Green Light at Rietveld

Expect the best, be prepared for the worst, 

fuck what others think and do your own thing!

Entrance of my installation

It has been two weeks since the Green Light assessment. I received the Thumbs Up for the upcoming months! The entire group of 5th year; teachers and students went out to dinner. The vibe was electric. Many happy faces with the expression of relief from the hard work that got us all tied to a knot. We had a change to enjoy great food and nice wine, to chit-chat with each other and to celebrate the fact that the final stage had begun. I decided to read the comments from the eight headed dragon committee when I was at home. The evening was all about having fun, sharing stories and to unwind.

Now that the dust has settled, it's time to pick up  and integrate their comments and advise. One thing that stands out is a more refined grip on my talent, the ability to step back from the work and to look at it again from another point of view. It is their belief that it will be very beneficial to gain a certain distance. Point taken. But most of all and most importantly I realized how conditions form  the outcome of my work. A certain field of energy is projected into the subject of attention. To master thát field is where a lot of knowledge can be gained. I want to use these last months to get a grip on this process, not to be directed to a certain position where I do not want to be but to mold and experiment and create ONE THING that really is a great piece of art. Strong, tangible and solid!

One part of the Green Light installation 

LAB

Expectations

Working on a drawing for the Green Light Assessment

Preparations for the Green Light Assessment are on its way. The Green Light Assessment (GLA) is the run-up for the final exam in July. It consists of three elements:

(1) Thesis. 

(2) Visual Development.

(3) Artist Statement.

This add's up to a Red, Yellow or Green light. The first one means a No Go the last one is the Thumbs Up! With only three more days to go my focus lies with number two. A very dense time this is, I make - look - change - make new one's - and change the composition again. Its not like producing a series of paintings or sculptures. Some pieces are specially created of this installation. Others are from my sketchbook and find their place here. I've realized that my personal emotions are the base of many works. I have to admit that  life and things that happen -on a personal level- are so complex that I use art to reshape, reconnect or address them. 

Try-out composition on the floor before putting it up on the wall

And if I do make a piece that seems to question the environment or a certain social class system, and look at them in retrospective I can pinpoint right down to the source. So there you have it! One of the reasons why I use myself a lot in my work. My physical presence, or to go through a specific sort of motion that might look awkward is essential for me to experience!  To grasp what the best possible visible language is for a certain train of thoughts is most of the time an instant hit. That in other attempts get some texture or becomes more refined.

Chaos creates Order

My desktop 2012

The bindery has received all the information to make my thesis books. I have to wait until they'll arrive next week. My thesis separates the written language (at the left side) from the visual language (right side). Just as our brains are separated into two hemispheres. When I closed my internet windows I looked at my desktop and saw a strange phenomena, I had dragged all the images to the corners of the screen. Some were distinctive, most of the time they were on top of each other. To think that my subject is about 'the human desire to order' seemed somewhat far fetched if you take a look at how chaotic my Mac is! 

Try out 'cover' print 2012

But then again, there is a philosophy that calls upon symmetry as the fundamental base for asymmetry. In that perspective this chaotic desktop brings ordered shapes to life. The enclosed creates the excluded. The left creates the right. This is one of the thrills that my research echoes back. I've printed a version to show to the teachers at school. In general they were quite excited about it but some thought it was more about design and not so much about the text anymore. I laughed because there is a certain Rietveld consensus, a way 'art' should look and feel like. Isn't it funny that those who teach us to go beyond our safety zone remain there themselves. Everything that presents itself slightly 'well made' is looked at with suspicious eyes. It is my believe that art will change, alter and presents itself differently over time. It is a dynamic force, certain works of art that once were considered 'not done' can get a very different connotation in the future...

The Art of Looking

Full of Dragons

Yes! 

The Chinese year of the Dragon has begun! 

