In Italian, "tra" means between, often used as a reference to a time frame. X tra - extra - too much - not enough time - in between times/moments - non-permenance - x marks the spot? - does it? - this spot - this place - in time - a moment - never arriving - arriving - journey - motion - falling - rain - growth - transition - trasferirsi - to move oneself - transmutation - permanent change? - permanence - change - cambiare - sempre - there is - there isn't - ho cambiata - cambiero - passato - presente - futuro - breaking down - building up - experience - a $2000.00 shot of Napoleon's whiskey - why? - perche no? - cause I can -
When I think about art, my initial thoughts go to a museum, then maybe a gallery, a show, etc..., all these places where the art is regarded as something sacred or special. Ancient works are often referred to as "treasures", and indeed, I agree, yet, when proposed the idea of ..."What Remains of a Rembrandt Torn into Little Regular Squares and Flushed Down the Toilet..."a huge manuscript on Rembrandt by Jean Genet, which Genet himself torn up and flushed down the toilet, is a very interesting concept to me. I have seen many Rembrandt's, they are haunting in the way in which one is confronted by the portraits' humaness and the figure stands more naked before you with their gaze than if they were nude. They are magnificent. "Genet writes of Rembrandt: 'It is from the moment when he depersonalizes his models, when he strips all identifiable qualities from objects, that he gives both the most weight, the greatest reality...But it was necessary that Rembrandt recognize and accept himself as a being of flesh...of meat, of blubber, of blood, of tears, of sweat, of shit, of intelligence and tenderness, of still other things, to infinity, but none denying the others, or better, each saluting the others.'" ..."You are me, as you are we, and we are all together..." - Lennon; to truly see the self, to see the self as all others, to see the self as these separate objects of disintegrating waste or accumulative intangible qualities or defects - defecate - waste - waste away - death - dissemination - and then what is true, what perchance is truth? "Everything is approximate, even less than approximate, for if you peer more closely, even the most perfect painting is a filthy, wart infested approximation...Form had turned to formless, the finite into infinite, the individual into totality."
Friday, February 29, 2008
Life, death and unity
As I began reading “Water Closet” I found myself lost and frustrated as I often do when reading this book. To be honest I couldn’t really connect or follow it until about half way through the chapter. I began to understand and even enjoy the reading when I started to understand the ideas of entropy, unity and death. The author quotes Bataille saying “essentially all beings are only one.” I really like this because it communicates the way that people, and indeed art as well, are all connected in life as in death. Not only do humans live and die but so can art and other non-living things. They also quote Jean Arp where a beautiful image is created where decomposition and death create new life and continuity in a new way. Arp talks about how imperfections in art showing the process of the art, or decomposition of the art can be viewed as something beautiful rather than imperfections and deaths of art.
When the authors begin talking about the idea of cutting paper into unique strips and claiming it is special in it’s process, I can not relate. I think I understand what they are saying, the process of doing something, for example cutting paper, is unique to one experience, moment and time. When the moment is later remembered by looking at the art it can not be re-experienced only viewed and remembered. I think they are saying that the experience is sacred if for no other reason that it can not be recreated at any other point in time. To me this is easy to understand, but I find it boring and even a little inconsequential. Why dwell on a moment that can not be relived? Certainly every moment is unique, but how you capture that could be more interesting that cutting paper in my opinion. Maybe what I can gather from this is that my own experiences can be unique and more interesting if I share them in other ways. Maybe it is a challenge to me rather than inconsequential nonsensical blabber.
Mcollum’s talks about the beauty in nature is fascinating to me. I really like the idea of emphasizing, duplicating or recreating nature in art pieces. Nature is the purest and most interesting form of art to me because it is everywhere and in no way created by anyone. I like the innate beauty that nature offers. The display of fossils and dinosaur tracks is beautiful because it recreates life and nature millions of years ago. I really respect this recreation of life long after it died and decomposed and is now being burned in my car as fuel. I see a connection between this idea of recreating life from long ago and this entropic idea of decomposition and unity. I like the connection between life and death and the display of both.
-sean
When the authors begin talking about the idea of cutting paper into unique strips and claiming it is special in it’s process, I can not relate. I think I understand what they are saying, the process of doing something, for example cutting paper, is unique to one experience, moment and time. When the moment is later remembered by looking at the art it can not be re-experienced only viewed and remembered. I think they are saying that the experience is sacred if for no other reason that it can not be recreated at any other point in time. To me this is easy to understand, but I find it boring and even a little inconsequential. Why dwell on a moment that can not be relived? Certainly every moment is unique, but how you capture that could be more interesting that cutting paper in my opinion. Maybe what I can gather from this is that my own experiences can be unique and more interesting if I share them in other ways. Maybe it is a challenge to me rather than inconsequential nonsensical blabber.
Mcollum’s talks about the beauty in nature is fascinating to me. I really like the idea of emphasizing, duplicating or recreating nature in art pieces. Nature is the purest and most interesting form of art to me because it is everywhere and in no way created by anyone. I like the innate beauty that nature offers. The display of fossils and dinosaur tracks is beautiful because it recreates life and nature millions of years ago. I really respect this recreation of life long after it died and decomposed and is now being burned in my car as fuel. I see a connection between this idea of recreating life from long ago and this entropic idea of decomposition and unity. I like the connection between life and death and the display of both.
