THESIS

long collection of notes

james turrell

- formlessness, limitlessness, no idea of depth

- lighting, glow of the night sky

blue

- color of night sky, edge of day and night

- blue is a special color in buddhism

light 

- way that you can look/feel connected to environment, you’re all affected by being washed by the same light

- amitabha buddha, buddha of immeasurable light, salvation?

landscape

- translated into bare planes and light

video

- trance- like, but more literal in its trance-style and its use of actual footage

- moves between literal and more abstract

- meant to demonstrate on possible scene/experience that inspires the meditative feel in me (and hopefully others)

- you have to pass through it, go beyond it, to get to the “true essence”

i had to let go of a lot of the literalness to find the true meaning

transcendental

mandala

- meditation, used to aid in trance

- focus on central point, like central point in the road or where the road meets the horizon

- reduced to bare geometric form

driving/countryside

- almost like being nowhere

- people around pass by in cars, their presence is temporary

- being in between two places

- straight lines, straight road, straight path

- clear horizon, no obstacles

moksha - sanskrit, in Indian religions it means literally “release”, from a root meaning “to let go”. applied it means liberation from samsara and the suffering involved with the cycle of death and rebirth. used in buddhism and jainism

similar to nirvana

some views on it: attainment of liberation coincides with unreality of personal self in psyche/egp, and the simultaneous relevation of the impersonal self, seeing all spiritual and phenomenal existence within ourselves, seeing ourselves as buddha

between sentient Awareness and insentient matter is an illusion formed in the mind (I’m trying to create the illusion of the sky, of vast space, of lack of depth or formlessness. 

horizon - kind of like reaching the end of a rainbow, you can actually reach the horizon, because it always remains distance relative to you. however, you are moving towards it, it is you goal. kind of like the idea of nirvana in buddhism, it is your goal, but you can’t be attached to the idea or desire it too much otherwise it will evade you. it is something “pursued but never definitely attained”. the line joining earth and sky, kind of like the line joining this land from the “pure land”, or nirvana. “dualistic nature of the horizon by walking every step into the distance in a rhythm of contraction and expansion, concealing and revealing.”

“the horizon is most present in the landscapes of areas, which are minimal in content, open spaces traditionally frequented by phenomena. these areas are notes as offering moments of pure presense where one is both transfized by wonder and transported by sense. 

This experience of pure presence is both a temporary suspension of chronological time and bodily activity. 

Also included in the exhibition will be Yukaloo, a new Wide Glass work. In these works, Turrell adds a temporal element to his perception-altering oeuvre. Each piece consists of a grid of LEDs behind a pane of etched glass. The LEDs are individually programmed to carry out a subtle shift in color over time, similar to the deliberate but beautiful fashion in which the sky changes from late afternoon to night.

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Transcribed notes from midterm critique

Explore how art, psychology, and technology interact

• specifically exploring the emotion of being a passenger in a car

No obstacles - endless horizon

• Georges Perec ideas about space
• on the horizon: look at Frank Abruzzese

Treading a think line between sublime and sinister

• doesn’t think my description of the installation as a comfortable experience   
• sometimes even in comfortable situations, there is still tension   

Transitional moment - moment of closure has some pleasure, but more anxiety - let this show anxiety

• What emotional transformation do you go through depending on what goes on outside? 
• Trunks… Porshe commercial about trunks
• Danger, am I about to die? What is happening?
• What does it mean to be transformed? How does one experience transformation?

What is an experience when you feel transported? Think the word “transport” rather than “transportation”

• look at the words you used to describe the project. “transport” is a powerful concept

Did you consider smells? - dirt, rain, earth

Sensory deprivation? Makes us lose sense of our own bodies? Maybe something we can put on our bodies, or something we can go into.

Passenger - passive, being taken, not much control rather than someone commanding where they go

• looking to the side, changes point of view of both viewer and author. 
• In cinema, the viewer is already a passenger, being taken somewhere
• out the window is video in real life, intellectually, physically…
• using the car would be trappings - driving simulations aren’t pleasant
• being at the wheel vs. as a passenger have different mindsets

Formal elements - first be concerned about fundamental, conceptual elements, rather than how you are going to handle this.

• For right now, concept is very literal, trying to bring art into a very literal representation. Doesn’t have separation between form and content.
• Free yourself up to figure out how to create the psychological elements rather than being caught up in the physical
• Images, senses, rather than an illustrative literal
• Make it conceptually motivated!

Use the moving image rather than “cinema”

• look at experimental rather than representational cinema
• Herzog movies

Monday at the MFA, time/clock installation

Memory - different times colliding

Does your Nebraska, need to be the actual Nebraska?

• How can the viewer lose herself in the landscape/view she in not personally connected to?
• Not everyone will have the same relationship to the landscape as you, so think of ways to manipulate it.

Want to put your viewer into a suspended state

Book: Rebecca S________: River and Shadows?

Book: Wolfgang ________ “The Railway Journey”

• time and space collapsed because they were going too fast - speed?
• our view of the world is framed through that
• time and space are experienced visually, intellectually, at once. how do you create that feeling without physicality?

Doesn’t need more screens? Why do you need more than one screen? Why do you want to fragment your images? Think about what these choices bring to the installation

What do you really mean to by immersiveness? - more about concept rather than structure

• immersiveness is not necessarily a point of view - you could have a surrogate, an actor
• could we experience this through someone else? Would we keep our attention longer?

Issac Julian exhibit, ICA

Rodney Graham

Iranian taxi

notes before meeting

goal:

recreating “cinematic moments”

almost like being in a scene of a book, movie, or memory

starting with one memory/experience:

driving in a car during a rainstorm

returning to or leaving home

a passenger (being taken somewhere, out of control)

would like to add other experience installations:

flying in a plane

train ride?

ideas behind it:

self-reflection

merging past and present

illusion/confusion - how our brains alter (scramble or idealize) memories

being out of control of fate/ the futures, the inevitable passing of time

installation details:

viewer is looking at the outside world (which is a out-the-window video of a highway drive during an early evening rainstorm) through a window

viewer can interact with this window realistically (looking down out of the window, you can see more of the ground)

rain will interact with this window realistically (water droplets on window)

the sound of rain will be created using speakers

viewer will be able to see their own reflection on the glass of the window, layered on top of the outside scene

this reflection won’t be their real reflection, it will be an altered one (edited realtime video, delayed/inverted, done in a line drawing style, layered moments so they see the “path” of their movement, etc)

the installation may change over time, as in the car speeding or slowing, the rain stopping, the time of day in the video changing to night or morning. these changes will not be correspondent to any realtime changes, but rather used to give the feeling that time (and place) is out of your control, and to get more variations of the experience into the viewer’s experience of the installation

things im currently looking into in terms of building/technology:

using a wii remote hack to change the perspective of the video projected

alternative projection techniques:

projecting onto glass

projecting onto fog

diy building of rear projection screens, projectors

layering projections, so that the viewer sees the projection of themselves on the glass near them, and the outdoors appears to be further away

enclosure? representative of a car interior or not? how abstract? how enclosed?

if multiple installation experiences, how will they be connected/seperated

extra things:

would be nice to try to subtly allow users to interact with/alter the experience, and to try to change the viewers behavior and mood through encouraging them to be quiet and calm

probably through bio-feedback

ambient lighting responding to breathing, using a band across chest

lighting/video projection responding to breathing and talking, using a clip-on microphone

immersive environment notes

look into:

holography

6 channel sound for spatialized audio

graphics: CAVE library, Yggdrasil (YG) authoring language for constructing environments

Maya modeling

MAX

look into history:

immersive/illusionistic spaces, VR, VR artworks