Uncanny Unease: The Digital Eye at the Henry Art Gallery

The digital eye is an uncanny one, at least as it stands in the Henry Art Gallery’s exhibition The Digital Eye: Photographic Art in the Electronic Age. Although this is not true of every work of art included in the show, a substantial number of the images create the distinct sense of unease that defines uncanniness through not only the subject matter depicted, but more often through the overtly disjointed way the photographic imagery appears within the frame.

Simen Johan. Untitled #83 (from the And Nothing was to be Trusted series). 1999. Toned gelatin silver print. Collection of Marita Holdaway. © Simen Johan. Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.

The doll-like baby captured in Simen Johan’s Untitled #83 (from the And Nothing was to be Trusted series), with a menacing expression and a devil-like crown of black hair, would be disturbing independently. However, the image takes on a hyperreal quality through its heightened contrast: the fire burns with a radiating intensity that makes its innocent role atop a birthday cake lost in exchange for the threat of imminent danger. Likewise, the toddler becomes a ravenous, cyborg-like figure that belongs squarely in the uncanny valley, its eyes more robotic than human, its face shrouded in shadows, staring into nothingness.

Sigmund Freud presented one of the earliest and most longstanding definitions of the uncanny: a frightening instance that bears a relationship to the familiar. Occurrences such as prosthetic and severed limbs, ghosts and the dead, cyborgs, robots, doppelgängers and automatons fall within this understanding of the uncanny valley.  The arm that is a part of the human form seems so normal when attached to a person, yet becomes something else entirely when detached. The Addams Family took advantage of the latter’s affect through the “Thing” character, a natural fit within the show’s comically repulsive tropes.  Likewise, a prosthetic arm on an otherwise natural body can also be an jarring visual experience when unexpectedly taking the place of the skin and appendages we expect.

Still from The Addams Family. Image from addamsfamily.com

Many of the standard items included on the uncanny list appear throughout The Digital Eye.  Wendy McMurdo’s Helen, Backstage, Merlin Theater depicts a child and her doppelgänger posing as though there were a mirror between them that disappeared.  Herbert Bayer’s Lonely Metropolitan incorporates disembodied eyes and arms. Takeshi Murata’s amorphous form from a photographed film still in 001 and Jason Salavon’s Every Playboy Centerfold, The 1970s both create ghostlike-forms from their otherwise (relatively) ordinary subject matter.  When viewed in its entirety, The Digital Eye encompasses a fairly complete index of the uncanny valley.

Image: Wendy McMurdo. Helen, Backstage, Merlin Theatre (The Glance). 1995. Pigmented inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist. Image from henryart.org.

However, the more interesting relationship between the uncanny and this exhibition manifests more subtly, through the techniques employed within some of The Digital Eye’s most captivating works. Like many manmade objects, a particular fascination comes along with a photographic spectacle that is not immediately decipherable; the same way one stares from atop the Hoover Dam and attempts to fathom how mid-century technology enabled this sublime structure’s production, a similar curiosity arises when staring into a photograph that appears too composed to be real. Although the increasing prevalence of Photoshop may have dulled this effect in recent years, a fascinatingly unknown quality remains beneath the surface of a digital photograph that seems too composed to be true.

Julie Blackmon. Powerade (from the series Domestic Vacations). 2005. Pigmented inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist and G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle. Image from henryart.org

In The Digital Eye, Julie Blackmon’s pigmented inkjet print Powerade (From the series Domestic Vacations) makes this effect its focal point, integrating otherwise mundane imagery into a disturbing image that commands not so much a look as a blatant stare.  A mere glance at the photograph would suggest a boy playing in a yard. However, with any closer inspection, the red ball, the boy’s back and the blue bottle of Powerade ensnare the on-looking eye, naturally pulling its attention towards these objects existing on an overtly distinct plane from their surroundings.  Looking more closely reveals the “yard” as an estranged garden of sorts, more likely to house gnomes or the Fountain of Youth than the swing set and bicycle that one would expect to find in an ordinary boy’s world.  A sense of uncertainty pervades the entire image; what initially seemed familiar appears strange and hyperreal.  Despite the absence of an object of decided uncanniness, Powerade belongs in the valley as much as any disembodied appendage.

