This summer has presented me with a challenge. While most of my peers and prior students are peacefully slumbering in their beds at 6:00 a.m. each morning, I am dreading the seemingly never-ending power struggle between me and my persistent and stubborn alarm clock . While others may observe this little object as an ordinary looking dime store clock, I experience it as a gruesome, black plastic monster with evil red flashing eyes whose only sadistic objective in its electronic life is to make my waking moments miserable. Coffee doesn't help.

It has been challenging to not only involuntarily awaken myself at this time of day, but to also awaken the minds of oftentimes skeptical individuals to the value and relevance of art in their lives. Most of the students in my summer art appreciation course are not art majors. Many are not even fully conscious when I meet with them promptly at 7:30 a.m.

I often begin such a course with perception problems. To fully understand and experience art, one needs to strengthen and synchronize the connections between the body, the senses, and the mind. Perception, to me, is a physiological/sensual/intellectual receptiveness, involvement, and response to a given subject, environment or idea. To engage student perception I often have to find ways of challenging preconceived expectations or ideas. This fosters creative thinking. Once those avenues have been opened, students often become more receptive to applying these creative approaches to their experience and understanding of fine art.

One morning I was running late and at the last minute realized I had not prepared for a perception exercise. Frantically I ran about my home. I rummaged through my storage closet, under my bed, and through my mess of art supplies. At the conclusion of this mad rush, I produced a bag-full of 50 or so, small medicine bottles which I had picked up some time ago, somewhere, for some purpose, approximately 30 small white jewelry boxes (same deal), a bag full of hundreds of tiny plastic flies (yes, flies- don't ask), some colorful origami paper, some tape, paper clips and scissors. I then hurried off to school, full of spontaneous inspiration. I was energized!

I can not fully capture with words the range of conflicted expressions upon my dozing students' faces when observing this random selection of materials upon my desk. The facial expressions grew more contorted once they were informed they would be making "meaningful artwork" out of these objects, and that they would publicly present and discuss their pieces to the class. They would be given approximately 20-25 minutes to accomplish this task, working in small groups.

The lesson was related to the stages of the creative process, which had also been conveniently typed out for them in the form of a handout. However, I have learned as both a teacher and as a student that such things are relatively meaningless and short-term. To remember and truly understand such things, one must tackle them through direct experience.

Not only did students end up having lots of fun with this perception exercise and learned about the creative process, they learned so much more. They learned that something meaningful truly can be created out of the humblest of materials. They learned that materials can be manipulated and have a symbolic potential in and of themselves. They learned that the configurations they created revealed more about themselves, their experiences, their desires, fears, and concerns than they could've revealed through words alone.

Those cheap, insignificant plastic flies became transformed into studies of personality types, family members, armies, actors on a stage, workers at an airport. One student even took the wings off the flies and created an imaginative flower out of them. Paper clips became wheels for automobiles, antennae, and dinner plates. Jewelry boxes became homes, stages, automobiles, beds. It was truly amazing to see the variety of solutions to this problem-and every solution told a story. One dealt with domestic relationships. Another with the politics of war. One dealt with death, another with the effects of drug abuse.

And once the stories were shared with the class, it was revealed that at least one member in the group had dealt with these issues in their lives, either recently or in the past. Their solutions, in other words, were not random as they had initially thought. Their concepts were extensions of their own experiences. It was not until I asked them specific questions relating to their subject matter that they began to see the connection between "it" and "them". A mother had children who acted in school plays; her group was the one which devised the idea of flies on a stage performing (guess what?) "Lord of the Flies". Another student is from Serbia; his group staged a battle between the opposing armies of flies and spiders. Another group had constructed an airport scene; one member of the group is in flight academy. All of it was relevant to their life experience. For some this came as a surprise, as they did not consciously make this connection during the creative process itself.

When we observe artworks, it is important, I believe, to understand this connection between the artist and his work. Even the most nonobjective artwork is inextricably related to the artist-individual. Each choice the artist makes, consciously or not, is an extension of his reality--his soul if you will. Each decision of addition or subtraction, in the case of editing, is also part of this revelation. We, too, as viewers consciously (or more likely unconsciously) inject our expectations, desires, fears, prejudices, etc. into the forms of art we confront as well as those we decide not to confront. Not only do we learn about the artist's life and experiences when appreciating his or her artwork; we also reveal something about ourselves through the way we respond, ignore, debate and consider art. Art that both attracts and repels us ultimately reveals us if we let it. Through that level of participation, self-knowledge is increased.

