"It is exciting for us to announce that our September resident is going to be @th3n04h
They're going to be creating a scale model self-portrait that will associatively proliferate and mutate throughout their residency.
Things will be selected from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse and (re)combined/(re)composed with images from their personal image archive (collected from the internet and digital scans over the last two decades).
#digitalart #objectswithmeaning #noahtravisphillips #selfportrait #digitalresidency #onlineresidency #thesketchupresidency #characterproduction"
Text / Notes
(DRAMA(s) of the) Object / Thing
poetry / drama DREAMS
(fictions) /scenes /songs /worlds
narrating the dream (incident)
what is there? the storytelling is crowded (audience)
who's there? we can synthesize them only with difficulty
visual references
inspecting. inspection, introspection,
sequence, framing details, as the eye moves
the image and/or the object performs as a gesture
each drama (DREAM) is surrounded by a wilderness
trying to figure out what it must be like for ___________
the wildly improbable has occurred, they said
"wild palms"
a view of things that is strange
OOO = over & over & over
flora / fire / metal / ice ?
things/objects not really answerable to their conventional placement,
though there is some kind of tension
near(ness) far
everything happening (occuring) on a stage
picture-in-picture w/ drop shadow
shots of models in various phases (stages)
objects / things / signs
sequentially
indexically (groups of same thing)
quotidian, a liminality, blurring threshold between (un)nameable, (un)identifiable,
not apprehended, beyond theory(?)
the things seems to name the object, just as it is, even as it names something else
(as if) w/ desire
"object" designating a relation
"relation" designating objects/things
no humans
there is no real scale in the digital, because no real size
(there is geography between/amongst the space/worlds)
theater for each piece?
shifts in size / scale
very ornate / complex vs. simple (few polygons)
large things small, small objects large
relative scale
changes of speed & orientation
page of 'production notes' for each episode / scene / act
language from theater
'scripts' from theater
study of object as character study
things / objects turned at odd (dynamic) angles
small things large, large things small
some kind of reverse polarity
some kind of drama
I always wanted to be able to do this: by "this" I mean I always wanted to be able to arrange meaningful or symbolic readymade and found and appropriated objects in space, as the work ... like installation or assemblage
it has a different character in this space ... the scales aren't answerable to anything,
it becomes like medieval imagery... in which more important things/characters are larger, inhabit more of the pictorial space. In these dramas that phenomenon is made dynamic, as the camera zooms and pans
from framing / composition
one shot, then things are rearranged, then another shot
the objects are mostly stationary, they are animated by the movement of the camera/eye... the (virtual) camera is very much a disembodied eye, an autonomous eye, and it that way like a drone... and in that way there is the topic of surveillance and omnipotence,
(pan, zoom, & so on)
not answerable to gravity, so at oblique angles (Oblique Strategies)
upside-down, 90°
the views reveal something about the model
now there is a model,
objects in the distance?
(dub structure / solo(s))
Objects near one another, nearly any object (artifact) (of industrial culture) can be retrieved (visually / virtually),
Objects inside other objects, things outside of being things... things also are being(s)
Legible or illegible appearances,
The frame articulates (anticipates) a fragment of/ from the world
Allegorical; concrete references freely associated as in an internal monologue
(Internal mind is a transformer of the external world)
conceptual mobility
analogy / equivalence
psychically contact with intimacy and depth, via visual fiction
imagination, speculation, personal, interpretive
objects, as representations of things, or as vehicles for concepts, idea(l)s,
symbol, puzzle (interpretation) and interpenetration - of things, (digital) objects, and ideas
objects represent(ing) abstract ideas. These ideas are malleable, plastic in allegory, the digital is more plastic than plastic.
No real resolution, in fact some of the dramas are contradictions,
the meaning(s) of each object in a mise-en-scène, a still life, memento mori?
imperfection
something is an object, a thing, because it is imperfect,
when it is perfect it is an ideal, or it is nothing
the things about things is
Humans are not the primary concern or subject here, objects are the subject, the objects are without gender, race, and so on, ... but can be (/are) categorized, and gendered, projections, ...
Objects are all around us,
making something about things, about objects, but they are digital, virtual, "pictures of food cannot feed"
they starve, for the right thing
necessarily it becomes more specific (certain things and not others) wanting,
the self becomes involved almost immediately. One person wants things the other doesn't. (people are things, contractions are a thing)
contraction of two objects / things, they inhabit the same space,
all things inhabit some kind of space; physical, mental / psychic, emotional, actual / virtual , & so on and on.
these things take time... Time is a thing, of course.
a thing is a hole in a thing it is not,
nothing is autonomous, really, they are all relational and contingent, everything and each is the center of the(ir) universe.
The(y) the --> they
presence and nearness (proximity) beyond the perceptible qualities/aspects,
even virtual things communicate,
impossible, virtual, and fictional things,
the sublime questions human power(s) (suggests humility)
the uncanny gestures toward the more-than or beyond human
memory is an approximation of the thing, and a kind of appropriation, we take it (into) our selves,
tool, commodity, thought, phenomenon, living being (animal / creature),
lost in these realities
drama & symbols metaphorically correlated, the two siblings that resemble one another,
one able to remember a favorite memory the other has forgotten
commas, lists, run-on sentences, circular logic(s), paradoxical and recursive, plural
multiples and parentheses,
repetition also suggests rhythm, as well as relationship, ...
recurrence of an image, of a character, of an object, ...
Undifferentiated totality, mediated vantage point,
These are models, after a fashion, and models work, things that work, work happens in them, and a kind ( form) of work comes from them, emanates,
Enhances forms of thinking, considering, contemplating,
How things fit together, how they relate, cooperating, one way or the other, these are homogeneous heterotopias.
the artist recycles, transforms detourns, changes the trajector(ies) (trajective) of, the object / thing.
(the multiple, the paradoxical, the simultaneous, the irresolvable, the complex ... ) many views of (and (up)on) the same thing.
This role is far from mastery, the opposite, perhaps, ... the role of amateur/student, instead the capacity/ability to inhabit the world of objects,
I am engaging with and translating for the benefit of other objects and subjects.
the object has its own unique properties, many of which are not accessible to the subject, the object keeps its secrets, (secrets are ripe with potential for drama(s))
focus on the object problematizes the subject. There are no people here. Objects are their evidence, objects as residue , objects have residual effects
... around between and through the object / thing
collector, selector, editor (the anti-omnipotent author)
re-display of objects to create a sense of __________ (what?) in the subject,
the thing creates a feeling,
You could imagine these as installations, as well as dramas, in addition to theatrical spaces, they are also installations,
the space becomes one of psychic habitation,
we are almost-objects,
elevating one's subjectivity to the mythological, as a means a way a manner of comprehension of other subjects, mysteries,
autodidacticism, amateur and DIY perseverance,
encouraging others to make something that matters to them with what they have been gathering over a lifetime.
new personal mythologies of ... origin, whatever, other narratives, events known & unknown ... according to one's own enthusiasm(s),
technologies and invention have moved from necessity to desire, alternate desire leading to a new necessary.
the sincere vs. the universal, the multi and the singular, multidimensional
platforms / interfaces determine much of the (cultural) production that is made with them, so they come with particular worldviews and ideologies, pragmatics,
so it is important for me that it can structure something different into knowledge, important that we are structuring what we wish ... into the creation of knowledge and worlds
(unstable / conditional)
through combinations of platforms / interfaces something else can emerge,
putting things in affective proximity to one another, sequencing the space between images,
they seem to bear a striking resemblance to impossibility & hence to nothing(ness).
The author and the viewer are things, among many.
I have not concluded my speculations / my speculations continue ...
