All hark! The fresh turning of the solar system is neigh! As my original intent for this weblog has remained as an encompassing monologue generally regarding advancement and the future, it seems only fit to record a few predictions upon this new year and compile them into a 'top 10' list, as per fine blogging tradition. These should be seen as general predictions or thoughts about various aspects of society and how they might change in the next decade.
i. Economic leveling. By now it must be obvious that the global economy in the 2010s will be vastly different than the one that has characterized america's late-capitalistic phase. The BRIC countries are all slowly shoring up their economic bases, and by the end of the decade world commerce might just seem a lot more..let us say 'market-driven?'
ii The decline and slump of the american empire. The united states' half-century hegemony is beginning to recede. Related to i., this concept encompasses the global zeitgeist as both product and substrate for the economy. Cultural trends have gradually begun to show signs of shifting away from americanized capitalistic ideals, and the cultural rise of asia seems poised to make a dramatic impact in their wake.
iii. Neo-medicine. Stem cells, genomics, and more will allow for unprecedented medical advances. The technologies will force humans to wrestle with issues unlike any before (voluntary limb amputation, anyone?).
iv. Governmental shifts. Whether it's filibuster reform or coup d'état, governments are unstable, and there's no sign of settling.
v. The internet evolves. Having invented a means for every single human being on the planet to communicate effortlessly with one another, the challenge of the next decade will be defending the human right to internet access as vigorously as we defend the right to a free press. And now that we have this tool, what will we do with it?
{In the spirit of this celebration of liminal states, the latter half of this list will be published..in 2011! Joyous liminal celebration, everyone!!}
20101225
The Holographic Lewitt
Note well: this is a paper that i wrote this past semester. As part of this weblog, i would like to begin to unfold my personal artmaking techniques into a public realm. This particular paper is a 'part 1' of sorts. Stay tuned for the much more thorough 'part 2'
Walls are important things. Humans, from the wealthiest WASP on the East Coast to the most destitute resident of an Indonesian slum, spend their time in the constant presence of walls. It can reasonably be expected that the vast majority of humans are born with walls surrounding them, and that they will just as surely die with walls surrounding them. Walls not only surround humans at virtually all times, they also comprise the entirety of the furthest extent of said humans' field of vision at virtually all times. Thereby, while the physical presence of the wall dominates our locomotion, the visual presence of the wall dominates our vision.
Sol Lewitt seems to be dimly aware of this. His vast collection of wall drawings housed at MASS MoCA occupies acres of gallery space, taking up three floors of a large building. And yet something of a stagnant atmosphere seems to have settled in around the area. There is something unmistakably monotonous about his work when viewed as a whole. It is not for want of variety; the drawings range from the finest graphite detail barely discernible on a white surface to loud, saturated colors in shapes completely covering any hint of 'bare' wall underneath. It is not for an overstatement of ability or importance; the walls are humble and executed forthrightly. The culprit here is a distinct lack of imagination. The walls have all been treated in specific ways. They appear as varied as the animals in a zoo. But very few of them make anybody stop and stare, let alone gasp aloud.
Take the case of Wall Drawing 462. First executed in 1987, the description for 462 reads, “On four walls, one room, arcs 4 inches wide, from the midpoints of four sides, drawn with alternating bands of gray and black ink wash.” Predictably, the work presents as expected: it is a set of walls, each with concentric black and white circles originating at the midpoint of one of its sides. Coincidentally, this drawing is one of the only ones in which wall, pigment, and situation all meet to create a space that is not only notable for its rigorousness, but memorable for its perceptual impact. It seems in his years upon years of muted and impotent experimentation, Lewitt happened to stumble upon at least one design which actually maintains the ability to compel.
In this rather embarrassing ratio (one compelling piece to one entire building of walls), we can begin to trace the outlines of a helpful conclusion to take from Lewitt's work. Why is is that of all of the wall drawings on display, 462 seems to me to be the most enduring one? The answer is not simple, but it may be obvious. What Lewitt's other drawings lack in impact, 462 makes up for in the regimented execution of visual contrast. The simple shapes (circles), taken to a visual extreme (covering entire walls), impart a clear sense of dynamism. The piece achieves its perceptual domination through the effective leveraging of the walls it inhabits. To spend a few minutes engaged in this piece is to walk away dizzied and somewhat itchy. These aspects are by far the most successful of the piece, and they should rightfully be praised.
If 462 is most successful in its visual hegemony, it is the least successful in its poor execution at MASS MoCA. Instead of being presented in its entirety, the MASS installation is only a “detail” of the full piece, since the fourth wall required by Lewitt's stipulation is conspicuously absent. The drawing resides in a U-shaped alcove across from a window rather than in, as per the artist, “one room.” Not only must this have been a flagrant equivocation on the part of the artist himself (we were told that Lewitt participated prominently in the planning and execution of the gallery at MASS MoCA), it demonstrates a complete ignorance on the part of the artist of the power of his own work. That is to say, if Sol Lewitt knew intimately the qualities that make his work successful, he would never have allowed a drawing whose success relies so heavily on perceptually enveloping the viewer to be executed without that key fourth wall.