Although psychoanalytic theory has become largely dismissed as irreverent in contemporary society, the prominence of the uncanny within this photography show is not without significance: feared uncertainty prevails in our present moment. The indecisive politics, government upheavals too complex to read from afar, and an unpredictable economy only offer stability in their constant presence; every week similar stories surface in the news, but with conflicting endings. In this sense, The digital eye is also a reflective one, offering a mirror into a state of being less defined by its subject matter and more acutely understood through an inexplicable composition of elements that creates unease without resolution.

Electric Blue Oasis: The Las Vegas Pool as Sign

Tourists en masse pause to photograph the Bellagio’s outdoor courtyard from a stylized, concrete balcony designed to evoke Northern Italy. Below them, five pool courtyards cover the landscaped expanse in a set of varietals: ambient fountains, lap pools with floors covered in contrasting tiles, hidden jacuzzis walled away behind the foliage. Guards eyeball the key card of all pool entrants, leaving the balcony-only visitors to the wishful thinking the Bellagio’s romanticized imagery is designed to inspire.

Pool at the Bellagio, Las Vegas

Emblematic of relaxation and luxury, swimming pools across America dress-to-impress with waterfalls, floating bars and palm tree clusters. The Las Vegas swimming pool goes farther, embodying a highly constructed destination, attitude or theme: replicated Greek and Roman statuary surround “The Garden of the Gods” at Caesars Palace; the Southeast Asian-themed Mandalay Bay’s “The Beach,” offers sand and a wave pool; lush landscaping, faux grottos and cascading waterfalls line the Mirage’s oasis-like space. The city’s known excess sets expectations high for architectural elements, but almost every “pool experience” now goes beyond the standard hotel pool, creating a total environment.

Despite Las Vegas’s penchant for relentless change, a consistent set of elements persevere throughout the Strip’s structural history: casino, hotel, retail, sign, grounds, porte-cochere, parking and pool; Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s 1972 Learning from Las Vegas incorporates an extensive categorization of such features, all of which continue to be found in Las Vegas today. The most notable component to change from definitive to inconsequential is the property sign. LED lights and digital screens extinguished the neon sign’s artistry and impact; themes previously realized through multi-story signs shaped into pink, atomic clouds, stylized minarets and billowing plumes now manifested as sculptural architecture across the Las Vegas skyline, dwarfing the signs that never grew to the Strip’s new scale.

Stardust sign and casino, Las Vegas. Image from playle.com

In contrast, the Las Vegas pool amplified its size and function since the neon era. When casinos began opening along Las Vegas Boulevard South in the 1940s and 50s, the property’s sign was the dominant promotional outlet.  Taking the lead from the classic motel structure, Strip casinos targeting drivers on US Highway 91 used the sign to represent their contents and themes, while the modest, postage stamp pools offered the tempting contrast of glimmering water against the stark desert. Some hotels, such as the El Rancho, positioned their pools as secondary billboards, supporting the property sign out front: the classic desert mirage materialized for drivers as they emerged from the empty desert.

El Rancho sign and swimming pool, Las Vegas. Image from unlv.edu

Although this oasis effect reflects a promotional aspect of the early Las Vegas pool experience, thirty years later, that role transitioned from architectural element to complete representation. A shift in visual cues occurred as the pool’s value to the overall casino image increased and the outdoor sign diminished. The opening of the Mirage in 1989 initiated the trend of entertainment as a significantly more prominent aspect of casino revenues, largely realized through amplification of the casino’s theme; the “mirage” literally became Steve Wynn’s entire, 3,000+ room resort.  The keystone of this tangible fantasy is the pool,  a winding lagoon of electric blue, surrounded by lavish landscaping, a tiki-themed bar and splashing waterfalls. By adopting the iconic desert oasis as its theme, the Mirage built an image with the pool at its core.

