One of the light boxes in #sonder 3 are on display in the gallery but there are 4 in the series. #art #installation #sculpture #drawings #stampdrawings #papillioninstituteofart #kenturah #dtla #losangeles #light #lightbox (at Papillion Institute of Art)
Kenturah is back from Vietnam and brought a tan with her!!! Come celebrate her successful solo exhibition at the closing party Sunday 4/28 starting at 4pm #art #sonder #papillioninstituteofart #dtla #losangeles #kenturah #drawings #installation (at Papillion Institute of Art)
Regarding binary code:
Working with the written language, I’ve become increasingly engaged with the history of writing. Understanding that the advent of written information arrived as the capacity of the human memory deteriorated situates my portraits as a kind of record.
Over a year ago I began thinking about the binary number system and how I might make a drawing using a code. I had an interest in deconstructing text into the most reduced expression as possible. As the idea for Sonder developed into a multi-layered artwork it became important to explore the possibility of working with different kinds of information across the three panels. As a result, the second panel of the installation is composed by converting the definition of the word sonder into binary code and stamping that onto the textile. The tapestry of binary number elicits a reading that is not comprehended in a literal sense; rather, it presents itself as a coded matrix that references the evolution of an ancient mathematical concept into its modern application in computer technology.
Regarding the QR code:
After deciding to draw the second panel with binary code, I knew that a third panel should be an extension of the first two panels that pushed the content of the work into another form to convey information. After converting the original text of the first panel to binary code on the second panel, it made sense to complete the piece by making a final conversion for a third panel. I chose to use a Quick Response code, a matrix barcode, because it technologically relies on the binary system to pass information through cyberspace. QR codes can be scanned by a mobile devices to link someone to a website. So, I set up this website whose purpose would be to show documentation about the creation of the Sonder exhibit. I then generated a QR code for the URL of the website and ordered a rubber stamp customized with the code. As a result I was able to draw the last panel with a stamp that engages technology in a self-reflexive look at the content of the work, by linking the viewer to this microsite with ongoing documentation about the project (momentsofsonder.tumblr.com).
Regarding writing and stamping:
Employing the use of the written word to make drawings came about during my detour away from painting, as a way to investigate the mechanics of construction our personal and collective identities. I stripped my work of color and gesture and instead began to construct works on paper by layering hand-written text. I recognized that writing a letter is making a kind of mark and could be done strategically to render an image. The process of writing a text in repetition to compose the portrait became a metaphor for the way that we acquire and inhabit language. It also extended the work into the realm of a performative act, in which the process of making it is as important as the finished piece. I see the drawings as a series of conversions where the subject has first been rendered with light through the photographic process, then carefully converted to text as I filter the photographic information through my eyes and hand.
My first experimentations were composed with hand-written text, some cursive some hand-printed. Following these early text drawings came further exploration using rubber stamp letters. In the way that the hand-written works engage with the history of penmanship and an individualized method of mark-making, the stamp drawings connect with industry, printmaking and a broader dissemination of information through information technology.
Regarding space, time and performative acts:
The Sonder exhibition represents the synthesis of my pursuits to work more sculpturally and engage time and space in the work. I have embraced the idea of making these text portraits as performative acts. The process of writing a text in repetition over time is a metaphor for the ways that we accumulate information. A pivotal moment that prompted a deeper examination of this idea was during the process of creating my first large-scale drawing installation in 2011. After rendering the portrait with a hand-written text, I destroyed the drawing at the close of the exhibition in front of an audience. This experienced directed me toward making another large scale work that physically engaged an audience in the making/completion of a drawing.
Sonder became a work that not only engaged the audience, but transitioned people into being participants that become a part of the work. The large installation is composed of three layers of translucent textiles, suspended from the ceiling, several feet apart from one another. The transparency of the material allows the viewer to see through parts of the first panel, into the second, while the distance between them allows the viewer to traverse inside the installation. The images are in a constant state of flux as people move about the space and in between the panels. It is also designed to iterate the very definition of the word sonder and its emphasis on noticing strangers.
photo re-cap of days leading up to the opening of “sonder”. The exhibition has been extended through April 28th, so there is still time to see it at Papillion Institute of Art.
photography: Xavier Fumat
Moments of Sonder photo diary: Viet Nam edition (Part 2)
My time in Viet Nam, starting in the south and traveling north, was so vivid….the people, the colors, the sounds, the scents….unforgettable.
sonder: n. the realization that each passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own, populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness; an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you will never know existed, in which you might appear only once as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway at a lighted window at dusk.
Moments of Sonder photo diary: Viet Nam edition (Part 1)
Three weeks of traveling throughout Viet Nam created a heightened sense of awareness and connection with everything around me. I experienced “sonder” everyday. Moments of mutual fascination and interest with the people there created memories and inspiration that I will have with me forever.
sonder: n. the realization that each passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own, populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness; an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you will never know existed, in which you might appear only once as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway at a lighted window at dusk.
The SONDER game….do laps between the panels while on a phone call (Taken with Cinemagram)
mike!
More repost from last nights opening, you can see Kenturah and Jeffrey Deitch in the back ground discussing the installation. #art #losangeles #dtla #drawings #sonder #stampeddrawings #kenturah #papillioninstituteofart (at Papillion Institute of Art)
keyframe
n. a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life—set in motion not by a series of jolting epiphanies but by tiny imperceptible differences between one ordinary day and the next, until entire years of your memory can be compressed into a handful of indelible images—which prevents you from rewinding the past, but allows you to move forward without endless buffering.
Employing the use of words to make drawings came about during my detour away from painting, as a way to investigate the mechanics of constructing our personal and collective identities. I stripped my work of color and gesture and, instead, began to construct drawings by layering hand-written text. Language became the material for making the work, fulfilling a desire to work solely with semiotics. The process of writing a text in repetition to compose the portrait became a metaphor for the way that we acquire and inhabit language. Using language in this way extends the work into the realm of the performative act, in which the process of making it is as important as the finished piece.
photo: xavier fumat
Photo re-cap of the opening of the exhibition “sonder” on March 7th, 2013 at Papillion Institute of Art.
The art:
Here are images of the new work for the “sonder” series. The site-specific installation is composed of three suspended panels stamped with language to compose the image. The lightboxes are composed of two layers of stamp drawings. All these components were drawn on translucent fabric to reveal the different layers.
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