machines
The dragline
A metropolis for hydrocarbons
An oil refinery suggests the image of a metropolis for hydrocarbons, the pipe manifolds like expressways, the distillation towers like skyscrapers.
A haunting, syncopated music
"Rappers" on the roof of the electrostatic precipitator knock the accumulated dust free, letting it fall into the storage hopper. Each rapper is the size and shape of a baseball bat. Inside is an electromagnet that pulls a steel plunger upward, then allows it to fall again, producing a sharp knock. The rappers are energized at seemingly random intervals, producing a haunting, syncopated music. (The rhythm seemed more modern jazz than rap.)
One-machine policy
Today population forecasts are based on extensive and reliable data. However, no such demographic base exists for the world's growing population of machines and devices. Now may be the time to take machine demography seriously and enter into real discussions about machine population control.
An enormous machine
The couple of years in question here saw one of the largest bureaucracies anywhere undergo a convulsion in which it tried to reconceive itself as a non- or even anti-bureaucracy, which at first might sound like nothing more than an amusing bit of bureaucratic folly. In fact, it was frightening; it was a little like watching an enormous machine come to consciousness and start trying to think and feel like a real human.
Phenomenal: Exhibited Works
Untitled (Light Canvas)
A key transitional work for Wheeler is his untitled "light canvas" from 1965. The canvas was primed white, then over-sprayed..., but with no emblems or polished elements. The contrast in the light canvas is provided not by any imagery within the painting but by back-lighting; the canvas is backlit with neon light, which is embedded in a reverse bevel Plexiglass frame that projects the piece about five inches from the wall. The effect suggests an eclipse, or some other spectral occlusion of a bright light source.
Eindhoven
Stuck Red
Zero Mass
On an autumn night in 2009, I experienced a version of this piece installed in a stone barn in rural France. The evening was moonless and cold; I stood with two friends inside the piece for the better part of an hour, as our eyes adjusted to almost total darkness, before any of us could begin to see one another. It was the definition of a liminal, or barely perceptible, experience. Eric Orr, who died in 1998, was involved with Zen Buddhism and considered these pieces to be spaces for meditation. Experiencing them as intended requires the visitor to focus quietly on the mechanics of their own perception.
Little Blank Riding Hood
As a student at Chouinard, Larry Bell also started as a painter. His early canvases features simple shapes rendered in gestural strokes...From there he started eliminating the texture of the strokes, applying opaque color (thin Liquitex paint) to unprimed canvas, masking off shapes to create straight-edged parallelograms. An example of these works is Little Blank Riding Hood, whose top left and bottom right corners are clipped, suggesting an isometric projection of a three-dimensional form.
Afrum
Untitled (White Light Grid Series-H)
The entire box is suspended from the ceiling by only four evenly spaced monofilaments, so that it seems to float with no physical connection to the wall or to a power source. Behind the wall (which must be purpose-built and is quite thin) is a cabinet containing four Tesla coils. The coils emit a high-frequency energy that passes through the wall and lights the tubes. The energy pulses a bit, making the tubes flicker at times both vertically and horizontally. The Tesla coils make a crackling static sound that is mostly muffled by the barrier wall, while the neon tubes emit a low hum that is audible close to the work. The work is elegant and slightly menacing, evoking something of a mad scientist's experiment.
Five Paintings IV
One of the most extraordinary examples of McCracken's illusory surfaces occurs with Five Paintings IV, 1974. This wall-mounted work has a black polyester resin finish. From some angles the surface is opaque, from others highly reflective, and from still others it seems to reveal great depth. A happy accident in the creation of the work sealed many tiny air bubbles or particulates in the piece. When these catch the light, they suggest a galaxy of stars on a moonless night.
The Iceberg and Its Shadow