if you can make it to lotus lounge, 8pm, clinton and stanton on the lower east side, welcome. the physical looks ready to go (not quite done in this image)
and the digital looks stable as well
if it doesn't work, catastrophe or bar people freaking out or power cord keeps falling out of wall, not through lack of trying. excited.
the pinwheel is that whirring light-demon which (depending on what sort of computer you use) tells you to sit tight. and sit tight. and wait. and hang on. not like the lovely bar which says thirty-two percent complete, forty-eight minutes remaining, no. the pinwheel is secretive and arrogant. no warning it just comes, and when it's gone (and it does usually eventually go away), it's just no longer there, and you hope that was that.
my wonderful computer which i love very much, the computer which works very hard for me and makes so many things possible, has been showing me the pinwheel an awful lot as i try to get a working prototype of chess ready to show tomorrow night. haven't invited anyone to e32, really, because, it's just not there yet. i could show a large version of square of cones, i could show footage of past work, i could just talk about chess and show clips of the process, but i want to have a pre-version ready, and i want to be able to say that.
in the meantime, though, there's time pressure, and learning (yes discovered some wonderful things today on the programming side) and frequent bouts of will-testing, when the pinwheel gives me the evil spin.
the balance between the desired result and the desired doing, constantly face it. something you can imagine, you might think you want to see it, but do you want to make it? are you willing to take the steps required to bring it into reality? the chess project has a lot of irregularities built into it, by choice. there are ways to be very precise but i almost always prefer quick-and-dirty. paint is fast, video isn't always but i don't care as much about quality as just creating something and moving on. but i've hit a part of chess which i knew was coming, bracing myself for some time, still difficult. i want the "board" (surface to project on) to be square, and each square to be square. it's not happening. there are ways to do it, but by tuesday, with the materials and methods i've chosen, there will be obvious misalignments. that's ok, it will look more like my work. spent some time today measuring and really aiming to be exact, was glad to have those tools but wonder if this is really me.
spent a couple hours on canal street and nearby, trying to find something translucent, in a light (white) tone and dark (black) tone - hard to find something black, not opaque, not transparent. all sorts of frosted clear frosted white translucent white translucent clear options - anyway, tomorrow will experiment. may end up just using inkjet on vellum again (worked for square of cones).
before e32, she shows clips friday and saturday nights, here's a view from inside
and out
uplifting studio visit with linda griggs
and was given two bits of either a current project or a future project or future projects (unclear) - that's a screen, and a single-slide projector in a case
brief clip and then some talk about chess, a few other artists as well, you're welcome to join.
otherwise, if you walk by friday or saturday night, my video will be in the rotation and visible from inside and out. some of the process of chess, not the completed result, that doesn't exist yet.
second ape meeting tonight (aesthetic purposes exploration).
before i get to that, please indulge me in some atmospheric musings. vineel once told me if you're looking for signs, you'll find them everywhere. well, i couldn't figure out if a few things were auspicious or hinting rather at doom and foreboding. for example, two pens ran out of ink, one of mine and one of ron's. we didn't talk about it until afterwards, and then we didn't dissect it, but i can see at least two ways of interpreting it. one = hey, there's so much to be notated here, you won't be able to get it all. press on, youngsters, this is fertile land you're exploring. two = a pen is for drawing. oh, you want to think about why you would want to draw? no chance, buddy. oh, another pen, eh? sorry buddy. anyway sometimes encourage = discourage and vice versa. the occasional truck going by temporarily dampening conversation seemed mundane real-world oh right these trucks aren't all hauling art around, but the lights jolting on, and cutting off, and back on, without discernible rhythm, seemed significant, but again, there are a lot of ways to take it, what kind of reader are you? what are you bringing to it?
