become aware of your own experience

i came across a great quote by robert morris (he of the felt and earth fame) the other day:

i want to provide a situation where people can become more aware of their own experience rather than more aware of some version of my experience.

this is in many ways the core of what i hope to achieve with my work. of course, i do want people to be impressed by my work - whether for its execution or its content. i want it to have a wow factor. but i want the experience of looking at my work to be more than that. i want the viewer/ reader to engage with the work and use it to examine themselves. yes -- i have an agenda. yes -- there are ideas i am trying to convey. yes -- there is a direction to the work. yes - i expect you to enter in to the work and spend some time trying to decipher and analyze "the code"...

but at some point i hope it becomes about you and your experience and not mine - the work is not about my experience and my self-expression. i want the work to be little prompts, small agitations of the soul. doors. windows. hints and allegations. invitations, even.

it's the other side of another favourite quote of mine (by c. s. lewis this time):

[When looking at art,] We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)

"books are windows on the world"

as i work towards an installation/ exhibition this october, i would like to solicit input and thoughts from friends, followers and random visitors. obviously i will be working with books and text (both found and generated), but also windows, portals and doors (o my!). 

my request to you, the casual and devoted reader, is that you consider contributing quotes, poems or books that explore/ comment upon the following ideas (or any others that may tangentially connect for you within  the somewhat vaguely offered context): books, communication, text, language, writing, reading, orality, aurality, images, art, creativity, seriality, narrative, travel, journey, pilgrimage, culture, imagination, story, myth, philosophy, exploration, discovery...

here's my first contribution: of all man's instruments, the most astonishing is, without any doubt, the book. the others are extensions of his body. the microscope, the telescope, are extensions of his eyes; the telephone an extension of his voice; then we have the plow and the sword, extensions of his arm. but the book is something else: the book is an extension of memory and imagination. - jorge luis borges

please leave your thoughts, suggestions, questions or comments...

the fall(s) of edward

the fall of 2010 is looking to be a very busy season for me -- i will be having 2 solo exhibitions (one in september and one in november). i have already begun conceptualizing the exhibitions (see my previous posts about your possible contribution to an installation) and will continue [trying] to work on my collaborative projects (such as a photo-based exhibition with a friend). more details later. i hope i have enough time to bring them together.

in the meantime, i have been invited to install a piece at king's university college in edmonton as part of their read in week events for october 2009. it's a nice connection: read in week and bookworks (or at least text works). evidently, read in week has been going on for approximately 20 years - its stated intention is to create a greater awareness of the importance of reading. this year's theme is books are windows on the world. i'm already getting some ideas, but i will be waiting for some images of the space before i get too attached to anything in particular. in fact, i'm going to be very literal with the theme. which, in turn, will make the piece(s) very metaphorical. odd, that.

i have also submitted a proposal (i can't really call it a piece for reasons which i will explain below) for october 2009 to self absorbed, an exhibition about self-portraiture at the SPAC art gallery at seattle pacific university. while i do not work with my own self portrait, i am interested in identity and how we see ourselves (and therefore, how we see the world, and are seen). my proposal involves providing a template onto which visitors can project their own self-image (with supplied art materials) and thereby create a composite (self)portrait of the exhibition's visitors. i hope it gets accepted. 

there are several other submissions i have yet to hear about, which is probably a good thing. for the most part, i'm not getting paid for these shows, and i'm still working on ways in which to make my work more available (which is not the same thing as accessible). my goal over the next few years is to continue to widen the net -- slowly but surely moving out into alberta and the rest of the west. and aiming for exhibitions in 2011 and 2012. i may even try to cobble together a curated exhibition. dreams, visions and a lot of hard work (thinking and making). yes.

acedia

i just discovered a new word, or at least was reminded of a word i once knew and forgot: acedia. acedia is sometimes more commonly referred to as sloth, or laziness, particularly as it applies to apathy and inactivity in the practice and pursuit of virtue. it has also been referred to as ennui or boredom. as one of the latin seven deadly sins, mediaeval theologians identified it as particularly dangerous, and we can see today that as a psychological and spiritual condition it is epidemic. it manifests itself in a broad and complex range of psychological, emotional and somatic conditions and behaviours. aquinas acquaints it with "the sorrow of the world". it is a weight. it is the opposite of joy.

why do i bring this up? because i struggle with it. as an artist and as someone seeking the kingdom. more than i'd care to admit. various monastic orders consider it demonic. whether you name it apathy, indifference, [spiritual or mental] sloth, accidie or boredom, it results in a spiritual paralysis of the powers of the soul. there is an absolute indifference to prayer and fasting and, in general, an inertia about the keeping of the commandments of the gospel. since man is a psychophysical being, spiritual slothfulness is reflected in the body too. it is a psychophysical paralysis. and i am too often paralyzed.

let me share with you this: i am easily distracted, whether by work, ideas, entertainment, or worse. 

there are many things i need to do - things i must do. i need to be more disciplined. i need to (re)focus. i need to remember the dream. i need to wake up the feelings i've forgotten. i need to act. 

i suppose this is where community comes in. life happens and it can be wearing. we need the encouragement and challenge of others. the sharing of hopes and dreams. and fears. the shared resources and wisdom of friends and family. i am thankful for the communities i belong to. i cherish them. i need them.

