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DAVID CARR-SMITH - IMPROVISATION / DESIGN / ART / KITSCH / CHANCE
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CHANCE, DESIGN, ORDER
MODES
OF RELATION BETWEEN HUMAN
CONTROL AND NATURAL RANDOMNESS//DECAY//COMPLEXITY
...
in process
INDEX
CHANCE & INTENTION
/ CHAOS & DESIGN
...
in process
This
section offers examples of different sorts of relations between chance and intention /
chaos and design.
(NATURAL) CHANCE AND (HUMAN) ORDER :
Forms
made via 'nature' and those made by humans share certain aspects of
their origination
processes and experiential results. However the human forms originate somewhat
differently, not so much from a continuous line of 'automatic' development, but
as the products
of an intelligence that observes as if from 'outside' (from a mental position)
the resources of nature, and differentiates those that it judges to be useful as
'tools'. Instead of a continuous 'automatic' process of mutation and environmental-selection, humans (themselves a product of such a
process) observe nature from a position that is necessarily separate from it: that is
aware - at least
to the extent of knowing that we see something that we have not made and
seem to be not entirely joined with. This awareness (a state that is probably
too narrow to merit the word 'consciousness') enables a degree of control over
choices, this enables directed search, thinking, making, and subsequent testing
of the product/tool against the conditions it is designed to engage with.
FISH
- MACKEREL - NATURALLY EVOLVED VISUAL STRUCTURES
Nature is in real-time, the objects it forms are
continuous from the 'beginning' - each individual creature is a presentation of
the present end-point of an immensely long sequence of connected transformations. Looking
at this fish we see the now-form of a 540 million year process (in the future
this form will have changed or vanished). The 'immediacy' of certain human-made
objects is of a different order to this. Nature's alive forms are in a continuously present
selection of adaptations or deselection of maladaptations to environmental pressures (the
affective actions of the whole of what constitutes 'environment' for any given
form); a process which - given the mechanism of change: random DNA mutations and
subsequent statistical selection or destruction of any change, by enhanced
survival to breed or enhanced probability of pre-breeding death (in the case of this fish, possibly by being a little
less visible and catchable by predators) -
usually means that achieving obviously different characteristics, via
multiplication of survival affectiveness through generations, takes a long time.
I'm speculating (check this if it matters
!) that the silver underneath and stripy top is a disguise or distraction for predators. The silver perhaps flashing in the eyes of
predators moving up from
below, confusing the fast and twisting shape among the sunlight flashes and
refractions in the upper portion of the sea, and the rhythm of its stripes
merging with surface ripples. These colours, structural light-reflectors, and
patterns must have slowly (or perhaps sometimes relatively suddenly) accumulated
- been reinforced and clarified through generations of breeding and statistical
environmental selection.
ELECTRIC
INCANDESCENT LIGHT
BULB (TUNGSTEN FILAMENT)
This human made tool is an example of a very pure distillation/extraction of
discrete functions and their associated materials and shapes from the relatively holistic
natural 'background', via observation and distillation of its behaviors and
properties.
This
object is the result of a process that, unlike natural evolution, is primarily
directed by intention. Though such objects develop via a process of refining,
analogous to nature's evolved productions, and are (like the fish) end points
of 'pragmatically selected' developmental sequences, however their
development is jerky and each 'generational object/'tool' has been modified via a selective
pressure that is not simply an automatic result of breeding and subsequent
'natural selection' ... here genes are replaced by ideas, random genetic
mutations by an intentional search for existing (but hidden - as yet unfocussed)
conditions, breeding by manufacture via tools, and blind environmental selection
by experiment and practical usage and testing as a
commodity. ...
in process
ACCIDENTAL
SPILL - POOL OF BLACK RADIATOR FLUID ON PATTERNED LINO The
shape of this 'natural' pool is determined by the initial accident, the planet's pull, the physical character of the fluid, the chance topography of the
floor. Its shape is essentially 'perfect' - a 'natural phenomenon, that
once formed seems completely describable from knowledge of its physical
parameters, however everything pertaining to its final
form is in fact latent in the act of human clumsiness that
initiated it, and how can the result of an 'accident' ever be predicted. The shape is thus untrammeled by expectation (design) and free from
intention, and therefore has peculiar phantasmagoric potentials - it's a shape that
seems possibly 'alive' and, if this is not consciously acknowledged, its uninterpretableness
surely stimulates at least a degree of anxiety.
