Catch up: Art and Identity, Art and Architecture

Art and Identity - Yasumasa Morimura
Morimura is a Japanese artist who reenacts iconic western images, such as Marilyn Monroe in her wind-swept dress pose or Manet's Olympia. Morimura transforms himself as a homage to the "idealised distant world" he was exposed to in post-war japan as a child. Morimura works are seen rather than the usual subversion to be an exploration of these ideals and their place in his westernised-japanese identity. this it seen through the introduction of japanese elements to the original western icon, for example in the work Futago (1988) Morimura swaps the fabric on the bed to an overtly japanese style this added to the replacement of Manet's feline with the iconic "beckoning cat" and Morimura's own japanese facial features brings the artists identity into the iconic images that he says helped to make his identity.

Art and Architecture - Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio
Diller and Scofidio look at the private and public space and how modern architecture and security systems have altered the way in which these spaces exist and interact. diller and scofidio work alot with security cameras commenting on the act of watching and being watched as an aspect of the architectural space, without the space there would be no need to watch or be watched, public and private wouldn't exist. through this they also look at what is actually being shown, as with master/slave (1999) which shows a procession of toy robots in a modern office like structure through a series of video displays that shows not only the robots as they move through the space but via x-ray the inner workings of the robots within the space calling into question the nature of surveillance and what is still private in a public domain in contemporary society