#futurepublication

part 4

   #aesthetics #movement are the next subjects in our dialog with the art works at Lernacken. In order to do this we need to se what the artist has in mind with movement and what kind of aesthetic contribution this structures have for the movement of history, more specific art history.

“This implies two fundamental conditions for movements in the area and hence also for the visual experience of the travellers. The motorist moves through Lernacken at high speed and with a gliding movement determined by the vehicle. /…/ The pedestrian, on the other hand, may choose freely between a greater number of options within a larger pedestrian system, just as the speed is both much slower and more varied. The movements, the visual angles and the perspectives will thus differ fundamentally. /…/ I have chosen to make use of various light sources, the effect of which depend on the viewer’s movements, position, direction of looking, and not least the rhythm of day and night and seasons /…/“Only from clearly defined positions may the light be perceived by the passers-by; and, in relation to the surrounding landscape, I must take into account the many different transports of vision which Movement Meter Works with and challenges. /…/ Movements are registered through seeing, and the view is registered though movements. Hereby the visitor’s experience of his or her own presence in the landscape space is enhanced.”

Olafur Eliasson, spring 1999. Edited by Pat Kalt / Studio Olafur Eliasson, Berlin 2002, pp. 32-37, 36-37

…the artworks at Lernacken, as they so romantically are presented to us, are in a place of movement no doubt, of people, ocean and nature, by the seasons and by the artworks. We understand that as audience can be mesmerised by the magic created by the moving sunlight (lightspeed) hitting the artworks, and creating an image of colour, observed only by moving and finding a clearly defined position (not moving). But what is this countryside place exactly, if one thinks of movement. It is a border, and not far from the installation you can find your movement stopped by not so polite to very polite border patrols. Depending on where you are coming from. If you are part of movement. Traveller from a far away land, bomb to shrivels by western armies, then your movement stops here, so close to the Movement Meter. If you on the other hand just been on the other side to get shitfaced and fill up the car with booze, or just strolled around in the foreign land in leisure or work. Then your movement is welcomed and appreciated, even though you probably to tired to notice the Movement Meter its there. If we do some numbers, to decide if this is a place of movement we come to the conclusion that about 10% of the population of the world has free movement, to see the movement meter by Olafur Eliasson, so we could imply that place is of limited movement.

 #aesthetics the installations at Lernacken are aesthetically shapes are determined by two geometrical forms. The pavilion for the pedestrians is shaped after a hexagon and the phallic spiral structure is shaped to a octagon. Both this geometrical shapes are in abundance in ancient cultures, religions and contemporary “kitsch” esoteric art. The hexagon create a very stable structure, that is most famous as the star of David. A symbol of a people in constant movement through history. Today it sadly is used in many occasions as a symbol of the opposite. The octagon or the star of Ishtar used in many nation flags, pagan cultures although it is found in all cultures, most commonly known as the compass star. Also a symbol of movement, guiding us through a journey, maybe this was the reason for the artist to choose this shape for the artwork, that is intended for the not so knowing motorist passing by. A blessing on their trip by a phallic beacon of light, something we are pretty used to by now. Aesthetically, I do find the meaning of movement in these symbols and geometric shapes, although I do not see the movement though time, as reusing millennial aesthetics could be considered a rather conservative and static choice to make, for a artwork about movement.    

 Creating a universe of movement is a difficult task to take on, for sure it is made by loss of control. Loss of acquisition of valuable papers. As letting go of static structures and implementing constant movement, that is somewhat unplanned, implies. A project that could represent the total opposite of Olafur Eliasson permanent (not movement), could be The Blue House by Jeanne van Heeswjiik. Creating a new neighbourhood by creating land in the ocean. Is moving civilisation to places where man/woman never stood tall. In this movement The Blue House was created as just that. A community art space that involves the audience as co-producers of an artistic reality, transforming reality, by movement, as movement is change. As the project is intending to create something new and unexpected. Maximum movement is the balance of different wills, although its geometrical structures is that of Olafur Eliasson and ancient cultures so kindly present to us. Or as the hurricane (stronger than atom bombs) so often reminds us of, that balanced movement is the strongest force…

part 2

Crudely contextualised Neo liberal art would be a set of values that uphold the ruling ideas that the public sphere as a place for individualities. The avant-garde within art would also imply that the inherent meaning of a given artwork would also contribute at least to not open up a discussion of the public as a place for debated. The spirals as many other of Olafur Eliasssons works are representations of nature, artificial nature as he calls it. Does the artificial forest problematize the real forest, by making it public space? The geometry used to depict “a galaxy or a hurricane” are very common symbols in the ancient civilisations artwork and still a vibrant part of aboriginal and non-western cultural expressions, even in some western more obscure cultures they apear in practice. Why this is an important factor for the discussion of public space is the presence of body within that space. The anthropologist Norbert Elias in his book the civilizing process sees the everyday life as a practice of cultural expressions of a civilizing process. I.e the western man that is the dominant active agent with the public space in patriarchal societies, does not embody culture but civilization. The “other” and the “other gender” are objects of desire for they are bearers of culture. Ironically contemporary not kitsch art is not a practice of culture as it is so often depicted, but a practice of civilisation. Thus depicting nature/the artificial takes on different meaning as soon as the producers, the publishers body enters the public space. Class, predominantly the intellectual and well educated sellers of civilizing labour class is in the same way distinction from the working class, being the reproduces of society, the uncivil culture. This is the problematic of the origins of publishing, why indigenous people activating more people as street musicians than the Movement Meter at Lernacken, as receiving some coins for their artistic expression is agency in a Habermasian discourse. Although the meaning of the geometries take on other conclusions, kitsch or cultural. The civilisation process just as gentrification is the appropriation of culture space or for re-commodification by subject with inherent civilization processes as their everyday life. Is the artificial, in a neo liberal society, the invaluable commodity art, a beacon of civilization project? one could see these connotation within an almost religious form of art even though it is artificial religious symbols, as the geometry seems to be aesthetics rather than physics. theses somewhat loose reflections will be reshapes, re formed and re-commodified in a later stage of the case study.