THE FOREST (GLASS DELUSION)
Charest-Weinberg Gallery, Miami
March 19 - June 18, 2011
There is a legend that after Buddha died, his shadow lingered in a cave.
It actually is possible for a shadow to persist without any sustaining object. Light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum. The moon is about 384,400,000 meters away from Earth. Hence, if the moon were instantly obliterated during a solar eclipse, its shadow would linger for more than a second on the surface of Earth. If the moon were farther away, its shadow could last several minutes.
We can extrapolate to posthumous shadows that postdate their objects by millions of years. We can also speculate about an infinite past in which a shadow is sustained by a beginningless sequence of objects. As one object is destroyed, an object of the same shape and size seamlessly replaces it. This shadow antedates any object in the sequence and so refutes the principle that every shadow is caused by an object. Shadows are not dedicated dependents. Although slaves to some object or other, they can switch masters.
– Roy Sorensen, Seeing Dark Things 2008
Q&A with Charest-Weinberg:
CW: Let"s fast forward to the new work in The Forest (Glass Delusion); which is currently installed at my gallery. Can you talk about the premise for the project?
JE: About two years ago, I moved into a new studio space in the Glendale area of Los Angeles. A few months in, I decided to remove a built-in shelf that was eating up useful space. As I removed the shelf, the drywall behind it was old and rotting and it quickly started to crumble apart, revealing the studs and wall behind it. To my surprise, a beautifully enigmatic drawing was revealed – a hieroglyph, really. At first, I just thought that it was a plumbing or electrical diagram, but as I pulled down more of the rotting drywall, more drawings appeared and these had figurative elements (an eye and a head) incorporated into the abstract linear diagram.
I knew immediately that this would be source material for a future project. So, I documented the diagrams and then covered them back up with drywall. Then a few months later I began to plan a series of projects that were based directly on interpretations of the five discovered diagrams.
CW: So the exhibition The Forest (Glass Delusion) currently installed in the gallery is based specifically on one of the diagrams. Can you elaborate on the relationship between the objects in the gallery and that diagram?
JE: The central object Glass Delusion (Open Source) is a reconstitution of the data present in the original discovery. So it is like taking all the matter and information from the discovery and breaking it down to its component particles, only to be reconstructed in the same way that DNA or genetic traits are passed through generations.
In the case of the object Glass Delusion (Open Source), the mixture includes the material and visual information of the wood framing from the wall that the original found diagrams were on (including the diagram pattern illustrated in the found drawing), the deep black color of the wall, and a cyan and magenta paint drip that was also found on the wall. And, of course, the abiding concept of translation or interpretation of all of these elements which hovers, swirls, clings, or otherwise emanates from the central structure, depending upon one’s perspective or depth of engagement with the entire installation.
This mixture was then reconstituted into a second-generation object descended from the original source data. That facsimile object, at the center of the exhibition, refers to a lens or a vector where the information is absorbed, filtered and dispersed outward.
CW: and the plexiglass objects, how do they function?
JE: Those six objects, titled Mirage Artifacts, are related to that central sculpture as dispersed objects. Each represents the resulting atomized data exploded out from this lens/vector structure, whereby the plexiglass carries with it information from the original found diagram embedded into their design.
Within each of the “Mirage Artifacts”, the linear pattern of the found drawing is used as a footprint to determine the translucent plastic"s three-dimensional shape. The original found drawing had three distinct types of lines, each of which I extracted and isolated from the other two. By layering them in different orders and intuitively building out three dimensionally from those patterns, each of the six Mirage Artifacts, has a unique form. But if you look through the form, the translucency of the object allows you to still see the original pattern of the found drawing; though now splintered and discharged in three dimensions.
CW: You also use mirrored plexiglass and its reflections as part of the installation; can you speak about those choices?
JE: I wanted the objects to be as close to virtual as possible. I wanted them to register purely as data, and the mirror added to that disembodied essence by creating a sense of weightlessness. And, naturally, the immaterial reflection cast by the plexiglass itself necessarily expanded the object into a virtual plane. Also, the reflective effect of the gallery’s directional lights bouncing of the mirror and through the plexiglass forms created another interesting layer of translation. The found drawing’s original pattern was again processing through another vector and exploding onto the gallery walls, further mapping the circulation of this discrete bit of data as it continues its endless dispersal through time and matter.