The
lino, in contrast, displays an extremely precise repeatable pattern - one that can only be physically
achieved by something much less impulsive, and much more limited and rigid than a
human being. Its pattern-printing machine is able to repeat actions which change
imperceptibly over time, and though the human system of
relatively simple and rigid bone levers moved
by muscles is mechanically quite similar, this latter is unstandardised, averaged for multitudinous
actions and under control of a 'multi-considering' nervous
system for whom each moment suggests a different response ! The
difference in 'pattern type' between the pool and the floor-lino is thus extreme. Set against the
total predictability of the lino's pattern, the unpredictability of the pool's shape
seems even more 'alive'.
The
natural singular and meaningless
shape of the pool - which directly
invokes phantasmagoric
paranoia, is in acute contrast with the artificiality of the lino's multiple
visual
'layers' - simultaneously a repetitive geometric pattern and an illustration of a tiled floor (this
'under-layer' of imitation is mentally manipulative kitsch,
in the sense that lino is a cheap alternative to the rather expensive tiled-floor
option). .
THROW-AWAY
CRUMPLED-PAPER BALL (ON STUDIO FLOOR) are
not so purely 'physical' and 'content-less' as an accident ... eg: it could be
emotionally expressive (an 'immediate drawing') - eg: an act of aggression
against oneself, directed via the paper and/or its environment.
.
LITTER
- YARD
BESIDE
COUNCIL FLATS - SHOREDITCH, LONDON Pic:
Silo tool use-patterns// workshop use-patterns // Richmond Park landscape //
pics of complex (competing) natural locations (? incl Mars?) TATE
MODERN N-LAWN - SUNNY DAY: GATHERING
OF SMALL HUMAN GROUPS ENVELOPE
BULB-SHADE - APARTMENT - AMSTERDAM (pic Summer-1988) .
EMPTY
AD HOARDING -
RAILTON RD., BRIXTON, LONDON,
SE24 LONDON BRIDGE
TUBE STATION RENOVATION - PASSAGE BETWEEN PLATFORMS
Further, such results display an untrammeled operation of human intelligence and
mental/physical resourcefulness; a seamless event without cultural constraints that
communicates no meanings extraneous to immediate need, and thus a type of beauty that is a human-made analog of
natural happenings (with
the proviso that, unlike nature's productions, such human acts are
'discontinuous' : constrained within the limits of prosthetic tools and
manufactured means). The
above example is a work of large and small responses: firstly to a sequence of large vertical features in the wall
(panels, joins, channels[?]., a door[?]); secondly to small irregularities in
the site, task, materials and their human usage: .
Kitsch
- the evocation of valued originals via quotation of mass-selected mnemonic attributes - here finds itself in a context of chance-immediacy which
re-relegates the kitsch objects plus their references. No longer in a context
that is (manifestly and absurdly) intended to support belief in the 'reality' of
the value they in fact merely refer to (that of the valued originals they are
intended to denote) ... now located in a context of 'rubbish' - a loss of any
value except visual entertainment - they appear as simply real, in the 'now'
world of practical actions and chaotic real-time processes. Relocated in this
'natural' context they are displayed simply as 'objects in a world of objects',
as stripped of their original make-believe intentions as any archeological
artifact, displayed in their 'now' setting like the painted objects that exist
as distinct 'signs of recognisibility' in a 1915 objét-collage of Picasso.
.
Instances
of unresolved conflicts of unrelated informations in the public environment are
common (in fact increasingly common as the complexity of safety regulations and
technical means increases).
