Thomas Lail -  Karen Mirza: Dialogues 2002

Dialogue #1

 

Dear Thom,

 

possible thoughts for starting a dialogue onÉÉÉÉ.and

between two artistsÉÉ.

 

mental space- (philosophy. mathematics, geometry, thought/linguistics etc)

 

versus

 

physical space- (lived experience, senses, perception etc)

 

versus

 

social space Ð(ordinary everyday habits, routines, rituals, politics etc)

 

another train of thought could be Ôstructural invariabilityÕ or patterns of repetition and reproduction ( in the context of space)

 

another train of thought:

representational space (an image of the world)

representation of space (perspective)

this could be discussed in relation to either painting or sculpture

 

we could be asking ourselves what these things mean?  It doesnÕt have to be heavy intellectual arm wrestling-  more of an honest curious exploration of a theme É..  around the edges of our work.

 

or to keep it really simple and in context of the show, what about taking as a starting point SmithsonÕs writing on ÒA Provisional Theory of Non-SitesÓ?   It is on page 364 of the book Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings edited by Jack Flam.   It is a short essay-  just one big paragraph

 

Let me know what you think.

Looking forward to having a pint in your new pub in your part of town.

 

xx

Karen

 

           

 

 

Dialogue #2

 

 

 

Dear Karen-

 

So I was thinking about where we could start in these "Dialogues" (having agreed already that we might start by circling around Smithson's '68 essay " A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites").  I thought we could also review a little and we can always edit the dross out later (or not).

 

It's April 2002 and we're in this show together in May  (just the two of us) called "Site/Non-site" at Goliath Visual Space in Brooklyn.  You're based in London.  I'm based in New York. We've just recently met-   fortuitously a visit to London allowed the meet.  Maybe I should also say that while in London, while visiting you at the Royal College of Art, Tara and I bought a book of Carl Andre/Hollis Frampton Dialogues from '63 (?) and that book spurred the idea for whatever this little set of dialogues might become.  As for the show-- Erik Guzman and Mayumi Hayashi, who run Goliath paired us up.   The title of the show  "Site/Non-Site" came out of our common mention of Smithson's term (phrase? pair?) in our respective statements and proposals.  If I recall correctly you listed it in a series of oppositional word pairings that introduced your written proposal for Goliath.   I mentioned it in a quasi-statement that I wrote to accompany a piece last year in Cleveland.  So, I find that interesting in a way because there is apparently at least that common thread between us  (though we've discovered some others since then).   So often the titles of and relationships made in shows can be a little forced, but here it actually draws from something that we were both obviously engaged with enough to include in our statements and proposals.

 

Speaking for myself, and perhaps here I should include the unedited line from that Cleveland statement-- it was discussing the displacements of one space, one architectural plan into another (in this case the offices of an alternative gallery into the exhibition space of the same gallery)--  it read:

 

       "Smithson's site/non-site side/by-side"

 

I was interested that in that installation (and, I guess, in quite a few of my pieces ) the "site," that is the actual place, was actually right next to the "non-site" displacement of that space.   In that 1968 essay, "A Provisional Theory...," Smithson characterized the non-site as a "three-dimensional logical picture" that bears the same metaphorical relation to the actual as a diagram might in two dimensions.  He talks about the trip between the two and the metaphorical space of the "non-trip".... I guess there is very little travel in my case as again the site, the actual is often very slightly displaced in plan from its actual location.   The non-site sort of infects the site.

 

It seems to me, however, that your work involves quite a bit more displacement from site to non-site.   I mean, literally, in this case you are traveling a long way and some of the film imagery that you are using was shot in London, yes?  How do you find that relationship of S/N-S?  What's the interaction for you?   What's the rub?  Sorry, I don't mean to be the interrogator.... feel free to deflect or reroute as you desire.

 

talk soon...