Mirage pool., Las Vegas. Image from thedubaipie.wordpress.com

The immersive pool trend initiated by the Mirage spread quickly throughout the 1990s, the pool’s role as sign increasingly strengthened while hotel themes proliferated and expanded; the Excalibur’s fairytale castle, the Luxor’s glass pyramid and Treasure Island’s pirate ships replaced the standard “tropical” and “old west” iconography historically dominant on the Strip. Exterior and interior architecture reflected the new themes at maximum volume, yet little innovation was put towards the property sign, its promotional power diminished by the shift in vistors’ arrival method, from the road to the airplane.

Booking a hotel upon arrival in Las Vegas is a ritual of the past; instead, travel search engines such as Orbitz and Kayak.com represent the new drive-by. Following a series of clicks, the Las Vegas-bound traveler finds the Strip in digital form; here, the property sign is insignificant. Rather, price, availability, and desirable amenities exert comparable power over the internet searcher’s desire to stop. In order to compete in this marketplace, a casino needs a virtual edge that fulfills the old role of the sign. As a component of the casino well served by glossy imagery and barely-clothed sex appeal, the pool became a natural solution.

The new “destination”  theme common throughout the Strip by the late 1990s effectively translated into matching pool environments. In 1998, Steve Wynn transformed an image of the Italian Bellagio resort into drizzling fountains and “historic” two-story building facades, while in 1999, Circus Circus Corporation realized the Mandalay Bay’s Southeast Asian theme by bringing in 2700 tons of a sand. While the more resort-friendly pools instigate total immersion in the “resort experience” as much as they represent the casinos’ themes, the 1997 New York New York casino’s “Park Avenue Poolside” demonstrates one of the most complete embodiments of its place.

Small, grassy mounds, scattered trees and a yellow volleyball net stretched across the NY NY pool visually cue a condensed Central Park encircled by a line of brick restaurant facades; this is standard Las Vegas pool themeing.  Beyond the constructed details, standard chaises cover concrete pool deck, so densely packed that in the absence of aisles, loungers awkwardly crawl across the chairs to place their towels, Offering space for 840 pool-goers in a hotel that houses over 2000 rooms, the chairs are at a premium reminiscent of New York apartments; once finally situated, the New York New York guests find themselves crammed into the claustrophobic, Manhattan lifestyle, as close to the “New York experience” as many Americans from less occupied areas of the country may get.  The pool, in this respect, offers more immersion in the resort’s theme than the hotel’s purple, art deco-inspired bedspreads or the beer guzzling Lady Liberty sign could ever hope to instigate.

New York, New York pool, Las Vegas

“Park Avenue Poolside” offers little of the traditional experience affiliated with resort swimming pools; relaxation ultimately is not its purpose.  Rather, the Las Vegas pool has become a representation of the hotel in the way the property sign once was, to the point that it inherently embodies the casino’s essence.  In a landscape where every business is selling the same thing, for extreme profits, convincing an audience of business individuality is difficult, and ultimately a deception.  The pool effectively played the role of the sign during the 1990s and early 2000s, becoming a place for immersive signification within the hotel premises. As the most current casinos begin to de-theme their approaches, the next signifier of choice is still unclear but can be expected to create an equally elaborate spectacle.

Every Signifier on the Las Vegas Strip: Fifteen Days, Endless Simulacra

This week, I begin a fifteen day trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, to seek and document art experiences within the notorious mecca of American popular culture. While turning a critical eye to Sin City and its cacophony is far from novel (someone else also happens to be doing a similar project at this exact moment), the motivation behind this trip is to document the art, architecture and visual culture of the current Las Vegas Strip more comprehensively, and with greater reflection, than is possible in the standard three-day visit.

Over the past several months, I have selected and booked fourteen of the most culturally significant casinos on the Las Vegas Strip,* based on their relationships to American history and culture. As I work my way through this experience, Peripheral Vision be turned over to the documentation process, returning to its regularly scheduled programming after April May 29.

Image from wildnatureimages.com

*The “official Las Vegas Strip” refers to the 4.2 mile portion of Las Vegas Blvd. South between Sahara Ave. and Russell Rd.

