Reference to a Shopping Cart Discussion

I am going to be a little risky and start using words that I find relevant for my work again and when I say words I really mean just one word in particular.

During critique of my recent installation (Reference to a Shopping Cart) Zach brought up a very interesting word, “Invariant”, which he attached to Bertrand Russell, a philosopher, logician, mathematician, and historian (1872 -1970).  The word means, “not changing” and holds a secondary definition of “a function, quantity, or property that remains unchanged when a specified transformation is applied”. Keeping this in mind there are some really interesting things that relate to this word and my work as well, as to the observations that my cohort spoke of during critique.

(Other Photos of "Reference to a Shopping Cart" can be found here)

In the case of my installation I relate to invariants when discussing shadows in controlled lighting environments.  Environments with static lighting create static shadows.  The shadows I paint are locked in position and exist as they are until they are destroyed (painted over) while the object that is the source of the shadows is moved to another location forcing a transformation to occur with the object’s place in the space.  The painted shadows in this case are an invariant.  

Sanwal responded to my installation with visions of “nuclear shadows”, discussing the effect as a result of the incineration of bodies and organic material result from dropping the atom bombs during World War II.  I did some research and found that

“as thermal radiation travels, more or less, in a straight line from the fireball (unless scattered) any opaque object will produce a protective shadow that provides protection from the flash burn. Furthermore, depending on the properties of the underlying surface material, the exposed area outside the protective shadow will be either burnt to a darker color, such as charring wood, or a brighter color, such as asphalt.” (wiki)

This example resonates with my piece because like sunlight creates a shadow of an object, the bombs created shadows of objects that experienced an entirely brutal transformation into vapor.

Ben discussed his relationship with cigarette ghosts when cleaning out his grandparent’s house after years of smoking.  Any surface that was in contact with another surface like a picture frame or piece of furniture was shielded from smoke and protected from the gradual transformation of the space.  Upon moving the objects the ghosts on the walls were revealed and while an object may have been moved halfway across the country a reference to that object remains where it once lived.  This example hold similar characteristics to the “nuclear shadow” reference through displacement of an object.  

I think the work succeeds in generating responses that resonate with my intended exploration of place and space with respect to displacement while leaving reference characteristics behind.  There are some things that need to be resolved in order to make this work stronger.  I need to find a way to push the illusion the shadow creates at distance in a way that succeeds in close proximity.  Some people were irritated that the the paintings revealed their technique up close while others were not.  Another concern with the success of the piece surrounds the content of the object itself when compared to the content of the installation.  Exploration of different objects will be required to resolve my thoughts on this issue.  

The first exploration down this road is with glass cane.  I have started to make my shopping carts out of class piping.  They are pretty exciting.  I kind of want to drop one on the ground.

Reference to a Shopping Cart

Below are a few shots of my current installation (click to make larger):

Fargo is a Place in the Space of South Dakota…

This week I wanted to start my post for the week with a portion of a paper I wrote for Critical Theory 2 about “Place” which I titled “Fargo is a Place in the Space of South Dakota…”

Yi-Fu Tuan, author of Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, argues that space requires movement from place to place and that place requires space to exist in order to be a place.  He discusses how ethological studies show that all animals, “have a sense of territory and a sense of place” (Tuan).  Animals defend spaces from intruders and recognize places that are relevant for sustaining life such as sources of water, food, and procreation.  We behave in very similar fashion among the territory of our homes with places designated for sources of life; the refrigerator or grocery store.  We are required to move among space in order to interact with places.

Searching around for philosophical discussions of place and space I came across a forum post titled, “Places”.  On July 7, 2009, James Garvey was having trouble finding philosophical discussions about places and so he decided to ask the internet.  He was concerned with what makes a place a “place” as we know it.  Many individuals discuss the Proustian reaction that physical places have on them when visiting an old friend's childhood home or travelling to a favorite location for example.  These individuals discussed the effect of experiencing familiar places had on them psychologically.  Other individuals explored the idea of place with respect to video games and books, seeing them as experiences with many places to be traversed and explored.  This brings to mind the idea that a place doesn’t have to physically exist.  