In the previous segment of "The Shoulders of Giants", I introduced you to a "perception problem" of a different sort. We first generally observed the work of Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. We observed the subject matter, form, and general content of the photographic work. We explored our own initial preconceptions and assumptions about the photograph; and realized that the artist set out to challenge them, especially once we realized the female subject in the photograph was indeed the artist himself. Information about the artist was revealed to complement our understanding of the piece. What was emphasized in that exercise was the process of perception, regardless of personal taste or preference.

I then introduced another contemporary artist to you, Cindy Sherman. This added another layer to your experience of the Morimura piece. Once you visited her artwork online, you saw some definite similarities between her photograph and that of Morimura.

Perhaps you became less interested in Morimura, realizing his artwork was not unique nor original. Perhaps it spiked your curiosity some more. From this point onwards, we'll dive into yet another layer of understanding in regards to these artist's works, beyond the formal level with which we began this analysis.

Remember that the art object is an inextricable extension of the artist's consciousness; the artist's experience. Remember, too, what my students learned firsthand: art is something that is constructed. Evidently both Morimura and Sherman had similar visual building blocks with which to begin their artworks…just as my entire classroom of students were given the same raw materials. However, it is how those materials are manipulated and the message they convey that creates the meaning. We will see where the similarities lie, yes, but ironically we'll see what differences those similarities reveal. It will help to know a little bit about our second artist, Cindy Sherman, before we go any further.

Cindy Sherman is a highly acclaimed American contemporary artist. She had a retrospective of her work recently while in her early 30's…something quite unique in the art world. She has revolutionized how photography is presented and valued as an art form; now more than ever, photography is considered an equal among more "traditional" art forms, including painting or sculpture. She has influenced a wide variety of artists, as well, including Yasumasa Morimura whom we previously discussed.

Cindy Sherman does not refer to herself as a photographer in the traditional sense, despite the fact that it is through the medium of photography she conveys her ideas. Her art is heavily based upon ideas, and in that sense, she can be said to be a conceptual artist. Like Morimura, she is the subject posed within the photograph. In fact, she is in almost every photograph she takes. In that sense she can be considered a performance artist. Her training in art school was in the medium of painting (in fact, she failed one of her photography classes!). When observing her color choices, lighting quality and compositional arrangements, these painterly elements stand out in her work. Her photography, therefore, operates on several levels, thus making it right at home with the style known as "postmodernism", which we'll discuss a bit later in more detail.

In Sherman's work, each photograph offers a unique "reality" which does not relate in a narrative manner to her other photographs; they do not tell or illustrate stories. She wants the viewer to devise content based upon his own associations with the work. (Therefore, the steps we used to analyze the piece by Morimura apply here as well.) However, she does consider works along a generalized theme; for example, she is most famous, perhaps, for her body of work referred to as "Film Stills". These works were black and white photographic "snapshots" of isolated women in various environments. The scenes are reminiscent of old Hollywood "B" movies which starred unknown, typecast young women. She later went on to work with color photography and increasingly elaborate and intricateprops and scenery.

Sherman adorns costumes, wigs, prosthetics, stage makeup, etc to become the "characters" found within the scenes she constructs. She insists her work has nothing to do with herself directly in the sense that the characters aren't chosen to represent different aspects of her own personality or experience. Her earlier works, especially, deal with the conventionalized representation of women in the media. Many pieces serve to disrupt our expectations in this regard. By this, I mean she stimulates our desire to know who the women are, where they are, what their circumstances are.

And yet she gives us precisely not enough answers or clues to satiate our curiosity. She implies a Hollywood plot line, a sitcom story, a moment in a horror flick…yet doesn't deliver according to our expectations. This forces the viewer to give up his conditioned passivity and invites him to construct meaning. The viewer creates the plot.

Sherman reveals how class, sex, gender, etc. have been represented through stylistic conventions. She explores how images can convey & construct such aspects in relation to identity. Not only is she inspired by movies, but also fashion advertising, 70s sitcoms, centerfolds, horror films, fairy tales, etc.

Appropriation is a technique used by artists to challenge traditional notions of originality, and the value assigned to it. Postmodern art, the category I would place both Sherman and Morimura in, especially promotes this approach as a means of analysis and critique of cultural forms. Sherman appropriates the visual language of film and television. She appropriates types of characters and types of situations found in a movie plot. She chooses this technique consciously, yet applies it creatively by choreographing the means with which to visually communicate her idea. Many postmodern artists appropriate ideas and forms from other artists and present it in such a way as to draw attention to the altered context itself. This altered context functions as a "frame" by which we can achieve a critical distance and thus analyze the artist's form and content in light of what has been appropriated.

