Konzeptidee

2006

Kaiserslautern

Our intention is to provide the Institute with a number of sculptures/objects/works of art which contribute to an atmosphere of delight and inspiration for the employees and their clients and visitors. These works should have a significance designed to resonate for this particular audience in this particular context. Just as the Institute specializes in abstract mathematics applied to real scenarios, our work might be seen as abstract art applied to the reality of the Institute – Applied Sculpture meets Applied Science.

A brief History of Doug Fitch and Florian Borkenhagen:

Both of us were invited to participate in an international exhibition of art-furniture held in Munich´s foremost design space, Wunderhaus, in a somewhat ironic celebration of Columbus´ “discovery” of the New World which took the form of an auction, the proceeds of which would benefit the Yamamami – an indigenous people of the Amazon River Basin. The ironic element was to use the 500th Anniversary of Columbus´ landing in America to raise money for the kind of peoples he helped destroy. We were invited to create works that were funcitonal, yet also expressive of this history.

Florian and I made pieces which seemed very different but essentially kindred in spirit. A friendship developed as well as a promise to work together at some future moment. In spite of good intentions and occasional contact, this hasn´t happened until now.

Meanwhile, Linde Trottenberg founded MultiArt International, an organization thet brought art in contact with science, specifically by orchestrating a series of exhibitions in a building that housed a major German Center for Applied Mathematics. This being successful, she has expanded her vision to bring art to many places it is not normally expected to be taken seriously – or even seen. One of these was an exhibition of Fitch´s work, entitled Organs of Emotion, which opened in an Institute for Epileptology Research and which was eventually sold in its entirety to a major Pharmaceuticals Company.
In her travels, she one day stumbled upon a special table in a clothing shop and inquired about its maker. Being one whose special gift is to constellate abstract elements of the world around us into comprehensible nuggets, she instantly thought that whoever had made this table should meet the person who had made the Organs of Emotion show. As a result, she reconnected Borkenhagen and Fitch, thus enabling an old dream to become a reality in the context of your space. Which is simply to say that there is already in place a whole energy here to tap into…

Proposal as it stands:

When this idea originated, somebody somewhere suggested that the notion of “communication” would be an appropriate theme to inspire artworks for the space. The idea emerged that it would therefore be wonderfoul to engage two artist whose work would emerge from just such a communication.

Our proposal takes that idea one important step further – we wish to engage the Institute in a dialogue that will inform the development of the sculptures as they evolve.

The notion is that both Fitch and Borkenhagen will first make one sculpture each – an object that has something to do with the communicaton between these two artist, their pasts and the collective subconscious link they would like to investigate together. The parameters for these two objects will also include being of use to the present space. For example, how might a work of art encapsulate the history of a kindred spirit as is relates to an institute which must thrive on just such relationships?

Once these two objects have been installed ( for the opening of the building), further ideas will be developed and proposed, informed by the rapport these first two objects have established with their fellow (human) inhabitants. The idea is that, rather than simply building a number of sculptures in studios and installing them in your space, we would prefer to include the Institute in a dialogue that will help shape further objects in the aim of offering more qualitative value to the site they are intended to reside in.

PROPOSAL

A consistent theme in my work is a merging of the pragmatic with the absurd. Pragmatic concerns anchor us to the real world, while absurdity keeps us from taking that world for granted. For me, this merging manifests itself at the boundary between design and art. Art offers us new ways to imagine the lives we are living. Design offers us ways to live the lives we imagine. I am always looking for a contradictory balance.

Chairs are applied sculptures; aesthetic objects made with the intention of being used. They invite interaction – you are meant to sit on them, not just look at them. My first chairs were made in sand-cast molds of my body. I wanted to “solidify” the space around the activity of sitting. I wanted to draw attention to this space that envelops us, where sound waves vibrate, photons fly, smells disperse and gases intermingle. All communication is exchanged within this mysterious medium that separates a self from all that is other.

Chairs, of course, are objects that have been sculpted to facilitate a particular human activity. We call them dining chairs or rocking chairs, reading chairs or reclining chairs after the specific task they were designed to accommodate. We also have the easy chair (presumably intended for being “easy” in), the armchair (which has arms), the wing chair (though flightless), the wheel chair, the chaise longue and the foldout sofa-bed (for the chance guest). But there are many activities for which chairs are not specifically constructed although if they were, the presence of such furniture might encourage more of that particular activity.

With these two sculptural chairs, I wanted to draw attention to — and make a special place for — two activities fundamental to the creative practice, particularly within the scientific realm: absorbing (as in: reading and learning-from and taking-in…) and being listened-to (even when this means listening to yourself). These are the two sides of sharing, the giving and taking from one person to another through that stimulant space that surrounds us. It is the activity of quiet communication.

There is the Library Chair, filled with books of knowledge to absorb. The books surrounding someone seated in the Kaiserslautern Library Chair were each chosen — by whim or thoughtful deliberation — by someone within the institute; selected because it was particularly inspirational to him or her.

And there is the Listening Chair, which in a way, is an homage to the humbleness of science: you must first listen in order to understand. To come up with a new idea, it is important to recognize its lineage, to recognize its utility in the continuum of knowledge. Research is based on listening, observing and letting the world in. Without the openness that is the essence of listening, there would be no science. We live in a complicated world where it is sometimes difficult to hear yourself think. The Listening Chair has this concern in mind.

Both objects celebrate the work we do to prepare ourselves for innovation. They celebrate the activity of communication, but mainly the solitary kind where you are in contact with those whose thoughts and experience and work have led to yours at this precise moment when you have decided to sit down and be open to it all.

Doug Fitch

VISION

The drawings were made on a device called the Buddha Board, which makes brushstrokes of water temporarily appear as black lines. I thought that the medium of water was appropriate for evoking the oracular for several reasons: first, because the Delphic Oracles were women seated before a wellspring of water — water that defused hallucinogenic gases, enabling them to speak freely from an unselfconscious plane of inner truth. Water is also always associated with the feminine. The water around the Oracle temple was flowing and thus as ephemeral as the truth they purported. What they said was neither right nor wrong, it was other in a way designed to encourage personal knowledge to surface in the face of societal filters.

Water, as a medium for drawing from my own subconscious, was interesting to me because of how it evaporates into gas. The lines I make on the Buddha Board quickly disappear, and as they do so, the image I made changes, suggesting something else that I then respond to. This is a medium that encourages an ebb and flow between the conscious and subconscious. You look for clues in the lines you made as they evaporate into ether. Nothing remains of the drawing but the moment preserved by photography. There is a kind of infinite quality that transforms any line you draw by the fact that that line is instantly subjected to the laws of physics. It starts transforming once you have made your mark — or asked your question.

It seems to me that the usefulness of an Oracle was in her ability to access one’s own subconscious terrain — to listen to yourself. This is difficult to achieve when one is surrounded by social pressures, but deep down we all know what is best for us. That is the nature of instinct. By asking deep questions to one who is responding through a system designed to be utterly non-judgmental, it taps into one’s core ability to do what is in accord with one’s fate or destiny. Drawing is a complex notion — it does not only mean mark-making, it also means seeking from the depth of one’s own experience — “to draw a conclusion” for example.

I was fascinated in the making of these drawings how it was in the disappearance of my lines, the lines I made by will, that something more was always suggested as they died. That activity reminded me of the fleeting nature of life, and of awareness — and most importantly about how awareness is life itself.

Doug Fitch