Bifocal 10: Vogue Italia and Hyperreality

“The industry of the Absolute Fake gives a semblance of truth to the myth of immortality through the play of imitations and copies, and it achieves the presence of the divine in the presence of the natural –but the natural is ‘cultivated’ as in the Marinelands.”

Excerpt from essay “Travels in Hyperreality” by Umberto Eco, San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1975.

Image: “Water & Oil,” photographed by Steven Meisel, model: Kristen McMenamy, image from theworldsbestever.com.

Bifocal 9: The Recovery of Bruce and Breaking with the Modern

“No ‘theory’ of modernity makes sense today unless it comes to terms with the hypothesis of a postmodern break with the modern.”

Excerpt from A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present by Frederic Jameson, New York, NY: Verso, 2002. Print.

Image: “Bruce,” still from Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), image from chud.com

Visual Extras: Rachel Whiteread and SOIL in Residence

In “The 2010 Film Issue” of The Believer, Alex Rose writes on the bonus disc phenomenon and the impact of its philosophy on contemporary culture. The bonus disc is the information excess and readily available obscurity necessary to sell films to the mainstream in a digital age: the behind-the-scenes explanations, outtakes, extended interviews and director’s commentary. Rose argues that many of the pleasures of experiencing these once unattainable features are lost in the present level of media saturation:

“Call it the paradox of accessibility: as more and more shadowy items are brought to light, the allure of their obscurity and uniqueness is compromised.” (Alex Rose, “Bonus Disc Fever,” The Believer March/April 2010)

The bonus feature seems as though it should elicit a sense wonder because it represents something we have never seen; it has the potential to be the filmic equivalent of the stuffed dodo, the hidden crawl space, the original, handwritten manuscript.  Yet, as Rose concludes, typically DVD extras do not equal any of these; rather, most are ancillary distractions from the original film.

There are both successful and unsuccessful “extras” in the visual arts as well. In light of Rose’s essay, Rachel Whiteread Drawings at the Hammer Museum struck me as the behind-the-scenes category of bonus materials, largely due to the exhibition text’s likening of the drawings to the artist’s diary. The galleries were neatly separated by fixture or furniture element: one room for floors, one room for light switches and door knobs, one room for the mattress. Within each space the featured element was represented by one sculpture, the remainder of the room filled with drawings of the same form that utilized graph paper, correction fluid and other materials referencing the drafting process. Yet, the drawings appeared almost flawless, the perfection of the handwriting and preciseness of the painted whiteout avoiding any question of whether they represented discarded versions of Whiteread’s sculptural works; the drawings appeared to be independent works on paper, not the sketches or drafts one would expect to find in a diary.

Rachel Whiteread. Correction fluid, ink and watercolor on graph paper. 17 7/8 x 12 in. (45.6 x 30.4 cm). Private Collection. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Image from hammer.ucla.edu

As the exhibition text noted, the drawings were, in fact, produced independently of the sculptures. There is nothing wrong or unusual about an artist creating two related bodies of work simultaneously.  However, the almost-perfect drawings on view at the Hammer offered limited insight into Whiteread’s creative practice and conceptual frameworks, and I had hoped to find a revealing of process through the prominent artist’s lesser known works.  The drawings had their own beautiful qualities, but when displayed beside the artist’s sculptures, they appeared insubstantial rather than supportive or in rich dialogue with the better, three-dimensional works. Much like the lackluster DVD extra, the drawings also did not provide the uniqueness or obscurity I was seeking.

It was easy enough to meander through room after room, admiring the drawings as beautiful objects,  but suddenly, at the end of the exhibition resided several vitrines of collaged postcards and curious objects for which the preceding galleries provided little expectation. After the relative monotony of drawings and sculptures formatted almost identically within the previous rooms, the messy magazine cutouts and obscure remnants of ordinary life (shoe horns, dollhouse furniture, glass orbs and so much more) were unexpected, feeling like extras among this exhibition of extras, except the vitrine contents were what I had searched for the entire time. Here, among the manipulated photographs of houses and various collections of glass bottles and plaster jaw molds, one could start to reconsider the concepts, ideas and forms that came together to create the sculptures for which the artist is best known. The obscure contents of the collages and vitrine objects do not add up cleanly to create the sampling of works highlighted in the remainder of the galleries; this is precisely why these objects were fascinating.

