Consider this in essence a technical report.
This cutout is a scan of our living room using a laser distance finder. The laser was attached to a fixture which allowed it to be rotated around a common center. I pointed the laser at a feature of interest, such as an edge or intersection. The pointed direction and distance to the interrupting surface were then recorded by dots on an expanded pvc board. The dots were then connected and the resulting shape cut into what you see.
It doesn’t look like a self-respecting room. The jagged appearance is the product of the permanent features coupled with the disposition of furniture and nick knacks. In some cases the distance into an adjacent room would exceed the limits of the board and would result in a squared-off termination.
Aside from a portable table, the equipment for this consists of a Stanley Fat Max Tru-laser distance finder, locked into a homemade Plexiglass enclosure. Extending from this is a metric ruler aligned with the laser. Distances are read off the Fat Max and translated into a spot along the ruler.
Why bother? Creating such scans is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Until recently distance finding was an expensive proposition and inexact when affordable. Now one can get into the game for a hundred bucks. But why? Curiosity. Could such a process result in something that might register as art?
There’s a lot yet to figure out. It’s an awfully mechanical thing to do, but the living room result surprised me with a certain air of mystery and a nice sense of extension. Now to haul the kit around as the technique invites some adventure. There’s an intersection of rooms and hallways at Fallingwater that sends shivers up my spine and I wonder how it would scan.
What chance does this thing have of becoming an art form? That’s my question.
Jay,
Sorry, it’s too gray to be art. Unless you’re Jasper Johns. Also, it reminds me of a sunburst I once made from a bunch of laths of irregular length. We hung it on the wall, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t art. :-)
However, there may be hope. If color doesn’t help, maybe you could go to 3-D.
Actually, this brings up a huge question, which I’ve started to think about recently, the question of intentionality, which goes way beyond art. In this case, one might try to argue that your procedure is so defined and mechanical that the result, no matter how fascinating and beautiful, and even if we decided to call it art, would not really be (intentionally) created by you. It’s just the accident of the room arrangement and the predictability of the technique. Obviously, I don’t buy this argument, which is the same one used against considering photography to be art. Nevertheless, there seems to be a difference from more traditional forms of art.
Be that all as it may, your shape is fascinating. It makes me think of a frozen explosion, or the sky seen from a New York City canyon.
Steve:
I just had a nice reply blown away. Let’s just say that I’m working on the options including merging the chain concept with this.
I’d love to see that lath piece if you’re not pulling my leg.
Turns out that I could buy surveyors’ equipment that would do the scanning and input the data to my laptop. No need to bend over a makeshift rig. So the thing can become automatic as well as mechanical. But your photography example is apt in that a lot of choice is involved before one reaches the point-and-shoot moment.
Jay,
I can’t swear to it, but i suspect that teenage tossed-off art project long ago became kindling. The laths were a warm brown, mahogany-like wood, about 1″ x 1/8″ in cross section and roughly 4″ to 12″ long. I don’t think they all overlapped at a central point, so the construction wasn’t as strictly radial as your shape is.
Re-thinking my previous remark, I’m not sure whether you’ve got more of an explosion or an implosion. Either way, it may be an adequate vehicle for a new art of our time.
Steve:
And speaking of the explosion look, the perimeter of a bare room will scan similarly regardless of where you set up in it. However, the stuff in the room creates shifting perspectives. Excuse me, but I’m losing my text almozst as fast as I’m producing it and I want to see what makes it onto the screen.
Jay, watch out with that laser!
Jay,
As controls, could you do a room empty of small items and then empty of small and large items?
Steve:
No sweat according to the instructions.
Birgit:
All kinds of things are possible, so I guess I could answer in the affirmative. Moving this can of pop here closer to the Fat Max would afford it a bigger chunk of the field of view and a more pronounced effect on the overall shape than the yonder chair.
It is beginning to sound like art.
Jay,
I’m with Steve — color it pink and you’ll be closer.
