What is the measure of a man?

Measurement: that is the form of translation I wish to make manifest for my part of this installation. It suddenly struck me the other day that I want finally to make my own version of Robert Hoddles's chain which he allegedly used to measure Melbourne. I first saw it when I returned to Australia in 2008 during a residency at La Trobe University in Bendigo.

I had wanted to revisit the State Library of Victoria, a space I really loved going to when I lived there in 1992. The wooden reading tables, with their green-glass and brass lamps, create a very Victorian atmosphere. It's a marvelous public space, always full of the kind of hushed energy that only seems to occur when strangers all embrace the hushed energy of concentration.

The chain is a part of the library's collection, which includes Ned Kelly's armor, which I'd gone to see. Whilst climbing the stairs and peering into the glass cases that house much of the collection on display, I saw the chain. There was something humble and yet beautiful in the wire loops in contrast to the straight sections and the seemingly inexplicable triangular loop some 25 lengths in.

According to Wikipedia: "Robert Hoddle (20 April 1794 – 24 October 1881) was a surveyor of Port Phillip in the 1830s, and the creator of the Hoddle Grid, the street grid system upon which inner city Melbourne is based."

It made me think of Tom Friedman's hand-made ruler and the nature of measurement, but also about Plato's famous quote "The measure of a man is what he does with power," which, in turn, made me think of the 1968 Civil Rights marchs on Beale Street and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death at the Lorraine Motel.
So... I'm not sure where these thoughts will lead, but I plan to begin fabrication of a chain based upon my bodily measurements: a translation of myself, if you will, into facts and figures: my head, my foot, my hand and my thumb, all common measurements. Then I shall use my body's increments to measure more of my environment from there.

One and Three Chairs ... or What was I thinking?!?

I was thinking this morning about the nature of translation, and how, for the majority of my artistic life, I have acted as an interpreter, and not as a translator. I have seen, thought about and responded to cultural phenomena, and sought to give form to how I understand it.

The act of translation seems much more tied to the concept of accuracy and portrayal of a true essence of something else; it’s more closely tied to a source. There is also the notion of moving from one language to another and bridging the gap between one audience and another. To my mind, the translator’s job is not to interpret freely, but to honor the “original” and to seek to reformulate a parallel truth in another language.

My “job” as an artist, at least as I have understood it, has heretofore been more self-indulgent: I have sought to formulate parallel fictions that, hopefully, point to some underlying “truth” or poetic understanding, more-or-less of the “personal is political” school of thought.

In terms of translation, I keep coming back to the phrase and idea that “there is not word for that in our language,” as well as the notion of foregoing the “literal translation” for a more meaningful and accurate cultural “fit.”

If I recall my junior high German correctly, Germans literally say, “Will you with me in movie go?” Only they say it as “Willst du mit mir ins Kino gehen?” in the informal language of friends, or “Wollen sie mit mir ins Kino gehen?” when speaking formally*. Even after we have transposed the structure of the sentence, we have no way to convey the formality or lack thereof of the two sentences. What do we do? Offer a backslap after the first and bow before the latter?

It also brings to mind the idea of the primary text, the original source, as well as the question of what language is being spoken? Who can best serve as it’s authoritative translator? Further, who is my audience?

It also makes me think of Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs. Perhaps it’s more of a re-presentation than a pure translation, but I do think it at least hints at translation with how the original, the language and the image all interact as differing manifestations of the same “reality.”

So, I need to determine my sources and my audience. In the context of this installation, my audience is the gallery going public of Winston Salem. Okay, but who are they? More importantly, what do they need translating in my estimation, because, certainly, they’ve never asked me to interpret anything for them formally. I’ve not been elected, appointed or even asked, to serve in the capacity of translator.

What were we thinking? At the very least, I need to work out of this linguistic box I’ve put myself in. My solution? Simple: turn to what I know best: build my way out of it. Objects have always spoken back to me emphatically as both a repository for ideas, and a catalyst for thought. Or in the case of Kosuth's chairs, at least one can sit on the one while reading the other two.

* Thank you Frau Hanka, for junior high school German I still recall (and the Kalamazoo Public School System), but any inaccuracies in my remembrances and my translation are completely my own.

Definitions: Transformation

Translations is such a huge term. In many ways, its such a broad concept for a group installation that it might, at first, seem useless. However, we wanted a "big tent" as it were, so that all of our varying conceptions might more easily interconnect as opposed to fracturing into warring camps.

With that in mind, I offer a this definition:

translate (trans lāt') v.t. 1. to turn (something expressed, esp. written) from one language into another. 2. to change the form, condition, or nature of. 3. to explain in simpler terms.

I also thought it might be god to look at the word's origin, so off to The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary:

Translatable ... [TRANSLATE v. + ABLE.] Capable of being translated.
1745 H. WALPOLE Corr. (1846) II. 15, I. . without having recourse to the Countess's translatable periods, am pleased with his company. 1830 MACINTOSH Eth. phil. Wks. 1846 I. 88 Mods of expression scarcely translatable into the into the only technical language in which that mind is wont to think. 1870 EMERSON Soc & Solit. viii. 164 What is really best in any book is translatable.

