Publications – In Context

#Superscript15 and the Thrills of Conference Live-Blogging

Sam Wisneski is an art history graduate student, entering her second year in the program. She was recently selected to participate in the first-ever Hyperallergic/Walker Art Center blog mentorship program at the Superscript Conference held May 29-30, 2015.

This might just be the most meta thing you will ever read: a blog post about blogging/writing about a conference about writing.

As an undergraduate student at St. Thomas, I studied Communication and Journalism and Art History, and more than once, I Googled “how to become an art critic,” but never seriously considered it a career option. It seemed like a natural, but unlikely marriage of my majors, given the state of the profession. I did not start thinking about criticism as a career path again until I learned about Superscript, a first-of-its-kind conference about arts journalism and criticism in a digital age at the Walker Art Center – and it wasn’t until I was selected for the inaugural Hyperallergic/Walker Art Center blog mentorship program that I really, seriously started considering what it would mean to become a critic or arts writer.

The Blog Mentorship Program

The purpose the Superscript Conference was to bring together minds from all over the world of arts writing – Buzzfeed Books, The New Inquiry, Frieze, Terraform, Design Observer, Hyperallergic, just to name a few of the varied publications. The blog mentorship program was formed to provide live responses to the conference for publication on Walker and Mn Artists media channels, and to pair wannabe writers with seasoned, world-class arts editors, including Jillian Steinhauer, senior editor of Hyperallergic, Nicole Caruth, former editorial manager at Art21 and founding editor of Art21 Magazine, and Isla Leaver-Yap, the Walker Art Center Benston Film Scholar.

The bloggers hard at work in the pop-up newsroom.

The Enterprising Trio of Mentees

I was in great company for Superscript weekend. My fellow bloggers included the delightful, stylish and brash Merray Gerges, a graduate of the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design (NSCAD) and founder of CRIT, a quarterly newspaper, based in Halifax, and the equally stylish, quick-witted, Haiku-master, Ryohei Ozaki, a Princeton grad who hails from New York and former editor of The P rinceton Buffer. (You can read all of the bloggers’ content on the sidebar of the Superscript Reader.)

Our first evening together was a whirlwind – foreshadowing what was to come the following days. We devised a tentative approach to who would cover what over dinner and drinks, and then set off to the Walker for its Thursday night program, Everyone’s a Critic, where we rubbed elbows with writers and other arts professionals.

The Conference

The first day of the conference, Merray covered the opening panel while Ryohei and I hunkered down in the Walker library, devising our first posts. I covered the second panel, “Sustainability, Growth and Ethics,” which was illuminating, disheartening and inspiring all at once. I left with no illusions about writer pay. I learned that advocating for yourself, especially as a woman, is paramount for survival as a writer, and that pay, is indeed “universally paltry,” a vow of poverty, even. Still, the discussion left something to be desired, particularly in relation to emerging writers, which I wrote about for Mn Artists.

The Sustainability, Growth and Ethics Panel Q&A

My next assignment was to interview keynote speaker and London-based artist James Bridle, who was elusive the first day of the conference. Moments after I went to bed Friday, I received an email, firming up the plans to interview James. The first hour of my Saturday morning was a frantic cram to better familiarize myself with his work, as I did not want to look like an uncultured or entitled knob when interviewing him.

I hastily crafted an email, trying to reach James, realizing I’d probably have to track him down in person, as he was likely writing a keynote or actually attending the Superscript panels – something I didn’t actually get to do as much of as I’d like, since I was hacking away at blog posts in our makeshift “pop-up” newsroom.

So, after the first panel on Saturday, I set out to find James, with the help of Merray, who had seen him milling about. I (nervously) ambushed him for a quick interview, for which he graciously obliged, as it meant stealing him away from a conversation with someone he must have known well based on their farewell kiss-on-the-cheek (but maybe British people do that to everyone…?)

We chatted about the New Aesthetic, his newest project, Citizen-Ex, and what he would be talking about at Superscript…and it actually was totally great and super chill. I’ve interviewed people in the past, sure, but, you know, there are pretenses about artists (and British people) and I also find his work really compelling, especially as someone with newly-discovered interests in new media, code, and what we might call “artist activism” which James would probably just call “art.” In short, I was equal parts excited and equal parts freaked out to interview him, and it went swimmingly. I might actually summarize my entire Superscript experience this way…waves of childlike, giddy excitement, punctuated by the anxiety and dread of looming deadlines.