 

 

Thom

 

 

 

Dialogue #3

 

 

            Dear Thom-

 

 

 

Dialogue #4

 

 

Hi Karen-

 

Continuing on in our Dialogues, itÕs Wednesday the 10th:

 

You asked last time Òwhat does a site mean to you? what boundaries do you align yourself with in order to define a site-  is it physical? mental?or social?Ó    I guess my best answer would be that, for me, it is a bit of all of those things (thatÕs not meant to be an evasion).   Somewhere in one of the Smithson interviews he refers to Òlow-level scanningÓ of a site-  wait, let me see if I can find itÉ.  yeah, he mentions it in ÒFragments of a ConversationÓ in 1969, ÒThen I select the site.   ThereÕs no criteria; just how the material hits my psyche when IÕm scanning it.   But, itÕs a kind of low-level scanning, almost unconscious.Ó  Now, of course, there are massive differences between  SmithsonÕs process and scenario and my own too.   HeÕs out in a situation, amidst a certain vastness and indeterminacy.  Zeroing in, making choices.  My sites are usually somewhat given.  A gallery, a loft, etc.  I think there is a parallel, however, in that whole scanning process.  When IÕm asked to do a project I gather information, data-   this might be purely empirical  (measurements, plans, etc) or too it might be historical, social, political.   For this project-  I think like you,  I was particularly drawn to and interested in the Live/Work aspect of the space   (really re-doubled since itÕs Live/ (ArtistsÕ studio) Work and Live/ (Gallery space) Work).  As you mentioned-   there is a fascinating interplay between the living space still-lived-in and the living space converted-to-public-forum.. Now this knowledge of the site really came from observing the space, thinking about function etc.  I guess IÕm often drawn to those areas of slippage between function or that moment of conversion from one function to another-   be that economic or social or political.   ThereÕs something about the contestation and overlay of I donÕt know-  maybe ideologies is a bit strong -  but, function as related to larger cultural structures-   structures perhaps beyond my ability to handle or discuss them.

 

But, back more directly you what you asked-  all that observed, measured, discovered information etc is in some way my Òlow-level scanningÓ-- then something starts to happen.  So, I guess I would say that while the site is often given me, the boundaries and functions that I gravitate toward in defining it and manipulating it come from that sort of  low-level scanning of all this information (functional and empirical) and then the physical characteristics of the space too.   The warps, pivots, dislocations that make up a piece are somehow the manifestation of those thoughts.  (But itÕs a more interactive process than that too-   the form doesnÕt illustrate the ideas I have somehow arrived at,  the thoughts of the site arrive through the manipulation of the forms Ð often in drawing, sketches, little models, but then everything changes a bit when youÕre really there, bodily, in the space and building, doesnÕt it?)

 

In thinking about the displacement of site to non-site that we were talking about earlier, I think in some ways our works  (weÕll see I guess)  may both be a bit overlayed in this instance.   Certainly for the Cleveland piece that I mentioned previously, my site and non-site were Òside/by-sideÓ as I suggested  ( in that case I had essentially pivoted the office space out into the adjacent gallery space).  Here though, IÕll be torquing the space within the space itself.  I guess itÕs sort of folded or wrenched from within.   Your piece affects this overlay differently.  Your piece has a kind of virtual presence through your film projection- the ability to project one space on another .  I wonder if thereÕs something perhaps quasi-cubist in spirit if not in form at the heart of both of these practices.   IÕm thinking of the kind of mutual co-existence of two-mutually exclusive spaces.  I suppose in some ways that relates to what you mention as the relation between the actual site and the virtual site, the map to the place, the world and the representation of the world-  DuchampÕs ÒInfra-Slim.Ó  I loved that Duchamp quote by the way.   Where is that from?

