Hey, here is some philosophical-art idea I had today. It's in its roughest form, so please, read delicately, but also, read upside down and in a terrarium.
the object: found and modified
to find an object (and this idea of object, this entity, need not be actual object, but can be words or thoughts/feelings, images, etc.) and to possess it, then to modify it, is, above everything else, creation; furthermore, there is a feeling of destiny and purpose to such acts, but they are great and unknowable: the universe: god; there is a part of us (call it creation spark/art) that feels this need; to then see an object, to not realize the what or why of it, especially the more obtuse (or seemingly esoteric) objects, and to take them, move them, alter them, do something/anything to them and because of them, is to suddenly participate in a puzzle; as if we can feel that life is a puzzle, a labyrinth, with many locks and pathways; it is the presentation of these objects in our lives that can act as the keys or guides; again, it is vastly unknowable , but that part of us that is also unknowable, the subconscious, the soul, the what-have-you, is our connection to the puzzle; in 'playing' with these objects, we involve ourselves in a paradox: we can't understand the primacy of the objects we come across, what they mean for us, but we also intrinsically understand their value; this irrationality is key to becoming complete; the balance, the sense of trust, of peace, freedom of interaction and the overall delivery of humankind to utopia through art, love, compassion, understanding, and acceptance, the marriage of logic and illogic, is all key; such things are shown to us through the game of finding and touching objects and leaving them for others to find; I once found a key in a stop sign; it had no meaning, but in any way I actually wanted, it was and is a message, to unlock the stop and to go forward; the puzzle is the universe, we are the travelers, and the objects lead the way
2 comments:
This bears a surprising resemblance to some of the meditations on images and image cultures that I'm struggling through in Film Theory. I like that your argument is essentially for participation, for investing in and creating individual (or collective) meaning. It's a very (dare I employ this word?) existential musing, not least because of your use of the god index. I'm assuming there was a piece, or pieces, in the museum that triggered this discursive pondering. I'd like to know what they were, or what "object" is behind this writing.
It's actually a culmination of many things, but what put it over the top for me was a piece from Jamie (she used to be on the tech crew; now she's a conservator). She has a show in Marfa and her art is in finding objects and modifying them (the piece in particular was a chair that had its back modified and upturned). The image stayed with me, the idea of why we feel the need to take something and modify it in any way (ie. to make it nonfunctional, to merely be part of its existence, to be part of its lifecycle and where it ends up going, to be a gatekeeper) came to me, it resonated due to a majority of things I do with my art/literature already, and the giant stew poured over in my mind. I suddenly thought, we feel the need to be a part of these things because the incomprehensible puzzle of life/meaning/existence is solved by the incomprehensible desire to touch these things and leave our mark upon them and be marked by them. So long long thought short, I saw a chair that had been remade into an unusable piece and thought of how that signified the meaning of life.
Post a Comment