-sean
Thursday, February 28, 2008
"inside-out"
Thinking of entropy I think of a process going from order to disorder or going from a state of obtainment to loss. A state of transition where something is is further removed from the comfortable state it was previously. The idea of Egyptian paste and the process of "burn out" intrigues me because it turns objects "inside-out" filling in once empty spaces and exposing enclosed ones. This state of "inside-out" and "outside-in" seems disorderly because it is the opposite of reality. In X Marks The Spot, Bruce Nauman and his casts of interstitial space explore the idea of distorting reality by creating material forms of formally empty spaces created by solid common objects. The idea of order through containment must be thought of differently as open and closed spaces are switched, redefining what is the apropriate and familiar way to look at objects. Would we recognize our world if empty and solid spaces were switched? It seems not.
Water Closet and X marks the spot
Entropic closet X
'"Strong communication" is not accessible through the language of common usage.' ' The human being is dissolved in "strong communication," by opening a tear in [oneself] through which [one] loses "a part of [ones] own being to the profit of the communal being...."'
How much of our daily communication is strong? Much more than we are aware of. How many times have I had an intense, emotion filled conversation with someone and not until the next day do i understand what was talked about, only to find that the topic was about a completely different thing? How much do we dance around the thing we really want to communicate? Perhaps accessing "strong communication" is painful. "Loss" is often congruent with grief. And yet we are at a loss when we miss opportunities to access the profits of the communal being. Communal being? seems to me the phenomenon I have accessed in certain altered states in which there is connection with all things, the idea of separation vanishes as does attachment to the ego or self - the loss of self. The profits? as infinite as all that is.
"'...I knew I was identical to this man.' The identity of the self is canceled in this revelation. The self is disseminated, since if all men equal one another, 'each man is every other man.' 'No man was my brother: each man was myself, but temporarily isolated in his individual skin.' 'Essentially all beings are only one. They repel each other at the same time that they are one. And in this movement-which is their essence-the fundamental identity is annulled.'"
These thoughts bring me back to "The Sacred" project, each drop of water, an individual, yet they fall onto the land, seep into the groundwater, which flows to a stream, which flows to a river, which flows to an ocean, which evaporates into the atmosphere, which collects and becomes rain, new rain, which falls again. This clay that I use contains the minerals from the bones of my ancestors, from the fossils of transgressed oceans, the sedimentary layers of the earths crust worn down to clay by the drops of water.
How much of our daily communication is strong? Much more than we are aware of. How many times have I had an intense, emotion filled conversation with someone and not until the next day do i understand what was talked about, only to find that the topic was about a completely different thing? How much do we dance around the thing we really want to communicate? Perhaps accessing "strong communication" is painful. "Loss" is often congruent with grief. And yet we are at a loss when we miss opportunities to access the profits of the communal being. Communal being? seems to me the phenomenon I have accessed in certain altered states in which there is connection with all things, the idea of separation vanishes as does attachment to the ego or self - the loss of self. The profits? as infinite as all that is.
"'...I knew I was identical to this man.' The identity of the self is canceled in this revelation. The self is disseminated, since if all men equal one another, 'each man is every other man.' 'No man was my brother: each man was myself, but temporarily isolated in his individual skin.' 'Essentially all beings are only one. They repel each other at the same time that they are one. And in this movement-which is their essence-the fundamental identity is annulled.'"
These thoughts bring me back to "The Sacred" project, each drop of water, an individual, yet they fall onto the land, seep into the groundwater, which flows to a stream, which flows to a river, which flows to an ocean, which evaporates into the atmosphere, which collects and becomes rain, new rain, which falls again. This clay that I use contains the minerals from the bones of my ancestors, from the fossils of transgressed oceans, the sedimentary layers of the earths crust worn down to clay by the drops of water.
negative space
When I was reading x-marks the spot about how that artist filled the empty space under his chair with clay and that became the art form. I like that idea of taking spaces that get over looked and creating a solitary form from it. I started searching negative spaces on google and found a couple different artist. I looked at the monumental creation called double negative. It has been eroded over time, but is still recognizable from the air. Then when were started discussing what our group's objectives or thoughts were for the entropy final project, we discussed negative space. I brought in my first pair of running shoes and I am going to fill the inside of them with the paste, so hopefully the shoe burns away and the inside form is left. Everybody in the group started thinking of things they wanted to fill and we began determining if the object needed to be personal or just any object. Then we thought back to things that are sacred or personal and the image of a shrine came to mind. We could put anything in the shrine and for whatever meaning, it will have meaning because it is in the shrine. Then we digressed back to negative space and decided to fill the entire kiln with the shrine and our objects inside. When we first put the shrine in the kiln with all the objects inside. It will have order and look like an untouched shrine, but then we will fire it and the order will be burnt away. Entropy will be evident and the shrine will represent the space within the kiln after firing.
Congealing the Paradigm
X Marks the Spot
Finally an article…where the boat doesn’t seem docked at the asylum. Entropy. I wonder, is life and design nothing more than framing empty space?
Novel concept of Bruce Nauman to cast empty space. We need it, we design for it, we work around it, and yet it has no substance. Dealing with that invisible elephant in the middle of the room is always a problem. We place items in space, create items that won’t work without space to move through, or allow other things to work. It is the final ingredient in the recipe, and it won’t work without it. Yet the space has no visible context.
