Here is my Prezi:
http://prezi.com/a9hnkmonj-fv/cabot-koppers-superfund/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=prezi_landing_related_solr&utm_campaign=prezi_landing_related_owner
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Reflection on Prezi
I think what makes Prezi so successful (in its creative possibilities and potentials) is also what serves as its pitfall: with so much to do, a beginner can easily get lost. Of course, this is not strictly Prezi's fault--they offer up the interface, and it is up to the user of the software to figure it out. Unfortunately, many of the tutorials (Lynda included) give too much information too fast (in that, in trying to be comprehensive, they give all the information). For example, the Prezis that they use as illustrative examples of what Prezi can do far exceed what a beginner could probably do with Prezi under reasonable time constraints. After learning about the triple-layered 3D background feature possibility, I naturally wanted to utilize such. My (conceptual) idea: my significator card would be the wide background image (the toilet project); inside of the toilet would be the next layer, a map of Cabot Koppers; inside of the Cabot Koppers map there would be imbedded the spread of Tarot relays, giving a poetic narrative of the accident/disaster.
This simply was not possible--at least not at first, as one truly needs to master the basics of Prezi through trial and error before one can advance into such a horizon. First of all, as Lynda notes, the 3D background images need to be saved as a certain kind of file and pixelated in a certain manner in order for them to work effectively. They do not tell one how to do this, however, and trying to figure out how to properly adjust screen captures (I still lucky to know how to even screen capture!) to fit the proper specs was rather impossible. Eventually, I came to terms with what I am: a Prezi novice. I chose a template, adjusted creatively here and there so as to personalize it a bit and, though it is still not as complex and visually striking as it could be, I am happy with what I produced. There is perhaps an excellent pedagogical point here concerning electracy (or becoming-electrate) that, for the reasons of convenience, we will relate to literacy (or becoming-literate): one must learn how to read before one can undertake the complexities of Shakespeare or Proust, Derrida or Barthes.
Naturally, it would be pleasant if Prezi offered up comprehensive, step-by-step guides to the interface that were separated by skill level (maybe something to the tune of: Prezi for Idiots; Prezi for Beginners; Intermediate Prezi; Advanced Prezi; Prezi and Beyond). Trial and error works, too, and this indeed served as an experiment (doubly so for those of us that had not worked with Prezi--to completion--before), but the stress may have stemmed from the fact that it was nonetheless an assignment, as well. I look forward to the next time I use Prezi, as I know how to use the basics and, as such, will perhaps be more confident and capable in being able to go a step further. There is obviously a lot of possibility and potential in Prezi; it's simply a matter of what present skill-horizon stands before a given user.
This simply was not possible--at least not at first, as one truly needs to master the basics of Prezi through trial and error before one can advance into such a horizon. First of all, as Lynda notes, the 3D background images need to be saved as a certain kind of file and pixelated in a certain manner in order for them to work effectively. They do not tell one how to do this, however, and trying to figure out how to properly adjust screen captures (I still lucky to know how to even screen capture!) to fit the proper specs was rather impossible. Eventually, I came to terms with what I am: a Prezi novice. I chose a template, adjusted creatively here and there so as to personalize it a bit and, though it is still not as complex and visually striking as it could be, I am happy with what I produced. There is perhaps an excellent pedagogical point here concerning electracy (or becoming-electrate) that, for the reasons of convenience, we will relate to literacy (or becoming-literate): one must learn how to read before one can undertake the complexities of Shakespeare or Proust, Derrida or Barthes.
Naturally, it would be pleasant if Prezi offered up comprehensive, step-by-step guides to the interface that were separated by skill level (maybe something to the tune of: Prezi for Idiots; Prezi for Beginners; Intermediate Prezi; Advanced Prezi; Prezi and Beyond). Trial and error works, too, and this indeed served as an experiment (doubly so for those of us that had not worked with Prezi--to completion--before), but the stress may have stemmed from the fact that it was nonetheless an assignment, as well. I look forward to the next time I use Prezi, as I know how to use the basics and, as such, will perhaps be more confident and capable in being able to go a step further. There is obviously a lot of possibility and potential in Prezi; it's simply a matter of what present skill-horizon stands before a given user.