Arthur Danto, philosopher of aesthetics and sometimes art critic, says contemporary art is a product of intentionality and presentation, meaning the artist must intend the object to be art (whether or not it started out that way) and that is has to be labeled, presented, noted by social convention or whatever, as art.
So, you must decide — is it art? That will take care of the labelling. And then you have to decide if you intentionally meant it to be art. That takes care of intentionality.
Now the other question, is it Good Art — well, that’s a whole ‘nother matter.
Danto is one of the writers who has continuously influenced me in seeing the contemporary art world — his book, called something like “The End of Art”, meaning the end of the conventional, critical Greenbergian pronouncements about what the “story” of art, the narrative of art is, is great.
June:
Danto it is. I’ll check Mr. Danto out.
Goes around, comes around. Danto’s position is so sixties, in that it was then a matter of point and shout. Didn’t have something ready for the critique? Bring your corduroy pants and declare them art. A guy tried this and the prof was not amused. But your mention of “social convention” really matters. The coining agent is obliged to ingrain the definitions in a sufficient group to a sufficient extent. If I don’t surround this exercise in a context conducive to my intentions, then I have created something of an orphan.
Does the obverse also apply? I may wish to declare my living room scan an example of Sancho Panza or Touch. My stuff isn’t art, it’s Touch. No – the social conventions applied to art invite critique as well as acceptance, and therein lies a value.
Pink eh? What I might do is photograph the room and pixelate the image into a single block of average color – if that’s possible. Then I might try to match that color. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Jay, first off I’d say yes, definitely art. Good art.
…one might try to argue that your procedure is so defined and mechanical that the result, no matter how fascinating and beautiful, and even if we decided to call it art, would not really be (intentionally) created by you…
Regarding the position mentioned (but not embraced) above by Steve, I agree that intentionality is important, but that is different from control over results. If someone else gave you the procedure and you just followed it, then I’d say okay, you just followed someone else’s mechanical procedure, and it wouldn’t (to my mind) be art. Like paint by numbers. But you created the mechanical procedure! You defined a process that (by potentially altering the initial conditions) could generate many potential results, and that to me is really interesting art!
I’d be fascinated to see what you could do w/ the surveyor’s setup! A complex building? A forest? What if some of the elements were moving, like a crowd of people, or traffic? Or if the rig itself were moving? How would you display results that change over time? Some sort of overlay? What would happen if the rig were rotated 90 degrees, so that it were scanning vertically? You could step it through a room and record cross-sections!
David,
You’ve articulated a key distinction between intentionality and control. I totally agree that one can be fully (or at least, fully enough) intentional in creating a work that has random or uncontrolled aspects. In fact, those may be especially interesting. And I also agree that our loose sense of “art” seems to require intentionality. Some of these thoughts came into play in my following post. The exact flow patterns of the stream were usually changing too rapidly to select deliberately, but I was more than happy to capture several images and choose the one I found strongest.
David:
The best deal would be a laser that would rotate on its own, taking a digital sweep as it went. Movement in the field of view would create all sorts of effects. Have thought about the overlay thing in the context of sweeping a space repeatedly, recording changes in the inventory. Overlaying clear plastic cutouts might work. And yes you could. The idea might be to intersect cutouts so as to suggest or describe a volume. The cherry on top would be to shop the digital files over to a computerized cutter and sit back with a beer, anticipating the result.
The cherry on top would be to shop the digital files over to a computerized cutter and sit back with a beer, anticipating the result.
Now you’re talking!
I’m not sure how anyone could say this isn’t art, except for the fact that the creator himself isn’t sure it is art.
I believe (after studying art history for four years) that anything is art, if the artist genuinely intends it to be. If Duchamps can sign a urinal and then call it art, why would this not be? Now, it doesn’t necessarily mean that other people will like the art, or take an interest enough to make it popular. But it is still art, if that is the intent.
So, Jay, is it art or not?
Beverley:
I rest content in the opinions of this esteemed company, many of whom consider this exercise to be so.