Dry Pixels and Wet Molecules ⓘ

Preface

My current practice is developed around several considerations. I have described a few of these below for your own consideration but have yet to decide if/how these written theories may act as a supplement to my artwork.

I hope that through our meeting and my showing you the work and my plans for work we'll be able to start a conversation about what will make an effective exhibition.

Paul Goodman Poem

Intended to be in the exhibition literature as a preliminary consideration for the work. This is a poetic reference to a person's natural disposition. I hope to suggest approaching the work through a lens of philosophy, intellectualism, and social critique while maintaining that subjective experience reigns over any intent.

I planned to have a border of lavender
but planted the bank too of lavender
and now my whole crazy garden
is grown in lavender
it smells so sharp heady and musky
of lavender, and the hue of only
lavender is all my garden up
into the gray rocks.

When forth I go from here the heedless lust
I squander—and in vain for I am stupid
and miss the moment—it has blest me silly
when forth I go
and when, sitting as gray as these gray rocks
among the lavender, I breathe the lavender's
tireless squandering, I liken it
to my silly lusting,
I liken my silly indefatigable
lusting to the lavender which has grown over
all my garden, banks and borders, up
into the gray rocks.

—Paul Goodman, 1973

Philosophies

Dasein

This concept is included as a secondary consideration in order to explore the disposition toward interpretation as it relates to the nature of being.

Human beings cannot be taken into account except as being an existent in the middle of a world amongst other things. We are thrown with neither prior knowledge nor individual option into a world that was there before and will remain there after we are gone. Martin Heidegger's Dasein, which literally means Being-there, is a signifier for the cognitive transition between authentic and inauthentic Being. Authentic Dasein is essentially an active recognition of the self as an individual amongst others. Inauthentic Being is therefore a lack of recognition or attention to the context of Being.

This discovery of the world and this disclosure of Dasein is always accomplished as a clearing-away of concealments and obscurities, as a breaking up of the disguises with which Dasein bars its own way. Being-amongst or Being-with others presents the possibility of comprehending our own Dasein as an everyday Being-with-one-another where we may come to exist not on our own terms, but only in reference to others. The passivity of Being-with-one-another brings about an alienated self, a self who is disburdened of autonomy and of moral responsibility through a saturation of theyness.

The flux from authentic Dasein to an inauthentic theyness prompts anxiety when the recognition of the self of everyday that must be one Being-with-others is inseparable from the self-conscious state of Being. The Angst that develops is that which makes problematic, which makes worthy of our questioning, our Being-in-the-world. Angst is one of the primary instruments through which the ontic character and context of everyday existence is made inescapably aware of the pressures of the ontological. And further, Angst is a mark of authenticity, of the repudiation of theyness.

It is the time configuration of human life that motivates the concern that human beings have for the world. If human beings had no concept of time they would have no reason to be engaged or implicated in the world in a human way. It is the awareness of temporality which establishes that the relationship that human beings have with the world is through concern.

A human being's fundamental concern and disposition are a result of the temporal nature of Dasein.

Hermeneutic Circles

This tertiary section raises the concept of interpretation with respect to the artwork.

The Hermeneutic Circle is the theory that no interpretation, understanding, or observation is free from the effects of the observer's experiences, pre-suppositions, and projections. When describing the process of interpreting an artwork the hermeneutic circle refers to the idea that one's understanding of a practice as a whole is established by reference to the individual pieces and one's understanding of each individual piece by reference to the whole.

Due to the syncretistic approach to various concepts and aesthetics in my own practice this process can also be apt for the interpretation of an individual piece. A piece can be understood by its whole impression or by its constituent parts. These circles of interpretation can yield the contextual relationships a piece has to the history of artistic production as well as other contemporary considerations. However, due to the postmodernist argument that no concept can ultimately have an unequivocal meaning I also aim to draw attention to a scope of interpretations broader than those of art criticism.

The variety of specializations of people may provide an abundant number of inappreciable interpretations. But while these disciplines can be interesting they do not concern themselves with the circumscribed cultural and historical context of interpretation.

Cyberbalkanization

Speaking to the context of interpretation: Cyberbalkanization is the segregation of the Internet into smaller groups with similar interests to a degree wherein they show a narrow-minded approach against outsiders or those who contradict their views. While the Internet has largely been credited for broadening discussion, it can also serve to bring together fringe groups with intolerant viewpoints. So, while the Internet has contributed to globalization and information exchange, it can also be used to foster discrimination.

This consideration is brought up with regard to my own practice as I am arguably in my own cyberbalkanized state. I work primarily through the filter of the internet. To me hermeneutically observing this contemporary condition most noticeably assists in a present-day knowledge of historical context. I have a tendency in my work to call attention to these circumstances of production.

