The AFHstudioASTORIA era has commenced. I have maintained home studio practices a few times over the past 35+ years. It is not my druthers. That said, I have never enjoyed painting at home in designated art-making space as much as I am right now. I love the ritual of setting up the easels and tables, paints and brushes, floor covering and music. I dread it, too, until it is done. The issue arises from temporary solutions to what one wishes were permanent ones. I have set up and broken down quite a few studios in my time. The commitment to a particular working space configuration bears the marks of projected disassembly at some future date. The period in NYC forced a refinement in this department, and the storage quandary of the LA period proved as much a liability as an asset. Like any particular aspect of 4D art practicum, the conversation here suggests a point of origin for a broader discussion of art life. The onus on artists to constantly navigate the treacherous straits of property management and simultaneously focus on production and presentation is ridiculous. The art industrial system only provisions a few privileged commercial artists with the advanced means to maintain the various requisites for a sound professional artist operation. Through AFH channels I am privy over decades to so many anecdotes, emerging from artists juggling their responsibilities. Especially heartbreaking are the stories of elderly artists losing their life work as a result of eviction in predatory real estate markets. Very few artists can properly archive and store their materials and finished, in-process and unsold art. Very few artists can do so and also maintain decent living conditions for themselves and their families sustainably. A studio is a workshop, and manufacturing demands the upkeep of tools and all sorts of expensive supplies. Staging an exhibition is a complicated program, and converting studios to that purpose can be daunting. The romantic and superficial version of art life that prevails in the imagination of many people has little to do with the real thing. Artist problems conform to a great extent to the problems experienced by most small businesses in this country over the past 40 or 50 years, as corporate hegemony consumes so much Post-War and post-New Deal society. Like many of their fellows, 99% artists accept their difficulties as a personal failure, primarily because they fail to learn the macro-economics that are driving the circumstances of the population. If artists decide to collectivize effectively, the steps necessary to realize a more fair economy for art and artists are there to climb: reject 1% patronage; boycott all markets and institutions that cater to the 1%; establish local-to-national (and international) art exchanges; de-incentivize top-down philanthropy; tax corporations and the wealthy appropriately to generate funds for programmatic conversion of art to a more democratic version; restore support for individual artists; and so on. The 1%-owned (art) press will never condone a substantial correction of this nature. The massive response vital to overturn the cultural tyrants begins with the general comprehension of how pervasive and rotten the status quo has become, and that better, proven alternatives exist, and that they can be attained along with greater efficiency and outcomes for all. Or perhaps the change starts with a single direct act of insistence on a more promising future for art. Historically, both collective and individual action are useful in integrated strategies. In the post-Internet/social media age, dynamic shifts are possible at scale, in short order and long term scenarios. Now that we humans are 4D, the radical can become normal overnight, under the proper circumstances. We must develop Vision to materialize the world for all of us, not just a few. Then comes the Mission, and the Task.
Coast Community Radio is one of the gems of our new home town. I have embraced radio as an essential vehicle for transmitting the oral tradition of art, since the early 90s. My first live, on-air program was Art Talk, broadcast from a tiny studio in a nondescript adobe box, just off one of the main thoroughfares in the City Different. The station as it was then is gone, but after our recent reunion with the contents of four storage units in SoCal, I located the archive of material from the showgrams, as I referred to them, a sampler from Art Talk, and two subsequent iterations (Art Radio and Art Waves). Those shows were produced on college radio stations in Santa Fe and Nashville respectively. When we moved to the Oregon Coast I entertained the notion of reviving an art talk program. Over the years, I’ve passed on opportunities to produce shows in Los Angeles, for podcast, and in NYC, for various reasons. The evolution of the medium has been a phenomenon that I have tracked, however. Like millions of others, I am a big fan of Joe Rogan’s podcast. I also love Joe Nolan’s in Nashville. I knew Joe during my time in Tennessee, and was surprised fairly recently to discover the Joe (Nolan), with Brian Siskind, had launched a great show called “Art Fight,” which is a mash-up of discussions of combat sports and other artsy stuff. They cover a terrific range of subjects and interview a quality range of people, artists, musicians (Joe’s also an accomplished singer-songwriter), art business folk and the like. The art world has generated a fairly diverse list of podcasts, a shortlist of which can be located through a routine web search. My trajectory to a new AFH audio format project, in keeping with the visionary aspect of our relocation to Astoria, emerges from a dream I had shortly after we occupied our new old house, up the hill from the mighty Columbia River. I woke from the musing and hurried to record the outline in a sketchbook, which I later digitized as a concept piece for pre-production. Here’s that document:
Big concept
From a dream on Nov1 2018
A sequential/serial movie that has multiple platform options + apps
Focal elements
The River
The Sea (fish, life, myth)
The Bridge (bridges)
The Forest (trees)
Structures (inside are the People)
Light (candles, lamps, sun)
Filters (sun through clouds, light through curtains, etc)
The Hunter
The Fisher
The Sailor
The Homemaker
The Gardener
The Farmer
The Policeman. The Criminal. The Bum. (No crime show elements at all. No overt acts of violence.)
