TRASH
Spring Issue
2011 April
Library
2011- 2012
EARTHSKIN (Odd Fellows Hall)
Spring 2011
Untitled water tower (OFH)
October 2010-
Untitled wind chime tower (OFH)
November 2010-
Enclosure (tentative, gathering place, OFH)
2010- 2012
EARTHSKINS 108-200
2011- 2012
The Biography of Aaron Moment
2008-
Since 2008 August, I have been writing about the art I produced through
1999-2008 (and continuing projects through 2009). Meant to fucntion
simultaneously as a thesis and as a way to clear the decks, the writing began
to morph into a monograph soon after I started to organize the material; after five months of
research and several irreconcilable drafts, the monograph felt over-analyzed
or academic. On the other hand, I noticed that this manuscript had more or
less always existed as scattered scribbles or original notes that
accompanied—often preceding specific—cycles of work over the course
of the decade. Those reams of background information often outnumber the actualized elements prepared for installation.
In that raw form—as those preexisting scribbles—the manuscript made sense as a
performance, specifically of an allegory of social stricture. In that lack of
a recognizable structure or narratological coherence, my work seemed to
better retain—and sometimes even regain—its organic origins and purpose. In light of
this realization, I re-organized the “monograph” such that would allow it to be
symphonically honest to the inherent cacophonic polyphony of my art. At this
point, my writing is composed of seven interwoven monologues that bring out
seven distinctive strands within my artistic biography/vocabulary so far—whereas Aaron
Moment negates the significance of seven and, by extension, negates every
elective facet of my reality.
The monologues are to be read by four unnamed characters—or readers of
the biography—who interact among themselves only indirectly through the weave
of the performance. The monologues are opposing narratives, statements, and/or
instructions for installations and theory that accompany and support my work.
I've used interviews, autobiographical data, and journals written in
first-person and third-person to describe a multiphrenic existence. Projected
on screens and monitors behind the four readers are images of the work produced
during certain periods, images of the detritus, and of the notes themselves.
The performance is threaded with notes I made while producing the 2000 trilogy
Substitute For Love, Suicide Is Always An Option and Reseduction—a collection about behavior modification and prescribed
identity—and the notes I made within the context of the installation EARTHSKINS
(particularly the canvas Hand-Painted Reality). There is a codependent
relationship between each pair of the four readers. The invisible pairing-off of the
four readers refers to the situation of the ConjointTwin characters that
frequently take a prominent role in my installations: Neither twin is able to
take a step—fail or succeed—without the other; constructs of identity usually
argued behind the scenes, in the studio, are repeatedly overwritten and
uncovered by the four readers.
On the whole, the work is about unreliable information and recasting fragments
of reality: It functions as a diagram or navigational tool. Each character
demonstrates specific contradictory traits and each character is loyal to its'
objectivity toward the other three characters: Having many small conflicting
truths can read as one large falsehood.
Spring Issue
2011 April
Library
2011- 2012
EARTHSKIN (Odd Fellows Hall)
Spring 2011
Untitled water tower (OFH)
October 2010-
Untitled wind chime tower (OFH)
November 2010-
Enclosure (tentative, gathering place, OFH)
2010- 2012
EARTHSKINS 108-200
2011- 2012
The Biography of Aaron Moment
2008-
Since 2008 August, I have been writing about the art I produced through
1999-2008 (and continuing projects through 2009). Meant to fucntion
simultaneously as a thesis and as a way to clear the decks, the writing began
to morph into a monograph soon after I started to organize the material; after five months of
research and several irreconcilable drafts, the monograph felt over-analyzed
or academic. On the other hand, I noticed that this manuscript had more or
less always existed as scattered scribbles or original notes that
accompanied—often preceding specific—cycles of work over the course
of the decade. Those reams of background information often outnumber the actualized elements prepared for installation.
In that raw form—as those preexisting scribbles—the manuscript made sense as a
performance, specifically of an allegory of social stricture. In that lack of
a recognizable structure or narratological coherence, my work seemed to
better retain—and sometimes even regain—its organic origins and purpose. In light of
this realization, I re-organized the “monograph” such that would allow it to be
symphonically honest to the inherent cacophonic polyphony of my art. At this
point, my writing is composed of seven interwoven monologues that bring out
seven distinctive strands within my artistic biography/vocabulary so far—whereas Aaron
Moment negates the significance of seven and, by extension, negates every
elective facet of my reality.
The monologues are to be read by four unnamed characters—or readers of
the biography—who interact among themselves only indirectly through the weave
of the performance. The monologues are opposing narratives, statements, and/or
instructions for installations and theory that accompany and support my work.
I've used interviews, autobiographical data, and journals written in
first-person and third-person to describe a multiphrenic existence. Projected
on screens and monitors behind the four readers are images of the work produced
during certain periods, images of the detritus, and of the notes themselves.
The performance is threaded with notes I made while producing the 2000 trilogy
Substitute For Love, Suicide Is Always An Option and Reseduction—a collection about behavior modification and prescribed
identity—and the notes I made within the context of the installation EARTHSKINS
(particularly the canvas Hand-Painted Reality). There is a codependent
relationship between each pair of the four readers. The invisible pairing-off of the
four readers refers to the situation of the ConjointTwin characters that
frequently take a prominent role in my installations: Neither twin is able to
take a step—fail or succeed—without the other; constructs of identity usually
argued behind the scenes, in the studio, are repeatedly overwritten and
uncovered by the four readers.
On the whole, the work is about unreliable information and recasting fragments
of reality: It functions as a diagram or navigational tool. Each character
demonstrates specific contradictory traits and each character is loyal to its'
objectivity toward the other three characters: Having many small conflicting
truths can read as one large falsehood.