And why four? The main problem with Lewitt's work is that it is dreadfully unimaginative. Not only are the drawings he chooses to enact upon the various walls rather bland, the conception of the walls themselves is perhaps blander still. For a man who spent a large chunk of his career supposedly thinking about how to command draftsman to execute specific drawings onto walls, he seems to have given the walls themselves virtually no thought at all. Even when given three entire floors worth of open gallery space, the most Lewitt could bring himself to come up with was an orthogonal grid. An orthogonal grid. Sol Lewitt is presented with an entire building of gallery space for his walls and he decides to make cubicles. The man should have been an architect; that field would have loved him.
The time has come to attempt to distill something useful about this work. The intent of the artist is unclear; he seems to have been infatuated with the notion of leaving instructions for his wall drawings. These instructions encapsulate completely each drawing, and are presented along with the medium as information about the drawings in the gallery space. As relayed above, the instructions for 462 are primarily concerned with the arcs made and the midpoints used. Secondarily, there are specifications for the colors to be used, although they are vague on which kind of gray. Not surprisingly, the draftsman for this drawing had to step in on that aspect and make the gray very light (presumably) in order to make the drawing more interesting. In a case of deep irony, their decision may have been the only one that contributed positively to how compelling the final product is. It is important to note that this instruction-leaving aspect of the work is perhaps the most rigorous and distinct component of it (if John Cage hadn't done it some twenty or thirty years prior, it might even border on original!). This aspect, these instructions, can justifiably be seen as the de facto “actual” work of art, as authored by Lewitt, with the various executions of them seen as sort of deployments of this particular type of artistry.
It follows, then, that the way to truly activate Lewitt's work in the present day is to begin to challenge its assumptions. We can literally do this from the ground up. Why did Lewitt never create floor drawings? Floors are arguably more important than walls, and people are aware of them in a similar, though perpendicular, way. If Lewitt had included the floor in his instruction, not only would the viewer be presented with a significantly more thorough visual hegemony, but the room-ness of the piece would be absolutely necessary and no piddling three-wall half-attempts at reproduction could even be conceived. As for the walls themselves, stipulated and accounted for, we can immediately observe that never does Lewitt use a curved wall in any of his drawings. Why? Is Lewitt unaware that curved walls exist and in fact have existed for millennia? Why the flatness bias? Finally, there is no ceiling present in Wall Drawing 462, nor any other. The walls simply end, and there is a sizable gap between the end of the installation and the bottom of the floor above it (there are no dropped-ceilings in the gallery). If one wanted to be as rigorous with the concentric circles as possible, a ceiling would complete the viewer's perceptual sphere and make the disorientation complete.
The ultimate way to take Lewitt on at his word is to design a space that successfully combines a set of his instructions with a room that is designed specifically for them. This would allow for a sort of testing of the limits of his model, showing precisely what his instructions can and can't do. Over time, a given individual could embellish the room to their own taste, allowing for a sort of meta-art with a pivot point centered on any given wall drawing! In this way, Lewitt's work can be seen as a holographic image of sorts, with each given 2-dimensional wall drawing giving way to a full spectrum of 3-dimensional interpretations. A necessarily scientific act, this would be an engaging and intriguing take on an artist who is otherwise decidedly flat.
Walls are important things. Humans, from the wealthiest WASP on the East Coast to the most destitute resident of an Indonesian slum, spend their time in the constant presence of walls. It can reasonably be expected that the vast majority of humans are born with walls surrounding them, and that they will just as surely die with walls surrounding them. Walls not only surround humans at virtually all times, they also comprise the entirety of the furthest extent of said humans' field of vision at virtually all times. Thereby, while the physical presence of the wall dominates our locomotion, the visual presence of the wall dominates our vision.
Sol Lewitt seems to be dimly aware of this. His vast collection of wall drawings housed at MASS MoCA occupies acres of gallery space, taking up three floors of a large building. And yet something of a stagnant atmosphere seems to have settled in around the area. There is something unmistakably monotonous about his work when viewed as a whole. It is not for want of variety; the drawings range from the finest graphite detail barely discernible on a white surface to loud, saturated colors in shapes completely covering any hint of 'bare' wall underneath. It is not for an overstatement of ability or importance; the walls are humble and executed forthrightly. The culprit here is a distinct lack of imagination. The walls have all been treated in specific ways. They appear as varied as the animals in a zoo. But very few of them make anybody stop and stare, let alone gasp aloud.
Take the case of Wall Drawing 462. First executed in 1987, the description for 462 reads, “On four walls, one room, arcs 4 inches wide, from the midpoints of four sides, drawn with alternating bands of gray and black ink wash.” Predictably, the work presents as expected: it is a set of walls, each with concentric black and white circles originating at the midpoint of one of its sides. Coincidentally, this drawing is one of the only ones in which wall, pigment, and situation all meet to create a space that is not only notable for its rigorousness, but memorable for its perceptual impact. It seems in his years upon years of muted and impotent experimentation, Lewitt happened to stumble upon at least one design which actually maintains the ability to compel.