 

I wanted to ask  (though I donÕt want to sound like an art history thesis project or something, but I wanted to ask,)  if there is a Situationist motive in all of this too?   I know, for myself, my move to these installation/intervention pieces was sparked by some notion of Situationist ideas (though surely not purely so-  probably more correctly they were prompted by a sort of curious mis-read of Situationism, IÕm not sure)-  of setting up a place, an experience, a new ( non) Ðsite for activity that might not have been visible or apprehensible before.    Perhaps I would liken this to the way Smithson discusses the 3D Diagram quality of the Non-Site or as we think of and have been discussing the role of a map-   to make a place that abstracts to presence larger less manageable ideas, problems, possibilities?  I donÕt know whether that happens in the piece though, or even can.  I remain hopeful.

 

I thought I'd throw this your way as I'm really interested in the time-based issues of your work; Different space- same time, Same space-different time etc... I wonder if you could talk about time
relationships in your films and how you address/manipulate them (if you do)? This is something I find really interesting about film in general and your work in particular (and something I don't get to do so much).Also I thought it was an interesting that as you pointed out the time and space of your dislocation will probably collapse once the installation is in place. By this I mean, as you suggested, the transposition of your domestic space onto the Goliath space will seem far less removed than it does right now (and than it actually is/was) both due to the literal overlay of the filmic image on the space and due to the universality of - at  least Western- domestic space).All right, I have to run.   I hope that I havenÕt led our discussion too astray.  look forward to hearing from you É talk soonÉ

 

love Ð

 

Thom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dialogue #5

 

 

Dear Thom-

 

In response to your question about the Situationist motive, there are many
reasons why and how I have arrived at working in this way.  Firstly, I decided
I  did not want to make an object, a commodity that could be bought and sold
in a traditional context of exchange / value. I wanted to create an
experience, a sensorial experience, immersion into the ideas of a new space
/ a new time.  I have been influenced by the writings of Walter Benjamin,
ÒArt in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,Ó this notion of the industrial
age and its effect of how we see and experience time/space, which does go
right back to your comment about cubist space, a fragmentary space of
simultaneous perception of a 3d object on a 2d plane.  Motion and sight are
for me the primary functions of the body that enables us to construct and
re-construct our environments that we inhabit; be that physical, social or
mental space.  In turn, these spaces are not empty neutral spaces waiting for
events to unfold, they are active participants in producing and shaping the
events that unfold in and between them.  This thinking then leads me into
what I see as the next evolutionary development on from industrial culture to
the engineering of perception. The perception of space/ time , image object,
object and subject this is the new (non) site for activity that might not
have been visible or apprehensible before.

I am interested in the development of ideas that were created around the
sixties and seventies of how the projected image played a critical role in a
new language or representation, as artists used film, slides, video and
photographic projection to measure, document, abstract, reflect and transform
the parameters of physical space.

I am interested in working with an optically fixed notion of constructing
visual representational spaces.  Photography is seen as having a defined
context, the image is fixed in time and space by the exposure of light
sensitive paper to a chemical experience.  I see photography not as a
definitive process, but one that is unstable and through its instability is
its ability to come closer to representing the tangible spaces that we
occupy and inhabit, I have just realized whilist writing this last paragragh
that I seem to take the standardization of everyday thought and models of the
world and use them to invert or subvert the use and function so in that way
I suppose there is a Situationist motive to the work.

I am interested in the illusion on the screen (the wall) to the surrounding
space, and to the physical mechanisms and intrinsic values of the moving
image: the projector beam as a sculptural form, the transparency and
illusionism of the screen, the internal structure of the film frame, the
camera as an extension of the bodyÕs own mental and ocular recording system,
the seriality of the slide sequence, and the interlocking structure of
multiple images.

Different space - same time, Same space - different time
The image of my domestic space in London is framed in such a way that it is
a frontal flat image that collapses space and in the distance that it has
really travelled in my suitcase from London to New York to be installed in
Goliath Visual Space the time tension has been reduced to the same frame of
the space, same time, different space. It is a relative image to the space
and time it now occupies.  Is it the view from another side of the space?  Is it
a local view, is it a real or an imaginary view?  But it has been documented
so it must be from a real site, these are the many questions I hope the work
will ask of the viewer. A segment of time was recorded by the camera in
London in March/April of 2002 and transported in time to New York for a
future time frame, a recent past, present, and present future. The reason I
work with film is its ability to manipulate time.  No other visual medium can
do that.  Again I saw that in the way we live today in our modern western society
that time was the most important commodity we have and thatÕs why I choose to
work with it.