Chance
conjunctions invoke new meanings or extend/endorse existing ones.// Endorsing
chance mediated meanings
...
in process Intentional
Design excludes unintended meanings. Pragmatic
Improvisation, intent only on
solving a presently experienced need at least possible 'expense', tends to
espouse an
emergence of subsequently noticed events. The immediacy and economy of improvising
with discards enables its results to participate in the world's connectedness.
...
in process
"FLORAL
PLACE" LOGO PLUS GRAFFITI - LONGACRE, LONDON, WC2
(pic
1984)
An image completed by (skillfully
manipulated) 'natural-chance'.
NELSON
MANDELA COMMEMORATION - FESTIVAL HALL, SOUTH BANK, LONDON
(pic
early 1987)
'Natural-chance'
(donated by vandals) adds
meanings.
ESTATE
AGENT'S AD - ANARCHIST CENTER, 122 RAILTON RD, BRIXTON, LONDON
TORN ADS - HOARDING - RAILTON RD., BRIXTON, LONDON,
SE24
ST PANCRAS STATION HOTEL - PRE-RENOVATION
OPEN-DAY
(pic 09-1997)
BUTCHER SHOP WINDOW & TATTOOED ARM - SURBITON, LONDON . LETTER-TRAY
- GRAAN-SILO SQUAT, ENTRY HALL - AMSTERDAM (pic 06-1994) . LETTERS
& VISITOR - GRAAN-SILO SQUAT, ENTRY HALL - AMSTERDAM (pic 09-1994)
...
in process
'PHANTOM' -
STACK OF LITTER (MOSTLY FOOD CONTAINERS) - WHITEHALL (S-END), LONDON, SW1 .
'PHANTOM' - SHADOW PLUS CHEWING-GUM - BOURNEMOUTH
RD., LONDON, SE15 OMELETTE (pic 08-08-2015) .
.
PRAGMATIC IMPROVISATION ENABLES//ESPOUSES
CHANCE SIGNIFICATIONS : Intentional
Design excludes unintended meanings. Pragmatic
Improvisation, intent only on
solving a presently experienced need at least possible 'expense', tends to
espouse an
emergence of subsequently noticed events. The immediacy and economy of improvising
with discards enables its results to participate in the world's connectedness.
...
in process
.
SIGNS
- MEANING & AMBIGUITY : ...
in process
Categories
of signs: 1 Abstract instructions (eg arrows) / 2 Abstracted
'signals' (eg: letters) / 3 Pictured instructions - the problem of
attribute-selection/simplification (1: random meanings disorganise or deflect
signed intention (Cafe WC) / 2; Unintended/unnoticed ambiguity (Hoverspeed ad).
Mending by
adding. The fight against the natural advancment of chaos can employ: 1, (as in
this case) accumulating support (entails an increase of mass - therefore
supports tend to increase in size); 2, mending -
a process of judicious patching (minimal physical change); 3, complete-object
replacement ('off-the-shelf' option of the rich).
INDEX
IMPROVISED-ARCH IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS & COLLECTIVES
IMPROVISATION -
PUBLIC & LEGAL - ALLOTMENTS
IMPROVISED VILLAGES - WANDSWORTH / KEW
BRIDGE
VERNACULAR & STYLE - BERDUN, HUESCA
TEMPORARY-ARCHITECTURE
- FRANK'S CAFE / SOUTHWARK LIDO
"HOME"
- MY LOCATION VIA MASS-PRODUCTS
"HOME" - MY LOCATION VIA
PERSONAL-CHOICES
ART
- GOTHIC INTO RENAISSANCE INTO 20thC
ART - 20thC COLLAGE INTO MASS-MEDIA
GRAFFITI INTO STREET-ART
KITSCH
CHANCE & DESIGN
.
.
