From Chaos Comes Opportunity

The correct quote is 

In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.

It's attributed to Sun-Tzu, a military strategist from the Han Dynasty. He wrote The Art of War, a book filled with thoughts about warfare and battle. The amended version applies better to our current state of affairs; the expression Social Distancing is a perfect example. 

During the three or so years since we've taken uncertain paths in and around the COVID crisis, what's emerged is a panicked approach to communication. Before the pandemic, being taken seriously would mean jumping on a plane for a show of face. Now, turning on your computer mic and camera is sufficient.

Likewise, going to see art in a museum or gallery changed. Art became a fully personal experience since the pandemic closed the venues down. Once the doors reopened, we'd taken steps to make art accessible from devices and, with that, on-demand. 

Enter Augmented Reality. 

AR artists and technicians "built" backgrounds and conditional scenes in paintings to give viewers an interactive insight into artworks. Further, artists combine all kinds of still, motion and archived images to create scenes that can jump back and forth between past and present. This is of great interest: my work deals with reassessing the present by examining overlooked nuances. How convenient to have both instances at the same time...

A FB page called Mi Vieja Monteria proudly opens its page with an old image of one of the main drags showing a muddy avenue. Asking around about why it took so long for the town to pave its roads, the answer was simple: Monteria was--and continues to be--a cow town. Of course, now livestock gets around by truck; but then, the heavy animals couldn't possible walk around on anything other than mud. 

Just wondering what it would be like to add footage to some of the old roads....

The Journey Continues

The living room of a house in Monteria. It's slated for preservation. 

A memory popped into my head from long ago, which seems like yesterday. One of my genius designer buddies, came up with a small, hand-held folding viewer that could show kids their sports heroes--or any collection of images--in 3D. The lenses did all the work.  It was gorgeous, but no one picked it up to produce it commercially. 

Maybe it was ahead of its time, but, more likely, time jumped far ahead of it with digital video. At that point, he was still very interested in 3D imagery and worked with various investors and developers toward building a business.

Rather than the still image, AR has taken over. The super imposition of images from the personal device has the potential to draw in the viewer from their phone. Sound can easily be accessed, also from the phone.

Looking at the pieces out there, museums were the first to create apps so visitors could get background on the exhibits easily. We are screen-addicted, after all, and seeing a painting's source or the origins of an invention in real time gives a deeper, more fun experience. It's an avenue worth exploring as institutions of all kinds mine any possibility to increase attendance.

Numerous examples with a description live on Evergine.com, a 3D graphics development company. 

How this relates to Finding the Sky is that, with the help of the various archivists I've met, and additional access to available footage, I can link what I've already done to previous materials; if necessary I can shoot additional. What's interesting, and at the crux of this project, is not so much how things have changed in the life of the subject's life, but how much has not. Many of the AR art works I have seen so far deal with memory, history, the ability to go back and interact with what is irrevocably lost.

As I write the story board for my project, I keep thinking that a comparison is more appropriate, possibly because, in my eyes, so little seems to have changed.

(above) The second floor balcony. (below) The comedor (dining room).

Robert Irwin

Busy with other projects for a while kept me away from the gallery show openings in Chelsea. I went last night. Some things don't change much; a parade of posers of all ages still crawl the streets, dressed to the nines and weaving their way through Beuys's steeles. They sinewing past the art, pretending either to know one another, or not.

The Pace was showing Robert Irwin's Unlit, a series of gel-covered fluorescent tubes covered with gels, with a grey stripe painted intermittently between the fixtures. I'd seen his scrim work at the Whitney a few years ago, fascinating how his elegant control of the space alters distance perception. And, while disappointed that this work wasn't lit, stepping up close to analyze the subtle "bar codes" is sweet.

There was a lot written about Mr. Irwin in his 91 years of working, and I'll report on it in the coming days. The images are courtesy of Pace Gallery and ArtNEt.

Coming Back To Life.....

SIS is on a roll again.

Finally with the time and wherewithal to get this show on a roll, I'm getting the "family" ready to go on the road again. I have a few prospects out, and hopefully one will accept the piece, even if it's in an abbreviated form.

Every place I've corresponded with the curators has so far given me space limitations. The smallest, 430 square feet. So that limits me to bringing three of the nine panels. Which?

Far more important, is which of the three would work well with the sound? It would, of course, have to be one steel, one ice and one stone. And, choosing which three look well and sound well will be taking the bulk of my time over the next weeks.

Ever since Picassa went dark, I don't have the nine images cycling though the sidebar of the blog; and, simply put, I haven't uploaded to Soundcloud the rest of the comps. I have some time, in between a show I have opening in Texas next week (an old work also resurrected in the new year) and revving up for the new semester at work, I'll somehow get all this done.

In the meantime, here are the pieces, and , should anyone care to send their opinions on the three they think would work best, I will consider each one. Feel free to recommend.

Note that, Steel 2 (second down left, above) is not available and was replaced with the shaved steel image, right.

Travel Through Time

Above:  Cartagena's train station; now
greatly altered. Below: the building
still exists in the old city by the
Customs House.

As I wait the final hours to board the last flight home and, for the moment, relax this image-amassing marathon, I reflect on the biggest change to the life of my centenarian subject, who now approaches 102 years old: Travel itself.