Time is recognized through perpetual change, without decay or growth there
is no sense of time. I have not changed the image through the re framing of
the object. I am interested in the relationship between the still and the
moving image. These two different states of representation of time, i.e. the
photograph freezes time / motion and the cinema simulates the illusion of
real time using the device of shooting 24 frames (24 frozen images) per
second and the projection of that fixed time re-animates before our eyes, 
giving back to us an illusion of a ÔrealÕ sense of motion. I have used a
locked off viewpoint (static frame as used in photography), but you know you
are moving through time because of the changes in exposure, film speeds,
natural lighting and the appearance of dust particles on the surface of the
projected image.

Thoughts on Time in Film
1. A film is a document of the visual world in the past
2. Objects and (places) that appear in a film are themselves the traces of
an earlier activity (either human or nature)
3. A shot held without movement of camera or subject brings attention to the
passing of time.
4. The moving grain of film, in depicting a static subject, underlines the
passing of film time.
5. A subject shown in different conditions of weather or light points to a
difference in time of filming.
6. The fact that film can make exact repeats causes perceptual problems in
reading time.
7. A film has an overall shape, or graphic outline, which occupies time.
8. Ones subjective experience of the passage of time is at odds with ones
knowledge of mechanical (clock) time.
9. We protect ourselves against an awareness that what we see in any given
moment is unique.
10. A film may prompt a memory of a place, and a place may prompt a memory
of a film.

Dislocation of space and distance in relation to time.
Within the way I naturally select the framing of my subject (space) I
create an infinite distance because I flatten the space, the viewer cannot
get a sense of the actual distance between the camera position and the
subject. This distance in the actual recording of the event also denotes a
time frame (i.e. 100ft takes 2 seconds to travel across the space). The focus
is set to infinity, the virtual distance within the image and the actual
distance in the installation is another set of space/time problems to solve
for the viewer. The projector takes on the position of the camera and now
the viewer can move around and change the angle of view and experience the
time and distance of the virtual simulation of pictorial space to the actual
surrounding space time / frame they are occupying in the present tense. Film
time is a linear and the installation time is non linear, one can stay with
the work for as long or as little time as one chooses and because the work
is not operating in the traditional sense of beginning middle and end, they
are all present, just not in any finite order.

 

One final observation about actual and virtual distance is in the real
distance between the filming in London and the siting of the work in New
York, there is this sense of a collapsing of geographical space which I feel
resonates within the idea of and function of the new technologies such as
the internet or, put another way, the new digital / electronic space / time
relativity.

Wow, I didnÕt realize I had quite so much to say about that, I know I walk
around feeling it and sometimes its very hard to put your finger on what
exactly it is, but of course when I am making the work it is much more of an
intuitive feeling of manipulating time and space at the given time / mood of
the day.

 I had one thought that I wanted to follow up with you which was your comment about making dysfunctional walls.....( this is when we were laughing about what our skills wereÉ blahÉ blahÉ in London in the pub)......but what I am interested in is more to do with what this non-wall object / perceptionÕs function is to
you, this functional division of space is transposed from an opaque object
both physically and ideologically to a semi transparent and transparent.  Could you talk about your use of opacity, transparency and semi transparent
forms, thoughts and structures within your non walls?  I suppose what I am
asking here refers back to perhaps a Robert Morris perceptual use of space,
object, sculpture...............maybe? or is it goobly gook, at the end of a
long day..........and a long week,

lots of love karen x

ps if you want to pick up on any other themes that I have mentioned in my
essay!! then please feel free to disregard my question if it does not
ignite your imagination. x

 

 

 

 

Dialogue #6

 

 

 

Hi Karen-

 

Right-

I'm back.   So sorry for the interval between your last communication and this response.   Life gets in the

way sometimes.... what was it that Lennon wrote... "Life is what happens when you're busy doing other

things"...(?) something like that.   Anyway, from Lennon to Benjamin...   I'm going to jump into your last

message with Benjamin and hopefully get to your question by the end.