Congratulations to all who will experience this non-stop 'roller coaster ride' as a special moment in time, we'll have a ball! I had to wait 12 years to be in this lucky position again, but hey I'm prejudged because I've been born under its sign. The anticipation has been building up! Why all this commotion you might wonder? The answer lies in the question; 'where were you in 2000?' I recall the tremendous amount of energy that was available 24hours a day, seven days a week. Possibilities hung heavy in the air, like walking on a bubble-wrapped floor. All that I touched, spoke about or even looked at, modified itself to a gorgeous kind of gold. I have many fond memories of that year; new friendships, nice traveling and great parties that I attended. And of course the sense of danger, for no Dragon can exist without a certain 'edge'. At the time of this 'new' Millennium there was great concern about computers crashing and systems blowing up.... well nothing happened! This time our calendars will stop, time itself will stop as we know it. I'm looking forward to it! But I'm under the slight impression I'll be to busy to notice it...

The thesis pressure has come and knocked me off my feet. Honestly, they tell you this on forehand but I don't think they should, cause no one can prepare for it. To grasp all you've researched and narrow it down to one cohesive story is quite a thing. In some sort of way my thesis is about order, reflection and symmetry; a simultaneous process of writing and application, in the text and visual language. Like the knight, from the game of Chess I march through civilized history of modern thinking and art. Collecting Pythagoras, Descartes and Spinoza like they were little Happy Meal figurines. But really, honestly there is no reason to complain! Because something happens while you are so busy grasping the essence of your story, you become one with it, or it becomes you? No one talks about this, but the sensation is exuberant! The task that lies in front of me is to sort the text out in such a way that the bindery understands how to make it into one piece. This visual presentation is dictated by the content of the thesis, so everything is connected! 

When I started this year I knew it would be a good idea to have a certain break, a special treat that I could collect when I was halfway there. After an impressive evening with Dianne Reeves at the Concertgebouw in December I knew I wanted another Grand Diva that would fix me up.  The website of Carré got my full attention when I saw Jessye Norman's name on their calendar! A quick survey told me these were serious ticket prices! But hey, if my thesis was ready and I knew what I wanted to show for the green light assessment, nothing could stop me. You can imagine the excitement I experienced when I walked to my seat, just two hours  after I'd finished my epilogue. My heart was beating like a mad man and when she entered the stage I could only let her wipe me off my feet.

Classification

Left and right have symbolic meanings in many different societies. Even classical Greek philosophy and science are associated with right-left symbolism. Pythagoras said one should enter a sacred place from the right (Odd) and leave from the left (Even). The first anthropologist to think seriously about the meaning of left and right was Robert Hertz who published in 1909 a monograph on the symbolism of left and right through different societies.  As he puts it in his almost poetic introduction:'To the right hand go honours, flattering designations, preogatives: it acts, orders and takes. The left hand, on the contrary, is despised and reduced to the role of humble support; by itself it does nothing, it helps and holds.' from R.Hertz 'Death and the Right Hand' 1960

Aristotle described the ten Pythagorean principles as followed: 

1. Odd          Even
2. One          Plurality
3. Right        Left
4. Male         Female
5. At rest      In motion
6. Straight    Crooked
7. Light        Darkness
8. Good        Evil
9. Square     Oblong

Herts understood biology and saw that there was no known society in which the majority of people are left handed. By observing the structure of the organism he came to the conclusion that the natural favours towards the right side. A notion that became popular in writing lessons for children, left handedness was something that couldn't be tolerated and children were punished and trained to make the right hand dominant over the left. 

Go to work

'Watch your thoughts for they become words.

 Watch your words for they become your actions. 

Watch your actions for they become habits. 

Watch your habits, for they become your character. 

And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! 

What we think we become...'

Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady

Are you behind schedule?

And I'd say 'no' because accepting there is a schedule would already place me somewhere along it's timeline, instantly relating me to others timeline and thus confronting me with a sense of good (going fast) and bad (going slow) while the truth is that everything is in time. I'm right where I should be. Working my way through the process of writing, collecting and abstracting from vast amounts of information those things that have a coherence with my aspirations for the thesis that has the work title:

The Order of the Order to Order the All That Is

So while I do my Jackrabbit research or I investigate mold making, there is a consistent vibration in my head that keeps on working on the thesis. It started spinning a united field that is replied to every corner of my mind. And it works its way out through my mouth and my hands. A big part in my thesis is reserved for art history in relation to the need for order. I'm connecting historical elements with artists, nature, landscape, city, buildings and personal passions.  Everything falls together seamlessly, now i have to write some more....

