted” into speech? I appreciate your correspondence test. it’s clear that a conversation that does not correspond to what is manifestly present in the work cannot be said to be “engendered” by that work. But that test is only negative. How do we respond to work which engenders conversation which *does* have to do with the work, but which is brought about by what might be called “critique bait,” that is, whatever symbols or moves are most easily discussed (or argued about). This makes me wonder about the responsibility viewers have. While some conversation can be the result of mere idiosyncrasies, clearly it takes work to be able to really “look” at art, and someone who does that work is better able to call work into crisis. My worry, I guess, is that, given different audiences, creating sustain and release will be totally different. Lingering on social media means something different than lingering with a group of graduate students at Cranbrook, or lingering with the member’s of one’s craft guild, and so on. Nobody likes being called an elitist, but it is clear that we value these different audiences in different ways. So how do you think that may be accounted for in this ADSR model? P.S. I love the example of a viewer using a phone to translate the text in the coffin piece. I think that raises very interesting questions about the act of viewing art today!

love your stuff man

I love this! Great job explaining ADSR and really interesting way to think about critiques.

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for the feedback. (It’s the reason I make videos - the feedback)

I dig this ADSR analogy.

I am currently going through a rough time evaluating my own work which is music. Although you probably had different mediums in mind most of the principles here still apply. Thanks for sharing Elliot.

Fantastic video. I dig your thorough and thoughtful approach. I can greatly relate to the struggle of understanding design/ art/ craft, improving it, and talking about it constructively. My primary field is game design. But design is design is design. Videos like this help me immensely. Thanks.

@ADarkDreamer

2 ай бұрын

I just got your Broadsheet in the mail. It's great. The sticker and the personalized page was a cool surprise.

Very interesting formula for critique. Needed to hear this right now.

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for taking the time to write

Just subbed, untangling my headspace of how to praise this video while not offering a platitude unbecoming of the nuanced idea of critique contained in its contents. I guess the fact that its still circling around in my head after the fact is good evidence of its long release. Or something like that. Janky do thanky

I once joined a discord for artists that mainly concerned themselves with prescriptive critique. That never made any sense to me because I felt that a lot of the time the prescriptive critique robbed the piece of individuality and could, at times, lessen what you call the attack phase. Im going to have to rewatch your vid a few more times to fully understand what you're presenting but from what I do understand, I think I agree. It also explains why a lot of contemporary Internet critics don't feel like "real" critics.

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Agreed. Most criticism boils down to, "Uh, I dont' like it. Make it bigger... and red."

@killred-40

4 ай бұрын

​@@StudioPractice1I just had a thought that is a little off topic but I'd love to see a video on if you believe in the idea of Kitsch art? Or if there is art devoid of ideas and if there is such a thing, can that even be considered art? I dont personally have opinions on it but would love to hear yours.

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

@killred-40 Thanks for the suggestion! I appreciate the idea and will give some thought to how to make a video about it

When I listen to your talks about classroom critique I always get it into my head that you have a classroom full of little sophists, who, rather than taking on board the criticism of their peers, put into effect a bunch of strategies for evading critique - whether that's some kind of anticipatory meta-narrative ("my intent was for you to think its bad" ), or by backing off from making a direct artistic statement altogether ("I just wanted to open a conversation about / around X")

@matthewlewis8297

4 ай бұрын

Great work overall though (wink twice if I'm right)

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Ha! no... my students (honestly) are great. I cannot say that about "all" students. Further, the activities that I mention in ny video "that are not critique" is informed by my direct observation.

@lucysunbeam1332

4 ай бұрын

there's no evading critique in this studio. The artist sits in silence while everyone else in the studio critiques their work. The work has to speak for itself. There is not a back and forth with the artist defending their work. The artist has a pre-written statement that is then (at the conclusion of the crit) passed around to the others... so they can't weasel out of their intentions based on what was said in critique. There intentions are right there in the work and in their pre-written artist statement. Nobody is coming with "i wanted you to think it was bad".

Well done.

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Thanks!