Hybrid Media

Thus far I have chosen to highlight several iconographical methods that I believe illustrate both my being in time and the context of the work's production.

I planned to have a hybrid practice; to embody the aesthetics for collage, painting, drawing, photography and sculpture through digitality and back. Similarly to how my work has been finished these past few years these references to traditional media form a hermeneutic circle for my work to be described. Vocabularies of art criticism find a home in their symbolic referents but are interrupted by their context within hybridity.

I've referred to time throughout these notes as it relates to the span of a human life as well as the temporal nature of Being. Said another way, this time refers to both my cognitive dissonance throughout the span of production as well as a consideration of present-day context of human life as it relates to the whole of time.

It is this syncretization of concepts and media that forms the hybridity of my practice.

Flat Media

The textures of digital resolution that have always been a proximally based part of my work have been accentuated in order to reference both the work's production and the increasingly widespread digital vocabulary.

It is the digital platform that has most pertinently changed how people look at images. The average person will have seen dozens if not hundreds of images on the morning they look at one of my artworks. The post-Internet feed of images has suggested that an image may not only be viewed quickly but perhaps only once. It is because of this that I've decided to simplify some of the ambiguous terrain in my work and put an effort into replicating an image-burn aesthetic. The theory being that a more saturated and more heavily contrasted image will make a greater impression on the visual memory centers of the brain.

Sculptural Media

My sculptural practice is being informed by a tangible imitation of the digital layering process. I aim to construct a consistent aesthetic between my flat and sculptural work by imbuing the abstractions of both with an uncanny character of anthropomorphism.

As it relates to many of the concepts of time described above this anthropomorphism can be considered as a signifier of the current geological age being the Anthropocene.

Works Exhibited

Several paper printed digitally conceived works. All works on paper will be framed using the standard acrylic float frame. Paper type will be selected based on desired aesthetic results.

Several adhesive vinyl prints. Similar to the wallpapers and mattes made previously, I may also include a section of transparent window vinyl and include these productions in my catalog.

4-7 mixed media sculptures. 1-2 body-sized, 3-4 breadbox-sized. Hybrid sculptures made of traditional media, found objects, and purchased consumer goods. I am also utilizing 3D printing and industrial production. The plinth or tabletop supports can be a topic for discussion.

Works Cited

Heidegger, M. 1962, Being and Time, Harper & Row, New York.

Steiner, G. 1978, Heidegger, The Harvester Press Limited, Sussex.

Warnock, M. 1970, Existentialism, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

---

Exhibition Framing: Five Beginnings

Moving Forward from Previous Work

The subject and context for this show stemmed out of my deconstruction of the mantra, "An artist must represent the time in which they live." I had liked this statement for a long time. It made me feel responsible for doing something. The language is vague though, and its subject undecided.

I found it useful to change the words for a more philosophical approach to, "An artist must acknowledge the times of their being." The statement then becomes the content of the work. My work becomes an earnest practice to acknowledge the context of a being of the world today. Being understood both in an informal and Heideggerian sense. The subjects become any element's relationship to our perception of it. There is an emphasis on our upmost contemporary situation being contrasted with the depths of our past. Additionally I try to address my cognitive biases and a learned social context. The times are complex.

Emergence with Respect to Relative Arts Theory

Dry Pixels and Wet Molecules have emerged at a time when multi-modal, mobile, wearable forms of technology are synonymous with daily life. Roy Ascott coins the artistic output from this contemporary situation as moistmedia. I practice syncretism between these dry pixels and wet biomolecules.

Through continuous reflexivity, discourse analysis, and holistic inquiry I take on the task of intermediary, a catalyst between diverse fields of knowledge and ways of thinking. This body of work includes digital images, prints, manufactured pieces, and mixed media assemblage. I have placed emphasis on aestheticizing the conditions by which these contemporary works emerge.

Writing to a Friend

Dear friends and colleagues,

I have spent the last 18 months tracing the lines between art and nature. I believe that art should provide an opportunity to recognize our common humanity and vulnerability. I have meditated on an extensive range of aesthetics and tried to address the scope of a hyper nature of being in the world today. I think it is with a sense of irony that deeply empirical understandings of humanity's context could only have arisen alongside the hyper-simulated present. Our nature has shifted from one we evolved into one we have built. I attempt to make my images and sculptures push outwards on this simulation.

Geological Timescale

It took human beings a long time to know that they are not always the reason of things. These days we know natural history well enough to have come up with a term for the Anthropocene; the geological era wherein humanity has dominated nature. It is only within this era that Art has arisen and adapted over time as a social reaction to an increasingly complex situation. Our rich social and artistic history in the anthropic era is brief in light of things preceding human beings. It is this natural history that our physical bodies have evolved from. It is this nature we are now a part from and simulating.