(this should have been posted months ago)

the museum experiment

so i'm in philadelphia for the american association of museums annual conference, and i spent my first day walking around overwhelmed by the sheer number of museum opportunities (both arts and heritage related) available to me here. i visited the institute of contemporary art and the philadelphia museum of art, and will be visiting a few more institutions over the next 4 days. these are some things i realized today:

1. i'm really starting to love ceramics - i saw a great exhibition of contemporary ceramics with pieces that were both rough & tumble and elegant & refined.

2. there was bill viola video piece - silent mountain - that brought tears to my eyes. it a diptych comprised of a male and female actor depicting loss and grief over some unknown revelation which has been slowed down so that all the subtle intensity of those emotions are fully and torturously presented. it's excrutiating. and sublime.

3. i had no idea how LARGE cy twombly's paintings really were -- there was an entire gallery devoted to a single piece - 50 days at illium (a reference to classical greek myth and antiquity) - and it was glorious.

4. for some reason duchamp always makes me laugh - i think his work is very witty - but his Étant donnés: 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas), which he worked on in secret for 20 years, is as unsettling and complex a piece as i've encountered in a number of years. i am quite ambivalent about it. it is a secret(ive) piece about a secret (hidden) act, and yet it places me squarely as voyeur - and these ideas apply to both the piece itself and the artist (as an artist, perhaps even - in today's pantheon - the artist), as duchamp's project was as much about the role of the artist as about the function of art.

5. i never realized how integral and crucial the plinths/ platforms/ supports were for brancusi's sculptures (and pairing them in the same space as mondrian's paintings was a brilliant choice).

6. i saw an amazing collection of mughal miniatures and medieval prayer-books/ book of hours. breath-taking. inspiring. actually, i walked through that section of the museum with tears in my eyes. the loving devotion and intensity of labour were very moving.

that's all...

huh. "moving pictures".

on may 6, 1895, auguste and louis lumiere demonstrated the first movie projector, the cinematographe, in paris, france. it projected its images out onto a screen, unlike thomas edison's kinetograph, which was a peep show that the viewer looked into, and it weighed only 20 pounds compared to edison's half-ton invention. the first film they showed was workers leaving the lumiere factory. the movie opened with a concierge unlocking the gates, showed people walking through, and ended with the concierge closing the gates again. they made more than 2,000 films like this, without plots or characters, and thought of them just as moving pictures, and despite the thousands of people who lined up at their viewings every night, the lumieres thought that movies would be a passing fad and auguste went off to school to become a medical scientist, and louis went back to working on still photographs.

o, covetous rapture!

this easter weekend i acquired, through the sleuthing of my good friend daniel, 2 books i have been coveting for more than a decade.


the first, which is the fourth iteration of the book, is tom phillips' a humument. for those of you unfamiliar with the project (this edition of the book simply captures the project at a certain point in time - here's more information) it began in the mid-60s when mr. phillips, inspired by william burroughs' "cut-up" writing technique, bought an obscure victorian novel (w. h. mallock's a human document, from 1892) and began to alter it by drawing, painting and collaging the pages of the book and pulling out new narratives (even poetry). the first edition appeared in 1980 (the second edition was published in 1987 and the third in 1998). the fourth edition (the one i just received) was published in 2005 - almost half of the 1980 edition has been replaced/ revamped.


it is generally considered one of the prime exemplars of artists books, particularly the stream that involves altering and editing a text without altering a book's physical structure. and 40 years later, it seems that the project remains inexhaustible.


the other item is the 1971 compact edition of the oxford english dictionary. reproduced micrographically, it contains the entire 13-volume edition of the 1933 OED. it comes with a magnifying glass so you can read the text (it is reproduced micrographically, you know). at one time (i believe it was in the mid-90s), a newer edition had been made available to new members if you joined the book-of-the-month club, which i didn't do, and thereby missed my opportunity for a truly literary steal since the compact OED will usually run over $300. ouch.

according to the encyclopaedia brittanica online: The dictionary is a corrected and updated revision of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED), which was published in 10 volumes from February 1, 1884, to April 19, 1928, and which was designed to provide an inventory of words in use in English since the mid-12th century (and in some cases even earlier). In 1933 the New English Dictionary was reissued in 12 volumes (together with a 1-volume supplement) as The Oxford English Dictionary. Both the NED and OED were published by the Clarendon Press of Oxford.

Arranged mostly in order of historical occurrence, the definitions in the OED are illustrated with about 2,400,000 dated quotations from English-language literature and records. The aim of the dictionary (as stated in the 1933 edition) is “to present in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, and etymology.”

The publication of the dictionary was first suggested to the Philological Society (London) in 1857, and the collection of materials began soon thereafter. Editorial work began in 1879 with the appointment of James Murray, who was at that time president of the Philological Society, as editor in chief. Murray, during his term as editor, was responsible for approximately half of the dictionary, including the letters a through d, h through k, o, p, and t. Succeeding editors included Henry Bradley, William Alexander Craigie, and C.T. Onions.

yum.