Casting Empty Space -
When I think of casting to reveal a form the image of the plaster casts of the victims made from the ruins of Pompeii comes to mind. Maybe the most surprising casts ever made, these empty cavities revealed the final moments of people dying from the volcanic eruption. Shocking and poignant, but there is nothing left of them but empty space….like the underside of the chair. Yet the person who has long since vanished can be seen like a still photograph.
But, unlike Nauman’s work, without a title you have no idea what his work is, in this case the cast is a revelation of the unknown. You don’t need a title to know what it is once it dries. With these empty tubes or spaces, unless they had plaster poured in them, they would simply have been empty space.
I find it interesting that in casting the footprints of dinosaurs he runs into the conflict if repeated too much; industrial or biological. Is that any different than the plaster cast of a dog from Pompeii that is now repeated over and over? I don’t think I'm going to order one for the family room, but somebody must be. (tried to include picture in document but didn't go - picuture of 20 plaster casts of same dog)
Is life a case of entropy, that we are constantly moving toward change. Filling a space, yet eventually we vanish unless we are cast like the people in Pompeii. But, the only way to make that is to vanish. At least the foot prints in the muck were not of an animal at the moment they were dying.
Again I find my mind saying does casting a hundred fragments in 4 colors and then displaying them appeal to my sense of time well spent? No. But, in 2000 years will people be making casts of decayed items from a dump, and wondering about us like the ancient animals?
Finally an article…where the boat doesn’t seem docked at the asylum. Entropy. I wonder, is life and design nothing more than framing empty space?
Novel concept of Bruce Nauman to cast empty space. We need it, we design for it, we work around it, and yet it has no substance. Dealing with that invisible elephant in the middle of the room is always a problem. We place items in space, create items that won’t work without space to move through, or allow other things to work. It is the final ingredient in the recipe, and it won’t work without it. Yet the space has no visible context.
Casting Empty Space -
When I think of casting to reveal a form the image of the plaster casts of the victims made from the ruins of Pompeii comes to mind. Maybe the most surprising casts ever made, these empty cavities revealed the final moments of people dying from the volcanic eruption. Shocking and poignant, but there is nothing left of them but empty space….like the underside of the chair. Yet the person who has long since vanished can be seen like a still photograph.
But, unlike Nauman’s work, without a title you have no idea what his work is, in this case the cast is a revelation of the unknown. You don’t need a title to know what it is once it dries. With these empty tubes or spaces, unless they had plaster poured in them, they would simply have been empty space.
I find it interesting that in casting the footprints of dinosaurs he runs into the conflict if repeated too much; industrial or biological. Is that any different than the plaster cast of a dog from Pompeii that is now repeated over and over? I don’t think I'm going to order one for the family room, but somebody must be. (tried to include picture in document but didn't go - picuture of 20 plaster casts of same dog)
Is life a case of entropy, that we are constantly moving toward change. Filling a space, yet eventually we vanish unless we are cast like the people in Pompeii. But, the only way to make that is to vanish. At least the foot prints in the muck were not of an animal at the moment they were dying.
Again I find my mind saying does casting a hundred fragments in 4 colors and then displaying them appeal to my sense of time well spent? No. But, in 2000 years will people be making casts of decayed items from a dump, and wondering about us like the ancient animals?
Definitions of Entropy
So, there is apparently many definitions of entropy, and they all seem to have rather different meanings. I think that one of the definitions (or meanings of the word), namely: 3. A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message, is what Yve-Alain Bois is talking about in the first part of Water Closet, especially when he refers to Bataille's "own entropic interpretation of the phenomenon of mimicry as 'depersonalization by assimilation to space.'" As always, I feel there is a great "loss of information in a transmitted message" when I read this book, but now at least I know what to call it :)
In more general terms, then, I think this first part is about the 'entropy' in communication as Bataille sees it, to various degrees. For example, he–– Bataille––criticizes Genet for "maintaining a 'glass partition' between himself and us", apparently a view he shares with Sartre (To make a comment on that from my own perspective, I would say it is impossible to communicate to anyone without having some sort of 'filter' between you and the recipient, no matter how much you are trying to send out a 100% clear message). So, all in all, it is about communication in one way or the other. One of the more extreme forms of 'communication' is then described in what Genet calls a "epiphany" where he "knew I was identical to this man ..." Oh well, I'm not 100% sure that the other man felt exactly the same as he did ...
When, as always in this book, Bois is talking about how different artists can be said to take use of these different 'theories', it always becomes much clearer and more interesting(?) too. I found Jean Arp's notes on 'papiers déchirés' to be very interesting, and especially how he describes the meaninglessness of perfectness, and how everything is an approximation, at the best. It seems to me that his picture 'papiers déchirés' is an attempt at describing entropy in an almost finalized stage, as in another definition of entropy [4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.] except that it is not the universe he is describing, but something that at one point was 'form' now is something else, or as he says it "form had turned into formlessness". To me, this seems to be in harmony, so I don't quite understand the comments in the book that he moves away from this, and to a "return to an essential order, to a harmony ..."
Jumping forward a bit: I really like Allan McCollum's piece "Natural Copies from the Coal Mines of Central Utah". For the most part I like it because I think it can 'communicate' to a lot of different people on a lot of different levels. It has an immidiate 'superficial' appealing appearance to it, but also a much deeper, layered quality that will only become clearer if you take interest in it and explore it more thoroughly.