When considering the greatest impact of humanity it is hard not to put emphasis on the physical impact. A life takes up a lot of space and requires a lot of particular stuff. A large species of 7 billion needs more than a planet's load of stuff.

My Goodman Statement

I Alex Fischer am neither an expert nor a political person, but a man of symbols who has something to say because I approach matters not from the distance of the specialist or the generalist, but concretely and holistically—up close, fully engaged, my own world at stake. I have only one subject, the human beings I know in their man-made scene.

Keywords and Title Candidates

Keywords: Post-Digital, A/r/tography, Anthropic, Syncretism, Mimesis, Practice, Dasein, Meta-Cognition, A Man of Symbols, A Part From Lavender, Evasive Maneuvers, Playful Exploration, Aesthetic Creativity, Morphological Analysis, Interdisciplinary Imagination, Global Connectivity, Ecological Perspective, Holistic Integration.

Title Candidates: Dry Pixels and Wet Molecules (selected), In-between Inventions, Thirty-Six Hundred Million, Apropos Creo, Concessions to Context. The Man From Earth, Creativity with Liberty, Man of Symbols, Screenshots, A Part From Lavender, Independent, Pixels and Particles: The Path to Syncretism, moistmedia, Evolution, Mimesis, In the Fog, Trapped in Aporia, Apogee, Logoi, Post-Pop-Blog, Weak Universalism, Expanded Painting, Hive Mind, Corporeality, Ontology in the apparatuses-organism age.

Rachel's Summarization: Alex Fischer's latest body of work counter-poses the primordial origins of biology against today's dominant technology-based vernacular. Ultimately suggesting that we are living in a post-digital world, Fischer exposes a tactility and precision with his imagery that in effect surpasses the daily surroundings we perceive with our own eyes and bodies.

Notes for a Contemporary Art Practice

- Learn from your precursors.
- Art is an act of discovery by investigation. Assimilate information.
- Be versatile.
- Have only one subject no matter how vague.
- Use autoethnographic methodologies. Work towards and not from concepts.
- Make marks to provide a trace of things.
- Art as aesthetic metacognition.
- Continuous reflexivity, discourse analysis, and hermeneutic inquiry never go out of style.
- Cognitive dissonance provides a natural bearing and equilibrium for inquiry. Check for cognitive biases.
- Make notes on a new nature.
- Blend.
- Go back to the world, share knowledge, develop the art of seeing and be an agent for integrative coexistence.
- The boundaries between the subject and the environment have collapsed.
- Aporia without logos.
- Instead of institutions producing subjects, we have apparatuses capturing organisms.
- Artworks can give their many precursors homes in the present, and hopefully act as temporary vehicles into some eventual post-contemporary language.
- The virtual has become more authentic than the real.
- The cloud is made of water and various chemicals. A vapour over the surface of a planet.
- The electronic culture of the global village confronts us with circumstances in which whole societies inter-communicate by a sort of macroscopic gesticulation.
- Prophetic ideas are nothing new.
- The concept of the future always just around the corner has never before held such dissidence in the public conscious.
- "Looking into" is never without "looking out from within".
- In the first sentences there were no spaces between words, in the first cities there were no streets.
- Try to have a rounded view of the past.
- 60,000 years of artistic expression as a species before reaching the renaissance 200 years ago. Art as an application of aesthetic and conceptual theories literally just went through the dark ages. Then postmodernism developed 60 years ago. The frameworks by which people make and interpret art have bloomed so recently.
- Contemporary art is lucky enough to have coincided with the information age.
- My audience is not a closed circle of artists or theorists but the public at large.
- The role of the artist is to spread themselves thin on a wide variety of subjects: sociology, psychology, urbanism and technology, education, philosophy, aesthetics, and ethics.
- To practice visual art is to practice reusing things. A dip into the pool of public consciousness.
- The slivers and shades that make up digital collages are a recycling of the simulated real.
- The idea of being holistically integrated with our tools.
- I try and practice some versatility in art production in order to show that I am not just thinking about myself.
- Discovery requires adaptation to new circumstances.
- A successful post-digital image will look good in any modern resolution, on any display or flat media. It must be plural.

Notes on Mouth

The post-digital image does not require a step backwards to view. It can be felt up close and in your face. I wanted to create a work that paralleled that feeling of aimlessly wandering around the super flat digital landscape. This piece can be viewed while standing right next to it, it accommodates the way it is being viewed, whether that be approached from across the room or shuffled up next to it at an opening.

The mouth acts as a map for the moon. The landscape is a relatively brief geological phenomenon. It is also a memory map of the way in which it was made. Segmented into screen-sized sections. Paint colours lifted from the landscape. All of the white area commonly occupied by people. The everyday human occupation is thick. We can gain new perspective on the places we live.