The Politician. The Preacher. The Artist. The Doctor. The Magician. (Circles of illusion. Clarity. Lies. Truth. Intertwined.
The Fisherman > The ships. The tools. The Nets. Danger.
> Stories/storytelling.
> Dreams/
> Rain. Mist. Clouds. Ice. Snow. Drinking. Bathing. Preserving. Washing Away.
> The Seasons.
> Romance.
> Life & Death.
> Exploring the seams in the property regime where permission is not present/required.
} Cycles. The Echo is muted in the watery atmosphere. Resonance. The WAVE(form) Rippling. Frequency. Sonic sphere.
Magic > The Spide.r the D.ragon The Thunde.r
FIRE
After meeting with Coast Community Radio (CCR) staff over a period of months, encounters with some of the show hosts and performers, and extended listening sessions in the car and studio, I approached the station with a pitch for a show, The Drift. I first spoke with the smart and enthusiastic volunteer coordinator Janet Fryberger at the unique Tillicum House. After our meeting, I sent a clarifying brief that Janet passed on to station manager Graham Nystrom and others in the orgainization. Graham and I spoke by phone, and eventually I participated in the training and orientation class CCR provides for volunteers interested in hosting shows, or otherwise facilitating on-air programming. Through program director Elizabeth Menetrey, I brought my pitch to a monthly meeting of the Board, and later auditioned with Elizabeth, giving a presentation including media and text, with the intent of communicating a practical sense of the new program, where it might begin and what it might evolve to be. Here are the texts:
RE: Showgram Concept for Coast Community Radio
[Working title: The (Coastal or Astoria) Drift]
INTRODUCTION
On November 1, 2018 I had a dream about a sequential or serial movie that has multiple platform options and applications. The dream drifted through a fairly structured rendering of prominent local topological features, archetypal characters, Astorian stories about romance, life and death, seasons and other cycles in which a network narrative unfolds, intertwines and captures both the imagination and the “real world” of 21st Century Northwest Coast existence.
The concept Janet, Graham and I discussed for a program is a basic transmission of this site- and community-centric dream, which is becoming more specific on its way to realization. New layers have been added to The Drift, and that will be the format, moving forward. Echoing small town dynamics, the storylines will follow some central themes focusing on the place, time and people of Astoria. The storytelling will however develop the broad-stroke picture in detailed moments or vignettes, rooted in conversation as oral history.
The sensibility of The Drift is dreamy, open to a spectrum of sources, among which the episodes move fluidly. The Drift will present its subject on a continuum, which spans harsh natural realism and poetic and speculative sensation. We will project beauty in the same channel as we document the not-ideal experience. The key element to the program is dimensional time, as it affects perspective and perception. The Drift will take advantage of the serial format by opening space among and within each incident in a story.
If there is a word to identify the culture The Drift will embrace and promote, it is RESPECT.