... more to come, if needed ...
In more general terms, then, I think this first part is about the 'entropy' in communication as Bataille sees it, to various degrees. For example, he–– Bataille––criticizes Genet for "maintaining a 'glass partition' between himself and us", apparently a view he shares with Sartre (To make a comment on that from my own perspective, I would say it is impossible to communicate to anyone without having some sort of 'filter' between you and the recipient, no matter how much you are trying to send out a 100% clear message). So, all in all, it is about communication in one way or the other. One of the more extreme forms of 'communication' is then described in what Genet calls a "epiphany" where he "knew I was identical to this man ..." Oh well, I'm not 100% sure that the other man felt exactly the same as he did ...
When, as always in this book, Bois is talking about how different artists can be said to take use of these different 'theories', it always becomes much clearer and more interesting(?) too. I found Jean Arp's notes on 'papiers déchirés' to be very interesting, and especially how he describes the meaninglessness of perfectness, and how everything is an approximation, at the best. It seems to me that his picture 'papiers déchirés' is an attempt at describing entropy in an almost finalized stage, as in another definition of entropy [4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.] except that it is not the universe he is describing, but something that at one point was 'form' now is something else, or as he says it "form had turned into formlessness". To me, this seems to be in harmony, so I don't quite understand the comments in the book that he moves away from this, and to a "return to an essential order, to a harmony ..."
Jumping forward a bit: I really like Allan McCollum's piece "Natural Copies from the Coal Mines of Central Utah". For the most part I like it because I think it can 'communicate' to a lot of different people on a lot of different levels. It has an immidiate 'superficial' appealing appearance to it, but also a much deeper, layered quality that will only become clearer if you take interest in it and explore it more thoroughly.
... more to come, if needed ...
The Empty Closet -
The Water Closet
The first article brings out a variety of feelings for me. It seems my inborn desire to try and organize things or at the very least sort things out. Of course if you looked at my desk at home you would really wonder exactly what my definition of organized is. But, compared with what these articles are about….there is no comparison. What these articles are really about is taking things that are organized and breaking them down. The real question I struggle with…is this even scholarship…is this creativity....is any idea good a good idea? Let’s tear up something and flush it down the toilet….so cleaver..?….my dad didn’t think so when he had to call the plumber. Is this a search for the childhood play. Or interviews with the few people who survived a suicide leap from the Golden Gate Bridge.,true story..when ask when did they decide that it was a bad idea? All said the moment just after they let go… To describe the thinking that went into these articles as mainstream would disingenuous on my part. After a while my sense of reverse entropy kicked and I wondered who in the world some of these people were….and why am I reading about them?
George Batille –AKA - Lord Auch, Pierre Angélique, Louis Trente described as “metaphysician of evil”, interests are described as: sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. Major influences include Marques de Sade and Gilles de Rais a serial child killer. Rejected traditional literature.. ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. A real life Librarian for 20 years. Imagine how much more he could have done with the Internet…computer and a camera. Supposedly he had some enthusiastic supporters. Sorry…don’t feel the need to bring him home to meet the family.
Jean Genet - French writer, a dramatist and convicted felon – a man addicted to theft – eventually free - he wrote who about the underworld and homosexual love.
Jean Arp – now here is a guy – who I feel got over himself – the ritualistic tearing that he tried – and some of his work that was supposed to be random sure doesn’t look like it…he give it up and never went back to it. As is quoted on page 208: “ I believe even more than I did in my youth, that a return to an essential order, to a harmony, is necessary to save the world from endless bedlam.”
So…is there a point? Are we missing brain cells if it’s hard to make sense…out of nonsense?
I feel there is somebody like Victor Spinsky and his artistic friend hiding in the bushes watching all this…( like his stories about the garbage man trying to empty his ceramic garbage can only to have it shatter in his hands or the fake giant reptile left by the freeway that stopped traffic).. and are laughing their asses off!
The first article brings out a variety of feelings for me. It seems my inborn desire to try and organize things or at the very least sort things out. Of course if you looked at my desk at home you would really wonder exactly what my definition of organized is. But, compared with what these articles are about….there is no comparison. What these articles are really about is taking things that are organized and breaking them down. The real question I struggle with…is this even scholarship…is this creativity....is any idea good a good idea? Let’s tear up something and flush it down the toilet….so cleaver..?….my dad didn’t think so when he had to call the plumber. Is this a search for the childhood play. Or interviews with the few people who survived a suicide leap from the Golden Gate Bridge.,true story..when ask when did they decide that it was a bad idea? All said the moment just after they let go… To describe the thinking that went into these articles as mainstream would disingenuous on my part. After a while my sense of reverse entropy kicked and I wondered who in the world some of these people were….and why am I reading about them?
George Batille –AKA - Lord Auch, Pierre Angélique, Louis Trente described as “metaphysician of evil”, interests are described as: sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. Major influences include Marques de Sade and Gilles de Rais a serial child killer. Rejected traditional literature.. ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. A real life Librarian for 20 years. Imagine how much more he could have done with the Internet…computer and a camera. Supposedly he had some enthusiastic supporters. Sorry…don’t feel the need to bring him home to meet the family.
Jean Genet - French writer, a dramatist and convicted felon – a man addicted to theft – eventually free - he wrote who about the underworld and homosexual love.