Principles of Paul Goodman

An artist is one who relies on the peculiar activity of authorship—blending of memory, observation, criticism, reasoning, imagination, and reconstruction—in order to treat the objects of the world concretely and centrally.

Critics may call an artist ignorant, one who spreads himself thin on a wide variety of subjects: sociology, psychology, urbanism and technology, education, literature, aesthetics, and ethics. But it is true that I do not know much, while it is false that I write about many subjects. I have only one, the human beings I know in their man-made scene. I do not observe that people are in fact subdivided in ways to be conveniently treated by the wide variety of separate disciplines. If you talk separately about their group behavior or their individual behavior, their environment or their characters, their practicality or their sensibility, you lose what you are talking about. I prefer to preserve the wholeness of my subject, the people I know, at the cost of being everywhere ignorant or amateurish. I make the choice of what used to be called a Man of Letters, one who relies on the peculiar activity of authorship—blending of memory, observation, criticism, reasoning, imagination, and reconstruction—in order to treat the objects of the world concretely and centrally.

A/r/tography and Rita L. Irwin

There is a growing literature in art education and curriculum theory that employs the qualitative research methodology autoethnography. Rita Irwin calls this autoethnographic methodology in the life of an Artist/Researcher/Teacher a/r/tography, a hybrid form of action research creating its rigor through continuous reflexivity (taking account of itself), discourse analysis, and hermeneutic inquiry (concerning interpretation).

Artists-researchers-teachers inhabit and explore the borderlands between art, science, and education, integrating knowing, doing, making through aesthetic experiences that elegantly flow between intellect, feeling, and practice to create and convey meaning. A/r/tographers search for new ways to understand realms of learning at the interface between their art making, research, and teaching through attention to memory, identity, reflection, meditation, storytelling, interpretation, and representation.

Artworks are often rendered through the methodological concepts of contiguity, living inquiry, openings, metaphor/metonymy, reverberations and excess which are enacted and presented/performed when a relational aesthetic inquiry condition is envisioned as embodied understandings and exchanges between art and reference, and between and among the broadly conceived identities of artist/researcher/teacher.

To be engaged in the practice of a/r/tography means to inquire in the world through an ongoing process of art making in any art form and writing not separate or illustrative of each other but interconnected and woven through each other to create additional and/or enhanced meanings. A/r/tography is inherently about self as artist/researcher/teacher yet it is also social when groups or communities of a/r/tographers come together to engage in shared inquiries, act as critical friends, articulate an evolution of research questions, and present their collective evocative/provocative works to others.

Syncretism and Epistemology

Syncretism in the study of Linguistics describes the merging of different inflectional varieties. More generally it is an attempted amalgamation of disparate schools of thought. This not only describes an abstract concept but an effortful meta-cognitive being in the world.

The Arts reveal the epistemological and ontological circumstances of the cultures that produce them. I try and know the culture and context of my contemporaries. My aim is to make images that are in conversation with the types of images being produced today, but also involve art historical precursors and broader themes on states of being. The work's content stems from the conditions of its creation.

Realms of Learning

Fourteen realms of learning for educating artists: awesome immersion, playful exploration, aesthetic creativity, morphological analysis, interdisciplinary imagination, semiotic communication, cybersomatic interactivity, global connectivity, polycultural collaboration, ecological perspective, responsive compassion, spiritual emergence, moral courage, and holistic integration.

General Thoughts on Practice and Perception

I am thinking about getting older and the change of perspective that happens with age. We are incredibly conditioned by our preconceptions and cognitive biases. Our learned experience and mental-states are all we have. One state of mind must also now cope with the prospect of a lifetime and of certain uncertainty. The socio-political and technological futures are subject to an accelerated rate of change. The concept of the future always just around the corner has never before held such dissidence in the public conscious. The educated reactionary individual reigns today as the product of an optimized society. Are there new sweeping commonalities of human nature?

In terms of the magnitude of variety in subjective experience I can only react with meta-cognitive reasoning. HumanBeing+nature is the common trait we share, it is elusive and often thought of philosophically in abstract or isolated terms. I try to understand my own positions under the restraints of cognitive biases. It is all a matter of perspective. Our looking into something is never absent from looking out from within. My subjects are representations of contemporary meta-cognition; the act of being self-aware, of an authentic Dasein and an attempt at understanding oneself within context.

I think my own experience of the world parallels others' conception of simulation and the contemporary real. I have doubt because the interpretation of these concepts is not without being subject to biases. Who am I to think something is inherently communicable?

Art can jog the brain to show us something of ourselves. It has the ability to crack and mix together the everyday. Even when our everyday contains remarkable and unusual things those things are not often guiding contemplation. Art has the ability to do this.