Final Reading
My final reading went as detailed below:
Significator Card: Justice (see: previous post)
Spread: Celtic Cross
Questions:
1. Present: How is Cabot Koppers?
2. Immediate Challenge: What does Cabot Koppers want to teach Alachua County?
3. Distant Past: From where did Cabot Koppers come?
4. Recent Past: What does Cabot Koppers want to be?
5. Best Outcome: What is at the top of Cabot Koppers' Jacob's Ladder?
6. Immediate Future: What music does Cabot Koppers produce?
7. Factors Affecting Situation: What is the appliance of Cabot Koppers?
8. External Influences: How does Alachua County want to dance with Cabot Koppers?
9. Hopes and Fears: What does Cabot Koppers dream about?
10. Final Outcome: How can we help Cabot Koppers?
Answers:
1. Queen of Wands --> Rimbaud
2. 2 of Swords --> Telephone Poles
3. 7 of Cups Reversed --> The Rhizome
4. Temperance Reversed --> Louis the Chiropractor (Jacob's Ladder)
5. 4 of Swords --> My Bed
6. 6 of Wands Reversed --> Surveillance Camera
7. 3 of Cups Reversed --> Cabot Koppers Shake
8. The Tower Reversed --> The Inferno (Jacob's Ladder)
9. 8 of Pentacles Reversed --> Messy Room
10. The Chariot --> Helicopter (Jacob's Ladder)
General Reading: Cabot Koppers is not just a disaster of spatial proportions, but an accident of necessarily temporal dimension. In this sense, we cannot merely follow the telephone poles spatially to Cabot Koppers, mapping them as such, but rather we also need to follow the telephones back to the knotted desire of our past that engendered such an accident in the primary position. In this sense (truly!), the telephone poles function generally as analogues for pepper: the spatial strategies of their mapping only gestures towards our future disaster (such is the accident: the shipwreck was invented by the ship [Virilio]). To this end, the immediate challenge for Cabot Koppers is not merely spatial, but more importantly temporal: we have already mapped and demarcated the Superfund site, and we know where the poisons are (dioxin, arsenic, etc.); the question is how to move, in active, dynamic process and production, towards a place that not only adjusts Cabot Koppers in the service of well-being, but does so in a manner that prevents the next accident-cum-disaster? The Chariot as the Final Outcome is quite fitting: the entire spread, regardless of the nuanced hermeneutics of the poetics at hand, inevitably rests upon that of will power and determination. The potential aesthetic power of this electrate method means nothing if it collapses back into stagnant epistemology and blind-spot lethargy.
Significator Card: Justice (see: previous post)
Spread: Celtic Cross
Questions:
