In terminal form, the above samples may take the form of original oil paint on cradled masonite or wood panel, limited series archival print, rear-lit duratrans, 4K installation (breathing painting), final execution or exhibition rendition TBD per site specificity.
excerpt from cyborgian halation, 2020
test file name: longroth.857
body of work series: mitigating circumstance
This is a breathing painting co-generated by the deployment of an open source, content aware algorithm used to aggregate object-orientation. Vacillating between polar ends of interpreted texture, this sample disassembled and compiled into a 22 frame animation and rendered to web ready video. All rights reserved, rdquinn 2020.
Tread: /tred/, 2018
Description: waves undulate in and out, to and fro, ebb and flow, inhale and exhale. Solitary figure, (artist) tethered between three anchors, one used to center approximately 10-12 feet posterior and attached to a lifeguard belt, the other two anchored assistance was hand held. Edited to near center screen, I used an auto-focus 50mm Sony A7iii with an Atamos Ninja 5 recorder secured to a heavy duty Manfrotto fixed with a modified Zhiyun Lab 3 gimbal affixed with appropriate hardware mounted on a pressure treated surface. This platform floated 20 yards off north shore, Lake Michigan. Machine actuation, auto-focus is tethered via eye contact with the subject. What active forced endured to remain at a concentration most consistent, this video was edited to near center screen. According to the ending timecode, second attempt, produced just over 26 minuets of useable media. As much an exercise in breathing, this dialogue existed between the machine and the artist. In similar deployment, the common denominator was the shared body of water. Human and machine hold reciprocating gaze.
Installation Description: Tread is one of several video projection installations. Intended as a rear projection to complete a singular wall – no possibility for viewer shadow; ambient sound projects rear screen via speakers purposed to emanate as light to control exhibition space. If correctly installed, there is no frame shadow. Aluminum frame is tailored to space (6.35mm X 152.4mm ribbon stock with 8mm rounded surface bevel).
/ˈspesəmən/ – outdoor
Vans Across the Border (beta)
Mauricio Jimeñez is 9 years old. He has the brightest eyes and a smile that seems to stretch from ear to ear. He lives in Anapra, Mexico on the Sundland Park, New Mexico border. His daily routine covers the distance of roughly four football fields. Instead of school, he distributes burritos in one direction and collects water for his household to use in the other. Angelita is 17, she’s at the doorway of their two room shanty made of patches of corrugated tin held up by uneven oak pallets held together by missed-matched, rough edged 2×4’s painted in shades of uneven aqua in latex and enamel. This add-on, structure connects to the lower part of an eroded edifice built in half adobe, half cinder block, and formed in an L shape, now remaining about waist high. The glowing Angelita sits in a make-shift wheel chair with the padding from a 1980’s, auto-zone labeled car seat. Mauricio calls her “Mamacita”, a macho term with passive inferences of female objectification. Introducing her from a distance, Mauricio whistles at her. “Angelcita, es mi prima. Ella hace la comida”. – She’s my cousin; she makes the food (burritos to eat and sell). She hovers over on a propane camping stove while she directs a small assembly line. In the morning Mauricio helps rolls them in foil sheets, filling a red, Igloo cooler. This is their family business.
“Mamacita” it’s just what the children call her. She calls them, “mis bebés” – (my babies). Some of them are actually her nieces and nephews. Her brother works on a ranch weekdays, out side of Villa Ahumada, Chihuahua traveling about 3 hours on the weekends. While he’s away Mauricio “es el jefe”.
On this particular day, Mauricio runs to my friend’s SUV to greet us. He remembers us from a year ago. “¿Señor, cómo está, ….tienes Cheetos?” After a pair of Vans and three bags of groceries, all he remembers is the bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos.
As soon as my friend Caleb, opens his hatch back, we are joined by Joél, Mauricio’s little brother. He is wearing the pair of classic, checkered Vans. The ones we gave Mauricio the last time. This time we have a new pair in the same size 5 and four more boxes, sizes 6 to 8.
Ven a probar estos zapatos – (Come try on these shoes). Te cambiaré – (I’ll trade you). ¿Cuántas personas usaron estos zapatos? – (How many people wore these (old) shoes?”
Joél says, “Todos lo hicimos” – (We all did)! This is when we discover that Mauricio has a brothers and 2 sisters. They took turns.
