Motion & Inhabitation Within a Work of Art
Motion
No. 68 is an exercise in motion. It is no kinetic piece, rather, the movement lies within the world outside/the spectator herself. Throughout the hours of the day the work is shifting — breathing — altering in appearance, scale, and mood — depending not just on the movement of the sun and clouds, but of yourself — and of your mind — without — within —
(two, three, four):
a long cast shadow and a veil inside your eyes (a fragment of your mind still trapped inside a nightmare). an alleyway between the space you left behind and one you have not yet earned entrance to (but your eyes awoke along with blue light and taps and screens — and it seems you are forgetting…)
(ten, eleven, twelve):
stale and levelled. and mundane: flattened: and no longer noteworthy (or at least barely). no, you are too preoccupied: too distracted by the pragmatic, unholy, and material. it acts no longer as a portal — but it remains a mirror — nestled (though morose) in a corner of your body (and forgotten)
(five, six, seven):
exhale, emit, return
a distant glance and then a sudden shift — reveal — unveil. it’s eight again and you’ve let go of anything that’s solid — the light has changed and the walls no longer mirror what they see. and then the sky — the movement of the stars and the migration of the shadows to another hiding place within. a watchtower turned into retreat — inside of your mind, within, without, and underneath
Slow it down, it mumbles. Don’t forget this time. It’s right here, the thing that you are looking for. If you would just allow yourself to see
Inhabitation
To inhabit is to dwell — to nest, abode, to occupy. It is to find a corner in which one may rest one’s head; in which you are invited to lie down and stay a while; to recuperate and find yourself anew (or merely, to exist within).
№68 may be constructed on a canvas, though this canvas is no flat and dormant surface. It is tree — dimensional, spacious, breathing, and possible to physically enter. It is no passive ground where things are settled and determined — rather, it is a place where events occur and obstacles appear. It is a place where one may hide; prey; hunt; chase; and be pursued.
To enter into a canvas presupposes imagination: the ability to conceive of oneself occupying its spaces — scaling oneself up or down; moving through its nooks and corners; settling inside and underneath them. “To imagine” Bachelard mused, “is to change space; and to change space is to change being.” [1] He saw the artist as, indeed, a poet — not of words, nor symbols, but of phenomena — awoken not through order and command, but through a shift in space — location — and composure
reveal, unveil, unravel
[1] Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. 1957.