Hence Translatability, Translatableness.
1867 LUDLOW Fleeing to Tarshish 115 To carry on his cogitations for him, with their accustomed wondrous translatability by the imagination. 1883 Athenaum 4 Mar. 278/I
We own to a certain scepticism as to La Fontaine's translatableness. 1911 MUNROW Fundamentals 31 The tranlatability of scripture.

I will add more later.

Translations

This past Wednesday, January 19, we all drove over to the Goodwill on University Parkway, which has two parts. One is a more conventional store, and the other is a Goodwill Outlet. I'd expect that if you're anything like me, you're thinking, "How much more 'outlet' can Goodwill get?!?" But what makes this place so amazing -- all 47,000 square-feet of it (according to the Winston Salem Journal, http://www.goodwillnwnc.org/news.cfm?aid=93) -- is that you can buy by the pound! Oh, and they're applying for LEED certification as a "green" building!

I was in search of "mass quantities" of something that might act as a unifying visual element. With so many artists cooking this aesthetic and conceptual soup, I thought we needed an element that could be common to each artist's contribution.

Well, it just so happened that James, a manager at this location, saw me eying a large palette of industrial mop heads. I think the man must've been channeling P.T. Barnum that day, 'cause I bought the lot for $ 50.

Ah, but James was not done with me yet: he saw the acquisitive gleam in my eye, so he walked into the back of the place and showed me close to 30 five-foot long rolls of fabric. Then he turns to me and says, "$ 50 for the lot." Sensing my hesitation, he followed up with, "But it's a one-time, right now deal. You leave, and that's not the price."

The part of me that's sold encyclopedias and fire extinguishers door-to-door one summer was powerfully impressed. And so I caved, parting with another $ 50.

Looking at the stockpile now, I am pleased. We have things that unify, yes, but also offer the potential to manipulate. We can all, quite literally, distort, bend, fold, mutilate and eviscerate these elements, and, in doing so, even more clearly demonstrate our individual aesthetic and conceptual positions. The manner of our dealings with these mop heads and rolls of fabric will, via their very similarity, highlight our individuality via our translations of them. Indeed, "Translations" is both the name and the theme we've given the exhibit.
'Til next time...

Installation Beginings: Meeting with Kate Magruder in her Trade Street Studios

As a result of a series of engaging conversations with the students enrolled in my "Sculpture for the Theatrical Designer" class at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, we decided that this trimester we would work toward an installation.

They're a lively group, with half of them from UNCSA's School of Design & Production and the other half from the School of Filmmaking. Thanks to a suggestion by film student, Rachel Qualitone, I contacted Kate Magruder, who has opened a ceramics studio and gallery in Winston-Salem's Trade Street Arts District. Kate's studio is located at 629 N. Trade (between 6th and 7th streets), and we've been offered the use of the upstairs INTER_SECTION Gallery for our show.

It's a really lovely space, about 18 x 25 feet, one flight up a fairly wide stairway, with track lighting and wooden floors. It was a pleasure to meet Kate and see just how much she's done to renovate the space. The downstairs is a flexible space, with the bulk taken up by her ceramics studio, but the front is a very nice gallery space facing the street. Flat works are presented on a steel cable hanging system and rest on large, bright wooden panels. There are several pedestals for three-dimensional work and large, while two large rolling partitions allows for the space to be expanded or contracted to accommodate the work installed.

As fate would have it, as we were looking around the upstairs, one of Kate's tenants, David Norman, walked through on the way to his office, which is on the same level as the gallery. David's daughter had been a Visual Arts major at UNCSA some years back, and it was nice to see a familiar face.

David is part of a 3-D realization and CAD outsourcing business, the Famiano Design Group [http://www.fdr-ws.com/] The group is Dietta Famiano, President, LEED A.P.; David Norman, Partner, Business Development; and Hillary Norman, Designer. They offer a range of services from laser scanning to CAD and BIM. I'm assuming that most folks, like me, know that CAD is "Computer-aided Design," but BIM threw me for a loop. According to Wikipedia, "Building Information Modeling (BIM) is the process of generating and managing building data during its life cycle." I look forward to the opportunity to learn from David about how that works.

In addition to sharing his scan of the gallery to help us plan the installation, David has also offered to scan the installation as we work on the build. Should be exciting!

So, we're going to install Saturday, April 1st, 2011. Between now and then, my plan is to post about the design, build and installation process, from drawings and discussions, to research into the history of installation art, contemporary practice, etc.

Further, each of my student has also going to develop and post on their own blogs about the design, build and installation process, which should include research on artistic and cultural influences. Oh, and I plan to take part in the show, too. Stay tuned!