CONCEPT
The Drift is conceived from the outset as a scalable project with diverse modes of presentation. Each type of format for The Drift can be optimized for production and output. The goal is to appropriately select content for the medium on which it appears. In short, The Drift will be a multimedia project. To plan or map the trajectory of the program is a vital function for the team, which we can call The Drifters. In my vision of The Drift, the show evolves logically, taking into account possible and available presentation media for which The Drift in its conceptual stage could make sense. Some of these possibilities were discussed with Janet and Graham in our introductory meetings. They include:
DRIFT RADIO
A visual art-focused radio program
Featuring artsy interviews of local-to-global cultural relevance
Lite calendar coverage
Some policy features to discuss issues affecting primarily NWC art, artists and the cultural community
Some radio theater and musical interludes
A meta-radio program that makes Coast Community Radio the main character of the show
Like WKRP in Cincinnati
Like the radio station in Northern Exposure
Like the DJ in The Warriors
Like G. Keillor’s long-form storytelling in Prairie Home Companion
NOTES ON RADIO: These could be two distinct radio programs, or one; whether or not to begin with two distinct shows or one that with the complexity of two (or more) depends on a number of things, much of it logistical, which we have already talked about, and which subject deserves more discussion. Another question is whether The Drift exists to begin with both as local radio station programming and:
THE DRIFT PODCAST
Envisioned to serve a local-to-global audience through streaming media
Inciteful and informative, like ArtFCity’s Explain Me
Casual, like Joe Rogan’s industry standard program (shuffle Joe’s comedy focus for our art focus)
Multi-faceted, like Joe Nolan’s Art Fight Podcast (shuffle Joe’s binary of art-plus-fighting to art-plus-theater/music/comedy and so on
The Drift Podcast links to
Twitter, Instagram, an archive
Other Drift nodes online
NOTES ON PODCAST: The Drift Podcast bends the concept architecture toward social media, and a very different platform architecture with attaching economics. To optimize the value inherent in podcast production, The Drift team must consider how to shape Drift programming for a podcast audience. This is a creative opportunity that might enable a sensible transition from local live performance to the stream-accessible universe of network media, marketing, funding and viral expansion.
THE DRIFT BOOK OF STORIES / BOOK OF POEMS / THE DRIFT LIBRARY
I envision The Drift Book of Stories as a serial novel, emerging from the stories written and performed for the radio program
The Drift Book of Poems will be an anthology of works performed on the radio program
The Drift Library is an archive (online) for texts featured on the program, but may over time extend to a variety of media
The Drift Library can serve as one storefront to promote and sell text and other media content
THE DRIFT STAGE PLAY
To summarize this facet of The Drift project: A theatrical emerging from radio theater developed for and performed on The Drift Radio program, plus additional scripted vignettes that come together in a narrative arc for the stage. The Drift Stage Play, if possible, would be a collaborative production with Liberty Theater. The show would serve as an intermediary phase connecting the audio-only Drift with its multimedia, visible dimensions. Performance applies to a spectrum of disciplines (including music, dance, spoken word/poetry, theater, performance art, moving image and a range of correlating digital-only and integrated genres, such as VR). The Drift Stage Play would be primary vehicle for entry to that spectrum. The maturity of theater arts relative to some of the other performative mediums is indicated by well established networks for touring work, publishing scripted narrative and straight documentation of plays for screen presentation and projection in a variety of contexts and venues. The Drift Stage Play might inspire formation of The Drift Players, a company of performers for those potential modes of presentation.
DRIFT MUSIC
Think of Drift Music as the soundtrack for all things Drift. We will build a catalog that can be made available online through the usual channels. Drift Music can be the audio glue that binds the whole enchilada together, viscerally. Music can do that! We need a primo soundtrack, with a meta-catchy hook!
DRIFT TV
In a way, the radio program, podcast, texts plus library and stage production can serve to workshop a screen-based iteration of The Drift. For now, the concept of a version of The Drift produced for streaming or traditional format television show is an aspiration, albeit one favored by the current media landscape.
THE DRIFT MOVIE
The same assessment that applies to a Drift TV concept applies to a derivative movie concept: both are aspirational, speculative, prospective ventures with a great deal of promise, if developed and managed effectively;
THE DRIFT WEBSITE
An online portal for all matter pertaining to The Drift. I see this site as a nexus, probably best contained in an easy to use Content Management System (e.g., of the kind easily designed and maintained via Squarespace) for the Drift Collective and its various activities, as outlined above. Most of the virtual stuff described in this Production Concept section can be published in this format. The task of community-building and maintenance for a project of this scope must be scalable, with smart navigation, with flex design to support the range of devices and their network capabilities by which our prospective Drift folk access Drift multimedia.
