Thursday, September 11, 2008

seeing the messenger



Technique - virtuosity / application / costume

Medium - delivery method / container

Creator - messenger / vessel

Content - the experience

Concept - the thought

Execution - the body


The connection between the artist – the messenger, and the execution of their physical experience, dictates their work, their mind, their thought process, their everything. The work itself, a disembodied object, the artifact, acts as the concentrate from a string of moments expressed through physical action, to become thought/feeling made tangible.

Do we want to understand the object of the art or do we want to understand the person behind the object of art. When does the expression of a creative act, in and of itself, become the topic/subject matter of the work, in and of itself?

More simply put – does the object of artwork, or the deliverer of the work resonate more, and if so in what ways? For me, this question has a torn answer, as somebody who completely loathes the cultural obsession of personality over content; I reject the notion that the artist as personality is remotely relevant. However, I do believe the artist as facilitator of the work – deliverer of the work, is in fact utterly more important. I feel the act of expression is, in and of itself, the work. We/humanity/artists are the work. We are artwork. Our physical effort to capture and give form to our thoughts and our fleeting perceptions is the base level of the creative act.

Seen through the lens of an improviser, one does not execute finality, but one practices how to execute decision. Many choices will inevitably be the wrong choice within the context of a certain flow structure, but it is within the delivery of the choice that holds the subject matter of the choice. I am not looking to appreciate the deliberation of choices but the activation of choices. How one behaves not how one thinks.

I want to see the mark of the person. I want to see emotion. We are emotion. I want to see thought as action. I am not interested in seeing science as art. I am not interested in a logical rational art. I am interested in a messy, convoluted, questing, uneven, uncertain or clear expression. I want to see the act of creation, not the polished idea made manifest by technical virtuosity framed by months of deliberation. I don’t want to dominate the output of the work by my minds will. I want to see the work act as the record, the tablet that the word is written upon. I want to see work that is, in and of itself, the record of the messengers experience.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

selfmap list


( Mobius Strip, Gilles Jobin)

Selfmap List 2006

Maps as a guide to the self
Maps as a guide to the property of the self
The self as a property object as a location
The self as a location as a landscape
The self as a landscape to be studied and measured
The self as a landscape to be walked and traveled
The self as a landscape of boundaries and markers
The self as boundary’s to be marked for transportation
The self as a road system and curbs to walk
The self as freeway covered in tar
Our selves our freeways we drive on and on and on

Wednesday, September 03, 2008



Marrow and Dancing, 2005

At night I climb into your skin and

Rest

I breath

your bones

marrow and dancing