Jean Arp – now here is a guy – who I feel got over himself – the ritualistic tearing that he tried – and some of his work that was supposed to be random sure doesn’t look like it…he give it up and never went back to it. As is quoted on page 208: “ I believe even more than I did in my youth, that a return to an essential order, to a harmony, is necessary to save the world from endless bedlam.”
So…is there a point? Are we missing brain cells if it’s hard to make sense…out of nonsense?
I feel there is somebody like Victor Spinsky and his artistic friend hiding in the bushes watching all this…( like his stories about the garbage man trying to empty his ceramic garbage can only to have it shatter in his hands or the fake giant reptile left by the freeway that stopped traffic).. and are laughing their asses off!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Entropy and Identity
I shall first begin by responding to Water Closet and then proceed to speak about X Marks the Spot in a later blog post. The underlying idea behind Water Closet seems to be that of the entropy of identity through means of communication, by compromising our individuality in order to connect at some level with another being. Bataille speaks about the human being as "dissolved in 'strong communication,' by opening a tear in himself through which he loses 'a part of his own being to the profit of the communal being." (pg. 205) This degradation of individuality breaks down into uniformity. Then he goes on to talk about Genet's train experience, or realization in which he and another traveler became the same person, upon peering into each others' eyes. "The identity of the self is canceled in this revelation. The self is disseminated, since if all men equal one another, 'each man is every other man.' No man was my brother:each man was myself, but temporarily isolated in his individual skin." (pg. 207) Now, is he talking about our individuality as being purely superficial, and aside from physical appearance, we as humans are all the same? So, the breaking down of our individuality can also be an unspoken communication?
I don't know what the idea behind Trailing is. The point seems to be nothing more than the bond between a subject and object, forming something by beginning with nothing, going through some process, and ending with nothing. I am confused as to what message I am supposed to understand from this idea or process of Trailing.
I don't know what the idea behind Trailing is. The point seems to be nothing more than the bond between a subject and object, forming something by beginning with nothing, going through some process, and ending with nothing. I am confused as to what message I am supposed to understand from this idea or process of Trailing.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Dicks and books
I really enjoyed the last project and I wanted to share some of my processes and thoughts around my project. The actual quote I used as my inspiration was in a song sung by immortal technique, "I jerk off inside books and give life to words, leaving concepts stuck together you've probably never heard." On a side note, if anyone is looking for disturbing, offensive revolutionary music check him out. He is very crude and it is certainly not for everyone. I was really fighting the idea of using a quote as my inspiration and I feel like I was able to stay on that path while still using this quote as a guide. The reason I say that is that it is not the quote that is important to me but rather the idea of giving life to words. I chose to show words coming to life in this visual representation, it is not the quote that gives it definition or importance.
Honestly going into this project I was frustrated and did not like the project. I thought it was far too weird for me to try to interpret text with clay. Abstract art has never been something that I have understood or really appreciated and this was an assignment that really embodied that to me. Once I started, however, I really began to appreciate the project and my work. I experienced a feeling of growth in that I was able to create, understand and appreciate a new level of art that was different than others I have experienced.
In preparation for my project I knew I would have to look at penises other than my own. I did not want this to be a portrait but rather my personal view of power, life, birth and growth in the form of a penis. Against my comfort level I printed off about a dozen different pictures of penises of varying sizes and shapes, though all were circumcised. It is interesting that I chose all circumcised penises as I myself am uncircumcised, but that was the choice I made. I think I feel like a circumcised penis is easier to recognize than an uncircumcised one and is very unique in appearance. In addition to these pictures I could not get a clip from the movie "superbad" out of my mind. The scene involves the characters adolescent addiction to drawing dicks. He talks about how it was traumatizing to him and at the point where his teacher discovers his habit he "had just finished a big, veiny, triumphant bastard." I have included the clip so everyone can see where some of my inspiration came from.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IlZpE8LQp-c
P.S. you may have to copy and paste the link so it works.
-Sean
Honestly going into this project I was frustrated and did not like the project. I thought it was far too weird for me to try to interpret text with clay. Abstract art has never been something that I have understood or really appreciated and this was an assignment that really embodied that to me. Once I started, however, I really began to appreciate the project and my work. I experienced a feeling of growth in that I was able to create, understand and appreciate a new level of art that was different than others I have experienced.
In preparation for my project I knew I would have to look at penises other than my own. I did not want this to be a portrait but rather my personal view of power, life, birth and growth in the form of a penis. Against my comfort level I printed off about a dozen different pictures of penises of varying sizes and shapes, though all were circumcised. It is interesting that I chose all circumcised penises as I myself am uncircumcised, but that was the choice I made. I think I feel like a circumcised penis is easier to recognize than an uncircumcised one and is very unique in appearance. In addition to these pictures I could not get a clip from the movie "superbad" out of my mind. The scene involves the characters adolescent addiction to drawing dicks. He talks about how it was traumatizing to him and at the point where his teacher discovers his habit he "had just finished a big, veiny, triumphant bastard." I have included the clip so everyone can see where some of my inspiration came from.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IlZpE8LQp-c
P.S. you may have to copy and paste the link so it works.
-Sean
Friday, February 22, 2008
Info for Groups
here's Elisa's e-mail address: epandolf@uoregon.edu
Unfortunately, I don't have access to the internet again until Monday. I would really like to chat before Tuesday however. Let's get it goin on!
