The Great Book of Alphabetically ordered liquefaction aka Formless

This blog is a visual aid from verbal regurgitation caused from Formless and a lot of coffeee.

bY AnNeLiSe and JeSsIcA 

lets cite and refrence

I mean hey this is a research class right? Entropy huh, well i read it again and now everything is soo clear. The idea of work as opposed to the physicality of the work it self as stated on page 207 "certain artists, however, wondered what would remain of a work if it were torn up, or rather what would remain of the concept of the work of art it the very act of tearing were to be the sole technique". This process sounds very similar to what we are trying to achieve in the final project as the concept of our colaberation could very well become a lump and therefor the obvious motive behind creating a lump would be to show the entropic process. Does this spell a simpler meaning to the process when it comes to art making? somewhat if you even consider what you are working on as art, does your work become an extension of your feelings or is it simply a response to teh way in which you view the world around you. Possibly a concoction of the two? Either way the book leans towards your creation becoming garbage at one point or another. Jean Arp's paper collage would be a fine example of philosoartist that i find difficult to understand how this work can be referred to as art. I would consider it more along the lines of a demonstration of a philosophical concept by means of paper collage. Is that seperation important? Not really. Should it be noted, yes. crap time for class- ill finish posting later

Been a While

Okay, so ENtropy was the biggest thing that stuck out to me this time around. That seems to be the case with most of us, but for me this concept hit not only in this class but in my life and in astronomy and even in my mold making class. It has been a really rough term for me. I feel like my thoughts, my relationships with other people, my grades, my ability to think and reason, and my ability to coexist with people in this society are all experiencing this entropic process. It's horrifying. I am being stripped of the way that I exist. It is amazing. I am broken. I am raw. I am so deep in this weird, transitory state that I don't know anything about myself or the world for sure. My thoughts are purely scrambled. I even spaced the fact that I needed to post on here. These readings, like our others were difficult to comprehend especially in my current state of mind, but I enjoyed reading them. I sat in the AAA Library on the second floor over in the dark corner seats with the windows that I like so much and I read them. I read them all the way through. I should have posted then when it was all fresh ('cause entropy is all I got left) but I read them multiple times and I had a good time doing it. It went over my head mostly but I enjoyed myself so that was cool. I think I have a fever so I am going to stop writing now, but this is my stab at a response to the readings. Maybe, if I can remain in reality long enough, I'll go check it out again and read them over.

another bitchy blog? I guess one has to read to find out. Its funny i was in italy this past summer and although i was in a cheerfull mood the entire time i looked back on the blogs recently and discovered that i bitched about many different things when i was blogging. Mostly about the thrones of tourists and how we were simply a part of the group i had grown to despise. This past reading was absoulte jargon to me even after two rereads it simply didn't click. Or possibly i didn't want it to click and as a response i blockaded my reasoning behind a brick wall of not being interested in the ideas put forth in the book. I also keep coming thinking about how i would like to take another ceramics course at UO but possibly have something to show for it besides a blog, a video and a disheveled jar which is holding my most sacred memories. Silly thing is i'll bet that jar doesn't make it home with me so i'm seriously doubting its importance to me. When in fact i'm trying to reduce my possessions to the amount of which i could stuff a trunk and live happily the idea of focusing on the process of artmaking and once finished with the work i can return it to earth works well in my current state. That way i can hold every project on a hard drive. So does this post have anything to do with the reading? Why yes as it makes as much sense too. Am i looking forward to 12 more hours of critique? I wouldn't miss more than a?

One late but worth the wait blog for a response to liquid words. Well being worth the wait makes is appear that i have wrapped my self around this text soo many times that i could cite it word for word. That simply isn't true and i would be checking my self into state institutions if that was the case. As for one reason or another the reading did in fact make sense and by further reading i don't think that was the intention of the authors. It tends to place the idea of an idea into the relm of fine art? Soo weird! Sometimes i simply regret that i didn't go to some craft school and define art theory for myself as opposed to having others try and accomplish this for me. In fact this reading at times along with meeting graduate students only brings out a somewhat depressing feeling. Because for one reason or another people actually conciencously or unconceincly belittle others soo blatantly its appalling.

Besides that banter i only would like to comment on the reading and its reference to the asphalt spill outside Rome. Its comforting to think that a confused construction worker and a photographer could stumble into moma by dumping excess asphalt and being able to talk about it. I mean common fellas i know your trying to deconstruct the boundaries of art but can't it retain some aesthetic beauty? In response to this i'm planning on peeing on a dirt mound by my house while recording the pee's effect on the ground. Then i talk about how its a direct representation of my material presence on earth and how this is a universal language and blah.

Entropic closet X (tra)

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."

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

"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

really liked the ideas in Water Closet and X marks the spot. The thoughts that I found most interesting were the ones on tearing up the concept of the work. Figuratively, and/or even literally tearing up the physical work, breaking it down so there is nothing left. Looking at the process of making and forming of the work but also the end result, or the absence of the end result and merely the documentation of the making. Perhaps how this Egyptian Paste project may end up, it could collapse and there may be an absence of an end result. It relates back to entropy by measuring the amount of randomness or disorder, or loss of information that may occur during the firing as all of the objects we coat are burned out and the form takes on a new shape.

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.

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?

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 ...

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!

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.

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

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!

Info for groups

Hey guys my email is djohns11@uoregon.edu.

Lance

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.

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.