Facebook chatter

Start:  WB- “EVERYTHING is about control and art is not exempt. Even when we appear to be fluid we are trying to connect or maintain, this condition is inescapable.”

1. DL- My partner would say that your post is from a male perspective. I’m with you, but I’m reminded all the time that the need for control is a personal issue, not a universal condition.

2. WB- Some of the most controlling beings I have ever come across in my life have been women and I get along best with them. The personal and the universal dovetail on this one.

3.JB- I like the tightrope. My profile pic is a pretty good example of letting paint do it’s thing, but also controlling things on my end too. Even the accidents aren’t really accidents.

4. DL- Still sounds like a personal issue. I looked at your paintings just now and like them. I also noticed that your dealer is “focused on enabling —.” I”m guessing Kim Foster is a woman.

5. WB- sure is, but I get along with her husband as well. …go figure. Thanks for looking at the work David

6. CG- I think it’s a state of equilibrium. You lose control, you regain control. But I think the eureka moments come when you utilize the uncontrolled to your (or the art work’s) advantage.

7. WB- I like that. bob and weave

8. WB- David, you have a nice gallery pool. do you like Frank Wimberley’s work…he is over at Spanierman modern

9. AB- You are never in control.

10. WB- piss off andrew, note: the lowercase a

11. AB- I think you mean “piss off, andrew.” You can use lower case if you’re feeling poetic, but the comma is a necessary element.

12. WB- bastard

Facebook chatter:

Start: WB- in terms of “isms” or measuring, packaging, defining, dividing, framing…to pretend to be beyond this is nonsense. It is the human condition to categorize All art is framed by the artist by time or by others.

1. LB- What is interesting is when everyones personal isms collide. Our categorizations and interpetations overlap or disagree beacuse they are subjective. Mulitple facets of the same experience. One’s measuring, packing framing are necessary and fine as long as they don’t pretend to be the only way to see things.

2. MN- I think we’re wired that way. We want to order and make connections, even among the most disparate things.

3. WB- Lisa: the way I see it is that everything is framed, even the most vague or nuanced thought or act. Whatever we think, see or say is framed and this is part of connecting.
I mean, I can have the next odyssey floating around inside me and unless I frame it through the act of thinking/ conceptualizing and communucation it will just stay where it is,lost in chaos…subjectivity and objectivity dovetail. How about this version: One’s (particular way) of measuring, packing framing are necessary and fine as long as they don’t pretend (it is) the only way (of framing).

4. KP- Very Subjective! It is as-though one can read nothing without some ‘consideration of ‘consideration.

5. WB- Another thought: The chaos I mentioned is not such a negative thing either because it is in the chaos that things happen, a pool that we pull from. the problem is that many people feel comfortable staying in that realm for fear of being nailed down in absolutes which history has shown can be proven false or contradicted. The trick is to move from one state to the next.

6. LB- maybe it’s more like close up sometimes, wide view at others, knowing that each is a particular sense of the thing but not definitive- like the story of the blind men and the elephant.

7. WB- the thing with the blind men and the elephant is that if one of them felt both a tail and a trunk…the thing is to keep reaching. The moral of the story is definitive in its point isn’t it? besides, my perception of a peanut is not that far off from the elephants or the blind men…

8. …

Streamline Project Pt. 2

Streamline project Pt. 2 

 

The initial outline for the project describes a global data base geared towards large scale projects.

The structure could be implemented on an individual scale that would dovetail with the main project. Artists would establish “think tank” teams with the sole purpose of generating ideas that support and extend the trajectory of the artists overall vision.

This is a nod back towards the role of the apprentice with ideas and concepts being the material that is worked upon.

When content, be it physical or intellectual, is unleashed to move through an exchange of hands, the evolutionary component of creativity becomes accelerated.

Cory Arcangel in a discourse with Dara Birnbaum in Artforum 3/09 states: “It also shows how the internet makes it very hard to keep ahead. The question of who “did” something is moot. It’s just guaranteed that any idea you have has been executed by some kid somewhere.”

 

STREAMLINE PROJECT

  STREAMLINE PROJECT

A societal proposal:

What I see as the natural progression of the fine arts is a consolidation and streamlining of creative concepts via the web. These concepts would be extracted from a vast pool of the world population and then used as project material on a large scale with input from selected experts in a variety of the major sciences.

