building_space_with_words is featured on Caught in the Act: Art in Brooklyn, on
Brooklyn Independent Television (Time Warner 56 and Cablevision 69). It was premiered on October 28 at 10 pm.

For the next month, it will repeat every Monday & Wednesday at 2pm & 10pm.

It’s also on their website:

http://www.bricartsmedia.org/community-media/brooklyn-independent-television/caught-in-the-act

I’ve just read about this installation which was exploring the relationship between the physical and the virtual space:

Constellations is a network music installation by Atau Tanaka connecting the physical space of a gallery to the imaginary space of the internet through sound and image. Visitors in the gallery navigate an onscreen universe of planets, invoking audio to stream into the gallery. The planetary system is the interface to a library of soundfiles existing on servers throughout the internet. Each planet represents a contribution from a different composer. The sounds coming from the network space resonate in the acoustical space of the gallery, connecting these two universes.

Last summer I described my experience of “playing the building”, an installation by David Byrne which was taking place in NY. When I moved to London this summer, as I was walking nearby Camden Town, I saw a big poster advertising “Playing the building”. Byrne had revived his work in the Round House, a building in Chalk Farm, close to Camden Town.

When  Aileen visited us in London, we went together - interested by this attempt to inhabit a material space allowing others to interact with it. I was also curious to see how similar and how different it will be. The concept was the same “a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of a building is converted into a giant musical instrument” (David Byrne, 2005) and people were invited to interact. Yet, the feeling was very different. The space in New York was an old factory, the infrastructure was visible. The Round House is a beautiful building, also quite “raw”. However, the “infrastructure” seems less visible and thus it did not feel so much like “playing the building” - “building space with sounds”. Moreover, the round shape of the building made the wandering through the space more difficult.

A nice video done by Lily Henderson

Please go and check an interesting project - exploring on how to reinvent office spaces in public spaces - in which Laura Forlano is involved.

“This festival liberates workers from the traditional offices spaces and invites them to relocate their work in urban public settings, relying on three sets of tools: lightweight infrastructure, social software and facilitators’ guides that will jumpstart collaborations to inspire creative workers, activate street-life and intensify the use of under-performing public spaces.”

More information at http://www.sentientcity.net/exhibit/?p=53

Last month when I was in Paris I went to see “Verticale Rouge, Paroles en l’air”(which you can translate Red vertical, idle words. Note that “paroles en l’air” means idle words or empty promises, “en l’air” also means in other context “up in the air”), the work of Brigitte Brandeau in a group exhibit at La Madeleine.

In this work Brigitte is exploring how text disappears behind its shadows. The text (made of copper) is hanging in the air, a floating panel, projected on a white background. One can’t read the copper words; in fact they don’t even really look like words but the projected shadow does look like, “is” text. It reminded me of these old handwritten letters, with a fading ink. Brigitte told me how she was aiming to explore the ephemeral nature of the text which does not “really” exist, while its shadows seems more “real”. I won’t get into a discussion about the notion of reality (it’ll take us too far, and this has been an on-going discussion for centuries) but I was really intrigued by this approach as in my work with Anca Metiu on writing and correspondences, we’ve been looking at writing as a trace and as an objectifying process. Brigitte’s notion of text (close for me to the work of Blanchot) also reminded me some previous posts on literary texts as creating a space for the reader. (Once again we could have a very long discussion on the notion of text, esp. literary text, but it will take us far away from the issues - already broad - discussed in this blog).

It also made a lot of sense for our work with Aileen as while by projecting text on semi-transparent panels we were aiming to create a “physical” space for people to walk through, Brigitte by projecting a “physical” text made of copper made it disappear in front of its shadow. Yet in both cases, we all worked with materials. Brigitte told me about the tenuous work of writing the text with copper and it reminded me of our work with the wires, fabrics, projectors and ladders…

If you’re in Paris, stop by. Verticale Rouge is at the end of the Church, on the right.

As a follow up to the discussion started with my post on the project, Taking From, Leaving in, Moving on, I thought that the installation “Waste Not” by the Beijing artist Song Dong is very relevant. It is currently at MOMA. I saw it last Friday before leaving for London.

