Cult of Transparency
“It involves the encounter between consumers and objects, in which the former transpose aspects of selfhood and desire on the latter through the barrier between them that is both transparent and reflective.”
The shop window is the idea of vanity at its highest potential. In the first example this writer mentions, the apple store entrance of New York is that of a shop entrance that seems to lure people to its mysterious underneath. She relates this to the work of Josephine Meckseper and her piece Blow Up. The ways that Meckseper displays her work is by fetishizing of mannequin representations of the female body through a display window. The inorganic commodity of fetishism transforms women into objects. The combining of art and commerce brings forth a humanization of these transparent and reflective surfaces. When these store fronts are given these personas, the glass that emerges from the ground of the apple store becomes an ominous and perverted sight. Particularly in Mecksepers work, this writer explains that these pieces act as garbage cans for the past and present. This collective unconscious idea that is expressed relates to Timothy Morton’s idea of hyper space. This hyper space being a milky combination of the past, present and future manifesting into feelings. The use of an outdated idea like showcase windows allows the artist to use the past to bring up subconscious emotions within the viewer.
Forensic Architecture
Weizmen takes forensic architecture and uses it as a perfect tool for activism. These models of explosions bring the viewer into a unique perspective. This is enacted in the same way with the three dimensional walkthrough of a controversial prison. These recreations of environments remind me of Thomas Demand’s work. These are sacred depictions that allow the average person to see the past. Weizmen also has started using his ambitious depictions to raise awareness about the environment. “There is the violence of architecture, planning that slowly encroaches, envelops, and suffocates the life out of an area.” These models are crucial to raising awareness of these issues. As the writer states, this work brings a new language to justice.
Super-studio
“…by failing to meet humankind’s ‘primary needs’, architecture had become increasingly removed from the core concerns of humanity.”
Superstudio. A group of “architects” that resist design because of what society has caused it to become. This group believe that if architecture, design and city planning is not aimed at the peoples primary needs, then it must be rejected. This studio goes on to creating hypotheical models of what the future of design could be. Creating a work that has the potential of being for the people instead of being for mass culture. Their ideas morphed into an even further dissension from architecture by creating designs that were immaterial, infeasible and dysfunctional works. One idea that struck me was the never ending moment of glass and steel. A single massive high rise that stretched across the Earth. Thus declaring complete domination over the landscape. This unique parody of the modern movement takes the skill of architects and uses it to comment on social structures. The studio, using their knowledge of aqueducts, highways and infrastructural passageways that allows for a realistic decision of this monument. Superstudios idea of a grid encompassing the planet, where people are rendered as nomads that stop to plug into the grid is something I find very contemporary. The idea that because of this over arching web of technological connection, there would be no more alienation. Everyone would be connected. This reminds me of social media and the idea that everyone can be watched at all times creating the illusion of connection and relationship. Though a hollow screen looks back at the use, further pushing them into loneliness.
Fake Estates
These artist banded together to create whimsical and unrealistic architectural advancements that both commented on the social climate of the time but also allowed for creativity to seep into the existing forces at play. “The city as a reaction to, rather than a containment of, the society that passes through it is a common insistence; yet experientially it often remains difficult to coalesce the cool façade of architecture with warmblooded psychogeography.” This writer describes the exhibition as portraying the dichotomy of urbanization. The multitude of ephemeral pieces allows for the viewers to experience a reclamation of perverse urbanism.
Curious if the idea of transparency and shop window have any relationship to your triangular form in your second sculpture? Interesting discussion and reaction to Meckseper. What is the difference between the final product of Thomas Demand vs. the final product by Forensic Architecture? What are the differences in the motivations driving the work.
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