This process would allow all mankind a tangible creative outlet that could be realized within a collective scheme. All humans have creative thoughts, fragments of thoughts or outright innovation which come in waves that could be gathered, fine tuned and streamlined towards a legitimate project.

The proposal is to position a site where any individual at any time can deposit creative information which would be collected and stored in a data base which would function as a filter that would sort material into categories of relevance.

The essence of the creative information would be made accessible to a select panel of qualified representatives of the major sciences for review.

At this point, an aesthetic project(s) could be set into place based on information compiled and then could be split into branch projects and handed off to workers/artists for refinement.

The showcasing of these grand scale projects could be held on an annual basis.

Those participants who submitted ideas/concepts that are used as core material or even substantial supporting material could be included in the production process of the work(s).

The content of these artworks/projects may be  beneficial to society by way of scaling back redundancy, obsolete content and the pit falls of going down blind alleys due to lack of information , misinformation or going over ground already well trodden.

This project description is only a rudimentary draft set forth as a template for further discourse.

 

Cory Arcangel in a discourse with Dara Birnbaum in Artforum 3/09 asks: “…where is art left when everyone is a producer?” and “If everyone is a producer now, then we have a data- archiving problem – meaning that we do not know where, or how, to look for accurate information.”

 

THE MARK

The Mark

“When the hand goes down… the first step is everything, decisive.” – Arvo Part

This quote not only speaks of determinism, but the essence of the creativity.

 It stands to reason that the creative process is for the most part the act of leaving an imprint of ones self in anticipation of ultimate physical annihilation.

This act is apparent in life in general outside of the aesthetic realm, procreation being the most obvious example.

One could rightly suppose that boredom is a major component in the creative process, so let us examine the nature of boredom.

When an individual is bored, what is actually taking place is a reaction to a type death in the form of an exhaustion of content. The reaction to this mental cooling of energy so to speak is to search for active stimuli or unfamiliar content. An example of this would be the seven year itch or knowing a melody so well (Via modern recording technology) that one cannot bear to remain engaged. The quest for knowledge is another example of this nomadic drive.

With this view in place, I now move towards my reasoning behind working within a narrow framework in terms of my artistic process.

The boredom resulting from repetition within a limited playing field (such as a 2” image area) will in time produce an evolution of the image by way of the human urge to move away from the confines the familiar.

This is an involuntary drive that fluctuates in degrees from one individual to the next and can also change over time due to internal and external conditions.

My mindset is to hold to a rigid format over a life time in order to force a critical push towards unfamiliar territory. The residue left behind in its most basic form will be the mark.

WEB- (winter 2009)

 

Gallery Purgatory

In contemporary (Western) institutional art systems, There is a nuance that occurs in the gallery/museum setting in which the works displayed are positioned in a limbo state which hints of death by way of the works represented being absent of the actual artist (performance art excluded) The artist could be dead or alive but the frozen product is left behind to be consumed by the living. Works by a living artist can be displayed along side work done by a deceased artist with the result being: The deceased artist is resurrected and the living artist is put to death, in a sense. Death is a major factor in any culture or time.

The Timeline Chart and the arcade game phenomena.

Timeline charts (10,001 hrs.) “My work is an ongoing documentation of the evolution of one image” 

The Timeline charts consist of 1/4″ vertical ink marks drawn onto 5ft x 30ft paper rolls in sequence from top to bottom, left to right.  The gathered data will be used as material for a case study focusing on the progression of the mark. Stop and start times are logged and saved. Designated charts may be destroyed when the project is finished.

The arcade analogy is not simply a case of adding a theatrical element to the process rather it is a direct cultural influence which is embedded in my approach towards work as is the time I spent in a factory setting during my early years.

When positioned in front of the machine (be it in an arcade hall, factory, computer monitor or canvas) the mind moves  through space and time while the body remains locked into position. The subject is placed within the paradox of suspended motion and the primal tension that ensues is steeped in loss aversion. The merging of technology and the primitive was an essential component of the early Arcade experience and it is this hybrid approach that moves through the Timeline project.

 There is a core drive in the mind of the player/artist when engaging in the game and this is the act of racing against time and the preservation of ones immortality.