Rachel Whiteread. Vitrine Objects. Dimensions and Media variable. Private Collection. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Bruce. Image from hammer.ucla.edu

Weeks after seeing Rachel Whiteread Drawings, my encounter with SOIL in Residence brought Rose’s article to mind again, except this exhibition struck me more as the “extended scenes” bonus feature. Expanding beyond the confines of the main SOIL space, SOIL in Residence is located in the large, luxurious Suite 288 of the Seattle Design Center. The SOIL gallery in Pioneer Square is fairly standard for the neighborhood: a narrow, white cube with a small backspace, only slightly larger than the size of a single apartment in Seattle. It typically features one or two individual artists or small group shows. In contrast, SOIL in Residence includes the works of all twenty-four artists from the collective.   The exhibition occupies 11,000 square feet of a showcase space in the Design Center, the “gallery” complete with commercial fixtures such as mirrors mounted to the walls, design sample drawers, and assorted windows details scattered throughout the massive room.

SOIL in Residence installation view, Pacific Design Center; photo by Joey Veltkamp

There is something to be said for the limitations imposed by a small space, particularly in terms of focus, presentation and selectivity; SOIL’s main space is effective in all of these regards. Yet, the “extended version” on view at the Design Center provides a different understanding of SOIL itself.  DVD extras often have an arbitrary quality when viewed in light of the final film, hence their omittance in the first place. However, knowing that a scene was ultimately cut from a feature does not discourage our interest; the prospect of the unseen provokes curiosity and intrigue. The DVD extra fails when it does not fulfill the promise of adding something new to our perspective of the film without distracting from the completeness of the original cut.

SOIL in Residence does not merely succeed as an extra because it is a solid exhibition of its members’ works that compliments the original SOIL. The way these works of art are installed in the strange showcase creates a synergy that could not be found in a gallery or any other conventional art setting. Nicholas Nyland’s Mother admires its own vibrancy through a mirrored wall as its details and complexities are highlighted through the inversion of its shape. The bed portion of Jennifer Zwick’s Bed Dress speaks directly with the fixtures of its surroundings, the luminous fabric accented by the home-friendly lighting levels designed to push furniture sales through this space.

The Design Center as a contemporary art space is obscure and unique, but the installation of SOIL in Residence would make one think otherwise; it is tempting to believe the exhibition was someone’s genius idea years in the making, rather than the product of available space during a moment of economic free fall.  It is, in this sense, the elusive ideal extra: an offshoot of an original, yet perfectly satisfying as an independent experience.

Continuing Education: Las Vegas Studio at MOCA-PDC

The 1960 version of Ocean’s Eleven captures the original form of the Las Vegas Strip on film: the elaborate neon, the intimate lounges, the Rat Pack performances and black tie clientele. The special features of the film’s DVD include interviews with cocktail waitresses who worked at the Sands, Flamingo, Sahara, Desert Inn and Dunes casinos during the period of the movie, nostalgically reflecting on this lost era in light of what Las Vegas has come to mean today.  Inevitably, these women express their reservations about the larger scale, the commercial attitudes and the touristic focus now characteristic of the Strip; all were in agreement that the past Las Vegas was preferable to the present.

Trailer for Ocean’s Eleven (1960)

Now on view at MOCA- Pacific Design Center is Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, which includes photographs, diagrams and films from the architects’ 1968 project that ultimately resulted in the book Learning from Las Vegas (1972).  The Las Vegas of these images is essentially the Las Vegas preferred by the casino cocktail waitresses; as Christopher Hawthorne describes in his review of Las Vegas Studio,

“What comes across in these photographs is an almost overpowering sense not only of freedom and discovery but also of innocence — although the innocence may well have been at least partly strategic, an element of the architects’ self-mythologizing impulse. Still, Las Vegas in these pictures seems remarkably light on its feet, unburdened by the elaborate, elephantine casino-hotel complexes that now line the Strip.” (Culture Monster 3.30.2010)