1. Present: How is Cabot Koppers?
2. Immediate Challenge: What does Cabot Koppers want to teach Alachua County?
3. Distant Past: From where did Cabot Koppers come?
4. Recent Past: What does Cabot Koppers want to be?
5. Best Outcome: What is at the top of Cabot Koppers' Jacob's Ladder?
6. Immediate Future: What music does Cabot Koppers produce?
7. Factors Affecting Situation: What is the appliance of Cabot Koppers?
8. External Influences: How does Alachua County want to dance with Cabot Koppers?
9. Hopes and Fears: What does Cabot Koppers dream about?
10. Final Outcome: How can we help Cabot Koppers?
Answers:
1. Queen of Wands --> Rimbaud
2. 2 of Swords --> Telephone Poles
3. 7 of Cups Reversed --> The Rhizome
4. Temperance Reversed --> Louis the Chiropractor (Jacob's Ladder)
5. 4 of Swords --> My Bed
6. 6 of Wands Reversed --> Surveillance Camera
7. 3 of Cups Reversed --> Cabot Koppers Shake
8. The Tower Reversed --> The Inferno (Jacob's Ladder)
9. 8 of Pentacles Reversed --> Messy Room
10. The Chariot --> Helicopter (Jacob's Ladder)
General Reading: Cabot Koppers is not just a disaster of spatial proportions, but an accident of necessarily temporal dimension. In this sense, we cannot merely follow the telephone poles spatially to Cabot Koppers, mapping them as such, but rather we also need to follow the telephones back to the knotted desire of our past that engendered such an accident in the primary position. In this sense (truly!), the telephone poles function generally as analogues for pepper: the spatial strategies of their mapping only gestures towards our future disaster (such is the accident: the shipwreck was invented by the ship [Virilio]). To this end, the immediate challenge for Cabot Koppers is not merely spatial, but more importantly temporal: we have already mapped and demarcated the Superfund site, and we know where the poisons are (dioxin, arsenic, etc.); the question is how to move, in active, dynamic process and production, towards a place that not only adjusts Cabot Koppers in the service of well-being, but does so in a manner that prevents the next accident-cum-disaster? The Chariot as the Final Outcome is quite fitting: the entire spread, regardless of the nuanced hermeneutics of the poetics at hand, inevitably rests upon that of will power and determination. The potential aesthetic power of this electrate method means nothing if it collapses back into stagnant epistemology and blind-spot lethargy.
Significator: Justice
I ended up using my conceptual toilet image as my Tarot-relay emblem for my Significator card, which happened to be Justice (using the birth date system this time).
On the toilet lid it is written: "Alachua Cabot Koppers." On the toilet seat are two figures: a female (who is dressed as though a bride or princess) and a male (curiously not dressed as a groomsman or prince). Between them is the abyss of the toilet, which holds and flushes away shit. In the middle-forefront is bottled water that is obviously impure. I do not want to give a reading of my conceptual image, as I feel as though such would defeat the purpose (for many reasons and on many scales). Nonetheless, I do want to gesture to some of the concepts I am generally approaching: disaster/accident; the relation between the micro and macro (and its relation to sense of justice); the complexity of limit; blind spots, the (w)hole, and the abyss, especially with regard to shit and pollution; productivity and the logic of late capitalism industry and desire for/of the commodity. Despite the toilet's function to "flush" away shit and fold it back into a "blind spot," if the toilet fails and clogs, then the water floods over, washing the two figures into the toilet or out of frame (they would, in this latter sense, "leave" Alachua/Cabot Koppers). Their ability to be together and stay together remains not only one of micro-desire, of re-cognized Moment, or of EPS, but also of knotted desire that inflects the well-being of the entire Community which maintains their GPS.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Jacob's Ladder Major Arcana: Take One
This is not all of them, but a good number.* A lot of this still revolves around The Fool, and I will adjust this, but for the time being, this helps me properly modify the narratives as they ought to operate.
THE FOOL: FOLLY, MANIA, EXTRAVAGANCE, INTOXICATION, DELIRIUM, FRENZY, BEWRAYMENT.
NARRATIVE: JACOB, THE FOOL, DOES NOT KNOW WHERE HE IS OR WHERE HE IS GOING. HE IS SEEING THINGS. HE KNOWS HE MUST DO SOMETHING, BUT HE IS NOT YET SURE WHAT IT IS HE MUST DO. HE IS CARING AND GENTLE, BUT HE IS INCREASINGLY UNTRUSTING OF HIS SEEMING CLOSE ONES, THOUGH HE YET LOVES THEM. JACOB'S HEART GUIDES HIM, AND THIS IS WHAT MAKES HIM BOTH A FOOL (INITIALLY) AND ALSO A HERO (EVENTUALLY). JACOB IS A PATIENT LISTENER, BUT HE IS ALSO A LEADER. JACOB CLINGS TO WHAT HE KNOWS AND HOLDS DEAR (AS SEEN SYMBOLICALLY SEEN ABOVE), THOUGH HE COMES TO UNDERSTAND THAT HE MUST LET THIS GO (FOOL TO HERO). CONFRONTED BY ANGELS AND DEMONS, DAIMON AND NEMESIS, THE CHOICE(S) REMAIN JACOB'S ALONE.