PROJECT TIMELINE
2019
Launch Drift Radio; begin pre-production on Drift Podcast; workshop scripts for Drift Stage Play, TV and Movie; launch Website and social media; produce Drift meme campaign via web; start Drift Music catalog; build core production team; begin fundraising
2020
Launch Drift Podcast; begin design of books; continue development for Play, TV and Movie; present short performance models for them, including Drift Music; expand community features on website and social media, and extend these into regular local, public gatherings to test material and fundraise
2021
Produce first performance of Drift Play; release shorts to promote TV and Movie concepts for festivals and local to regional screenings; continue expansion of Drift online presence and multi-platform integrated functionality; publish first edition of Drift Book of Stories and Poems; host readings; produce first Drift Music festival
2022
Produce first season of serial Drift TV; launch production platform for all things Drift; continue development and release cycle for various Drift projects
2023
Release first Drift Movie; continue development and release cycle for various Drift projects
THE DRIFT AND COAST COMMUNITY RADIO
I am presenting The Drift as proposed concept for development to CCR staff as a goodwill gesture and invitation to partner, to collaborate. The production tools necessary to realize all the projects sketched in the concept section of this proposal do not exist at CCR. From what I have gathered, CCR is a very successful entity, a clear mission, effective management and focused goals for its performance and sustainability.
The Drift is projected as a small-to-big cultural, creative enterprise. Its core, as described above, is a radio program, which is the hinge on which the door of The Drift opens or closes, at least initially. In my freewheeling, brainstorming discussions with Janet and Graham, the first production priority is to make a viable, consistent, quality radio program for CCR. That means working within the station’s current capabilities. Graham especially expressed the importance of recognizing available resources and not overextending them. He also made clear that the staff of CCR will do what they can to facilitate the Drift vision. Graham was straightforward about my responsibilities as program producer, in relation to what the station can provide at this time.
In my discussions with Janet and Graham, I think we all got a sense of the many opportunities a project like The Drift potentially provides for generating funds. Landing a major television, movie, book or music deal has a significant economic impact for any creative organization, public or private. At this point the strategy is to take baby steps toward that positive outcome, while not neglecting the task at hand. First things first, let’s do a The Drift Radio, and see how things go!
To summarize, I fully support Coast Community Radio, which is why I approached you with my idea. I will do my best to be a good team player. Hopefully, the Drift could turn out to be a very beautiful and productive endeavor for everyone who participates, and for the community stakeholders who have invested so much into CCR over the year. I think most importantly, The Drift can become a project that expresses the profound and unique beauty of the Northwest Coast, its compelling history and fine, resilient people!
[… DOCUMENT/WORK IN PROGRESS]
For the audition, Elizabeth requested I create a script. This is what I did: an outline for an hour showgram; a monologue.
Astoria Drift [BETA Mock Script]
> Show Theme IN
> Intro
> Monolog (Bed)
> Music Break (Studio Session)
> Art World News
> Music Break (Artsy Music)
> Drift Radio (Theater): Milo’s Art Lesson
> Music Break (Soundz Sculpture)
> Commentary (Bed)
> Poetry Segment
> Wrap (Bed)
> Music OUT
*ID BUMP FOR EACH SEGMENT
[SAMPLE MONOLOG]
Welcome to Drift Radio. This is your host, 4D artist Paul McLean. We have a lot of territory to cover, so batten down the hatches and prepare to drift. To open the showgram, we like to cover art news and emerging trends, currents if you will, in the Big A art world, so you Coasters are up to date on the latest and greatest stories impacting planet-wide art and culture. Let’s get right to it!
