PJM GP Production Notes [5/2010]

GP Notes [PJM]: My initial contributions to the collective project include two sets of still images [BONE 1 + 2], which juxtapose the domains that currently occupy or inform "NATURAL HISTORY" and "CONTEMPORARY ART" and "ARTIST." ...The initial photo shoot happened due to an invite by GP Lead Artist Joe Merrell to a pre-production meeting, which we scheduled in early May 2010 at LA NHM. I found the NHM to be incredible as a dimensional site. A presentation I had done for a course with Carmine Iannacone at Claremont Grad. U [on Lee Bontecue & the origins of the Museum, the Wunderkammer, their relations to colonialism/neo-colonialism, and reinterpretation in the modern art genre (in 2007)] had provided much of the backstory that was animated by a real-time exploration of NHM, camera in-hand, with Joe as guide. ...After digitally processing/finishing @80 of the resulting photos as the 1st BONE sequence, I hit on a next thread, which entailed mining a seam or narrative I'd been after since @2000: the documentation of art environments, with emphasis on camera usage there [although the personalities of art workers, the types of presentation modes, refining of curatorial choices to "fit" economic and architectural parameters, the economic "patina" of these socio-topologies or -ecologies and other concerns (N +1 is the dim. notation) are also in play]. Because my approach is dimensional, the domain analysis is ongoing and longstanding, providing an ample database of content and context to draw upon. GP is proving to be a terrific catalyst for bracketing a very important subject [the de-finition of art in the Western tradition] in the locus of its origination: the "wonder cabinet." The comparative elements at this phase [i.e., a juxtaposition of white-cube exhibit of 3D or "specific objects" with the bones of dinosaurs assembled with tremendous artifice into an "animated" still life (pose)] are rich, and very useful as illustration or for Points of Origination (PoO) for further threading. The collective narrative of GP adds a beautiful and poetic layer to a performance-based practicum (the museum exhibit or art-fair/salon hang) with variable time-lines - e.g., the dioramas at NHM, some of which have been on view for decades / as compared to the up-down reality of the mobile presentation at the Armory Show. Gary Snyder's poetry, Thoreau, this is the stuff of American nostalgia and romance for the individuated "nature" experience, as indicative of a refined inner life, in some essential aspects "superior" to a civilized sensibilities and perceptions. For me, the production is an opportunity to visualize some important facets of Notes on Dimensional Time, for which the 4D artwork I'm contributing to GP provides illumination. The central thesis for NoDT is a proposition for the nature of dimensional time. To summarize, the past rolls up behind us like a rip tide and the future crashes on the Now like a big Hawaiian curling tube. The artist has a special role in the sideways 8 of dimensional time, and my current work involves not only claiming value for the artist operations, but pushing the meme that the ethics of vision are hardly abstract. The working notion might be, "Our sustained existence is contingent on what we do with what we see." ART can be a prime indicator of our collective and individual options and choices, as they appear and diminish in the currents of past, present and future. For a recent amplification, see the pre-doctoral essay, "Can Thinkers Kill Art?"

-PJM 05.18.2010
www.artforhumans.com