NARRATIVE: LOUIS, THE CHIROPRACTOR, AND FIGURE OF TEMPERANCE, GUIDES. HE ADJUSTS THE BODY AND SPIRIT, AND IT CAN BE PAINFUL. IT CAN BE UNWANTED. AS LOUIS ONLY GUIDES, HE SPEAKS IN METAPHORS AND FABLES. LOUIS ONLY MANAGES AND ACCOMMODATES. JACOB DISCOVERS THIS.
THE MAGICIAN: SKILL, DIPLOMACY, ADDRESS, SICKNESS, PAIN, LOSS, DISASTER, SELF-CONFIDENCE, WILL.
NARRATIVE: THE MAGICIAN SITS AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, AWAY FROM THE PARTY BELOW. SHE IS FLATTERING AND GENTLE. SHE WILL LOOK AT A PALM AND TELL ONE THAT THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE AN INDICTMENT OR A CONDEMNATION. HER SKILL IS MERELY TO INFORM AND ADDRESS. SHE INFORMS OF DISASTER DIPLOMATICALLY. JACOB LEARNS ALL OF THIS.
THE CHARIOT: SUCCOUR, PROVIDENCE; ALSO WAR, TRIUMPH, PRESUMPTION, VENGEANCE, TROUBLE
NARRATIVE: THE CHARIOT BRINGS YOU INTO AND OUT OF WAR. THE CHARIOT CAN SAVE YOU FROM A WOUND, OR IT CAN CARRY YOU INTO DEATH. THE CHARIOT MOVES IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. JACOB KNOWS BOTH.
NARRATIVE: BEWARE THE REVERSE, AS HAPPENS TO THE FOOL, JACOB. THE PENNY ON THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE SLIPS AND REVERSES. THE WHEEL IS AN INDICATOR, BUT ALSO A GUIDE: FORTUNE ONLY AS DESTINY IN THE SENSE OF CHOICE. GOOD FORTUNE AWAITS, BUT HOW ONE ARRIVES AT SUCH IS DEPENDENT UPON CHOICE.
THE HIGH PRIESTESS: SECRETS, MYSTERY, THE FUTURE AS YET UNREVEALED; THE WOMAN WHO INTERESTS THE QUERENT, IF MALE.
NARRATIVE: JEZZI, THE HIGH PRIESTESS, SEDUCES. SHE IS CARING BUT CAN BE HARSH, UNFORGIVING. SHE WILL NOT LET ONE LEAVE, FOR BETTER OR WORSE. JEZZI IS CARE IN THE SENSE OF LIMIT. SHE IS MYSTERIOUS; DARK AND DIFFICULT TO READ, SHE NONETHELESS IS THERE FOR CRUEL AND CARING INDICATION. JACOB, THE FOOL, BELIEVES TO LOVE HER.
NARRATIVE: THE TOWER IS THE SITE OF TUMULT. IT IS WHERE THE OLD BELIEFS AND BELONGINGS BURN TO ASHES. THIS IS DIFFICULT, BUT IT IS OFTEN FOR THE BEST: IN ORDER FOR NEW CREATION AND REBIRTH, OLD LONGINGS MUST BE LEFT TO RUBBLE. IT BURNS THE PICTURES WE NEED TO ABANDON, THE IMAGES THAT HINDER THE BRINGING-FORTH OF NEW IMAGES. JACOB, THE FOOL'S, PICTURES BURN THERE.