 

Yes, Benjamin...   Benjamin does map out many of these territories and here we have a commonality too as

BenjaminÕs ideas have implicitly influenced me as well.   I jeep lugging "The Arcades Project" around but I

haven't had the chance to really read it properly yet.   I keep wanting to spend every day for a week in a

shopping mall reading it.   Seems fitting.

 

Your comment about non-neutral spaces also leads me to comment that, at least here in the States, I am

constantly struck by the heightened programmatic engineering of space.   The "Box" is so much better

sealed up that it once was.   it's much harder to get outside, to see the cracks.  I know that the impulse to

reveal the fractures and fissures, to open up the possibilities, the possibility of slipping through or of, at least,

seeing a glimmer of light through that chick in the box, I know that that impulse runs through my work.   I can

see that in yours too-   the refiguring, reprogramming-  as you said he inverting and/or subverting of the

space-   these are related to the idea of opening up the accepted box, the normalized space, the accepted

program and function.   there is a sort of Situationist detournment to this, isn't there?

 

But back to the box... as I mentioned I see this as particularly well engineered in contemporary USA.   the

mall, the store, the corporate space-   really the conversion and colonization of almost all public and private

space into sites of demographic targeting and consumption.   I don't mean to rant here.... this is no new

news.   But, I can see the urge to cut a wall open, to make a new walkway, to lay one projected space over

another physical space as related to the prevalence of these sorts of regulated spaces.

 

I wonder if you see the space issue the same in the UK?   I mean, London like NYC may in some ways be

the metro-exception.  As much as we talk here about the malling of New York and the Disney-fication of

NYC's public spaces, it really maintains an unusual amount of social space, truly public space for

the US.  There is that tradition of the "Public House" in England and though they are certainly zones of

consumption, I was struck while visiting that the pubs have a really interesting social sense of space

uncommon in the US.   Maybe coffeehouses here have that sometimes, but outside of NYC we don't have

Italy's piazze-  those sorts of spaces.   I suppose we could as easily discuss how those corporate ideas of

consumption have infected private space too....

 

In some ways you affect a re-conversion of the public space to private space with your Non-Places.

 

Am I getting off the subject?   Perhaps I should reel it in and bring it back around to the Site/Non-site idea.

  For me the non-site allows for those metaphorical manipulations which could never-  or only more fleetingly

exist in the actual site.   It's a place of reflection.   I see yours as similar in that regard.

 

I appreciate your elaboration on the ideas of time in your work.   IÕm really fascinated by this and, too, the kind of materialist approach to film that you have  (if that makes sense)   I know that there is a whole tradition there, but the sort of nuts & bolts issues of film and its recording of time and passing is really interesting got me.   ThereÕs such a tight connect there between the form and the conceptual implications-   I find it just plain wonderful.   What was that film that you screened in Hackney when we were there?É let me look it upÉ Rob GawthropÕs ÒPlace on the HillÓ-  so simple-  a clipped repeat of a man speaking a single line, but as it continues to edit, repeat and cycle activities are visible beyond the man, in the background, that you, as viewer at first assume you overlooked at the first pass.   But, ultimately, you realize that those activities discernible during the repeats were, in fact,  not there the first time.   the time has been dilated and the background images fit it and/or replaced.   there is a fit of form to idea, of form generating idea there that is very compelling.   I thought of that in regard to your #8 regarding subjecting experience of time.

