Artisphere Log:#Week 5

Dear Casey (A Letter written on Sunday reporting back on reactions to Plastic PURGE series; a collaboration between Elsabe Dixon and Casey Magrys)

 

People were intrigued by the "Purges"(or my word for them: "plastic oopsies)". The environment these created reflect a wonderful Trompe-l’oeil – resembling many different surfaces from oozing oil to wire coils, wet intestines and more... And all the while they are strange aberrations, the results of industrial “mistakes” during the production process of a plastic injection mold company.

 

We had long conversations about industrially made products, useful things and then these... un-useful things... Pretty much as un-useful as a 5000 year old agricultural system producing a product that seems irrelevant in the wake of new imitation fabrics and mass produced silk-like materials in a post industrial world.

I have personally loved this juxtaposition.

Oh, and I put some moths down in the display. We need to make a film....

"First we put the male moths all over and let them sit very quietly - and we wait - nothing - and then we put in one female moth and... All the male moths turn into Whirling Dervishes!!!"

(I do not know what this has to do with the lovely connection between the PURGES and the sericulture but it certainly will look interesting in the midst of these plastic "PURGES" and the tricky sensory landscape they make).

Erwin Tamm is coming out on Thursday evening, we can ask him to shoot a film on top of the photographic stills? We can call it the Loubser and Magrys  "Way Things Go"! (LOL) Loubser is my maiden name.

It remains interesting also, that during metamorphoses from feeder to spinner, the way silk fluid is ejected through the mouth of a silkworm, is similar to how an industrial plant’s equipment ejects plastic fluid into molds. As the silk fluid sets when it comes into contact with air, so too, the plastic hardens when it cools.

We will see what happens.  

Best

E

Read More

Artisphere Log:#Week 7

General activities for the public to see and do:

·      “Moth Catching”: How to catch and hold a moth without hurting it.

·      Talking about life cycles and associations

·      Inviting play (iphone pictures/portraits with moths)

·      Watch moths laying eggs on and into structures

·      Sorting live moths from dead moths

Read More

Artisphere Log:#Week 8

The canopy used during the public interactions with the moths is taken down and reconstructed into a pod sculpture that simulates a “cocoon-like” structure. The material takes on the forms that were created by the insects in the space.

Read More

Artisphere Log: Week 9

The maze/labyrinth made from the detritus left after sericulture-practice (raising silkworms) is a tour in the form of a passage made out of round rubber stepping “stone-shapes” through which the solver must find a route. The pathways and the floor installation constructed with mulberry sticks, worm frass, and cocoons, in the maze, are relatively fixed but can be redirected and changed from one day to the other. Paths can change during the time the floor installation is constructed.

Participants enter at one spot, and exit at another. The idea could be to reach a certain spot in the maze as well.

Technically the maze is distinguished from the Labyrinth, which has a single through-route with twists and turns but without branches, and is not designed to be as difficult to navigate. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways.  The pathway set in the Artisphere AIR studio is not so much confusing as it is perhaps more of a sensory navigation and inquiry for participants.

Artisphere Log:#Week 3

·      Loading spinners on forms to spin either cocoons or flat shapes. A whole section continues to be set up in the window and the spinners have been staying in the gallery overnight because they do not need to eat. Spinning cycle is 3 days and 3 nights. After spinning they turn into pupa, either inside a cocoon or on the open weaving. The metamorphoses of the spinners spinning flat shapes, is made visible, by placing the depleted spinners in small translucent plastic vitrines on the spinning table, where they will turn into a moth within 13-15 days. Edwin is great at checking to see if worms drop down from the wall on the days that I am not there. 

Read More

Artisphere Log:#Week 4

Most of the silk worms are spinning – the installation is down to three boxes - and the spinners were loaded into the wall of constructed forms in the gallery as well as the platforms on Friday night. This is a time consuming process and it takes concentrated focus to “pick-out” the spinners and place them carefully into and onto forms. Cobb Dixon (Midtown Comics, NYC) and Ina Dixon (Danville Regional Foundation, Danville, VA) helped place the spinners and also helped to verbally disclose to visitors who came through the gallery the sequence of the silk-worm life cycle and the time frame for each phase within that life cycle.

FIRST MOTH EMERGED!!! SECOND MOTH EMERGED!! WHILE WE WERE IN THE GALLERY!!

Read More

Artisphere Log #Week 11

MAZE/LABYRINTH CONSTRUCTION…

The addition of Salt

 

Salt has been used as a preservative, since ancient times, to protect food against bacteria, mold, and spoiling. Also, ever noticed how quickly open wounds heal when you swim in the ocean? Salt works by drying food and absorbing water from foods, making the environment too dry to support harmful mold or bacteria. Salt draws moisture out of cells via the process of osmosis. Salt affects the osmotic pressure of foods, making the environment inhospitable for bacteria that spoil foods.