Unfortunately, I don't have access to the internet again until Monday. I would really like to chat before Tuesday however. Let's get it goin on!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Permanent Text
What strikes me the most about words is the emotion that they illicit from us. It is strange to think that a mixture of lines can have so strong an impact on us, or that they can have none at all. Words written in one language have tremendous meaning for one person but for a non-speaker they have no effect. The written word was developed to preserve our emotions and ideas, our spoken word preserved through time in a mixture of universally recognized symbols. This preservation of the spoken word allows us as a human race to build on our knowledge base and understanding of each other. It brings us closer together. What I am most interested in is the power behind the written word and how it plays on our emotions, there is something more permanent about the written word that carries an authority over a spoken one. When reading something we often retain it more easily than when it is spoken, our mind holds onto it much better. I suppose this is why the title of the reading is funny, becuase I find the written word to be the opposite of liquid. It has a permanancy to it. The written word stays in the same place where as spoken words drift in and out of conversations and are hard to control, much like liquid. Even though written text is only supposed to serve the purpose of recording what is said, the permanancy of the written word can change the meaning of the spoken one in ways no one anticipates. Seldom does one know the impact of their own written word.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
text and layers
When we first read about the assignment in the studio, I thought of the library and all the text inside it. Then on my way to the library I walked down 13th avenue and noticed all the signs and didn't think much of them. Then I saw Taylor's sports bar and grill. The sign stood out, not only because it was bright red and big, but the name and the style of writing. I thought of all the context that taylor's could be used. With the 's.. its probably someone's name. then i thought of the general context, i mean where it was used. It was on the front of a building, but could be on paper written in pencil or spray painted on a wall. the meaning behind taylor's also gives it body and meaning. To me it makes me think of halloween, beer, dancing, fake id, loud people. To the owner of the bar, Taylor could be their name or someone know. Taylor could be alive or dead. I think all text has this backround built into through experience with that text. When we first learn to read and write or talk, others force their interpretation of the word onto you. then over time, that word or text begins to get layered with meaning. The layering infinite. this layering can also be broken down to just the text, letters, symbols.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Wow Sorry for the neglect guys
So yeah, I have pretty much been getting the psychological crap kicked out of me this week. I did read liquid words somewhere in my self loathing stupor though and I almost comprehended it. kind of but not really. I think that when words leave our minds and become written down they tend to have a very solid quality about them. They become archives and go into volumes and libraries and places as well as different types of existence where they will remain untouched and unchanged in the physical realm. On the other hand, Words in our minds are in constant motion. They are always moving and changing with our thoughts and our memories. They are not solid. Then they come out onto paper or this blog and become more concrete, but then they go into the conscious mind of the people that read them and therefor return to the liquid state. It is as if records are kind of like a freezer of thoughts and the our minds put energy back into them and they are then free to move again. As far as this applying to what we are trying to do with our interpretive text project, I am not entirely sure about how I am going to go about it. It'll come though with enough time to execute hopefully. I just know that I am really going to try to learn more about how to actually work with clay and whatever I come up with will help me move in that direction.
ok, so i am late by an hour and 30 minutes. but that is what happens sometimes with me. and that is what got me thinking. i want to involve time in my interpretive text. the reading REALLY helped me. the fact that i can just regurgitate my feelings and thought, in the form of my project. i was originally going to do a cigarette, because of the words that were yelled at me. i was an innocent person, just smoking a cig. anyways, so now i want to involve a clock in my project. i wont say anymore... but it will be more meaningful than the other. the reading clarified some aspects, but then it got a little strange. the eye was intense. it was like vomit, in a way, he says that they are vomited words, but he doesn't actually mean that we are supposed to see vomit. it looks like beans it a thick clear liquid, almost like laundry detergent. but i am getting off track, i like it because he involved that element of liquid that is so interchangeable and inconstant. i have had a lightbulb situation and am excited about my project. i will definately be working hard when i get back this weekend. but in comparison to the last reading this one was better (yea, shorter too!) but it also had more personal connection with me. i think it is because words are such important things in my life. i have thought about how lucky i truly am. many people dont have teh ability to read or write or speak words. i take advantage of this wonderful part of me. i pride my self in my speech and thoughts. and if that was taken from me i would be a wreck. so yea, i am inspired by this reading...
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Liqwid Wurds
I like the title of this chapter, “liquid words.” It creates a very pretty and elegant mental picture. I imagine a Salvador Dali image of words leaking on a page as if they were ink being poured into a river. The concepts surrounding it, however, are much more difficult and not as easy for me to grasp. The idea of text as a concept outside of the common context is difficult for me to grasp. Once we began talking about it in class I became even more confused and frustrated. When we talked about text outside of it’s literal meaning and the concept of interpreting text in other mediums I really got lost. How can I describe text with clay or with another material for that matter like wood or steel?
Everything began to come together when I started thinking of how books bring letters and thoughts to life. We were talking about language and the idea of words getting their meaning in our brains outside of any letter or sound. In other words, it is not the letter but the meaning and sound associated with the letter that forms a meaning for us. When many seemingly abstract letters and words are formulated in a specific manner anything can be communicated. The thought of books coming to life and telling stories is beautiful, powerful and important for my understanding of this concept. It is not the letter that we are interpreting in an artistic piece but rather the whole idea of language that is being interpreted outside of its literal meaning.
