Skin Deep

Leandro Erlich

Lately I've been turning over a relationship in my mind: how does the spatial dimension of a work of art change the way in which the idea behind it is expressed? The most interesting pieces (for me) fall somewhere in between the dimensions in some way, either through the experience of the work, or the work's direct affront to the spatial dimension it inhabits. This is not about time being the 4th dimension or some shit, though I'm sure you're science teacher in high school told you that. He was right, according to most scientific theory, but I'm talking about something else: spatial dimensions and our perceptions of such.

--Of course, every thing is in the third dimension, namely because it's impossible to see a 2D object at all. But let's assume that paper/drawings represent 2D, and speak within conventions for a moment.---

To battle the perceptions of a given dimension and make strides into the adjacent is an incredibly interesting one for me, as most artistic conventions divide the dimensions relatively strictly. Drawing is representative, Sculpture is plastic. But when a work falls between the two definitions, what do you call it?


The piece here is by Chris Duncan, and to me represents the first step towards the third dimension in the way it implies a depth to the drawing itself, without being a representation of any thing that has depth to it. The page itself is pushed beyond a surface. And beyond the skills used here, other implications of the physical world - like gravity - can shove a canvas into the space.
I love the distinct shift from taught (almost invisible) canvas at the top of the frame to the heavy, drooping materiality at the bottom. This work, unfortunately, is unknown to me (found at threedot). It only focuses on the subject matter of exhibition itself - no "content" on the page, no title, the viewer's usual spot taken up by the necessary broom. Is this sculpture? or some assisted painting, or something like that?


Materiality can play a huge role in this as well. The piece above, by Jen Stark, deals with our most 2-D material in our 3D world and unfolds the layers hidden under it, almost pointing out what we're ignoring all the time. The flower-like result is not without it's sharp edges, and I think they're the best part of it. The edges of dimension are what define our perceptions of it, and are impossible to see. We can't see the edges of the 2nd dimension, because that's the 1st dimension. In a similar way, we can't see the edges of the 3rd dimension, and so on. Sometimes we look for edges in worst places - like edges. But really, the edge is in a new direction, let's say outward.

Travess Smalley

The edge of a dimension is really where we can get caught between them. And in a more practical sense, the edge of a piece is what we most usually ignore to suspend out disbelief in the very agreeable silence and calm of flatness. To deal with the substance of a page is almost too much, it distracts from the content. But there can be another content which over-runs the border and edge of the page into space.

Space can also be flattened, made into a sensory experience devoid of depth, or made so gargantuan that is renders itself into a background. This might be why I'm so fascinated with the sky - It looks at once full of forms and a flat surface inside a curved bowl. But in fact it's a nebulous space that we simply can't experience with any other sense but our eyes. We're so far from it that all we see is a flatness that belies it's depth and almost immateriality.

Ryoji Ikeda

Once something is within the purview of space, it can either become an object within that space or an environment of some kind. These environments are where I'm interested in living, the ones that point to the immateriality of the third dimension, the pathetic roundness that we cling to as our save-all and our larger world. It's not there, in a way. Or, the environment we think we're in is really an object in a larger environment. I'm thinking Men in Black as I write this.

The immaterial aspects of what we're living in is what's truly amazing, the things that are outside our sensory perceptions and our conceptions of dimension at all. The piece by Richard Box, below, is a tool to see what we can't.
These fluorescent bulbs are powered by the ambient electrical fields surrounding the power lines in the background. But all we can see are the bulbs themselves. In a way, this is the perfect representation of what I'm talking about: a completely invisible but powerful thing that both makes art and talks about it's medium at the time.

Tetrapeutic

Tetris is a classic. Developed in the 80s by a smart Russian man, the simple geometric premise of the game allows for almost infinite combinations of patterns and skill levels. But beyond the dry exterior lies a spiritual life of the game -a hidden dragon, so to speak. The simplicity of its construction could be described as elemental, and it's ever changing tiles belie its water-like tendencies. I am reminded of a quote by Bruce Lee: "Water can flow, or it can crash. Be like water, my friend". Tetris is just so elusive and unforgiving, silently molding it's shape around your state of being, and quickly ripping away any hard surfaces in its path.