Postmodern artists also are interested in deconstructing traditional notions of what various art media have been, and can be. For example, Sherman's work is not straight photography. She integrates other artistic disciplines into the work, as well. She perceives the function of photography as a means to document these private "performances". (By the way, she works totally alone- she prefers no one else be part of her creative process.)

Both Sherman and Morimura deconstruct the notion that a photograph is an accurate, objective visual record of collective "reality". In fact, both artists reveal that photography is a "lie" in this regard. Again, reflect upon the perception exercise my students performed. Their task was to create something meaningful from a set of random objects. While the objects used were real in a tangible sense, the art which sprung from that was a consciously created construction. It was a different sort of reality, presented and experienced within a specified context. Both Sherman and Morimura are constructing fabricated "realities" from actual materials. Yet these materials are specifically designed for the purpose of disguise: they use prosthetics, costumes, wigs, set design, lighting design and other props to create their scenes. What results is a cleverly crafted veneer.

These artists explore how media such as TV, film, posters, magazine advertisements, etc. pervade our culture, and in many ways, define it. A photograph, as a painting or sculpture, is a construction; it is a selection of one's experience that one has chosen to "frame" and present to an audience. It is not objective, nor is it real in the literal sense. It is a set of decisions, values, cultural conventions, biases and power relationships. These artists reveal that these media possess a good deal of power within our culture; they have the ability to influence, to varying degrees, our identities, our beliefs, our decisions- now, and in the past.

We understand Sherman is dealing with notions of how women especially, have been portrayed in the media-particularly film, in this case. She reveals the multitude of "masks" that we use as identifiers within our culture. But: What does it mean for someone from a different culture and different sex to pose himself in a role she is critiquing and deconstructing?

Yasumasa Morimura comes from a non-Western culture. Yet, the culture and economy of Japan is tied to our own, and vice-versa. He appropriates a contemporary Western artwork by Cindy Sherman. He appropriates the subject matter and form found within her work, which is based upon memories and associations with Western film imagery. He steals the pose, the medium. Yet we react quite differently to his piece, even though both artists have set out to communicate what seems to be the same statement. Perhaps by Morimura taking the pose as an "outsider" to this American cultural legacy, it reveals the falseness of it all that much more. He adds another layer to the mask. Perhaps culture too, is itself a construction.

In case you were wondering, Sherman's photograph came first. But in the spirit of postmodernism, it does not devalue Morimura's piece at all; in fact, it helps us perceive another layer to his work that without the reference to Sherman, would be lost.

Morimura, unlike Cindy Sherman, does mimic actual celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in his photographs. Sherman, on the other hand, appropriates the conventions and styles, but not specific pieces. None of her works represent actual films, she does not represent any identifiable Hollywood starlets. She invents all the characters, costumes and poses. In this sense, despite the visual appearance of their works, the two artists are markedly different.

Morimura, perhaps, appropriates the actual identity of Hollywood starlets and art world "stars" (which indeed Sherman is) to reveal the dominance of Western art and culture throughout the industrialized world. Western art and film have had formidable impact around the world, and perhaps Morimura shows us these icons have perhaps even subsumed his own heritage. He also shows us in a very humorous manner how ridiculous some of these icons are which have assumed so much power and influence within our culture. On the other hand, he reveals to us how now, living in a "multicultural" society, our cultures have overlapped and merged to become something of a hybrid form - but while we may see the overlap, we can still also see the seam. Despite the Americanized image, he is still unmistakably a Japanese artist coming from a different tradition. Despite all of the incredible effort put forth to disguise, assume and mimic the subject, he ultimately fails. The construction, as seductive as it may be, is ultimately revealed as such.

These works by Sherman and Morimura are multileveled, and despite their initial and apparent similarity, they are quite different in terms of how they communicate to us. We understand that the relationship of each artist to the culture, media and subject are unique from each other, despite the visual similarities. We learn that the sex, culture and race of the artist does indeed affect, for better or worse, our response and interpretation of an artwork. We learn that our own cultural background affects what we see and how we see it. We learned that our own individual pasts, memories and associations affect how we interpret an image. And there is always more to learn.