... where?...
in process
(pic 1990s)
(pic 1983)
(pic 05-1998)
...
in process
An undesired clumsy accident (during radiator-draining). It
is a very 'pure' act that has a purely physical outcome/affect (however
even an 'accident' may have/has subconscious motivations! [cf. Freud: Psychopathology
of Everyday Life]).
(pic c1980s) ...
in process
Unconscious
actions: crumpling and squeezing a sheet of paper and dropping it (on the floor)
(pic 30-01-2011) ...
in process
Human-originated chaos:
The uniquely discomfortable chaos of human litter and intentionless 'arrangement'. Each object is
placed on a separate occasion and any intention to use it is either in the past or not envisaged at
the moment of placing, they therefore display an 'arrangement' of
meaningless-separation [Ref to next pic]. These objects are no longer used,
there is no coherence imposed by practical use[1]
or need for storage (this is a 'marginal'/unclaimed piece of yard); they
are 'dumped' but not thrown-away (ie: victims of 'too-lazy-to-dispose-of' or
'may-use-sometime'). Is it possible that in this case it is simple
vacillation - there is no 'position' (in time or space) indicated by these
type of intentions or by their location. /// because the items have nothing
in common except disuse - they are placed at a 'non-significant' 'vacillation' distance from each other//non-meaningful' distance from each other)
1 : Tools and materials in use for practical (body/brain movement) tasks will be
automatically placed in an as-near-as-possible naturally-perfect visible order determined
via the body's performed movements; the brain's predictions of the tools'
patterns of use; the disposition of the in process work - ie the situation's necessary
ergonomics.
Such an ordered pattern of tools and materials will be as nearly 'natural' (ie as nearly a result of natural processes of evolutionary
compromise between competing material forces) as
the human-originated tools and materials can allow.]
.
(pic 10-06-2017) ...
in process
This 'arrangement'
typifies the positioning of people-individuals, couples, small groups who prefer to be separate from one
another. Unlike the positioning of objects in the previous pic the
motivation of these 'human-objects' is shared - ie they seek max privacy in a stranger-shared space.
An 'instant' improvisation provoked by irritation at the glare of a naked bulb
hung in the room's corner. To hand was an A4 envelope which was taped to the
bulb-holder. That the envelope's translucence would reveal its structure and
that this would gratuitously and so aptly relate to
the concealed bulb-holder's graceful complex of shadows,
were completely unpredicted.
(pic early 1987)
(pic 4-12-1998)
Except
by accident, there
are limited ways of achieving a human-made object
that shares certain characteristics with natural objects: that is genuinely spontaneous, has no design aesthetic, is not constrained
by any cultural opinions re beauty,
gracefulness, taste, fashion. An object that - because there was no considering what it
'should' look like, thus no hesitation introduced between
the need it fulfills and the means at hand and acts of making it - has an
immediate 'presentness'. Such forms are made at the 'speed of necessity', the act of making is not
restrained and therefore its actions are still present - thus they can be
experienced by a subsequent audience (as are the acts of a performer of music)
as happening 'now'.
The large rhythm is 4 main vertical
panels: 1: gray (stretched plastic, red-taped) / 2: dirty-whitish (with a splash
like a bent figure amid 6 scattered patches) / 3: clean-white / 4: dirty-whitish
(with 4 orderly patches). These all framed with coloured tape, sometimes calmly
applied, sometimes as if frantically trapping a creature struggling to escape.
[The whole wall could serve as a music-score played by a small group of raucous
and dulcet instruments, or translated into voice noises.]
CHANCE DEGENERATION & KITSCH DESIGN
:
The redemption of kitsch through chance: In the example below the kitsch objects
are the (plastic injection-moulded) 'Regency coach-lamps' - their new
('degenerated') context
strips their intended meaning of credibility and leaves them (both substance and
meaning) stranded on the shore of present-objectiveness !