THE STAR: LOSS, THEFT, PRIVATION, ABANDONMENT; ANOTHER READING SAYS HOPE AND BRIGHT PROSPECTS
NARRATIVE: THE LAST THING JACOB SEES BEFORE GOING PRACTICALLY COMATOSE. HE WAS ABANDONED; BUT HE WAS ALSO SAVED, RECOVERED (SEE: HOPE).
NARRATIVE: IT IS TOWARDS WHICH THE CHARIOT FINALLY CARRIES JACOB (MATERIALLY), THOUGH SUCH IS THE SAME CHARIOT THAT DROPPED HIM INTO DESPAIR AND DEATH. THE SUN SERVES AS AN ALMOST UNIVERSAL FIGURE OF WELL-BEING AND FORTUNE, EVEN IN ITS REVERSAL. JACOB, THE FOOL, MOVES TOWARDS THE SUN, LITERALLY AND METAPHYSICALLY.
JUDGEMENT: CHANGE OF POSITION, RENEWAL, OUTCOME
NARRATIVE: THIS IS WHERE JUDGEMENT IS IMPOSED; THIS IS WHERE UNFORTUNATE TRUTH IS HEARD (INDICTMENT, SENTENCE, LIMIT). JACOB, THE FOOL, LEARNS THAT HE IS DEAD. THIS IS DIFFICULT TO UNDERTAKE, BUT NOT AS DIFFICULT AS THE CHOICES HE WILL HAVE TO MAKE IN ORDER TO DEAL WITH SUCH A REVELATION. CONSIDER THE JUDGEMENT CARD WITH SERIOUS DISCERNMENT: IT IS ABOUT HOW YOU REACT TO THE JUDGEMENT, RATHER THAN THE JUDGEMENT ITSELF. SEE: SURROUNDING AND COUPLING CARDS.
NARRATIVE: THE HERMIT WAS A HIPPIE WHO ESCAPED A JAIL SENTENCE FOR COOKING LSD BY ACCEPTING AN OFFER BY THE MILITARY TO WORK ON A NEW DRUG. THE HERMIT PRODUCED A DRUG, THE LADDER, THAT INCITED INTENSE AGGRESSION, FEAR, PARANOIA. THE MILITARY USED THIS ON THEIR OWN TROOPS, INCLUDING JACOB, THE FOOL. THE HERMIT, WHO REMAINS ONLY HERE AND THERE, EVENTUALLY COMES TO LIGHT, CONFESSES. THE HERMIT TELLS YOU WHAT IS THERE, AND WHAT HE DID; NO NEED TO GET ANGRY. USE THE INFORMATION AND TREASON REASONABLY.
THE LOVERS: ATTRACTION, LOVE, BEAUTY, TRIALS OVERCOME.
NARRATIVE: LOVE AND ATTRACTION ARE TO BE HAD, BUT THEY ARE NOT ALWAYS RECIPROCATED. JACOB, THE FOOL, LEARNS THIS SLOWLY AND EVENTUALLY. TAKE LOVE FOR WHAT IT IS: A PERSONAL GIFT FIRST AND FOREMOST. APPRECIATE SUCH A CLUE.
NARRATIVE: THE HANGED MAN IS A REFLECTION OF AND FOR YOURSELF. IT IS YOUR OWN WISDOM TALKING BACK TO YOU, BY WAY OF YOUR EXTERIORIZATION OF YOUR OWN TRIALS. USE THIS AS A CALL TO THINK ABOUT THE SURROUNDING AND COUPLED CARDS.
*Brief descriptions borrowed from A.E White.
A Brief Outburst Concerning Theory
MONTY PYTHON PHILOSOPHY FOOTBALL
One of the central aspects of this course that I have found most redeeming (aside from the shift (in frame) from literacy to electracy, ethics to aesthetics, critical judgement to flash reason, commodity qua commodity to the appropriation of commodity/commercial logic for the service of well-being, etc.) has been on a return to the metaphysics and ontology that operate as recurring threads throughout the Western tradition of thought. While I have long been a proponent of the conjunctive "and," as opposed to the biunivocal either/or (Deleuze not only took Kant from behind, but me as well), I have found the creative and useful conjunction of many of the great thinkers as being-towards a common and recurring goal, idea, concept rather refreshing.
