NO PLACE but NOW
Track 1: Collaboration in Art and Life
Ethan, Chris and Deirdre talk about collaboration in art and life, and the challenges posed by working together from 2700 miles apart.
Ethan and Chris explore the technologies of communication that became the “sketchbooks” and information repositories of their collective process, and delve into the conceptual dimension of technology and place versus geography.
Gwyneth, Ethan and Chris talk about the Patterson footage, Big Foot, cryptozoology, and the hoax. Both artists argue that we’re designed to believe things that are outside (bigger, greater, scarier) of ourselves, and that there’s a re-visioning that occurs when we’re confronted with those things, relating that to art’s potential to “open the seams.”
Gwyneth asks the artists to reflect on the role of sound in the installation, from the chance flapping of the flags that defined the outside of the building, to the intentional sound elements in the interior of the gallery.
NO PLACE but NOW was a transcontinental,collaborative project created specifically for the Minna Gallery at CIIS by artists Ethan Worden and Christopher Lavery. Ethan and Chris, who are both sculptors, worked together to investigate the notion of place despite 2,700 miles between them. The installation, on view from late May-July 2010, integrated a range of media and means, some of which are explored in interview clips below.
Arts at CIIS Curator Deirdre Visser and Sound Artist Gwyneth Merner are in conversation here with Ethan and Chris; three of us were together in a small office in San Francisco, with Chris calling in from Denver over Skype. Special thanks to Ethan and Chris and to Gwyneth for her editing expertise.