CHANCE PROVOKES INTERPRETATIVE WIT OR
INVOKES PHANTASMAGORIC MEANINGS :
PRAGMATIC IMPROVISATION ENABLES//ESPOUSES
CHANCE SIGNIFICATIONS :
This
boringly 'restrained-by-modern-good-taste' logo has been exquisitely
complexified and completed by a talented graffitist (at this time St Martins
School of Art Graphic-Design was just up this road (?)). The delicately flung
dribbles add the natural action of gravity and a balancing act of flower stems,
which vitally connect the 'designer paint-gesture' (dead shapes and arrangement) flowers to the
real pavement - the uneven-ended marks even suggesting the receding space of a
meadow. They complete the hoarding-space and give a pictorial role to the
fourth colour: the black of the title.
It was rumoured at the time that Young Tories had vandalised the Festival
Hall's Mandela monument. Aside from politics, the effect was magnificent. Like
the previous example - but via an act opposite in intention: done to damage not
to complete - it released essential meanings.
The rather powerful and expressive
bust is mounted on a plinth that is meanly proportioned and boorishly 'Traditional':
in 'expensive' glossy black plus gilded letters in a clumsy 'Roman' font. However,
too these disjunctive objects a third (and 'reconciling') element has been added
(ironically) via vandalism, whose hurled paint evokes a
'blue waterfall of bloody tears' that falls from the centre of the chest (the
'heart'), partly obscures the banal text and spreads out beyond the limitations
of the statue's designated space of ground - a complete and perfect form that
displays the beauty of a natural flow obeying the universal field of gravity,
and which physically and aesthetically opposes the kitsch ugliness and pompous
intentions of the designer(s) of plinth and text, the absurd limitations of a
truncated bust, and even the petty spatial isolation of the monument
itself.
It seems exquisitely ironic that the monument's absurdity
- that the arrogance
of a colonial power (this 'Roman' scripted plinth) supports the memory of a
person honored for his opposition to such - should be so precisely emphasised by politically motivated vandalism which, in a seemingly
intentionally-meaningful act, 'attacks' it with an image that in itself is without
manipulative significance, whose undesigned beauty and natural freedom clearly
signify the opposition (springing from the heart) of Mandela to the strictures of those who
'represent the people' yet have no vital symbols to represent their power - who reveal the
poverty of their sense of reality in their use of such defunct (Roman !) signs
to bestow 'honor' !
(pic 1985)
A chance convergence.
What an absurd conjunction: an estate
agency advertised its ignorance of the area by buying ad space on the side of
the area's most prolific (Anarchist) squatting agency, who immediately hi-jacked
its eye-catching design-professionalism to advertise its own opening hours.
.
(pic 1988)
This
example is very close to simple chaos, however it's probable that the 'destructive' tearing off of layers of overpasted ads was intentionally stopped when wit
revealed a funny and shocking new image. The
shock of this unexpected apparition is not only due to the contrast of its parts
but also the immediacy of the acts that revealed it.
.
Chance or design-ambiguity evokes mass-mnemonics:
On
the analogy of a zoo or diorama, the notice - which in fact faced the public
stair-landing - appears to designate and label the taped-off
space it (apparently) fronts, as if advising that, for instance, the guard was a captive offender on
show to the stream of visitors, like an inmate of an 19th century prison or
madhouse.
(Is
it possible that the posture of the rather frustrated looking guard showed he
sensed his participation in a tableau ?)
.
(pic 11-1981)
A pure accident :
A disconcerting conjunction of cuts of meat (that include a
severed bone) and a repulsively similar bony wrist and hand ... its
vulnerability shockingly emphasised as the butcher reached forward to grasp
the meat and his sleeve unsheathed an elaborately tattooed blade pointing at his
naked wrist (as if to instruct "cut here"!).
An improvised object that is a marvelously complex amalgam of pragmatism, chance,
and (possibly intentional) wit.