14:40 One _enters into_ the Idea (or the work) to understand it in its _apodicity_ from the inside-out beyond mere immediacy of the experience/moment; only then can it be _concretely for-us,_ objective (lit. "showing itself" as the actual instantiation of the Idea/Form, 'deixically' or determinately available to us, the audience). Antithesis, or *Critique = Determinate Negation.,* how we arrive at its essence _apophatically,_ via negativa, by knowing what it is not and cannot be _for Mind_ after the moment has passed. That is the nature of _speculative thought_ in Hegel's system and aesthetics. It is denies the 'aporetic', equivocal, and prevaricating psychologisation and 'polyvocity of interpretation' which are ultimately theological priors and baggage so common today-- even mystery is symbolic, has an aim in mind. _Fecundation_ is apt given the German's deployment of anagogic Seed comparisons for _Concept & Development,_ entelechy of the Idea: germinal, arboreal, _Lustral._ When critique goes awry it exceeds the topos delimited by the art work as Idea (germ) or it stops short of its all encompassing expansive idea (Lustral)-- quite literally mistaking the forest for the trees, or the seed for something that gives shade. 20:20 The naval gazing emphasis on the biography of the artist and how their 'trauma' emanates or informs the work is downhill of _The Negative Infinite_ which follows from the individual as _Absolute Finite_ consciousness being an infinity unto themselves in isolation, without access to God nor fellow man as Spirit, too, with their own similar depth & value. It follows from a benighted materialist standpoint from which everything is ultimately arbitrary and contingent, and thus of no (or merely nominal) significance. This is a recipe for cold reading interpolation of material ab extra to the Work itself. The 'hermeneutics of suspicion' is poisonous in the same fashion tyrannies become slaughterhouses-- it's a tool for self aggrandizment and privliging one's own take as knowing-better abstractly; one may even call it a 'gnostic' standpoint. 21:50 It's far simpler: narcissism, solipsism, (leaky) egoism. 23:24 "empty erudition" as Hegel puts it, and treating the object of critique to spin out one's own ideas orthogonally to the work-- the aim is alien to the source, bowdlerizing it.

Hegel suggests that synthesis is achieved by aufhebung- or lifting as in seedlings, so to use that here the work of critique could be seen as identifying the most promising seedling ideas to ‘plant on’ and also those that should be edited out. This aligns well with prescription of Hemingway - write drunk edit sober. What I took from the ADSR phase metaphor was a method to register the impact , that is necessarily emotional , but keep it within bounds. Also putting limits on what is reasonable that an artist can attempt to ‘fix’ or to put it another way your ADSR has a long release phase.

is the broadsheet available for download? please.

@BinaryDood

4 ай бұрын

Yeah it looks interesting

thank you so much

@StudioPractice1

2 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

hmm I wonder if prescriptive critic is more common in a undergrad setting because the work is less conceptual in say a typography 1 class or a screen printing class. this all gets lumped in as critic but it's very different to the type of critic one would receive for say a thesis project. also great video and beautiful document. thanks

once again another banger video. question - how does this method apply to time based works? you mentioned music as an art object but what about film? should one apply the ADSR method to the work once one is finished experiencing or immediately as the experience begins?

@SHAUMBE.

4 ай бұрын

unrelated but i like the narrative shape of ADSR. gives me kurt vonnegut story shape vibes

Pls make a video on how to make music/other artwork with some artistic intent. Currently just pushing buttons on fl. Thanks Mr. Earls

@kalebprivett632

4 ай бұрын

Not that you asked my opinion, but that’s a great way to start. Meaning comes from making. If there’s artists you look up to, ones that you believe make perfect art, find out what their intentions were. Learn their techniques, your own voice will come through it. Analyze your decisions while creating something. Sometimes I talk to myself out loud while I’m painting ie “I’m doing x because y.” You can video that on your phone and watch it later. It’s like alternative CBT 😂

❤

Love the system, love the critique of art school critiques, but, as someone who spent a year+ studying Hegel in philosophy w/ a German professor at UW, I can concretely say that the art critique ≠ antithesis. Words mean things. Anti-thesis means something: it's the development of history within the dialectal framework but at no point did Hegel use judgement (Beurteilung) interchangeably with antithesis. Hegel had a philosophy of art; it pertained to beauty.

@StudioPractice1

Ай бұрын

Thanks for taking the time to write, and I’ll defer to your understanding. If you could, clarify. (I’m not referring to Hegel’s Aesthetics - err philosophy of Art). It is not helpful to use the Hegelian dialect as an analogy for the way the artist attempts to create a new body of work (synthesis), from the existing work (thesis) and the criticism(s) of that work (anti-thesis)?

nice

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Thanks!