The installation consists of objects collected by Song Dong’s mother during 50 years. “The assembled materials, ranging from pots and basins to blankets, oil flasks, and legless dolls, form a miniature cityscape that viewers can navigate around and through.”My first thoughts were for the concept of materiality, of evocative objects, of the importance of “stuff” in our lives when I first came in the space. My second thought was “His mother did not move!”. I had thrown so much before moving to London, and had been throwing so much before (which is hard for me who tend to get attached to objects, and who love my books - these I don’t throw them. I left a few behind, but only a few and I keep shipping them… ). It also reminded me Yasmine’s post: All what I own or another post by Yasmine: How much does home takes?

These are issues we started exploring with Aileen in a curating collaboration on neo-nomads, evocative objects and a sense of place, with Baseera Kahn at Rotunda Gallery planned for March 2011 (I know it seems far away… to us too! but it’s an exciting project. We’ll keep you posted).

al

Yesterday we put down the installation after Milena’s last visit (a just-in-time impromptu visit to New York) and in fact, Milena who’s been so involved in the discussion, ended up helping us putting the installation down.It was nice to have one of our blog’s contributors involved as it was nice to see some of you at the opening or visiting afterward - a nice way to connect the blog and the physical installation, to reflect of how virtual and physical space are intertwined.It went so much faster: it took us two full weeks to put it up (without mentioning the previous months of visits, measuring, and prototyping) and in more or less two hours most of it was down and folded in different boxes. I realized how this was partly due to the whole process that was involved in the putting up the installation - the thinking with our hands process, the open ended nature of the work.It was a weird feeling to see the empty space back to its original “shape” and nice to hear people with neighboring offices telling us they will miss it.This being said the end of the installation only closes the visitor account door but it does not end our conversation which had evolved to become a thing of its own.Looking forward to more interesting discussions,al

Really happy to have made it to the centre of the maze to experience BSWW. The space that has been built is a beautiful and comfortable space. With a wonderful soundtrack too. Al and Aileen, it’s fantastic milena

I went to see Jenny Holzer’s exhibition at the Whitney Museum a few days ago. It was interesting to me and look at someone for whom words, language, is the main material. Moreover, the way the exhibition was organized with only a few pieces and a lot of space was aiming to create a space where the visitors could walk through looking at the different LED pieces from different perspectives.

I like a lot her piece “For Chicago” very nicely described in the NY Times review:

“Using recently developed, thinner-than-ever LED signs, “For Chicago” is the first Holzer piece made specifically to lie flat on the floor. Its 11 48-foot-long LED signs, placed parallel about two feet apart, nearly reduce language to pure light. Stand at the end of the piece, and the words seem to flow from your shoes. The whole configuration suggests a lighted runway or weirdly geometric rows of crocuses in a field. As the punctuation-averse artist herself might put it, the piece means to stop you in your tracks and does.”

Words become material, texture and their meaning does not matter and I guess that might be why Jenny Holzer uses the same text in different pieces. Yet, if you read them, you realize that the sentences have some power. Reusing them might be a signal of their never ending power?

Reading the comment below:

“But above all, the exhibition demonstrates that as the times have caught up with Ms. Holzer, she has turned from poetic soothsaying to simply reporting the facts. Her newest LED pieces, as well as the silkscreen paintings she started making in 2005, have a single source: declassified and redacted government documents concerning Iraq and the Middle East.”

I could not stop thinking of Ben Rubin’s comment to Aileen’s post as an interesting example of achieving balance between form and content. In fact, the question of the balance between the form and the content came up to me while in the museum, especially while standing in front of Lustmord, an installation that consists of human bones laid out on a table. I understand the point and it is a strong one. Yet, I am not sure of the “aesthetic” value of it. I am not contesting the role of artists to raise issues, related to politics and death, but the question is “how” and how to define the work through which they express their ideas. I have no answers and will be happy to have your thoughts, esp. if you’ve been to the Whitney, but more generally too.

ciao,

al