This is How the World Began: Not With a Whimper, But With a Game.
Bernard Stiegler. Originary technicity: "The history of technicity is the history of being" (TT2). Can be used for constructive, creative play; or it can be used for destructive, reactive violence. 2001 Space Odyssey.
Tarot cards. Ancient technique. A language of seeming and interpretation. Play. Opens up blind spots, much like Smithson's work. A different way; an aporia of language filled.
Tarot cards. Ancient technique. A language of seeming and interpretation. Play. Opens up blind spots, much like Smithson's work. A different way; an aporia of language filled.
Ubicomp/Ubimage. Electrate epoch. Flash reason. A shift to the aesthetic tendency. The avatar function.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
A Tarot Reading
I performed my first Tarot reading with a Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Spread method: Celtic Cross. Question asked: What is the meaning of Part I of my blog?
SIGNIFICATOR CARD: KNIGHT OF CUPS
In order to arrive at my Significator card, I used a method that used both choice and chance. I split the deck into four piles. I placed my hand over every pile, trying to sense an energy or drawnness to that particular pile. After feeling drawn to a particular deck, I went through it, consulted it. I chose the card that I felt best represented my persona (or EPS): the Knight of Cups. A few notes on the Knight of Cups: the most feminine of the knights, though still a knight; well-mannered, though manipulative (though their is a certain logic and reason to his manipulation and, as such, has an aptitude for "reading people"); keeps private self to himself; sends mixed messages; can be charming, though duplicitous. In short, the Knight of Cups is an intense personification of whirl-pool neurosis.
CARD THAT FELL OUT OF DECK WHILE SHUFFLING: 4 of SWORDS
I sided with methods that encourage one to put aside a card that falls out of the deck while shuffling. This element of fault/chance/accident should be taken into strong consideration with the reading at large. A few brief notes about this card: clarity; calm; a period of peace. In short, STOP WORRYING!
MY SPREAD
1. PRESENT: QUEEN OF PENTACLES. General notes: dark woman; presents from a rich relative; rich and happy marriage
2. IMMEDIATE CHALLENGE: THE HIGH PRIESTESS. General notes: veiled in mystery; pure potentiality; unconscious; intuition; shadow
3. DISTANT PAST: WHEEL OF FORTUNE. General notes: luck; success; everything connected in cycle; destiny; change to have happened
4. RECENT PAST: KING OF PENTACLES. General notes: stability; golden touch; all business; old methods of thinking
5. IMMEDIATE FUTURE: THE TOWER. General notes: dated beliefs; adversity; distress; misery
6. BEST OUTCOME: 2 of WANDS. General notes: directing energy (will); will to self/power; friendship
7. FACTORS AFFECTING SITUATION: TEMPERANCE. General notes: economy; moderation; management; incorporate fears affectively; need for balance
8. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES: JUSTICE. General notes: equity; rightness; probity; two fundamental laws: 1. cause and effect and, 2. karma; the past informs the future
9. HOPES AND FEARS: 8 of CUPS. General notes: stagnant swamp; wake-up call; lack of motivation; barren wasteland; wisdom in void