Step to the front of the line

"Would you all be so kind and give way for Cranberry Muffin and Princess Dawn to step to the front of the line please. I repeat Cranberry Muffin and Princess Dawn, step to the front of the line."

I must admit that these additions spark up the already colorful stable of 210 horses that are ready to take the stage at Palais Paradiso in Feb 2012. So why add 2 more? Well the first one completes my collection of Sweetberry ponies, the second one rounds up my search for another Princess pony, the second series is now complete. Having them in a linear order they respectively represent DV24.6.6 and DV25.6.6 in the collection but most importantly the idea of having 212 participating items in the year 2012 makes a lot of sense to me. As a collectioneur I can be at peace with this formation for a while. I will keep them on my windowsill, separated from the others until they are united for the performance. They remind me of time passing by for it is only 2 more months...

Sick of being sick

Sketch research 

'I'm not doing this shit anymore' was the dominant train of thoughts for me in November 2011. My passive aggressive state of mind came to a halt and was instantly replaced by a furious rage of anger. It hardly mattered where I was or what I was doing. I reached a place where something inside of me screamed ENOUGH! And when you feel you've had enough of something and you badly need a change of scenery; when you know you've reached the bottom of the pit and all that has been experienced has been building up inside of you, THAT is when the adrenaline kicks in! Right there, when you are launched like a rocket, roaring through the sky, accepting nothing around you that reminds you of the previous bullshit you drank like a milkshake. 'Shut up and get the hell out of my way' and oh dear how delicious the sensation of release is! Every cell is activated, every nerve receptive. And creativity flows through my veins; wild like a mountain river in spring when the sun transforms the snowy tops into vast amounts of water. While riding the waves I envisioned the location of the anger and I saw laboratory animals, sacrificed ritual animals and myself as part of nature (a part of all the animals) on mother earth. The boar, ram and bull but also rabbits, monkeys, cats and dogs. Kept in cages. Undergoing trials, tests; being measured and observed.  

Plaster experiment

But not the jackrabbit; not the hare, they are part of the family of Leporids (thesis material) and are the only ones who are adapted to the lack of physical protection. They have not been domesticated and simply die in captivity. They remain untamed...

Clay experiment

Fascination started, research on its way. First in sketching and understanding the form in 2d, later (up to this moment) to understand its physical presence. To make suffering visible. To give the viewer a sense of uneasiness. To get underneath the human flesh with the aching visual language of the wild gone tame, the sophisticated ruling out unwanted behaviour. Causing a mental poverty that results in death.

This landscape will undergo further exploration for it has rich resources.

Renaissance Research

Practiced Detachment

(*) 'I wanted you before we'd ever met, my self esteem demanded it. 
Then when you began to pursue me,  I wanted you so badly. 
It's the only time I've ever been controlled by my desire;
 single combat.' 

Dangerous Liaisons is a 1988 drama film starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves and Uma Thurman. I saw it for the first time last week and was taken aback by the power of the story, the lust & desire and the hunger for others misery. The film opens with the morning ritual of waking up the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) and her partner the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) set in France around 1760. She has been forced to comply with the social rules of her gender at the time. And with the assistance of the finest teachers and scholars she tries to dominate the male species and avenge her own. This creates a complicated story where the viewer becomes an accomplice and is forced to sympathize for a wicked, sophisticated mind.


The still with Glen Close (*) comes from a scene when the game of conquest is underway and the Marquise sits down with her partner when he asks her to explain her skills. She sips her tea. Contemplating his reply and starts: 'When I came out into society I was 15. I already knew that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe.' she tilts her head and continues: 'Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide.' She looks ahead of her in the distance and says: 'I practiced detachment. I learned how to look cheerful while under the table I stuck a fork into the back of my hand. I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was afer, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with, and in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle.' Her eyes blink and without fear or hesitation she looks him in the eye and continues: 'to win or die'


And after the Vicomte asks her about his role in this game of deceit she utters the words: ' I wanted you before we'd ever met....' (*) Adding to her earlier confession a sense of honesty and vulnerability. This evaporates quickly when a servant enters and she instantly is detached from all that was discussed.