Unpacking,
1. The ruin.
A proposal: an image apocalypse dealt upon this world, leaving behind media fragments and artifacts. As a kid, I was struck by a story I had read in Reader's Digest, or to be exact, a Reader's Digest Condensed edition, which we received biannually as a bonus to our magazine subscription. (RD: a pre-Oprah primer for middle-class, middle-of-America culture for the new immigrant family.) In the story, future archaeologists rummage through our present detritus and surmise its usage. The story included illustrations of the finds within the caverns of trash, with the example I remember best being a toilet seat imagined as a ceremonial headdress, decorated with the honorific SANITIZED.
A proposal: an image apocalypse dealt upon this world, leaving behind media fragments and artifacts. As a kid, I was struck by a story I had read in Reader's Digest, or to be exact, a Reader's Digest Condensed edition, which we received biannually as a bonus to our magazine subscription. (RD: a pre-Oprah primer for middle-class, middle-of-America culture for the new immigrant family.) In the story, future archaeologists rummage through our present detritus and surmise its usage. The story included illustrations of the finds within the caverns of trash, with the example I remember best being a toilet seat imagined as a ceremonial headdress, decorated with the honorific SANITIZED.
The typically postmodern trope of the ruin seems a fitting way to start again. Applied to our troves of imagery, all fragments become untethered, encouraging a search which is both synoptic and haphazard. The archaeologist blows on the embers to see which ones still glow.
2. The transmission of art.
The idea of image ruins is tied to the question of the legacy of art. I see the history of art as a repertoire of gestures, and art objects as the recordings of these gestures. In this picture, the primary focus is on the events of discovery and transmission, rather than the meaning of the artwork. The artwork is a carrier of that which is the provenance of art, that is, its traditions and mythologies. "Mythologies" seems a better term than, say "histories", or "narratives", as art has its archetypes (the trickster, the seer), and its tales sit in the memory like legend. Art plays on the imagination; that is, its gestures seek to be emulated.
The idea of image ruins is tied to the question of the legacy of art. I see the history of art as a repertoire of gestures, and art objects as the recordings of these gestures. In this picture, the primary focus is on the events of discovery and transmission, rather than the meaning of the artwork. The artwork is a carrier of that which is the provenance of art, that is, its traditions and mythologies. "Mythologies" seems a better term than, say "histories", or "narratives", as art has its archetypes (the trickster, the seer), and its tales sit in the memory like legend. Art plays on the imagination; that is, its gestures seek to be emulated.
In this picture of art as a transmission through (recorded) gestures, documentation of an artwork may at times be good enough to stand in for the work. In effect, pace Benjamin, the copy disseminates the aura of the original; the "aura" being nourished by our understanding of the traditions and legends passed down through art.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain.
Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the Miraculous.
3. The airlock.
The airlock provides the affective space for the work, setting the stage for remembrance and recollection. In abstract terms, the airlock is the point of divide between the embracing warmth of the socius and the cold terror of individuation. In movie terms, it is the moment before the drop, before the leap into the unknown. The airlock is the transition between worlds, and, with its attendant ruminations, a silent and insulated container for worlds of its own. It contains dreams lingering into wakefulness, the anxieties of the insomniac, the reveries of the dying.
The airlock provides the affective space for the work, setting the stage for remembrance and recollection. In abstract terms, the airlock is the point of divide between the embracing warmth of the socius and the cold terror of individuation. In movie terms, it is the moment before the drop, before the leap into the unknown. The airlock is the transition between worlds, and, with its attendant ruminations, a silent and insulated container for worlds of its own. It contains dreams lingering into wakefulness, the anxieties of the insomniac, the reveries of the dying.
Still from 2001: A Space Odyssey.