10. FINAL OUTCOME: THE SUN. General notes: light and life; reliability; contentment; illumination.
GENERAL READING
I am going to start my reading by focusing on two cards that are often read as a coupling: the 5 card (Immediate Future) and the 10 card (Final Outcome). Both of these cards were major arcana cards, and they starkly contrasted each other--though in the more desired direction. The Tower seems to gesture towards the undergoing called for and experienced during Part I of my blog: revisiting past and having a present rupture, expressed by and through a reflection on past living environments and an internal mediation of my present living environment (in all sense and senses: state of mind and attitude [Einstellung], visual percepts, sound, etc). The Tower is familiar, but the Tower must be laid to waste (because it is so familiar). Of course, it is not easy to voluntarily head into the Valley of the Uncanny. This is why one is often thrown from the Tower (re-thrownness), as it burns and collapses into rubble. The positive of this is new creation ("new dreams, new dreams; there is no truth" as my Motto from Yeats reads); it is, in other words, The Sun. Of course, this does not merely happen in a linear fashion, as the meaning of some of the other cards in my spread demonstrate. Both the Wheel of Fortune (Distant Past) and Justice (External Influences) gesture towards the manner in which the past informs the future, the necessity of both cause and effect and karma, destiny and connectedness. I think the aesthetic undergoing in Part I of my blog, and my negotiation with limit, Daimon, and Nemesis, brings forth the understanding of EPS as Moment that is not here or there, but crystallized into a persona that constantly and recursively undergoing in connection and various of flight (see: D&G's Rhizome as my Emblem in Part I). I find the Present (Queen of Pentacles) and the Immediate Challenge (High Priestess) to also be very interesting draws: both are, to differing degrees, dark women. My present happiness with my blog presents (immediately) the next challenge: to focus on how to take these still somewhat unconscious drives, these pure potentialities (potente), that I have approached in Part I and move them more fully from the shadows and into the light (to be connected to my Final Outcome, The Sun). Of course, Factors Affecting the Situation (and such a move or turn) is Temperance (see: Allegory of Prudence in general)--and this must not be forgotten along the way. The Hopes and Fears card made me giggle, to be honest, because it seems to have the most direct (re)presentation of the disaster at hand: stagnant swamp. However, the hope of the card rests in the ability to draw wisdom from the void (the (w)hole). We should also note the Best Outcome, which is an effective directing of energy towards will and self-empowerment, or towards what I would consider "well-being."
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Digital Virality: Water Toxicity
Modeling after Smithson (analogy): (re)mapping the accident/chance. The Harlem Shake got millions and millions dancing, creating; perhaps the Cabot Koppers Shake will get the people of Gainesville dancing to a different rhythm. A more fluid rhythm. Chance, especially as articulated in the Cabot Koppers superfund site, often demands an urgency. We can learn to use chance to help us better see/understand a given disaster (example: the language of Tarot) via an aesthetic undergoing. High concentrations of dixoin are present in Cabot Koppers; dixoin causes various physical deformities, organ damage, cancers, etc. But a different way of siting/sighting dixoin poisoning: the strategy of the viral meme.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
A Metaphysics of Sight: Mapping the (In)Visible
The most enjoyable part of Robert Smithson's approach to art for me (whether it be structures, maps, diagrams, etc.) was its attempt to redirect vision towards "blind spots," making the otherwise invisible visible again. Smithson's consideration of vision as not simply a retinal operation always already apprehending the truth of a sight/site, but rather as a stratification (a learned way of seeing via cultural (re)production) that sees accordingly, lends itself to our project rather poignantly. As Smithson would change sight by changing a site (and vice versa), perhaps our project should look towards strategies that induce an aesthetic undergoing that makes visible the Cabot Koppers Superfund site in a way that actually urges (urgently) a re-cognition of the site in the service of well-being (a return to goodness, joy, fulfillment of capacities). Indeed, our job, it seems, is not to tell people what to do about their community; rather, by shifting the manner in which they are able to see their community and themselves within it (the knot of desire in which one's personal singularity is linked to the plurality), we can render otherwise blind spots visible.
So the question remains: How can we approach Smithson’s artistic methods of mapping and re-mapping, of presenting and re-presenting sites/non-sites in a manner that is conducive with ubicomp/ubimage, fits our disciplinary expertise, and that can effectively bring forth and make visual (and urgent) the “accident” of Cabot Koppers SuperFund (in the service of general well-being)? Certainly, the answer is an endless multiple (in application), so long as we hone in on effectively appropriating the general strategy. After all, lest we forget, Smithson was brought in to work on the Dallas Fort Worth Airport Terminal as an “artist-consultant” (133). How can we Konsult in a manner that appropriates some of Smithson’s strategies, while remaining focused on our own particular strengths (since we are not engineers, artists, programmers, etc.)?