Experiencing the exhibition, or even just the catalog, Hawthorne’s point is clearly taken; the photographs are stunning.  Intended as a formal study, Learning from Las Vegas presented the illustrative photographs in an empirical manner. Ed Ruscha’s books, including Every Building on the Sunset Strip and Twentysix Gasoline Stations, were explicitly referenced as sources of inspiration for the project in terms of providing objective views of commercial buildings. The second, most common edition of the book was created with the intention of being affordable to students.  Consequently, the photographs and diagrams were primarily small black and white images with limited contrast; a small number were printed in muted colors in order to minimize printing costs.

Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown installation view, MOCA, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles

Walking into the MOCA space, the vibrancy and clarity of the archive is shocking to any eye accustomed to the way these images were presented in the book.  The majority of the exhibition is hung salon style, across a single wall, adding to the overwhelming impact.  Within individual images, the hues are noticeably warm, even among the few photographs that had the benefit of being printed as full pages or in color. The rosy tint of Caesars Palace Signs and Statuary could not had been inferred from the image’s stark counterpart seen in Learning from Las Vegas; the book’s text never suggested the sky might be shockingly orange behind an image of the Stardust Casino as it was being defined as a “decorated shed.”  Learning from Las Vegas communicated its intricate arguments through relatively banal, objective images, but from the original photographs we see exactly how romanced the architects were by the Strip; indeed,  Las Vegas was beautiful.

"Stardust Hotel and Casino, neon sign, Las Vegas," 1968, photo by students/instructors of the "Learning from Las Vegas Research Studio", © Venturi Scott Brown and Associates Philadelphia , image from moca.org.

The idea that the Las Vegas Strip had an aesthetic quality in the 1960s is now acceptable, thanks to a combination of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s book and general nostalgia, as communicated by both Hawthorne and the Las Vegas cocktail waitresses. Since the Learning from Las Vegas project, the Strip has evolved substantially. Venturi and Scott Brown returned to Vegas in 1994 at the invitation of the BBC and determined that many of the elements from their initial study had changed:

“The Strip has seen a considerable reduction in the number and size of its signs and a parallel evolution from signography to scenography, or from the decorated shed to the duck. Vivid examples of the trend toward scenography include the MGM architectural lion’s head, the Luxor Hotel pyramid, the Excalibur castle, and, most vividly, the Mirage lake cum volcano and Treasure Island Caribbean town.” (“Las Vegas After its Classic Age”; published in Neon, Artcetera, Winter 1995-96; Republished in Iconography and Electronics Upon a Generic Architecture by Robert Venturi. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996)

The change in architecture from the decorated shed so instrumental to Learning from Las Vegas, to its “duck” antithesis relates to Hawthorne’s assertion that the Strip has lost its lightness over the past 40 years.  While attending panel presentation “Ugly and Ordinary? Las Vegas Studio” at the Pacific Design Center a few weeks ago, I noticed a sense of disdain for the current state of the Strip; the only references to the contemporary Las Vegas during the discussion included a mention of “cultural slumming” by one of the panelists. Yet, to conclude “Las Vegas After its Classic Age,” Venturi and Scott Brown leave readers with only a question: “Would an analysis of our recent journey, from Las Vegas Strip to Las Vegas Boulevard, prove as instructive as the first for architecture?”

Although many dismiss the current Las Vegas Strip to be a large-scale, corporately owned shopping mall, reconsidering commercial, populist architecture is the mode of thought that characterized the original Learning from Las Vegas. The newer things to be learned may extend beyond architecture, but the prevalence of contemporary artists working with Las Vegas as a subject suggests the application of a critical eye to the Strip is still worthwhile. Dave Hickey writes in his essay “Deciding About Las Vegas,”

“…Vegas can’t be framed, only cropped. The worst snapshot can be the best photograph of Vegas because there is everything to see and, dauntingly, nothing much to look at there, except for people looking and people being looked at–and the setting for a thousand dramas. There is no ‘outside’ position. When you are in Vegas, you are onstage, in a theater in the round, a city-sized rococo stage setting, with a professional chorus. You and your fellow revelers are the actors, and as Warhol said, either everyone is a star or no one is.” (The Book on Vegas 27)