which is where we paused at one point. so here's some of what was talked about:
- i was urged to start charging out these discussion threads, hypotheses, preclusions; use wiki? use flash? this is something i want to do, but it's also the sort of thing that can distract one from artmaking, feels a bit daunting, in the meantime this blog will contain some sort of record;
- the transformers movie is going to inspire creativity (imaginative thinking) in twelve-year-old boys, as star wars did back in the day
- we may not be conscious of hearing structure when listening to music but would immediately notice its absence
- art which lends itself to multiple [viewings] [listenings] may be engaging us in the process of understanding its underlying structure
- [mostly narrative or representational] art which presents a mirror world is unthreatening in its unrealness [and this can illuminate this world]
- for many practitioners of art, it is not necessarily something chosen, or something one wants to do, but essential/compulsive, in a real sense, and leads to knowing oneself, which can also impart understanding-of-other to experiencer (less fear, greater compassion) (communication to peacemaking)
- escape into another world equal negating this world yes some does, but other maybe cause feeling (reality) of transforming this world into other world
- viewer bringing own visual experience to encounter with work, direct experience with the work then creates feedback loop transforming viewer (from one who has never seen x to one who has seen x for a duration or y amount of instants, constant repetition even if short time)
- give you a different experience which you could otherwise not have. (this came up quite late and was not really faced with too much verve, but sitting here now, seems like a crucial point and likely effective start spot for next discussion)
- each new piece of art a new pattern in this universe; we are pattern-recognizers and pattern-makers; art and we are there fore particularly well-suited to one another and you could end up with a chicken/egg quandary here i think
- we are players in the evolution of a thing bigger than any generation of us
- perpetual novelty
(editing)
even at first stroke, there's something. tree leaves in sunlight, the tripod extended overhead, sun puddles. all art is time-based and all art is a collaboration with nature.
matthew was on my mind, we'll have another skype session tomorrow, tonight's was brief. after encountering an "arcadia & anarchy" exhibit reminiscent of some of the ones we saw in tokyo together, i bought a new zealand pear (delicious) from the supermarket as part of my walking snack. now that it's just over three months to kisokaido, want to make sure i'm ready for it.
some chess editing, this was a really unique one, michael using photoshop projected onto the board while i used wet paint, we both had access to black and white
daniel seemed to enjoy my enthusiasm for traffic cone aesthetics, showed him this, from my walk
and this cone in a cone in a hole (triggering "katharine" thought)
can't imagine life without these people. the people i thought about today, or saw today, or talked to today - would i want to remember what it was like before i knew matthew?
maybe this isn't clear, what it has to do with what i did, or my art, or what my friends and my life have to do with my art. and it maybe won't be, and i want to go to sleep, but quickly - matthew has been on my mind; our collaboration isn't going smoothly; which is fine; not everything can be smooth; human relationships aren't cake; at the guggenheim, i saw that exhibit which contained the sort of pantings we used to see at department stores in tokyo; those joint excursions formed a lot of my early encounters with paintings, painting as a medium, bits of art history, little bits at a time; while editing, i saw paintings between people i had forgotten had even "played" "chess," which were interesting; i saw michael and i taking turns using photoshop and wet paint together, and felt super-lucky that we were able to do that, but again aware that i don't see him as much as i'd like; in the evening alex had organized a little get-together by the river and after an hour daniel and i realize where we each know each other from - we both presented on the same night at dorkbot; so we got to really talk art, best of all, we've actually each seen each others' work - often if you can actually talk about art, you haven't already seen each others' work, it's different that way - and also there were three other people who painted on chess boards; and then matthew reminded me that i wrote him letters from china, this is way back in the day, say 1995, and i was making small paintings with very little conviction, just the desire to paint, to make art, to be an artist, and that it was important to keep painting, but really a lot of thoughtless floundering, and not prolific, not at all, and all these people, i think it makes a difference. we help each other.
when i stand in the guggenheim, and i see a kandinsky painting, and i remember "yes, these were big ones, these were some of the things that made me want to paint" and a mondrian and another mondrian later on and a giacometti, and each of these things were touched by those artists, it's almost a direct connection. christina talked about rothko a bit, and she said simon had a similar experience, me too, that first encounter with a rothko painting, and that's still a direct connection between you and mr. mark rothko who made that with his hands and his antiquated technology in his post-orson-welles world. still fresh, for us. and when i talk to matthew, even if it's skype, it's direct, it's fresh. and when i see michael and i painting together, digital and analog, it's exciting. and none of those things happens without other people. today, i really felt that. we do sometimes.
all art is time based right? well no art is solitary. no kandinsky, no rothko, i don't think. no orson welles, no rothko, i don't think. no matthew turner? very different erik sanner life and paintings, i think.