 

Perhaps I should try to more directly answer to your question about my Òdysfunctional walls.Ó   You ask what the function is for me-  especially in the transposition from opacity to semi transparency or transparency.  I think this transposition is important functionally to me  (and as you so clearly state it is both transposition both physically and ideologically).   I might even go further though to say that the shift is from impermeable to a semi or fully permeable situation.  ItÕs a shift that moves to more of a peripatetic view.  There is a lingering phenomenology here, I will admit-   the notion of an embodied viewer-  a flaneur of sorts-  an ability to walk through or between in a way not completely oriented to a pre-conceived or pre-determined visual plan.

 

You mentioned Morris too and I have always really liked his writing.   Your mention of his thoughts on space conjured up his ÒPresent Tense of SpaceÓ essay-  a very Smithson-esque essay really and  favorite or mine for tying together Smithson, Acconci, Serra, mentioning Benjamin and citing Piranesi and MichelangeloÕs Laurentian Library  (if only he had managed to fit Matta-Clark in thereÉ.).   ThereÕs a great section where, talking about ruins, he says  ÒÉ Ruins are frequently exceptional spaces of unusual complexity that offer unique relations between access and barrier, the open & the closed, the diagonal & the horizontal, ground plane and wall.Ó   I havenÕt looked at this essay in awhile, but now that I read it again I remember it figuring in when I started this work 6 or 7 years ago.   ItÕs a strange time in NYC to speak of ruins though and I wouldnÕt want that to be misread as some sort of aestheticizing of the catastrophic events of 9/11.  Clearly, our recent experience of ruin transcends these sorts of formulations.

 

Perhaps there is a little more to say regarding the  embodied experience of space though -  like seeing   (does one see?) a Serra or walking down the center aisle of the Laurentian Library-   in either case, the empirical information that one ÒknowsÓ doesnÕt add up to the experiential sensation.  I mean, you know that you are progressing from one end of the Laurentian Library to the other, but as you are actually there, walking, there is a strange dilation of time & distance (maybe like that film).   It doesnÕt add up.   Walking up and down that center aisle of the Library was one of the most powerful architectural experiences I have ever had.

 

DonÕt get me wrong- IÕm not comparing or in any way approximating my piece, my work to that.  Just the sense of inhabited experienced space.   There is that great idea that plays through SerraÕs work of the plan/elevation split-   that the elevation provides little information as to the plan of the piece and vice versa.   Ironically, in my pieces, I use the plan to make the elevation.   thereÕs a whole series of transpositions etc.  (for Goliath-  the cuts in the walls, the elevations-  that which makes them permeable- are a sort of rotated silhouette of the plan of  the built walls onto which the plan of the living spaces have been overlaid, these built walls were based on an angled dislocation of the exiting work spaces of Goliath).   I donÕt know that much (or any) of this is necessarily readable in the final product except perhaps in a kind of intuitive way-   lengths of walls seem familiar and related to existing walls, angles seem to echo existing ones etc.   So, while IÕm using the plan in the elevation, it doesnÕt really give you much guidance in negotiating the space.   I like the trailblazers-  there are always some who will find fascinating paths through.   I guess thatÕs the metaphorical situation IÕm hoping to set up.   the ideological intent doesnÕt determine the space, but I am intrigued by the ideological space that results.

 

All right-  IÕm starting to wander (and I was writing this longhand today-  had to type it after the fact). 

 

You mentioned to me when we first spoke/wrote that you had never shown with a sculptor (if thatÕs what I am-  and I guess weÕll provisionally say I am) before.  IÕm interested in what you think about that paring in terms of what sorts of similarities and differences you perceive in process, outcome, content, space etc. in our works.   IÕm not phrasing the question wellÉ a sure sign that I should wrap it up I think.   Anyway-   IÕll throw that out to you (rather like a weighted down life preserver IÕm afraid) and you can take it where you may.

 

 

Sorry again to have taken so long on this reply.   Talk soon

 

Love

 

Thom