"Las Vegas," Lee Friedlander, 2002, gelatin-silver print, 16 x 20 in., image from artnet.com

The drama Hickey references in this essay from the early 2000s is similar to Venturi and Scott Brown’s reassessment of the Strip in 1994. Since that time, Las Vegas has continued to change, now progressing from the dramatic theming of the 90s era towards a de-theming brought on by the Wynn resort and CityCenter projects of recent years.  Since the 90s, contemporary artists ranging from Doug Aitken, Lee Friedlander and Thomas Struth to Olivo Barbieri, Liz Hickok, and Marc Dombrosky have worked with contemporary Las Vegas as a subject for consideration. Knowing this in tandem with the body of photographs and films in Las Vegas Studio demonstrates that the constant change of this city is what may offer the most to explore. Despite the accompanying appreciation for its beauty, nostalgia for “classic Vegas” is limiting when it prevents critical reflection on the present. Perhaps one of the most important modes of thought to learn from Las Vegas is the acceptance of changes that reflect the aspects of culture we otherwise refuse to see.

Bifocal 8: Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball and Casino Architecture

“The intricate maze under the low ceiling never connects with outside light or outside space. This disorients the occupant in space and time. One loses track of where one is and when it is. Time is limitless, because the light of noon and midnight are exactly the same. Space is limitless because the artificial light obscures rather than defines its boundaries.”

Excerpt from Learning from Las Vegas (Revised Edition) by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1977. Print.

Image: Poster for Lady Gaga’s “The Monster Ball” tour; image from popdirt.com

A Post-Precarious Disquieting

When asked to reflect on the art of the first ten years of the millenium, Hal Foster focused on the precarious: works that created meaning from the uncertain circumstances of their time. The five artistic moments he identifies as exemplary are Robert Gober’s 2005 installation at Matthew Marks Gallery; John Kessler’s The Palace at 4 am at P.S.1; Mark Wallinger’s State Britain, Tate Britain; Isa Genzken’s installation at Sckulptur Projeckte Munster 2007; and Paul Chan’s “The 7 Lights” at the New Museum.  Foster summarizes his notion of this precarious:

“…what I want to underscore in the word is already present in the OED: ‘Precarious: from the Latin precarius, obtained by entreaty, depending on the favor of another, hence uncertain, precarious, from precem, prayer.’ This implies that this state of insecurity is not natural but constructed–a political condition produced by a power on whose favor we depend and which we can only petition. To act out the precarious, then, is not only to evoke its perilous and privative effects but also to intimate how and why they are produced–and thus to to implicate the authority that imposes this antisocial contract of ‘revocable tolerance.’” (“Precarious,” Artforum December 2009)

Although the concept of precariousness Foster reflects on is applicable to a range of historical moments, the definition of the term is so dependent upon time that it is reasonable to assume the works he identifies were most impactful because of the time of their respective existences.

While both the historical and artistic moments of this essay are now over, the Portland Art Museum’s Disquieted seized a similarly poignant point in time to reflect on the precariousness of the 00s from a more distanced point of view.  Upon entering Disquieted, one cannot help but take a moment of silence.  The three lightly illuminated, colossal heads of Jaume Plensa’s installation In the Midst of Dreams appear to silently meditate among a garden of marble stones.  The muted lighting, the shuttered eyes of the figures and the gentle uncanniness of the scene all contribute to an initial inclination to linger with this piece, effectively setting the tone for the movement through the rest of the exhibition.

Jaume Plensa. In the Midst of Dreams. 2009. Installation of polyester resin, fiberglass, stainless steel, marble pebbles, and light. Galerie Lelong, New York. Image from artnet.com

A typical museum experience often creates a sense that one must move quickly and efficiently through the  galleries in order to absorb everything before the museum fatigue sets in and the building closes.  Beginning with Plensa’s heads, however, the pressure to move on and “see it all” was alleviated.   Bill Viola’s The Quintent of the Astonished in the next set of galleries physically slows time for the viewer, appropriating the composition and lighting characteristic of Baroque paintings into to a slow motion action sequence. Simultaneously speaking to the mental and cinematic processes of experiencing reaction, the video leaves the viewer in a state of questioning anticipation, waiting for information and resolution without hope of finding either.