Vans Across the Border: BETA complete! A play on words: the branding of these shoes are and the most popular utilitarian means employed for border crossing, business or otherwise. Where will this experience lead?
Experientia Docet, a.k.a Dirt Flag,
City of El Paso, Texas 2011
experientia docet = experience teaches Fort Bliss is the largest military base on the U.S./Mexico border. It accounts for over 40% of the region’s cultural, socio-political diversity. At the time, there had been a brash of flag desecration in protest of continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, lack of healthcare and support for physical, social and emotional veteran disability, PTSD and related drug abuse leading to suicide. What started out as an impromptu high school debate in art class, formalized into a proper public art project.
What if the flag was the ground?
Our proposal included a full day of performances and public programming ended in a candle light vigil surrounding an entire city park painted football field not to bring awareness of the brutal externalities on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, but to celebrate the members of our military, fire and law enforcement as local heroes. The tall, thin man in the red shirt is Command Sargent Major Gustav Johnson, U.S. Army retired. He refrained from entering the painted space, but he can be seen encouraging others to experience the art and activation moment together, while members of the El Miada Shrine distributed individually prepared votive candles for the closing moment of remembrance and memorial.
PUBLIC Ashtray, Pre-millennial Park: Chicago, IL
This particular work placed direct emphasis on public use of art and perceptions in sculpture juxtaposing classical and contemporary functionality. This was a learning experience and lesson in ownership and my own human conditionality. What transpired over 30 days, claimed much more than a photographic curio/relic of temporal art object representation and guerrilla installation.
I knew a guy, who knew a guy that had access to the grounds maintenance schedule for the city of Chicago’s Park District. At the time, inspection crews monitored conditions of each park, with a once-a-week drive-by, paying attention to objects included in the city’s vast art collection. In this particular location, Grant Park was home to a statue of Lincoln. …and yes, there is a statue of Grant in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
During one of my lunch break walks (in those days I officed at 20 N. Michigan), I strolled across a grassy, inverted knoll that was rarely ever noticed. Lincoln stole the show – turning heads at every single, meaningful pass-by time. Once a month, landscape crews would hit the park and team-tag, tag-team south Grant, and work their way north splitting at the Art Institute, one toward the lake the other heading to what is now Millennium. I wanted to use this space, and the quietly pronounced coding of Ol’ Abe and/or the politics of esteemed, ‘publicly recognized sculpture’, but I wasn’t sure how to make this happen at first? Realizing evidence of public use MUST exist congruent with a solution required of a public need for memorialization and public consumption, I had to investigate further.
I enlisted the help of a good friend, last name of Franke. Her and I sported surgical gloves to collect every cigarette bud we could find in the entirety of the ‘pre-millennial’ park in order to emphasis ART with a capital “A”, as evidence and a ‘rehabilitative’ service. We collected several (untaxed at the time) CVS bags full of discarded buds. I also enlisted a friend who provided 45 kilos of brilliant, white silica sand offering the most pristine contrast to the deep green hue of the city’s Tifway Bermuda. Staging the execution immediately followed departure of that month’s particular grounds crew, we set foot for direct installation. A borrowed a wheel barrel from SAIC’s foundry, timed access from the loading dock, our covert mission made maneuvering as smooth as silk. Foundry access was curtesy following my side gig. I had become a familiar face hired by Carolyn Ottmers to assist in the fabrication of her city commission for the west loop, 911 call center. I also borrowed the city’s green uniform “dickies” to further camo my occasion – non inventa; to document this work, I was sweet, discrete, literally out-of-site, in plain sight, and without another rhyming word.
-BACK STORY and set-up
Kysawn pn:\ Kəy-ˈShau̇n\ Davis-Lopez, street name KeyLo was in his early 50’s. He was a 6’4” drink of gall with deep set, sunken eyes that undoubtedly saw more than most in his resident tenure going between/beneath the Jackson cross-walk and the Jesus Saves shelter on State. Before he became my personal ally and my strong safety, our acquaintance was forged in more than a taxing scurry to advert dislocation and bodily injury.