I quickly went from frustration to excitement when the thoughts of how I was going to deal with this project jumped into my mind. We will see where things lead me but I’m excited to bring words to life and experience this in a new way. As for some of the other ideas brought to mind in the chapter, I’m working on it :)
Everything began to come together when I started thinking of how books bring letters and thoughts to life. We were talking about language and the idea of words getting their meaning in our brains outside of any letter or sound. In other words, it is not the letter but the meaning and sound associated with the letter that forms a meaning for us. When many seemingly abstract letters and words are formulated in a specific manner anything can be communicated. The thought of books coming to life and telling stories is beautiful, powerful and important for my understanding of this concept. It is not the letter that we are interpreting in an artistic piece but rather the whole idea of language that is being interpreted outside of its literal meaning.
I quickly went from frustration to excitement when the thoughts of how I was going to deal with this project jumped into my mind. We will see where things lead me but I’m excited to bring words to life and experience this in a new way. As for some of the other ideas brought to mind in the chapter, I’m working on it :)
Time for Tonight's Rorschach Test
Time for Tonight’s Rorschach Test –
Some people attempt to find the hidden meaning in what someone else sees in an ink blot. They call them Psychologists or Doctors. Some people read the bumps on people’s heads, or the lines on their hands. I’m not sure what they call them. But, I have come to the conclusion that is what I have just encountered. “Liquid Words” is not a reading; it is a psychological test where you just think the spots on the paper are words. It seems the more I read it, the farther away it gets.
If I said that I understood this article I would be kidding you. The article proves it is possible to string together symbols that I recognize, but can’t understand. Would there have been a difference in understanding if the article was in another language? No. But, in a foreign language I would have at least wondered what I was missing. Not so with this. It does let me know that some people’s brains are wired in a way that mine is not. Vive la Difference! It is comforting to know that some people are living in another intellectual Zip Code.
The thought of Liquid Word’s is more interesting without the article. I do think the concepts that we talked about in class today helped more than anything. I found myself wondering what it would have been like when languages were first being developed. The effect it has on our life. What it would be like to be in a situation where it was gone. What if aliens arrived, how would we go about trying to communicate with them? Words are important, because if they were not we would have no need for email, cell phones, Blackberry’s, or any of the other devices that allow for constant communication.
If mankind’s desire to survive was the first stage of development on this earth, is better communication the second? It seems that development of ways to share communication and knowledge more quickly is an insatiable human desire. If it were not, then people would not spend their money on items that are directly related to communication. Is this a euphoric bubble that will one day burst? Will we tire of Google, email, cell phones, 24 x 7 news, and retreat into a shell like those who retreated from the industrial revolution? Will the Amish find themselves on roads one day where there are no cars?
Are Liquid Word’s nothing more than food for the soul of mankind?
Some people attempt to find the hidden meaning in what someone else sees in an ink blot. They call them Psychologists or Doctors. Some people read the bumps on people’s heads, or the lines on their hands. I’m not sure what they call them. But, I have come to the conclusion that is what I have just encountered. “Liquid Words” is not a reading; it is a psychological test where you just think the spots on the paper are words. It seems the more I read it, the farther away it gets.
If I said that I understood this article I would be kidding you. The article proves it is possible to string together symbols that I recognize, but can’t understand. Would there have been a difference in understanding if the article was in another language? No. But, in a foreign language I would have at least wondered what I was missing. Not so with this. It does let me know that some people’s brains are wired in a way that mine is not. Vive la Difference! It is comforting to know that some people are living in another intellectual Zip Code.
The thought of Liquid Word’s is more interesting without the article. I do think the concepts that we talked about in class today helped more than anything. I found myself wondering what it would have been like when languages were first being developed. The effect it has on our life. What it would be like to be in a situation where it was gone. What if aliens arrived, how would we go about trying to communicate with them? Words are important, because if they were not we would have no need for email, cell phones, Blackberry’s, or any of the other devices that allow for constant communication.
If mankind’s desire to survive was the first stage of development on this earth, is better communication the second? It seems that development of ways to share communication and knowledge more quickly is an insatiable human desire. If it were not, then people would not spend their money on items that are directly related to communication. Is this a euphoric bubble that will one day burst? Will we tire of Google, email, cell phones, 24 x 7 news, and retreat into a shell like those who retreated from the industrial revolution? Will the Amish find themselves on roads one day where there are no cars?
Are Liquid Word’s nothing more than food for the soul of mankind?
liquid words
I found that this reading we much more easily comprehended then base materialism. At first I was comparing words and fluid, parts that work together to form a whole vs parts that are a whole and can be divided but are still similar. The building up and breaking down of these two. Then I thought about how the letters build up to form words and words make sentences to form a larger meaning. How these words may mean something different in a different context and also the meaning may be lost in translation to someone who speaks another language in their native tongue. The part of the discussion I felt most interesting was about this and foreign language. How we can communicate without language as well as how we translate the language we hear into out own. Also how when you hear or read you picture the story in your head, but if you translate it you are focused more on the actual text and its form then the content of the story because you are translating it, the form vs the story. It was an interesting discussion and reading.