March 19 - June 18, 2011
There is a legend that after Buddha died, his shadow lingered in a cave.
It actually is possible for a shadow to persist without any sustaining object. Light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum. The moon is about 384,400,000 meters away from Earth. Hence, if the moon were instantly obliterated during a solar eclipse, its shadow would linger for more than a second on the surface of Earth. If the moon were farther away, its shadow could last several minutes.
We can extrapolate to posthumous shadows that postdate their objects by millions of years. We can also speculate about an infinite past in which a shadow is sustained by a beginningless sequence of objects. As one object is destroyed, an object of the same shape and size seamlessly replaces it. This shadow antedates any object in the sequence and so refutes the principle that every shadow is caused by an object. Shadows are not dedicated dependents. Although slaves to some object or other, they can switch masters.
– Roy Sorensen, Seeing Dark Things 2008
Q&A with Charest-Weinberg:
CW: Let"s fast forward to the new work in The Forest (Glass Delusion); which is currently installed at my gallery. Can you talk about the premise for the project?
JE: About two years ago, I moved into a new studio space in the Glendale area of Los Angeles. A few months in, I decided to remove a built-in shelf that was eating up useful space. As I removed the shelf, the drywall behind it was old and rotting and it quickly started to crumble apart, revealing the studs and wall behind it. To my surprise, a beautifully enigmatic drawing was revealed – a hieroglyph, really. At first, I just thought that it was a plumbing or electrical diagram, but as I pulled down more of the rotting drywall, more drawings appeared and these had figurative elements (an eye and a head) incorporated into the abstract linear diagram.
I knew immediately that this would be source material for a future project. So, I documented the diagrams and then covered them back up with drywall. Then a few months later I began to plan a series of projects that were based directly on interpretations of the five discovered diagrams.
CW: So the exhibition The Forest (Glass Delusion) currently installed in the gallery is based specifically on one of the diagrams. Can you elaborate on the relationship between the objects in the gallery and that diagram?
JE: The central object Glass Delusion (Open Source) is a reconstitution of the data present in the original discovery. So it is like taking all the matter and information from the discovery and breaking it down to its component particles, only to be reconstructed in the same way that DNA or genetic traits are passed through generations.
In the case of the object Glass Delusion (Open Source), the mixture includes the material and visual information of the wood framing from the wall that the original found diagrams were on (including the diagram pattern illustrated in the found drawing), the deep black color of the wall, and a cyan and magenta paint drip that was also found on the wall. And, of course, the abiding concept of translation or interpretation of all of these elements which hovers, swirls, clings, or otherwise emanates from the central structure, depending upon one’s perspective or depth of engagement with the entire installation.
This mixture was then reconstituted into a second-generation object descended from the original source data. That facsimile object, at the center of the exhibition, refers to a lens or a vector where the information is absorbed, filtered and dispersed outward.
CW: and the plexiglass objects, how do they function?
JE: Those six objects, titled Mirage Artifacts, are related to that central sculpture as dispersed objects. Each represents the resulting atomized data exploded out from this lens/vector structure, whereby the plexiglass carries with it information from the original found diagram embedded into their design.
Within each of the “Mirage Artifacts”, the linear pattern of the found drawing is used as a footprint to determine the translucent plastic"s three-dimensional shape. The original found drawing had three distinct types of lines, each of which I extracted and isolated from the other two. By layering them in different orders and intuitively building out three dimensionally from those patterns, each of the six Mirage Artifacts, has a unique form. But if you look through the form, the translucency of the object allows you to still see the original pattern of the found drawing; though now splintered and discharged in three dimensions.
CW: You also use mirrored plexiglass and its reflections as part of the installation; can you speak about those choices?
JE: I wanted the objects to be as close to virtual as possible. I wanted them to register purely as data, and the mirror added to that disembodied essence by creating a sense of weightlessness. And, naturally, the immaterial reflection cast by the plexiglass itself necessarily expanded the object into a virtual plane. Also, the reflective effect of the gallery’s directional lights bouncing of the mirror and through the plexiglass forms created another interesting layer of translation. The found drawing’s original pattern was again processing through another vector and exploding onto the gallery walls, further mapping the circulation of this discrete bit of data as it continues its endless dispersal through time and matter.
