installation art

What's the Point?

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(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

in praise of fails: Weatherworks - land art installations by K.I.A.

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TL; DR: 30-foot art done-30° (“The Window” winterlude)

On Horizons

The newly frozen bay, somewhat snow white, sounds out as it warps — ringing, and singing, like an ice siren, alarm and allure. I jump, stomp, and kick down while walking onto this winter canvas. I’m holding a broom sideways — if I fall through, maybe it’ll save me. Should I be wearing a life jacket?

F1: Cities in Dust

Every December I make enormous weatherworks. The process is physically demanding — a duel, a sport, a dance — due to the difficult conditions (which are different every year). This art is always in cooperation with acquiescent to nature; i.e. this year, for the first time in ten, there is no ice. So “going-with-the-no-floe”, I shifted my colordrifts and glyphs to nearby snowy fields and frozen flora. But because the art is not at the time-honoured site, and I can only work at a much smaller size… all attempts are fails. (F1-F4):

F2: Color…Elide

Every December I make enormous weatherworks. The process is physically demanding — a duel, a sport, a dance — due to the difficult conditions (which are different every year). This art is always in cooperation with acquiescent to nature; i.e. this year, for the first time…

READ THE REST OF THE POST & SUBSCRIBE TO THE K.I.A. substack HERE

The Window: a portrait in a thousand parts

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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).