Bill Viola, The Quintet of the Astonished, 2000. Colour video rear projection on screen mounted on wall in dark room. Projected image size: 140 x 240 cm. Bill Viola Studio, Long Beach, CA © Bill Viola.

Jean Tingley’s installation Facility evokes a similar experience of waiting and watching. Tucked in a dark corner at the end of a short hallway, a guard asks visitors to enter the space but to avoid touching “the model.”  Occurring before those about to enter even know what they are about to encounter, this introduction to the piece creates a heightened level of awareness as one proceeds into the dark space. The immediate response is to try to comprehend what can and cannot be done in this room and determine how easily something might be touched or stepped on; after this moment of confusion, our eyes adjust and are met with a small white model of a prison surrounded by a square of light and shadows.  It is only after spending time with the work that the viewer can realize time is, in fact, required for this experience.  Slowly it becomes evident that the shadow of the model building is moving as though there were a dim form of the sun rising and setting.  As Facility fades in and out of the room over the course of about five minutes, it appears simultaneously natural and dream-like, leaving the viewer to observe the cycle mechanically repeating itself.

Towards the end of Disquieted, Shirin Neshat’s Possessed is screened in a room in the center of another gallery, the sounds of the video audible throughout the last several spaces of the exhibition. Like Facility, a sense of repetition surfaces, in this instance through the disjointed sounds of Possessed’s soundtrack. When I walked into the gallery, the screen depicted a woman wandering the walled streets of a desert city alone.  The dramatic sounds and the desperate expression on her face suggest a sense of an undeterminable trauma similar to the perceived drama behind the individuals in Viola’s The Quintet of the Astonished.  Although Neshat’s video has a form of climax as the woman enters a crowded square and causes a set of diverging reactions among the other individuals shown, the piece again ends with a lack of resolve.  As indicated by the title, the woman’s thoughts and actions are not easily deciphered, and yet there is something about her the viewer feels inclined to understand.

Shirin Neshat. Possessed (Production still). 2001. ©Shirin Neshat. Photo by Larry Barns, courtesy Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Image from Art Papers.org

Several weeks prior to my viewing of Disquieted, I read a quotation from the exhibition’s curator Bruce Guenther in Art Daily:

“The experience is post-retinal—you take it with you and it becomes a part of your next conversation. These works provoke feelings that may be lying beneath the surface or below a person’s façade of contentment. The emotional reaction sneaks up on you, perhaps even moving you from laughter to tears.”

I considered Guenther’s suggestion as I entered and as I exited the show.  I then continued coming back to it every time I reflected on this exhibition for the past two weeks as I worked to conceptualize this posting and agreed that his assessment could not be more true. While many works in Disquieted relate to the temporal concepts Hal Foster identified as part of precariousness, the works at PAM had their own command over time and reflection that is more uniquely suited for the present moment. The changes in leadership and attitudes that have arisen in the aftermath of Foster’s precariousness have brought Americans to our current state of transition, a period when consideration of the past ten years (and beyond) can potentially be of the most use as we move towards an era anew.

Bifocal 7: Back to the Future and Modernist Space

“Empty space becomes both fertile and intimidating in modernist special effects, like an extension of Wagner’s blackened gulf between audience and the lit stage at Bayreuth. The blank and unobstructed suggest absence as presence. This exposure was an invitation to add more special effects. After World War II, these modernist spaces were filled very quickly. They were scripted to meet the consumer side of entertainment that continued to grow. Finally they became very busy scripts indeed, particularly after 1955.”

Excerpt from From the Vatican to Vegas: A History of Special Effects by Norman Klein, New York: The New Press, 2004. Print.

Video: Back to the Future Part II (Robert Zemeckis, 1989).