installation
(Holiday) At bottom is a stack of ‘stacks from over this year, in case you missed some; many have also been refined post-post, i.e. the Dick Cheney bit re: Cthulhu prompt in the Notes of the AI for an Eyesubstack.
But before that listicle, some silent “product placement”* shots: Balenciaga, Ferrari, Porsche, Enfants Riches Déprimés, iPhone, Anthropologie, Ford, Roger Dubuis, Winners.
SEE THE REST OF THE IMAGES (AND SUBSCRIBE) HERE: K.I.A. SUBSTACK
(imperative, declarative and metonymic oh my!)
TL; DR: just see the point(s) ☟
Humans learn to point around 15 months of age (related to language development), first using their whole hand, then, three months later, by extending their index finger. Infants first do imperative pointing (i.e. to ask for a toy too far away or a sweet they want), and declarative pointing, (i.e. to indicate something new or interesting, like a dog entering the room.)
Animals don’t point. This includes mammals with fingers, like simians. However, even though they don’t point in the wild, when in captivity gorillas and chimpanzees learn how to do it from humans. Dogs understand pointing (from thousands of years of interacting with people — cats, also domesticated, just can’t be bothered), as do dolphins (perhaps because their echolocation “beam” is a sonic type of pointing).
There are numerous ways of pointing: semiotic primitive; pseudo-pointing; syntactic; cross-species litmus test… (see “Fifteen Ways of Looking at a Pointing Gesture” by Kensy Cooperrider for more of them.) Metonymic pointing is where you use the gesture to draw attention to an abstract concept — for example, a stressed staffer points to their watch to signal to the malapropping President answering questions it’s time to go; a heartless developer points to your home to indicate a proposed subway and condominium development… ):
Pointing can be difficult to interpret — for example, if you are wordlessly communicating with a person who doesn’t speak your language and you point to an apple, are you drawing attention to its color, its shape, your hunger? If you point to it three times, are you indicating a different attribute each time?
SEE THE REST OF THE “POINTING” SET, W/TEXT, HERE: https://nu4ya.substack.com
Below is a view of The Window art project installed as networked photographs, showing the connections across the images, subjects and themes (diversity, time, technology, velocity, beauty, movement, dance, Tarot, entanglement… etc).
“The Window”, institutional installation view of themes branching and massing from linear spine (proposed)
The Window is a 24/7/365/1 photo project capturing life in the 21st century city. (See more of the images and ideas-behind: HERE). Above is just one of its many infinite arrangements.
Much of the art by K.I.A. is one larger work composed of smaller elements, allowing iterative presentations. Here’s an installation whose content changes according to setting and arrangement; here’s a painting whose 30 individual paintings are to be decentralized; here’s a recombinant sculpture composed from many discrete parts, and here’s an intercombinant wall installation (this same approach later arrived at by El-Anatsui).
Every year for the last decade I’ve done large outdoor art installations (earthworks, or “weatherworks”) on a frozen lake. Here’s the 2023 edition. (See some earlier ones at my Substack HERE. Editioned prints available: contact.).
They are usually done in very cold weather (-20). They take anywhere from 10-25 hours to make and document. They usually last for about 30 minutes after completion—I work as long a I can in the daylight hours until the sun starts to set before I have to photograph them. They never last overnight because snow, wind, rain, etc destroys them.
Except this time.
It didin’t snow overnight, and the weather warmed up the next day, melting the snow, which allowed the colors to mix together, and the textures I’d created to morph. The work went from matte to gloss, and some parts showed became translucent, adding visual depth. This was perfect, because chance, change, and ephemerality are major themes in my work.
I photograph the work in ways that obscure scale and perspective. The images could be taken from a sattelite over Jupiter, a drone over a coral system, a closeup of moss in some exotic rainforest, an electron microscope examining microorganisms.
The works are physically arduous — squatting, leaning, extending, but also frozen fingers and numb fingers. But it puts you in tune with the environment, because you have to watch the clouds coming in, pay attention to the light, feel the direction and strength of the wind, place your feet right on the ice. This year the ice was really noisy, weird and very loud warping sounds (like a whale call? or giant steel rubber band?) that would sound out, and at least a couple times let to audible and visible cracks.
Every year I do an earthwork — more accurately, a snowwork — on a frozen lakebed flat and white like a canvas (what artist could resist) . This year the season started out unseasonably warm (no ice or snow), and then went directly to -30 degrees.
I labored all day on the above work, and by the time it was ready to photograph it was sunset (often the case) and my phone battery was dying. So, running back and forth trying to get enough juice to take some shots before the light faded, I slipped on the ice and bonked my head, and while taking the photos the temperature and wind chill gave me frostbite. “Suffer for my art” and all that.
All the works are quite large, usually over 30’. They never last more than a few hours post-completion.
Because ice crystals are discrete units, like pixels comprising a jpeg, the work is pseudodigital. It was only experienced by one person IRL. Because the work is ephemeral, the documentation is the art. The photos have a very interesting ambiguous depth to them, appearing as both flat abstract images but also, with closer viewing, a deep spatial perspective.
More land art works by K.I.A. HERE. Contact for details.
Earlier years — see fully at Weatherworks:
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Successing the fail. The idea was to glitch some lace, use it as a stencil, with fireplace ash as spray paint, and white snow on the lake as the canvas. I limited my tools: sifter, fabric, bag of ash, a cardboard box. (Later allowed some broken branches into the mix). The cardboard was to add some linear elements and rectilinear knockouts -- my only condition was that it sorta had to have a digital look to it.
Doing art outside solidly puts you back in your skin, and attunes you to nature: you feel the wind (for the direction of the falling ash), observe incoming clouds (for how they’ll change the light), smell the humidity (snow coming?), embrace the cold (going gloveless for precision), hear the ice cracking (danger?), see the sun going down (too quickly). Day one’s first attempts were too late; got dark. Second day was bright, no wind... but -25 degrees, too cold to place and pull lace. Day three, conditions were perfect in the morning. (Lucky; windy later).
Working outdoors with limiting conditions means you can’t overthink or overanalyze, which is great: art becomes more of a sport than a puzzle. It’s not too precious: if you fail, it’s only a day or two of prep & work and fine, bye-bye, the weather takes it; but also you have to let the ‘success’ go as well (and in that way, they become the same thing.)
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
“NDF” by K.I.A. , 210 objects; variable sizes -- this 8’ x 8’ version is about the smallest version of it...
Each object contains an element of the one next to it. As well, one is industrial; one semi-industrial/organic, one organic. All are white with black.
This installation can be ‘read’ many ways... here’s a quotation from a tribal elder (Lumbee) that sums up the ideas-behind: “...look to the great eagle, the favourite bird of the Great Spirit.The eagle feather is divided into two parts, part light, and part dark. This represents daylight and darkness, summer and winter, peace and war, and life and death...”
One reading, as the objects segue upwards (needles > darts > feathers) is the movement towards enlightenment... a needle can be associated with fear (pain, addiction); a dart with joy (playing); a feather with the spiritual (tribal ceremonies; as a measure weighing against the soul).
However: a needle can bring healing; a dart pain; and a separated feather may mean death (remains of a bird; humans and avian flu...)
And: the objects can also all be seen as simultaneously having the same meaning: protection (against sickness, against an enemy, against cold...)
I’m interested in how something can be two opposing things/ideas at the same time. Which reading, or idea, is true?
The ‘answer’ isn’t either/or, but all.
