Vuc Cosic is a new media artist who was part of the
movement, net.art in the early 90’s. Net.art is another way of saying internet
art, which is made to be viewed online and no other way. It was difficult to
find much of his art because some of the links on the website are no longer
good. Also, the website for Vuc Cosic focuses on other artists from the net.art
movement.
History of Art for the Airports is a series of images, some
of them animated, that are simplified versions of famous artworks. They are
simplified to look like the signs in airports. Cosic has an interest in
history, having originally been an archaeologist, which explains his choice of
showing artworks through history.
The piece titled Venus
is representing the famous statue, Venus
de Milo, which is missing both arms. So in Cosic’s piece, he simplified it
by making it look like the instantly recognizable symbol for woman, and cut of
the arms where they were severed in the statue.
He also did several images from
films, like King Kong. He placed the woman symbol on top of a hand symbol and
animated it so that the hand gets bigger, like it is moving up toward you. This
is recognizable as King Kong because the hand is much larger than the woman,
showing the scale, and this actually occurs in the movie.
Most of these images are recognizable to most people and the
simplified versions become humorous because we are familiar with the originals
and with the style of airport signs and the combination of the two creates a
new meaning. The airport symbols, like bathroom signs, are designed to be
universally recognizable; they are incredibly simplified so that everyone will
understand what they mean. For example, bathroom signs are separated into men’s
and women’s by one simple thing: the woman is wearing a dress. Other than that,
they are exactly the same. So by simplifying these artworks, he is making them
more iconic and more recognizable to everyone. He is breaking them down into
the most prominent features, the features that we would remember about that
piece. So when we see the sign, we can recognize that one element and be able
to identify the piece or the artist.
Warhol, Cambell's Soup Can
Duchamp, Nude Descending Staircase
Lumiere Brothers, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
Citations:
http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/history/
http://rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/1725/
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