Was
this head-like letter-rack intended to play a phantasmagoric visual game ... is
it a somewhat sinister and intentional joke; was its maker guided by
subliminally observed coincidences; or is it simply a lucky conjunction of
chances. Was its location chosen to include the nail-hole
‘skull-eyes’ peering through it from the wall behind - forming a phantom hollow head,
cued and 'confirmed' by the
head-like rack itself (with its fluffy cat-rug hat), which - with its protruding
peg-like 'eyes' and its tray-label 'mouth' - pushes forward its 3-dimensional embodiment.
A chance accumulation of
'letters': 'C': the front-restraining bar of the push-chair; W: a real
letter (perhaps intentionally displayed as a chance-trophy); 'O': a
life-belt (the quay is outside); a sort of 'K': a visitor, just entered from
the dark quay, sees me photoing and poses.
An arch of 'letters', its
form and spacing most likely formed by chance, or at least subconsciously.
.
(pic 07-08-2015)
Walking at night, distracted among the tourists near Parliament Square, we saw this 'figure', sitting
and possibly begging. The location and an approximate shape induced the shock of an
'out-of-a-corner-of-the-eye' phantom. Such a shock correlates with an instant of contradiction:
simultaneously a
rubbish pile and a person, and as a person it's a very unusual and therefore a scarily indefinable
and thus unpredictable one, it's also sensed as personally connected to oneself and
(like a phantom in a dream) it seems familiar with us (and as a fantasy in one's own
brain, indeed it is!). An atavistic terror surfaces at that moment and only very slowly
dissipates.
(pic 07-06-2014)
The simplest/silliest chance conjunctions - here a
wing-mirror shadow and two spots of (probably) squashed chewing-gum - can
(especially if they resemble eyes in a head) momentarily induce the shiver of 'a-confrontation-especially-meant-for-me'. Though the source-image provoked here
is most likely a 'childrens book/film dino' the 'spook-shock' effect is separate
from the image source - it acts via a different brain-path and seems to hit a
more instinctive physically-reactive 'ganglion'!.
An obvious example of the intro statement above is making oneself a quick practical meal. In this particular case the phantasmagoric
consequences were rather shocking !
Angela cut a big tomato in halves and put them in the frying-pan, she then poured
in the whipped eggs (neither were placed or poured with positional
intention) - she was shocked when the egg flowed around the tomatoes and the
slightly convex pan centre, and a big face was laughing up at her!
Of course, for our inherited brain, wherever there
is visual chaos there is potential for seeing a face. Also, in this case
there was a reinforcement - this sudden apparition of an 'idiot-prankster' seemed
an appropriate finale(?) for a previous sequence of unusual/notable events
[ref these here].
ADDING ORDER AGAINST ADVANCING CHAOS : ...
in process
CHANCE - INCOMPETENCE - ART - SKILL :
... in process
Ultimate skill (eg in making ceramic objects) is demonstrated in an act of 'Craft' that
transcends practiced control and achieves an unexpected original object that is 'Art'.
The only result that resembles this is a formation that results from 'Chance'.
The mode of craft that is closest to chance is uncompetence, the least amount of
skill commensurate with making an object that minimally denotes a recognisable
function.
Chance
'objects', uncompetent objects, and art objects have a similar immediacy of being
and sensational affect. However only art
objects (ie experientially resolved originals) solve the problem of a 'boundary'
- worked on until discovered as a complete and present (thus unprecedented)
experience
- such an object has an existence that is independent
of its surroundings.
IMPROVISED-ARCH IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS & COLLECTIVES
IMPROVISATION -
PUBLIC & LEGAL - ALLOTMENTS
IMPROVISED VILLAGES - WANDSWORTH / KEW
BRIDGE
VERNACULAR & STYLE - BERDUN, HUESCA
TEMPORARY-ARCHITECTURE
- FRANK'S CAFE / SOUTHWARK LIDO
"HOME"
- MY LOCATION VIA MASS-PRODUCTS
"HOME" - MY LOCATION VIA
PERSONAL-CHOICES
ART
- GOTHIC INTO RENAISSANCE INTO 20thC
GRAFFITI INTO STREET-ART
KITSCH
CHANCE & DESIGN