To get to Santiago from his native north Colombian town, he didn't jump the two-hour flight to Bogota and take in the snow-capped Andes from the six-hour flight to Chile as I did. He took the three-week train journey.

I went to the Museum of Cartagena, from where I traced the fate of the railway that carried my elderly friend the 4297-miles (6915 km) to his university studies. The railway from Cartagena began in 1894 as a way to ship tropical products like sugar cane to the interior. Construction was undertaken by private companies and later, subsidized briefly by the government.

The line's use steadily decreased as another port city--Barranquilla--grew and operated its own rail service to the south. The Cartagena line was ripped out in 1951, pushed out also by air travel that was more cost effective for travel [Avianca, Colombia's national airline, is the second oldest (after KLM)].

The museum's curator gave me a series of original recording of the steam engines pulling into the Cartagena station; the collection was made by various train buffs over twenty years (how awesome!). The engines were never electrified or converted to diesel engines--another contribution to their demise as cargo needs increased and the little steamies couldn't make it up the steep Andean inclines.

The station house in Antofagasta still exists
 happily; built from pine and lovingly
maintained.

From Bogota, another long train ride followed with stops along the coast to Guayaquil, Lima and Antofagasta. The routes along the Pacific were built mainly connect with the trains from the Andean mining areas of Bolivia and Peru.

Stories of luxury train cars from the mid-1930's pale today as the trains no longer transport passengers, only mine freight. The big transfer spot was Antofagasta, in the northern Chilean Desert. From there, the trains went inland to Santiago. What remains of that depot is the Antofagasta Rail Museum just north of the city with a few steam locomotives, train sheds and a turn table. Riding those freight trains through the deserts would be an adventure. Next time.

Quite ironically, there is a Cartagena-Santiago railway--in Chile. The railway station in Cartagena, Chile is a beautiful historical monument on the coast south of Valparaiso, however not visited by the young Colombian traveler.

Here's a video of the train from Cartagena (Chile) to Santiago. Skip the first minute; the old footage is wonderful.

Rock of Ages

Yes, SIS is finished, but I can't resist following up with all things steel, ice and stone.

With all shooting for FTS in Santiago finished, I peeled of the $ 500 and 6-hour (each way from Santiago) flight to one of the world's great stone capitals: EASTER ISLAND!

A friend on my FB page said it was the Holy Grail of travel designations. Honestly, it falls short of that. Not that I don't recommend it, I do. But, after viewing the Moai (pronounced Mo-ah-ee--say it fast), there isn't much of the original culture left to round out the experience due to all kinds of errors--environmental; over-priced, overreaching construction; mind-control antics from self-serving leaders and their descendants; governmental in-fighting....ehem.

A cautionary tale, the Polynesian-origin inhabitants got to the island with just about none of their provisions--the sail had taken longer than anticipated and rather than fishing for food, they ate their domesticated livestock. The only things left were a few chickens and the rats on board.

From there, they cut down trees--eventually all--for fuel to keep warm. The island is temperate, but has cold trade winds in the evening. So, from a lush sub-tropical forest, they were doomed to live in a desert in a mere hundred years with no trees left to build boats to get the hell out of Dodge.

"Maybe they shouldn't have cut down the trees..."

"Ya think?!?"

Along the way, the population divided into thirteen tribes whose leaders consigned the massive sculptures hacked out of the mountainsides. They themselves lived in 3-foot shacks built from reeds stuck in holes bored into blocks of volcanic rock, while the plebes were relegated to caves with nothing but rocks to keep them warm.

This lasted about 500 years, with very little input from other cultures--even the sea-faring South American indigenous. Research and genetic studies confirmed that mainlanders came to the island to try to trade, but left quickly donating edible roots like sweet potatoes, ginger, taro and a resistant breed of chicken. No doubt the Rapa Nui's preference for cannibalism had much to do with the short-lived relationship. Even further in the 1800's, the very few visiting traders refused to set foot on the island for fear that they, too, would be the ultimate dinner guests.

The population almost became extinct due to civil wars and slave raids adding to a lack of sustenance farming. Only as recently as the 1970's was the island and its archeology appreciated for research and preservation; only since the 1990's has tourism turned into viable option for the original 118 Rapa Nui inhabitants which have coupled with (mostly) Chilean nationals.

Valparaiso

As one car goes up, the other
returns on the same cable.

Finding correspondence to my subject's address in Santiago, I inferred that he had gone to Valparaiso to view the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I hadn't seen it in years, and I thought it was cool that the Pacific was, in Chile, in the same time zone as NYC. So I plunked down the six bucks for the bus ride and went for the day.

Like most port towns, the mountains come straight out of the ocean, and Valparaiso is an enormous precarious group of shacks forming a large favela on the precipitous Andes. I took a bus ride around hairpin curves at 45˚ angle elevations, hanging on at every turn.

Now I get it: Run for the hills. The design
work says it all.

But that was not the attraction: To get to the very tops of the hills, 12-storey staircases aren't enough. There are seven or so "asensores" (elevators) that bring you higher. The one I rode was built in 1906 and runs on a pulley and cable system, much like San Fransisco's cable cars.

I was told the crime at the top is astounding but walked around anyway, musing the Tsunami signs indicated that this was a safe zone--unlike other sides of town. Ahhh, Life in Quakesville!