I heard his moans from across the street and dismissed him in typical, unconscious fashion. Just like any other grassy knoll, he was never seen – eye contact diverted at every corner. Most could smell him downwind as they’d jay walk to advert confrontation, off the badly-beaten path of urban decay. Regarding this particular day, to cut to the literal chase, I was afraid for my life. Once it set in that I was the target caught in HIS cross-hairs, I heard his crackling voice: I was “THE g@d#am m*thaf*%a stealing his BUDS!!” Grant park was intended by Olmsted for rehabilitation, but for KeyLo, it was his primary address and he was the superintendent of his domain. I learned his name from an adjacent, older lady in residence. She gave me the down low (I’m truly sorry that forget her name). She explained to me his smoking preference (her’s as well) and that a mends would be specified as “unfiltered” Camels. The next time that I saw KeyLo, I was armed with three fresh packs. Not only did we collude, he and I bonded over sandwiches in preparation for the install that entire week.
KeyLo fell on difficult times when Daley closed the Humboldt mental health facility, Reese would followed suit – ‘97ish? For those interested in today’s inefficacies, Lightfoot still has her hand’s full. What started out as life-scathing negotiations became collaboration and clandestine park security – associative contextualization, that I never could have imagined before embarking on this project. KeyLo gave me updates on a daily basis, and I helped him out whenever I could over the following a 3 years, and about 20 disappearing blankets later.
The Ashtray lasted almost 30 days, until city park’s crew dispatched an extra worker to shovel and toss the sand that the regular union guy drover over more pretending not to see. Like clockwork, KeyLo salvaged his property and its interest earned. Passers-by actually used it as KeyLo kept a distant eye. While the installation was there for the harvest, KeyLo traded longer buds for filters. In contemporary terms, the photograph or art object ‘relic’ would be considered representation of an art enabling the experience. In process, it was made qualified by an activation or the means of execution, in collaboration with public sentiment, fascination and ownership. Franke, thank you! …and KeyLo, best energies to you outside of my heart, …wherever you are.
PERFORMANCE ART COMMENTARY: experience of a construct
Performance art as treatment for the human condition abates creates opportunity for engagement.
“he’s real” – says the child.
In practice, that which is behind a judicial bench, broadcast zoom meeting or sitting in a classroom circle setting, offers the safe space and comfort to evaluate renderings as definable and determinate via edict of an established venue, but what happens when this venue is outside and the medium is non-taxed and open for public consumption? Is activation conspicuous as credible exchange occurs outside of an art vacuum? What might be the take-away becomes the common denominator or inevitable consideration? The battle to sustain stimulation beyond the indefinite 60 second loop of a TikTok or reach beyond the conditioning of the 280 allowable characters in a tweet, requires holding fast in surrogacy of this contemporary exhibition space. Seeking reconciliation between a techno-caustic/techno-generative application, somewhere between Donna Haraway and Graham Harmon. There is no I/O. There is only I/O. Perhaps recognition is only accessible through diplomacy in duplicity? It is fitting therefore, to return to the haptic indication confirming or conflicting with the second take, second look, undeniable repetition of the fleeting and passive double take, double entendré au courant subtly purposed to prolong the gaze as an after thought, disguised as an inner thought mistaken for placebo, dismissed and subliminal.
Following this flow chart as an exercise in assertiveness training, the act of re-appropriated programming becomes art. Commentary on this activation extends the medium of performance as occupational psychology and this commentary can be classified as institutional critique. See Les Levine, Hans Haacke, Vito Acconci, Jason …., Andrea Fraser to name a few.
What happens when a multitude becomes one person?
TV4JFK, FB4Obama, eavestweeting4Trump asserting all that he wants to grab, #hashtag, there exists a durational myopia rendering language as MTfeeling sine qua non connectivity due the most current, most immediate fashionable exchange and be far from what is actually ever written, spoken or visually expressed. Infusion of the meme as sign and signifier. Self-medicating anxiety abates profundity; profundity without epiphany – a pretense and farce contributing to a labor-intensive mental oxidation – an oxidation as unseen chemical reaction occurring in supplanted dopamine, but this is not a closed continuum. Artistic contribution might offers the opportunity for reflexivity as antioxydent astringents such as allium sulphur found in garlic or leaks are used to alter taste, or perhaps the latency of anthocyanins consumed in nightshades and the alkali application to chemically cut through adjacent pH and equalize the pallet. I think it interesting that the latter, contains natural toxins known to resist effective metabolism. What remains is what is only evident at the molecular level. Even if heat treatment is used to neutralize or rather mask this derision. (Pose a challenge to even attempt to eat an eggplant or potato in the raw.) To invoke the occidental gavitas of gender-formative romance language, ‘el concepto’ masuline, ‘la idea’, feminine: the concept, she is clear! It is NOT the oil on the canvas, or the oil in the pan, but the very real irritation of the mirror found reflection in the eyes of Édouard Manet’s reclining model. In disenfranchised, discontinuation of the bourgeoisie experience, artist perception of the “object” finds activation through viewer translation into the “subject” and the medium once again is reduced to code. These considerations speak not, towards the encapsulations to be understood as data packets streaming sic sigma in 5G, but uncontrollably coursing in the vein.