Liquid words
I love the title of this chapter; "liquid words", it brings up all sorts of connotations and visualizations. For instance, I have, in the past, when bogged down with words not flowing or forgetting what I was saying mid sentence, grabbed my tongue, pulled some spit off it, and then offer it to whom I was speaking. The result is usually laughter. In such an instance how important were the words?
To me the examples being given, for instance Jackson Pollock, seem to defy the laws/ rules by which we might interpret something, when this happens it seems to me the brain must find a new channel or pathway by which to describe what its seeing. Disturbance or disruption which systematically forces the brain to assimilate and try to place the bits into familiar channels at first, then hopefully, a new way of interpreting will begin to emerge.
In the chapter, "liquid words", we are again confronted with the idea that a dichotomy exists in all things, for instance, [Ruscha's] Liquid Words, as the little pieces of food that settle in the puddles indicate, are vomited words-reminding us that, like so many other parts of the human body, the mouth has a double function (in Documents Michel Leiris noted that this organ of eloquence, "the visible sign of intelligence," also serves to spit; the same "base materialism" animates Ruscha's work).
The point of the erosive nature of language is also significant as well as the "inevitable and irreversible nature of this process." Nothing is stagnant, nothing really remains the same, nothing. Even though we have a feeling of firmness on the planet we are moving at an enormous pace - that which brings gravity - it is this that leads me to another dichotomy: the movement of our planet is what allows us to find stillness, but is that really possible? Or is there an illusion at play? "There cannot be liquid words (we only speak of a flow of language and of liquid consonants metaphorically), " but the sameness or concreteness of language does not exist either. for even in a copy of text, one reader will not be in the same place at the same point in time. Then why is it so difficult to invent something new?! I believe these processes we're going through are attempting to move us in that direction.
To me the examples being given, for instance Jackson Pollock, seem to defy the laws/ rules by which we might interpret something, when this happens it seems to me the brain must find a new channel or pathway by which to describe what its seeing. Disturbance or disruption which systematically forces the brain to assimilate and try to place the bits into familiar channels at first, then hopefully, a new way of interpreting will begin to emerge.
In the chapter, "liquid words", we are again confronted with the idea that a dichotomy exists in all things, for instance, [Ruscha's] Liquid Words, as the little pieces of food that settle in the puddles indicate, are vomited words-reminding us that, like so many other parts of the human body, the mouth has a double function (in Documents Michel Leiris noted that this organ of eloquence, "the visible sign of intelligence," also serves to spit; the same "base materialism" animates Ruscha's work).
The point of the erosive nature of language is also significant as well as the "inevitable and irreversible nature of this process." Nothing is stagnant, nothing really remains the same, nothing. Even though we have a feeling of firmness on the planet we are moving at an enormous pace - that which brings gravity - it is this that leads me to another dichotomy: the movement of our planet is what allows us to find stillness, but is that really possible? Or is there an illusion at play? "There cannot be liquid words (we only speak of a flow of language and of liquid consonants metaphorically), " but the sameness or concreteness of language does not exist either. for even in a copy of text, one reader will not be in the same place at the same point in time. Then why is it so difficult to invent something new?! I believe these processes we're going through are attempting to move us in that direction.
Liquid Thoughts
This is, again, a difficult and hard consept to grasp easily. To make it easier on myself, I will think about it as "the meaning of words", or "the meaning of communication", or "the meaning of words, in phonetic, semantic,and syntactic, (and so on) sense..." [Phonetic, the sound of it. Semantic, the meaning/logic of it. Syntactic, how it is arranged, and what meaning that gives]. Why is it difficult? Because, I think, we take it so for granted, and we can't imagine how it would be to be without it, for starters. We learn to communicate from the day we're born, and what we learn is depentent on where in the world we are, in what time. There are so many levels to this, that it is hard to decide where to start. In regards to the text, it seems that the author is mostly concerned about the written word(?) and how that has been, or can be, translated to painting. I think his statement about the "opposition ... of writing and painting" being "phenomenologically perpindicular to one another" is silly, but, enough about that. I think it is interesting to observe that when Ruscha chooses to paint "Lisp" on the canvas, it is communicating "stronger" to a certain group of people, but to for example me, it didn't mean anything until I looked the word up in a dictionary. So, even though I like 'word art', I also think it is something that can sometimes 'blur' the message more than enhance, but that is of course because some of us come from other cultures (well, we all come from other cultures, come to think of it :)
Liquid Words
I found the ideas and concepts within "Liquid Words" a little easier to comprehend than those in "Base Materialism." It seems that Yve-Alain Bois begins by saying that liquid and words, separately are two opposing ideas. Language, in regards to the foundation of actual letters of the alphabet, is "a hierarchial combination of bits." Liquid on the other hand is indivisible and remains in the same form, true to itself. So, naturally speaking, liquid words is not possible. But then he it seems like he later goes on to say that it is very difficult, but possible to attain liquid words in works like Ruscha's and Pollock's works, which were shown in the book. Is he saying that words really have no meaning, because when you break them down they are just mere symbols that any individual can interpret how they want? I thought it was quite an interesting point about the "unbridgeable gap between the sound of words and the silence of writing." It seems like such an obvious observation, which I have never really thought about. That is an idea worthy of further pondering, and I still haven't quite grasped it's correlation with concepts of horizontality and entropy. Entropic irreversibility....help? It's a lot to think about, and I'm diggin myself into a hole of confusion.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
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