To successfully play the game (and we're talking real deal marathon here), you must be malleable as well, keeping your mind pliable along with your fingers. This is state of focused devotion to your one goal: clearing away what is unnecessary. It is an endless game, just like other virtuous pursuits, and as the tiles get faster one must remain calm and centered. The chance that is involved in terms of upcoming tiles removes any focus on the future beyond your next move. The game makes you inhabit the now. From an architectural perspective, it constructs the perfect space for the exact moment you're in, reflecting your own input and the game's almost equally.

Perhaps you can tell my fascination with it. I've been playing Tetris almost every day for the past six years, and through countless hours spent numbing my thumbs a pattern has emerged: The more clear-headed I am, the better I do. Because I play it so much, I often find myself doing it without thinking about the game at all, instead musing on dreams, personal interactions, ways of thinking about them. It's therapy, in a way. And not only does it allow me to reflect, my level of clarity is directly connected with my progress in the game. If I have a calm and level-headed approach to my life, I'll look up to realize that I've beaten my high score. And when you link up with the game, the pieces seem to come at just the right moments, making the game an affirmation of thinking. Conversely, when things are anxious and undecided, my disconnect with the game seems complete, and I have no luck with block, and often make mistakes.

The resulting thesis I have about Tetris sounds more Chinese than Russian, but I think that it may very well be the greatest electronic ritual for finding one's way. The rituals that Confucius talks about in the Analects have a similar quality as this psychological massaging. As it says,
"At age fifteen I set my heart upon learning…and at age seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without overstepping the bounds of propriety”(Analects, 2:4). The way to reach such a place is through ritual and learning, training your instinct to work with your mind. Tetris is just such a ritual.

If you battle against it you may be victorious, but surrender to it completely and it gives you freedom. For me, it's always a learning experience.

Going up

The past summer has been full of books for me, and few have sated my thirst after reading the Pevear translation of Anna Karenina. I've searched all of my standbys and classic writers, Fitzgerald, Forster (and others not beginning with "F"), but none have kept my attention after Tolstoy. That is, until I opened up Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist.

It's about elevator inspectors, and it's exhilarating.

Two warring factions in the Department of Elevator Inspectors vie for dominance: The Empiricists, who go by the book and rigorously check every structural and mechanical detail, and the Intuitionist, whose observational methods involve meditation and instinct. Set in a dirty, working class, mob-run American metropolis sometime after the civil rights movement, the book focuses on Lila Mae Watson, the first black female inspector in the country.

The book quickly unwinds form this initial novelty (elevator inspectors? really? how quaint) into a dark and hyper-realistic city with heavy suggestions of Film Noir, while going off on philosophical excursions into Lila Mae's educational life, and delving into her struggle with racism and politics. Blade Runner comes to mind, and much of the descriptors of the book I can think of come from film, rather than literature. But the writing is incredibly artful, not only the prose but the structure as well.

And while the book is going in what seems like one hundred directions at once, it's all headed upwards. The elevator provides not only the organizing content, but melds all of these ideas and themes into one focus. Never before have I considered the theoretical, psychological and even social implications of these metal boxes, but this work of art has given me new eyes onto the dark chutes we so depend on.

The book is a thriller, a philosophical investigation of culture and fear, an excursion of dark humor and is an entirely rich, full invented world in it's own right. From a vivid flashback to Lila Mae's final inspector's examination to the random mentions of Lift magazine, the world unfurls without pretense, each one accomplished with a whip-crack.

From the book:

"'If we have decided that elevator studies - nuts and bolts Empiricism - imagined elevators from a human, and therefore inherently alien point of view, wouldn't the next logical step, after we've adopted the Intuitionist perspective, be the build an elevator the right way? With what we've learned?'

'Construct and elevator from the elevator's point of view?'

'Wouldn't that be the perfect elevator?'"

The Intuitionist is just such a thing: a piece of steel constructed from air, a book separate from book-ness. Frankly, it's an ascension.