Read More

Artisphere Log #Week 10

Continue Installing the Maze

 

·      Floor installation with the detritus from the live installation.

·      Floor installation: interactive maze navigated by visitors to the Artisphere Art Center.

·      Sorting and cleaning the detritus for placement in the maze

·      Continuing the salt drawings

·      Possible discussions on sound- salt and sericulture detritus

·      Movement and performance within the pathway of the maze-labyrinth form.

·      Inviting poets, musicians and storytellers into the maze.

Read More

Artisphere Log: #Week 1

The month ahead before the Artisphere show is daunting, but I will find things that can be company and guide me as I go. Today I stare at an old syllabus from last semester with dog-ears. AVT103: Spring 2014: HOW TO WORK BETTER (Fischli and Weiss)

1. DO ONE THING AT A TIME

2. KNOW THE PROBLEM

3. LEARN TO LISTEN

4. LEARN TO ASK QUESTIONS

5. DISTINGUISH SENSE FROM NONSENSE

6. ACCEPT CHANGE AS INEVITABLE

7. ADMIT MISTAKES

8. SAY IT SIMPLE

9. BE CALM

10. SMILE 

 

 

Artisphere Log:#Week 2

ARTISPHERE

ELSABÉ DIXON: LIVE/LIFE

 

DISCUSSIONS ON LIVING ENVIRONMENTSWED OCT 1 – SUN FEB 22, 2015 Artist in Residence Studio

Artist on site studio hours: Thurs & Fri 6-10pm, Sun 12-5pm

(EACH SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH THE AIR GALLERY WILL HOST A CONVERSATIONAL TEA)

 

 

LIVE/LIFE will show an insect life cycle as an ephemeral gesture throughout the time period of five months. A simple gesture of revealing the life-cycle of insects (in particular the domesticated silkworm or Bombyx Mori) will allow visitors to the art center to “observe (and interact with) nature, inside”. The insects used are silkworms, the only domesticated insect in the world and the silk worms are familiar with - and even rely on - human interaction. These insects are not behind vitrines and there are no barriers between the insects and the audience. Those visiting the A.I.R gallery can get as close to, or as far away from, the insects as they feel they want to. Through the interaction of people, insects, and a particular scene/live installation environment, those who come through the gallery doors could experience the renewed understanding of their personal expectations and associations with things inside that should be outside. The idea is to create a dynamic interpretation of LIFE CYCLE, which produces an activated live gallery space of simultaneous and collective sensory reception, which will inspire story telling.

 

As part of my residency, I would like to invite Artisphere patrons to witness and participate in the Live/Life Projects and have artist collaborations on Thursday and Friday evenings. I would also like to invite engineers; mechanics; architects; food practitioners; scientists; curators; art historians; writers; poets; philosophers; friends; and Postmodern philanthropists, into the A.I.R studio space at Artisphere for “Organic Tea” conversations on Sunday afternoons between 1 and 5 pm. These activities and discussions surround a monthly theme, which are listed below:

 

October: Systems of Construction and how they work. Patrons are invited to participate in the agricultural practice of sericulture (raising silkworms for the purpose of silk production) and in communal work of constructing an interactive, live, and imagined environment out of repurposed cardboard, rubber and sericulture detritus.

 

November: New Research on Theory and Practice of Sorting and Searching. Patrons are invited to participate in the practice of sorting and searching in communal work by organizing sericulture materials, live silk moths and insect detritus for specific outcomes that investigate systems and cells, as well as “sounds”.

 

December: Ritual and Sequential Methods of Storytelling. Patrons are invited to participate in the practice of ritual and sequential methods of storytelling, and in communal work of constructing an interactive, live, and imagined environment out of repurposed cardboard and sericulture detritus.

 

January: Growing, Preparing, Presenting and Distributing Food. Patrons are invited to participate in a discussion of growing, preparing, presenting and distributing food, and in communal work of constructing an interactive, live, and imagined environment through mapping of food sources, recipes, presentations and packaging.

 

February: Possibilities of Transcendence while working within Life Cycles and Time Frames. Patrons are invited to participate in the communal work of constructing an interactive, live, and imagined environment through cyclical processes that question maintenance, the ritual of repetition, and of using time within the context of materials, cultural history, ecology and the local economy. This month will mark, and archive, a collection of scientific language, a pictographic lexicon and the narratives accumulated during the four-month period of experimental “Lab” time at Artisphere, and many Sunday Teas.