The biggest show of them all is the Venice Biennale. It officially opens May 11 and runs through November 24, with pre-opening starting today, May 8 and continuing through the 10th. This is the 58th edition of the International Art Exhibition, which is titled “May You Live in Interesting Times.” You can find out more at labiennale.org. Of course there is a massive buzz around the show. Artist Martin Puryear was selected to present his work in the American Pavillion. Have you heard of him? Have you seen his sculpture? There will be many other U.S.-based artists on view throughout the biennale. I read a snappy Sebastian See interview with one of them, Philadelphia-based Alex Da Corte, at the Washington Post. If you want to peer through the lens at the bizarro universe that is the exclusive A-List art thing, simply Search Venice Biennale or “Making Magic,” the title of Smee’s piece on Da Corte. We’ll post some related links on the Drift website to make it easy for you, dear listener. The process by which US artists are chosen for the biennale has very little to do with democracy and representation, as far as I can tell, after years of studying the phenomenon. I attended the 2011 exhibit and, whatever it really is, I would argue a serious artist should visit at least once, if possible!
The coffee is excellent!
In art market news, the 8th Frieze New York art fair happened last weekend and, unlike last year, Frieze was not burned by a terrible heat wave. My favorite write up appeared in the NY Times, titled “Frieze New York Addresses the Heat and Expands the Kitchen.” The article scans the affair and covers the major points with the proper insider-ish snarky-ness, which is not real. To get a sense of the art world that (I would estimate) 99% of us imagine when we hear that term, it helps to do a bit of research. Watch a movie, like the 2018 documentary “The Price of Everything,” or even this year’s wild Netflix horror comedy “Velvet Buzzsaw,” featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as a powerful art critic. Or follow a real big-time art critic, like Jerry Saltz, who has a huge following on Facebook and won a Pulitzer last year. Or read a book, like “The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art” by Don Thompson, which is a good introduction. If you want to get serious, drop a few hundred clams on the Handbooks of the Economics of Art and Culture, Volumes 1 and 2. Get a magazine subscription to Art Forum and check online at Art Net news and Hyperallergic, and before you know it, you’ll be able to hold your own with your average art snob and culture weenie. Or just listen in to Astoria Drift on Coast Radio. We’ll get you up to speed in a jiffy!
Finally, of course, the biggest recent big story is Notre Dame cathedral in flames, and now, Macron’s plan to rebuild it in just five years! Wow. Good luck with that!
But let’s face it. Most people in America couldn’t give a hoot about any of this stuff. We’re dialed into Game of Thrones, the NBA playoffs, the latest madness in Washington (DC, that is), what’s up with Taylor Swift’s upcoming release and the Spice Girls reunion tour, Avengers Endgame and whatever is popping up in your Instagram feed, maybe Mark Zuckerberg’s privacy plans for Facebook. To the casual observer, art doesn’t rate very high on the average priority list. Way below “What’s for dinner?” or picking up Johnny or Jane from school.
So, with that in mind, Drift Radio will offer some important, unusual perspectives on Media, Entertainment, Politics, Social Issues, and Mass Culture. Regarding Game of Thrones, many of you watched the Night King destroyed by Arya two episodes ago. I for one was greatly disappointed by that storyline, because I was pulling for the Dead. The Zombies, after all, represent the demos, the people, the 99%, and I really wanted us to win. As a true American, I loathe kings and queens, and am always happy to see them overrun by the hordes of everybody elses. Plus I have a deep professional artist beef with the aforementioned critic Jerry Saltz and another NYC-based artist critic named Walter Robinson, who established a hateful art diatribe and meme a few years ago that was picked up by most of the other top-shelf art hacks, called “Zombie Formalism.” ZOMBIE: That’s a stand-in for the 99%. The seemingly endless corporate wave of movies and television programs about the undead coincided with a tsunami of Superhero movies (like Avengers Endgame) and, unsurprisingly, stuff that glorify spies, torture, endless war, and so on, post-9/11. Does anyone else see a correlation between these phenomena and the current events? Is this dreck designed to keep our minds distracted from what’s happening in the real world, like Julian Assange, Ed Snowden, the corruption in our nation’s capitol, the New Gilded Age? Hmm. Who is this generation’s Bob Dylan? Jay Z (who by the way is an artist now)? Who is this generation’s Lenny Bruce? Jim Carrey (also an artist now)?