North Michigan Ave. street performer unknown.
LASER SOUND SIGNATURE: Forsyth Park, Savannah, GA – BETA, February 2020
This public access test was executed Pre-Covid. Thumbnails: high speed images of a laser signature captured at 1/8000th of a second in an 8″ OAK. Laser reflection caught on back of an 8″ oak box caused by the voice of passing individuals solicited to sing or speak into a mic. In a traditional exhibition space, this proposed installation could be mounted and made accessible as artifact or curios as physical art objects in a limited addition prints. Added to this installation would be the sound of each activation associated with each signature. Performance or execution of this endeavor can also be projected on architectural surfaces at night time for public “consumption”. This device is an original fabrication and art apparatus intended as cyborg-ian expression congruent with use of “new media” or ART and TECH applications. Fabrication and calibration of this device and deployment of this process can satisfy STEAM (grant) requirements.
alternate atmosphere, 2017
Physicality of this space presents a room filled with participant accessible wheel chairs, an encounter with a full-walled video as controlled light source in a space made available to suggest a meditative dialogue between monitor and machine.
Perhaps the media is not video, but instead the occupational psychology used to conjure reflexive inquiry? The space is soothing to the eye and lit by the cool reflection of pool water as containment -agitated by the movement of a one legged swimmer. The use of a camera capable of high ISO and large aperture able to capture this bird’s eye view is no doubt an obvious generation removed from its original rendition of space and time. Ultimately, the room and chair(s) may purpose viewer awareness of self. The water could metaphor containment, congruent with the installation space and time, but to the one-legged swimmer, it could also offer an atmosphere offering freedom?
Seated participant sample: What is my relationship to this person? I have two legs and I’ve committed to sitting with altered, limited mobility with a gaze exterior to this subject. The use of video adds another layer of considerable detachment. What do I absorb in this situation? Perception of gravity is a factor often taken for granted. Hand on my knees, on my wheels. I am seated, but I am mobile. I am using my seat and lower back for leverage as a passive extension of my new gravity and center of balance. I am partially aware of my incapacitation; my dexterity is literally cut in half – half a body, half a pair of legs. Though my atmosphere is non-aquatic, and my awareness potentially existential, I am still aware of myself. I am still aware of my choice! This swimmer has limited choice, but to be aware of their space within an atmosphere free from terrestrial constraint. I imagine the muscles in their back contracting to conclude asymmetrical mobility in order to over-compensate and hold a straight, rhythmical line, back and forth, forth and back. Their breathing is purposefully staggered. How symmetrical is my awareness of myself? How symmetrical is my perception of my altered atmosphere, my constraints, my environment, my breathing, my self? I imagine the kinesthetic intelligence and calisthenic conditioning required in daily routine, able to maintain improved trajectory. Like their state of physical conditioning, this occasion presents a metaphor for mental conditioning preceding duration or opportunity en practicum. I can only imagine the freedom they must experience in the water, in altered state – endorphins released, a body in the act of rhythmic collusion with this containment, this body of water, this atmosphere, this being.
What remains following these immediate often silent considerations, may only be a phantom in comparison, a memory of projected sensation following NOT being in use of two legs. Could there be a congruency in this a suspension of interpretation of self, through the act of sitting, versus swimming? Could there be a single common denominator, offering awareness in psycho-social entropy, or rather empathy for a disability as an objectivism outside of one’s perception? Could my inability to imagine this difference ultimately be a disability? …..my disability?? Implications are endless. What does it mean to put yourself in someone else’s shoe??