A Human Interval
14 Sep - 13 Oct 2012
A HUMAN INTERVAL
Jessica Jackson Hutchins / Laure Prouvost / Fredrik Værslev
14 September - 13 October 2012
What’s between us? On an afternoon in early autumn, in a room with flat, bright light illuminating every crease and crevice, this question is raised and brusquely answered. Everything here emphasizes the space between one another’s bodies, the same space that – seen from another perspective – outlines the bounds of our bodies. Everything: gestures and language, constructions and physical interactions, associations and relations.
Don’t get it wrong – it’s not that everything’s solely about differentiation; the situation could also be said to draw connections. To delineate boundaries is to emphasize the interrelation between things.
A fence standing between my plot of land and yours makes us neighbors. A canopy over our heads shelters us from the sun as well as the rain. Staring up at it, we won’t see the weather that it has been subjected to over the course of time, but we might notice its wear – dull blue splatter along the topside, tiny holes patched with extra material, and stains from the metal frame along the bottom edge. Until we take either the fence or the canopy down to fix them up or break them apart, we may not see them for what they truly are: materials with utilities as well as the capacity for memory.
A chair holds a body in place; two keep us at arm’s length, but they also place us within earshot of our brutish attempts to conform objects and sensations into speech as well as within eyesight of our hand gestures and telling postures. These are punctuated by pauses allowing reflection and the formulation of responses. Passing through a doorway into another room or around a corner, who knows, maybe we’ll bump into someone else or find ourselves grasping for a seatback or a helping hand in a darkened room lit only by a flickering projection.
Sheets of material like cloth have this remarkable ability to be converted with just a bit of effort and innovation into structures. All surfaces allow us to project our intentions onto them, to realize our visions through them, and to capture the progression of events that may pass us by when we least expect it or aren’t paying attention. And it’s in the form of planes or screens that we picture the world when we try to make sense of it. That’s the form we designate when we take the rough, natural landscape of experience and hold it up to look at and talk about.
Of course, there are still rocky landscapes; bulbous, twisting forms and complex arrangements of parts; as well as any number of details that don’t fit into this flat view of the world. This view has its boundaries, too, which might butt up against empty space or, instead, against another viewpoint poised to recognize it.
–John Beeson
Jessica Jackson Hutchins / Laure Prouvost / Fredrik Værslev
14 September - 13 October 2012
What’s between us? On an afternoon in early autumn, in a room with flat, bright light illuminating every crease and crevice, this question is raised and brusquely answered. Everything here emphasizes the space between one another’s bodies, the same space that – seen from another perspective – outlines the bounds of our bodies. Everything: gestures and language, constructions and physical interactions, associations and relations.
Don’t get it wrong – it’s not that everything’s solely about differentiation; the situation could also be said to draw connections. To delineate boundaries is to emphasize the interrelation between things.
A fence standing between my plot of land and yours makes us neighbors. A canopy over our heads shelters us from the sun as well as the rain. Staring up at it, we won’t see the weather that it has been subjected to over the course of time, but we might notice its wear – dull blue splatter along the topside, tiny holes patched with extra material, and stains from the metal frame along the bottom edge. Until we take either the fence or the canopy down to fix them up or break them apart, we may not see them for what they truly are: materials with utilities as well as the capacity for memory.
A chair holds a body in place; two keep us at arm’s length, but they also place us within earshot of our brutish attempts to conform objects and sensations into speech as well as within eyesight of our hand gestures and telling postures. These are punctuated by pauses allowing reflection and the formulation of responses. Passing through a doorway into another room or around a corner, who knows, maybe we’ll bump into someone else or find ourselves grasping for a seatback or a helping hand in a darkened room lit only by a flickering projection.
Sheets of material like cloth have this remarkable ability to be converted with just a bit of effort and innovation into structures. All surfaces allow us to project our intentions onto them, to realize our visions through them, and to capture the progression of events that may pass us by when we least expect it or aren’t paying attention. And it’s in the form of planes or screens that we picture the world when we try to make sense of it. That’s the form we designate when we take the rough, natural landscape of experience and hold it up to look at and talk about.
Of course, there are still rocky landscapes; bulbous, twisting forms and complex arrangements of parts; as well as any number of details that don’t fit into this flat view of the world. This view has its boundaries, too, which might butt up against empty space or, instead, against another viewpoint poised to recognize it.
–John Beeson