In this rather embarrassing ratio (one compelling piece to one entire building of walls), we can begin to trace the outlines of a helpful conclusion to take from Lewitt's work. Why is is that of all of the wall drawings on display, 462 seems to me to be the most enduring one? The answer is not simple, but it may be obvious. What Lewitt's other drawings lack in impact, 462 makes up for in the regimented execution of visual contrast. The simple shapes (circles), taken to a visual extreme (covering entire walls), impart a clear sense of dynamism. The piece achieves its perceptual domination through the effective leveraging of the walls it inhabits. To spend a few minutes engaged in this piece is to walk away dizzied and somewhat itchy. These aspects are by far the most successful of the piece, and they should rightfully be praised.
If 462 is most successful in its visual hegemony, it is the least successful in its poor execution at MASS MoCA. Instead of being presented in its entirety, the MASS installation is only a “detail” of the full piece, since the fourth wall required by Lewitt's stipulation is conspicuously absent. The drawing resides in a U-shaped alcove across from a window rather than in, as per the artist, “one room.” Not only must this have been a flagrant equivocation on the part of the artist himself (we were told that Lewitt participated prominently in the planning and execution of the gallery at MASS MoCA), it demonstrates a complete ignorance on the part of the artist of the power of his own work. That is to say, if Sol Lewitt knew intimately the qualities that make his work successful, he would never have allowed a drawing whose success relies so heavily on perceptually enveloping the viewer to be executed without that key fourth wall.
And why four? The main problem with Lewitt's work is that it is dreadfully unimaginative. Not only are the drawings he chooses to enact upon the various walls rather bland, the conception of the walls themselves is perhaps blander still. For a man who spent a large chunk of his career supposedly thinking about how to command draftsman to execute specific drawings onto walls, he seems to have given the walls themselves virtually no thought at all. Even when given three entire floors worth of open gallery space, the most Lewitt could bring himself to come up with was an orthogonal grid. An orthogonal grid. Sol Lewitt is presented with an entire building of gallery space for his walls and he decides to make cubicles. The man should have been an architect; that field would have loved him.
The time has come to attempt to distill something useful about this work. The intent of the artist is unclear; he seems to have been infatuated with the notion of leaving instructions for his wall drawings. These instructions encapsulate completely each drawing, and are presented along with the medium as information about the drawings in the gallery space. As relayed above, the instructions for 462 are primarily concerned with the arcs made and the midpoints used. Secondarily, there are specifications for the colors to be used, although they are vague on which kind of gray. Not surprisingly, the draftsman for this drawing had to step in on that aspect and make the gray very light (presumably) in order to make the drawing more interesting. In a case of deep irony, their decision may have been the only one that contributed positively to how compelling the final product is. It is important to note that this instruction-leaving aspect of the work is perhaps the most rigorous and distinct component of it (if John Cage hadn't done it some twenty or thirty years prior, it might even border on original!). This aspect, these instructions, can justifiably be seen as the de facto “actual” work of art, as authored by Lewitt, with the various executions of them seen as sort of deployments of this particular type of artistry.
It follows, then, that the way to truly activate Lewitt's work in the present day is to begin to challenge its assumptions. We can literally do this from the ground up. Why did Lewitt never create floor drawings? Floors are arguably more important than walls, and people are aware of them in a similar, though perpendicular, way. If Lewitt had included the floor in his instruction, not only would the viewer be presented with a significantly more thorough visual hegemony, but the room-ness of the piece would be absolutely necessary and no piddling three-wall half-attempts at reproduction could even be conceived. As for the walls themselves, stipulated and accounted for, we can immediately observe that never does Lewitt use a curved wall in any of his drawings. Why? Is Lewitt unaware that curved walls exist and in fact have existed for millennia? Why the flatness bias? Finally, there is no ceiling present in Wall Drawing 462, nor any other. The walls simply end, and there is a sizable gap between the end of the installation and the bottom of the floor above it (there are no dropped-ceilings in the gallery). If one wanted to be as rigorous with the concentric circles as possible, a ceiling would complete the viewer's perceptual sphere and make the disorientation complete.
The ultimate way to take Lewitt on at his word is to design a space that successfully combines a set of his instructions with a room that is designed specifically for them. This would allow for a sort of testing of the limits of his model, showing precisely what his instructions can and can't do. Over time, a given individual could embellish the room to their own taste, allowing for a sort of meta-art with a pivot point centered on any given wall drawing! In this way, Lewitt's work can be seen as a holographic image of sorts, with each given 2-dimensional wall drawing giving way to a full spectrum of 3-dimensional interpretations. A necessarily scientific act, this would be an engaging and intriguing take on an artist who is otherwise decidedly flat.
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