The Aftermath

That was my last blogging assignment for the #Superscript15 weekend. Then, it was on to my post for Hyperallergic, where I provided suggestions for Superscript 2.0. And then Superscript IRL was over – though it lives in on in the form of blog posts, hashtags, and archived video footage, which its creators, Paul Schmelzer and Susannah Schouweiler (both splendid, visionary people) hope to build from in the future.

Superscript was thrilling, overwhelming, inspiring and exhausting – and I imagine it is a lot like what the life of an art writer might feel like. The blog mentorship program rattled me out of the slower, deliberate pace of academic writing, and into a whole new mode of challenging but rewarding reflection. While I revel in a slower pace of writing, I am also hoping to wear the hat of critic-on-the-side moving forward.

July 21, 2015 by Marria Thompson

Books, Faculty, Publications, Research, Uncategorized

Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell: The Point of View for Art and Architecture

Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell is completing a book on the history of Greek art that will be published by Wiley-Blackwell in summer 2014. This entry recounts one of the projects for the book during his trip to Athens in Feb. 2013.

When art historians get pictures to illustrate their research and work, we often rely on photographs that provide the best view of an object or building. For vases in museums, this usually means a straight profile shot showing the shape of the object and its decoration with as much focal depth as possible. Buildings are a bit harder since they have multiple sides and being taller than the average person, harder to see in their entirety unless you have an elevated view. For photographing the Parthenon in Athens, for example, many pictures are made from the Hill of Philopappos to south and west of the Acropolis. From here, one has a clear view of the elevation of the west and south sides of the Parthenon. One can also see the Erechtheion in its entirety, including the Caryatid porch, and, when not covered with scaffolding for restoration, the Propylaia and the Temple of Athena Nike. From this vantage point, the entire Periklean program of Classical Athens is clear to see.

Photo: M. Stansbury-O’Donnell

The problem is that this vantage point is one that very few people, today or in the past, visited. It is a high spot visible from the rest of the city, which is why the Roman Gaius Julius Antiochus Philopappos built an elaborate monument there that can be seen throughout Athens. It was a place to be seen, but not to look from.

In writing my book, I have tried to emphasize the experience of the ancient viewer, and this means reconsidering what the ancient viewer could actually see. Shots like the first picture do not reflect a typical Athenian point of view. There is a place just to the north, however, that was a common vantage point for ancient Athenians: the Pynx. Today, this is a site that is little visited, mostly because it is just a large open bowl on a hill due west of the Acropolis. It is important, however, as the place where the ekklesia, the body of 6000 citizens who voted met as the Assembly of democratic fifth-century Athens. Here they heard speeches and made political decisions, voting on war, peace, public projects, and laws, among other things.

From the Pynx, one has a very different view of the Acropolis and Parthenon. Looking east from the Pynx, one sees full on the gateway of the Propylaia and the Temple of Athena Nike (victory), clearly an important factor in decisions on war. The Parthenon spreads out to the right and to the left the north porch of the Erechtheion, where the most important cults like the sacred olive tree of Athena were housed. From this view on the Pynx, one cannot see the buildings individually as an art historian would look at them for an analysis, but one would see them as Athenians were used to seeing them, while they were carrying out one of their most important roles as citizens. Undoubtedly, this was one goal for the Periklean building program, to make, as Perikles said, the citizens of Athens look upon their city and become lovers of that city.

Photo: M. Stansbury-O’Donnell

I realized after I had written about this in several different chapters that I myself did not have a good photograph of the Acropolis from the Pynx. My photos were either too blurry or hazy or cloudy to use for publication, and that was true of some other photos I had that were made from the point of view of the Athenian rather than the art historian. In February, I had to spend several days in different parts of the city, working around the weather, to get the six or seven good photos that I needed for the book. Of course, the Parthenon now has a giant crane on rails in front of it as they work on restoring the building, but that is good for another point in the book, the preservation of the past.

April 4, 2013 by m9stansburyo