A Swarm to build on.
Posted: January 28, 2010 Filed under: ETsy, Mini Prints, Parasite, Sporozoan 2 Comments »
The Sporozoan Swarm is a modular work of art, made up of torn and cut Intaglio and Lithographic prints combined with drawing, with a projected 500,000 components. These components break down from The Swarm into many small clusters and migrate around the world. The Swarms component structure allows it to ebb and flow through spaces in a fluid way, wrapping around doorways and shifting through corners: it suggests the fluid dynamics of life. Small Clusters of The Swarm are installed in places that are not typically seen as “art viewing spaces,” allowing the greatest number of viewers the space to commune with the piece, free of sterile pretense, or limited access. This way of viewing makes the work become more a part of the viewer’s multifaceted memory, rather than a one-dimensional ornament.
A great deal of site specific or time limited work relies on photography to allow viewers to witness and “own” the art. With The Sporozoan Swarm, the owner of the work or “The Keeper” of a Cluster becomes part of the larger whole of the interconnected world-wide installation. And while viewers are able to see photographs of my installations all over the world, providing a macro perspective, they are also able to install a piece of the whole on their wall using their own aesthetic, their own voice.
These Keepers become aesthetic partners when they decide how Clusters or individual pieces of The Swarm should be displayed. The Keepers physically touch, interact with, and hang the same pieces that I have printed, torn and drawn, contributing to the evolution of the whole. By handling the work they make it a less precious, more tangible, common grounded thing. The element of many small pieces available to people all over the world connects The Keepers to me and to the large-scale public installations of The Swarm I create. The Sporozoan Swarm acts as a binder of all of its Clusters and Keepers by connecting them through its on-line locating map and its serendipitous collective experience.
Art can change our world. Just let it be a part of your life.
How wonderful. I’ve often thought lately about how limiting (and sometimes depressing) the traditional art space, i.e. a white-cube gallery, can be. Part of what’s appealing about making art is initiating a dialogue with other people, and to limit the interaction to only people who seek art out seems, well, limiting.
Also, this cluster is particularly appealing to me. lovely.
[...] and Lithographic prints (I wouldn’t have known that myself, I found the description on his website, [...]