One experiment or possible application is posted below.
This is Smithson's "Earthmap of Gondwanaland Ice Cap." Here he makes a connection between two seemingly disparate sites, for the service of rethinking and shifting sight (I argue, or at least I argue that one could argue).
“In other words, [specific objects]…are never whole; in fact, they can be confined to minute fragments of primate traits of an object” (147). SEE: DIOXIN.
“In choosing to ‘map’ a site in New Jersey in his first nonsite, Smithson follows another one of the most basic conditions of map making: ‘start with your own home terrain’” (157).
“The local almost always indicates the global, just as the present exists only as a faint echo of the past” (175)
So the question remains: How can we approach Smithson’s artistic methods of mapping and re-mapping, of presenting and re-presenting sites/non-sites in a manner that is conducive with ubicomp/ubimage, fits our disciplinary expertise, and that can effectively bring forth and make visual (and urgent) the “accident” of Cabot Koppers SuperFund (in the service of general well-being)? Certainly, the answer is an endless multiple (in application), so long as we hone in on effectively appropriating the general strategy. After all, lest we forget, Smithson was brought in to work on the Dallas Fort Worth Airport Terminal as an “artist-consultant” (133). How can we Konsult in a manner that appropriates some of Smithson’s strategies, while remaining focused on our own particular strengths (since we are not engineers, artists, programmers, etc.)?
One experiment or possible application is posted below.
This is Smithson's "Earthmap of Gondwanaland Ice Cap." Here he makes a connection between two seemingly disparate sites, for the service of rethinking and shifting sight (I argue, or at least I argue that one could argue).
This is a similar strategy/operation, linking the mapping of electricity poles (see: pine tar; one distinct site) to the Cabot Koppers Superfund site. Such a strategy might be useful for our project. For example, Reynolds notes: “When Smithson began working with TAMS,
he wanted to make work that would accommodate and reveal the visual conditions
of the air terminal as a working facility, and he also wanted to make art that
would speak about the invisible materials and processes that helped to bring
the terminal into existence as a visual form” (139).
Within the institution of the internet/digitality, there is also the map meme, or the mapeme:
Considering Smithson, tourism, and the effective logic of advertisements, we might also consider his abandoned attempt at inserting a conceptual tour guide performance into his Passaic project, as noted in Reynolds: “Smithson appoints himself an ‘official’
guide to Passaic and its monuments in an advertisement he designed to accompany
the publication of his Passaic article. Its proposed text reads as follows: SEE
THE MONUMENT OF PASSAIC NEW JERSEY: What can you find in Passaic that you can
not find in Paris, London or Rome? Find out for yourself. Discover (if you
dare) the breathtaking Passaic River and the eternal monuments on its enchanted
banks. Ride in Rent-a-Car comfort to the land that time forgot. Only minutes
from N.Y.C. Robert Smithson will guide you through this fabled series of
sites…and don’t forget your camera. Special maps come with each tour. For more
information visit Dawn Gallery, 29 West 57th Street” (104) .
Other key considerations:
“All of these added elements would
‘expose’ the terminal as a coded environment, a ‘picturable situation’ that
could be read in a number of different ways and from a number of points of
view.” “These aerial sites would not only be visible from arriving and
departing aircraft, but they would also define the terminal’s manmade
perimeters in terms of landscaping” (156)
“In other words, [specific objects]…are never whole; in fact, they can be confined to minute fragments of primate traits of an object” (147). SEE: DIOXIN.
“In choosing to ‘map’ a site in New Jersey in his first nonsite, Smithson follows another one of the most basic conditions of map making: ‘start with your own home terrain’” (157).
“The local almost always indicates the global, just as the present exists only as a faint echo of the past” (175)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)