So intrigued by this rubric! ...Where can I get this broadsheet?

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Broadsheet available April 1 at www.minislimited.com

Would you consider attack phase is what called “wow” effect ?

@StudioPractice1

2 ай бұрын

It definitely can be… (there is the possibility of a slow attack) as in “huh?…….. what?…….. (time passes)… oh wow”

attack decay sustain release

You make the distinction that it’s “untrained” psychoanalysis that is invalid critique. Presumably this means that there is a kind of psychoanalytical critique you do think is valid. If so, what characterizes this distinction?

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

A lot of grad art professionals TURN the conversation AWAY front the art object, AND TOWARDS THE PSYCHE OF THE ARTIST THEMSELVES. I would offer… “who gives a shit”. The artists “trauma” does NOT mean that the art is actually *good. The primary reason for turning the conversation TO the artists trauma IS PRECISELY BECAUSE it inoculates the artist FROM CRITIQUE. Ha. Lol. I’m not yelling at you. ❤️. I value your question. And I value that you are in the conversation 💕

Yo Elliott, love the video man. #emotionalsupportbutimeanit Made me think about a few things. I wondered if you saw any risk for a student of the ADSR method in creating for themselves an approach to making work where they end up meta-gaming themselves into oblivion. Worrying about the crit and not the research. I use research here is the same manner you use Art Object, so take it broadly please. ADSR itself, even in this application of it, seems to be more of a rubric whereby the work can be described in greater detail - at, one can maaaybe argue, the cost of understanding the meaning of the work, which you contend is created outside of the work itself. Isn’t the greater goal for an artist in a crit to better understand the meaning of the work and respective practice? How these ideas embedded in form impact an artist’s cognition of their world and their position, past and forthcoming? Isn’t the art object itself one step in a greater bridge across precarious and dark waters? Whose material is the artist and the trauma (with due correspondence) and all that? It is my feeling that the critique phase of a larger research practice is pretty much what you’ve outlined here. BUT the Crit itself is so much more potent than just critique. While I don’t disagree with anything you’ve laid out (in fact, I embrace the majority of it personally), I can’t help but think it misses the bigger point of artistic practice at all, which is the the specific methods for embedding ideas into form are that way for an artist because it is how their mind and body reference the world around them. And one potent part of crit, is exactly bringing THIS into crisis, not the work itself? Disclaimer, I know you aren’t specifically sectioning off this idea of critique from the greater studio practice, but I am just curious if you’ve also extended this idea beyond the “critique” and into, say, something like how it plays out across a semester, a body of work.

30:55 this looks to me to be a commentary on the Palestinian genocide, maybe all world genocides, which are all powered by capitalism’s insatiable desire for more resources. The coffin is the same color as used by Hamas, and the script should be checked to see if it has any relevance to liberation phrases. I'd say that the flower being made in China suggests not just the world’s participation in this in one way or another, but also a criticism itself of the way in which some countries speak sympathy but only show up once the population is destroyed. That's not a criticism though. That's an analysis :)

@StudioPractice1

Ай бұрын

Good analysis

@RaymondTheThird

Ай бұрын

@@StudioPractice1 thanks for reading my typofest haha

Please, please, stop jumping in and out of the display of the print you're reading, and ZOOMing and unzooming and twirling around. I like to read the text and diagrams. If you make that impossible it's intensely frustrating and the constant visual refocusing is physically uncomfortable. The screen doesn't have to be seething like cockroaches all the time. This is a lecture not a dance video. OK, I've vented. I enjoy the lectures and have subbed.

How does someone poor ever hope to engage with you in a classroom setting im just wondering, i havent done much research but i assume that youre a professor at a reputable art school

@StudioPractice1

4 ай бұрын

Apply to Cranbrook Academy of Art 2D Department- I am also working on something called “artschoolrejects” It’s not public yet - but will give people a chance to “take classes” and get mentoring.

Applied to art presented in social media feeds, "Praise such as "You've done great!" is counterproductive. Growth stems from grappling with problems within the work, as suggested by the Hegelian dialectic." ... I'm thinking Instagram has become an emotional support platform that simply gives an artist a feeling of being loved based on likes in the attack phase of ADSR in an INDIRECT presence of a work.