Your showgram host, by the way, is watching all Golden State games, and following the Trail Blazers, our local favorite. What an amazing time to be an NBA fan! I also love the UFC. Will Conor McGregor make a comeback, or will he stay with selling whiskey that brings in a Billion bucks a year?
We’ll continue to follow these and other stories in this and upcoming episodes of Drift Radio, and we will be asking your opinions on all the topics we focus on during the showgram. Now is a good time to point you to our Drift website and social media platform…
A couple of listener links before we move on. I love Ben Davis, who is National Art Critic at Art Net news. His April 26 essay on the Gretchen Bender survey at Red Bull Arts New York is very good, but I highly recommend his writing on the latest trends in the arts, media and culture, for a starting point for new artsies. I would also strongly recommend my friend Joseph Nechvatal at Hyperallergic, who does a stupendous job surveying shows in Europe and New York, with an eye towards art and technology. I would not recommend the hucksterism of Jay David Bolter, who recently penned a noxious piece that appeared in Salon, entitled “How the elite lost control of art
A core, elite group of aesthetes once determined what art was ‘important.’ That's no longer true.” What a long name for a brief adaptation of his latest book ”The Digital Plenitude: The Decline of Elite Culture and the Rise of New Media.” Unless you are into dry fiction presented as Big Picture analysis.
…Later in this episode of Astoria Drift, we’ll be talking to members of the world famous touring and recording band The Mavericks, Jerry Dale McFadden and Max Abrams about their art-related side gigs. From the archives, we’ll revisit a 1995 Art Talk interview with artist Richard Tuttle! Stay tuned for this and much more!
The new 4D VyNIL paintings in process now reflect an exciting development at a technical level. The first several pieces exhibit a subtle resolution for composition with color and layered form. The latest ones, which I will present soon in the virtual format, here and elsewhere on the AFH platform denote a movement toward scale. The array of shapes within the panel or canvas boundaries draws on innovations charted in the first to phases of the overarching series. Sense of available space is a marked feature. Naturally, given the external circumstances - Astoria (OR) and Bushwick are characterized by vast divergence in the area of field density. There is more to the aesthetic phenomenon than physical environment. Spatial arrangement is perceptual in painting, which is a function of conversion of the content within mutable dimensions. The register of hues can accentuate the receptivity of sensation in the viewer, especially for interpretation and orientation. Judging distance is a medium for play, absorbing the distance between the artist and the seer. The repetition of things, the installment of patterns, the laying down of complex visual topology within the rectangular parameters of the vertical wall art produce a variety of responses that can be directional to variable extent. The initial encounter is momentary. The induction of familiarity switches the optical apparatus into an interstitial state for reception of stimuli. In 4D VyNIL my aesthetic promotes a neutral position for creativity. The strategy driving this creative presumption infers a setting aside of push media of every description. The calculation is that the seeing agent observing a finished painting is afforded initially a fair ground for autonomous art experience. As a doctrine, the method seems straightforward enough to need no further commentary.
As a component of our painting exchange in 2018, my friend Jen Robbins agreed to collaborate with me in designing a website for my doctoral thesis. The title I settled on, with a gentle urge from Jen, is A THING (THERE IS NO SUCH THING): 4D art, practice and thinking. For pre-production purposes she requested I provide her some images, color sets and other material. The gallery above contains snapshots of several of the color (palette) corner sticks I re-discovered in storage. The gallery below contains a couple of gradients I have been using as effect filters or digital patina in image series, since moving to Astoria. I also sent 2Wovenform7 in a range of output formats as a set, a pic of “Red Sun,” a painting I made for a DDDD show in 2000, and a banner using that visual data as a focal point.
It is such an honor and privilege to work with Jennifer. We have known each other since our time at the University of Notre Dame, the college we both attended in the early 80s. Jen is the lady who wrote the (O’Reilly) book on HTML, and her design work in the pioneer era of the web epitomized to my mind the neat vision of publishing that evolved into CSS and CMS, what I might call Beautiful Logic. She has attained a level in the Digital Thing that is in my assessment Yoda-like, if Yoda lived in a nice house and had a crazy talented kid and husband, in a gentle corner of the Northeast.
