limits

technology has spawned reproduction. and vice-versa. right? never easy to come to grips with "limited editions." (me anyway.)

chess was going to be a site-specific one-time thing. now i'm thinking there will be a limited edition of sixty-four different new-media installations and an unlimited edition of something or other. (the first is very clear in my head, how they'll differ, how they'll be made, what they'll look like.)

all day i've been thinking about limitations - this "limited edition" thing has bugged me for a long time. hard to see the value in limiting dvds or vhs tapes (back in the day) - what, is each one lovingly hand-pressed by the artist? but other limitations you want them, you need them - if nothing else, so that a project gets defined, and you can move on, after it comes to a sort of conclusion or completion.

i think i'll have an open studio, and show an example of the chess limited edition, and maybe by then, have some further development on what an unlimited edition chess piece will consist of or be.

matthew and i wanted to skype for longer than thirty minutes last night, but there wasn't time - i couldn't invite as many people to paint on chessboards in the park as i wanted to, you need permits for groups larger than twenty, and i didn't want to do more than sixty-four boards (yes, the wetwork is now done, it's on to editing and programming, plus the other physical bits still being worked out).

there is a choice you have to make, a big one, as an artist. prolificity. maybe it's not conscious, maybe you don't do the authentic thing coming from you, but it's there, you have to face it. when i first got to know greg a bit, he was saying that if he had to start his career all over again, he would rather be like vermeer and have a small body of work which is all fully realized than explore different ideas and produce so many large canvasses. but i wonder if his personal breakthroughs could have been achieved without all that other painting, leading to it.

you can say that anyone's entire life's work is a limited edition of one, a single body of work. there will only be as much as you do. why would you want to do less than what you are capable of? no need for artificial limitations, there are plenty of external constraints. what can you do, within the limits of this universe?