We can all agree that a place can exist in fictional space but how is it that we group these places with those of the physical non-fictional world? Are they the same? If so, what makes a place a “place”.  It comes down to a simple pattern.  As we read books we often put them down to take breaks or do other activities and in order to remember where we are in the book we insert a marker between the pages we stop at in order to save our “place”.  A place is like a bookmark, a reference point in a space and in the case of a book the space that exists is the pages from start to finish.  Like a bear scrapes the bark off of a tree to mark a territory we mark our location in our journey through pages of words with a business card or a receipt to remember where we are.  

The relationship between place and space is a semiotic relationship.  Signifier is to place as signified is to space.  In algebra a point is an undefined term which is represented by the letter “x”.  “X” is a solvable point on a number line and when we solve for point “y” can be combined with in order to solve for the location of a point on a graph.  This point on a graph is defined as point “x, y” and can be for example “1, 2”.  The dot that represents “1, 2” is a specific place on a graph and when either of the numbers changes the location of the point changes and the previous place ceases to exist as it moves to a newly defined location.  A places is a reference point in space that holds its relevance based on how it is defined and when details in that definition change the place becomes something new.  Just a as a place requires space to exist, it must require location in space to exist as well.  You can now say that the place we call home is a point in space defined the same way in which the answer to an algebra problem is derived.

With my interest in James Turrell and further understanding of the man’s work, I realize that his work succeeds in making us see ourselves seeing by removing reference from our visual perception.  Without the contrast of the observable world the Ganzfeld effect takes over and allows us to ponder what our brains and eyes are actually capable of doing and are doing.  The lack of reference causes us to lose our sense of place.  While we may understand where the work of art exist (what gallery it is present in) we have a hard time determining the boundaries of the space that the installation is comprised of.  

What is key in his work that I am relating to in my current installation is that “reference” in the form of visual signals is important to place and in particular the place of an object.  What characteristics about a defined place determine our understanding of an object in space and what happens when those characteristics exist in multiple locations in a space.

Installation photos will be posted shortly.  Below is a slideshow of my adventure throughout the last week displaying process:

Photo credit: Carmen Fultz and Me

When shopping carts hang from thread.

Studio visits this semester are moving in a different direction than last.  So far I have met with Andrianna Campbell, doctoral candidate and ArtForum contributor, and John Newman who is an internationally known sculptural artist.  These visits have both found their way towards being a conversation about subject versus content as well as creating a balance between formalistic approaches and concept.  Yesterday I met with Rob Robbins and again the conversation found its way there.  I find this to be an encouraging pattern.  Formal ideas aren’t so much the issue as the lack of argument towards something deeper, more conceptual.

This leaves me at a position of well informed experimentation.  After Andrianna’s visit I had made a few decisions about the treatment of the shopping carts.  I have a general idea of an installation that I will be presenting for critique in week 5.  Here is a list of treatments for the carts and a few may show up in crit.  

• Paint the steel rod directly, white, black, colors

• Wrap the carts and paint them white like “Zed”

  • Paint them a solid color

• Dip in water and let rust (Check)

I am having a difficult time figuring out how to wrap my shopping carts.  I’m thinking really large leggings or panty hose.  The just don’t support the square pieces of spandex like the modules for Zed.  Trip to the store tomorrow.

One thing that has been consistent from the start is the desire from visitors to my studio to have me reel in my color choices. It’s not that they don’t exist in agreement on paper but rather that there are just too many colors. When I start painting again I will be mindful and if I color these wrapped carts then will most likely be single or two colors.

Lately I have been trying to sort out what is consistent about the work that I create.  I am pulled to the same type of line no matter the medium. Light is present in everything I make but light interaction exist in all artwork.  Color is important but is on the back burner for a sec.  How can Light be content.  I’m hoping to make a play at it for week 5.

Basically I am going to be casting light on a hanging sculpture and painting the shadow on the wall.  The light will then be removed and the relationship that will exist will be between the object and the painting of its contour.  I have not decided it that object is going to be wrapped or painted or naked.  If all works out I will have two hanging examples of this idea and will explore these ideas.  I am keeping artists like Mary Temple and Tim Noble in mind as I explore this relationship and while I hesitate to use these words yet I would like to use words like illusion.  I’m saving liar for when I figure out how to projection map “Zed” into fluctuating between 2D and 3D space with light.

More Shopping Carts