The exercise of compiling information was healthy, and as is often the case, led to other project ideas. I have not gotten to it yet, but the Wovenform collection process revealed to me a specific facet of 4D production over time, which has to do with recycling a Thing, which becomes a particle or element, through many modes of output, exposition, scale, placement and so on. I realized, let’s say “more clearly,” the role 2WF7 had played over the past 15 years, since I first drew it with markers in a small sketchbook. The Wovenform has emerged as an emblematic sign of my own 4D aesthetics, and an object unto itself, renderable variously, a mutable substance, with a rich profile. It appears as a central figure, as a decoration, a pattern, icon, projection and more. Jen requested a cover image and I knew what to choose for that utility.
My revelations around 2Wovenform7 and its many Dimensionist iterations fomented the desire and inspiration to produce a kind of retrospective, mapping the original through its derivatives. I recognize, unfortunately, that the likelihood of such a thing happening is not good. Too bad. The value of a thorough analysis of the WF progression for future generations of 4D artsies is high. Perhaps I will do a placeholder/kernel project via the AFH platform, in due course. My favorites include the monumental cut-/adhesive vinyl sculpture installed at AFH Gallery Chinatown, upon which we performed an OpFeek treatment; the mini-projector printed on acetate for A Prayer for Clean Water and 7 Episodes; laser-cut versions executed at the Columbia Teachers College Maker’s Lab in 2017. WF practically became a signature option in my digital work from 2006-15. Although I have used WF in animations for standalone presentation and effect-layering, I have yet to convert the image successfully into a “smart” thing. My first attempt to 3D print did not pan out. So, there is plenty of room to grow. Furthermore, 2WF7 is but a single manifestation in an infinite set of possible wovenforms.
Anyway, below are the comps Jen sent me. I had to select one of the designs to refine into a finished product, which I found very difficult to do. I am in love with every version she fabricated. Jen is a true master in her craft. The page prototype is HERE. I will continue to post progress reports until we launch.
Jennifer sensibly solved so many of the conceptual and technical problems that had plagued my previous tries at publishing the material. Juxtaposing the handwritten original with the digitized text is handled intelligently. The navigation is logical and utile. The visual layout is in each comp a pleasure to my OG Web aesthetic eye. The painting. in Comp2 is the one that we exchanged. The clean-up and posting of the original sketches feels right and good. Man, sometimes you just want to shout it from the mountaintop! HOORAY!
THE END OF THE WEST
The 4D object array in the front and back yards of our Astoria home over the winter became overgrown with long grass mostly. John’s tar buckets filled with murky water. The fluorescent-painted screen on the ancient Mac monitor bubbled during extended storm phases. The gesso-treated wood frame constructions weathered, one accumulating mold, the other losing its pigmented but untreated clay skin. The ammo box brightened in hue, and the slugs inside oxidized. The Vision Channel Device panels sank into the turf and ceased to fall over with every strong wind, of which we have had many. Each piece underwent change. The sharing of documentation from “Inside>Outside” last month was partly an act for comparison, factoring for material, chronology and the titular realization inherent in the DDDD production. The project signifies my artistic shift over two decades. A community-based public artist practicum is massively different from a retiring home studio-based practice situated a good distance from the nearest major media center. I recall the early stage discourse driven by vision of ubiquitous fast data networks. Supposedly the advance of Civilization heralded a future for telecommuting, home office/computing and flex management solutions. The erasure of physicality as a logistical constriction for team dynamics ensured that global society would alter our collective understanding of cooperation, productivity and integrated systems. The barriers separating work and leisure could blur-shift toward positive lifestyle outcomes beneficial to business and worker. Predicting the profile of the 21st Century Citizen became a frothy enterprise for a sub-industry that eventually merged with social media. Nothing much turned out the way it was outlined in WIRED. Instead, the flow of technological wealth spurted upward to the New Oligarchy, exacerbating planet-wide inequality trends. Civil liberties were dismantled or ignored. The promise of the New Age disappeared in the Current Malaise. Scanning the media horizon, and the installation on the lawn, a title for my not-commissioned, speculative expression for the collective moment: The End of the West.