Yes, Barry, I know this work of McCall. It is wonderful. That piece was shown here at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art last year. In the manner of 'haptic space', it is true (now that I think about it) that as the 'cone' unfolds through the film projection that it provides a genuinely sensuous, spatial experience - but not that one rules out 'thought'.
Thanks to others - Max et al - on this 'haptic' biz. I am sure art history is constantly about this circle where the object cycles back and forth between a non-representaional primarily sensual space to a fully realized representations. The back and forth we see between figurative painting and non-figurative, between conceptual art &/or allegorical art and found-object collages. Often the cycle ends up blending what otherwise may be oppositional - neo-figurative painting will incorporate the textures and colors of non-objective work, etc.
The bigger question or intrigue is to how haptic space relates to the making of language (poetry, in particular). On one day, I find myself saying that my haptic works are 'writing poems without words.' On other days, I see the haptic space of experience as one where the marks preceed the presence of language and, I wonder, if such a place, authentic enough in itself, is one that I have gone into in order to refresh the origins of words, at least, my use of them in terms of making poems.
It is curious to me now with my Obama/100 day (haptic a day) project where I am combining it with commentary on my 'intellectual' experience of the shaping of this new Presidency. People, I am sure, will look at these haptics and will say this work has nothing to do with or about Obama (even though they may really like the work). I am continuing the strategy by listening closely to Obama and the responses to Obama. I cannot help but sense the intense changes that we are among Do have an impact on how my pen and ink hits the paper as I am working. Of course, I add some exercises. This morning - while making a haptic I listend to Thelonious Monk and various groups play Ruby My Dear, 'Round About Midnight', etc. Imagining Barack Obama and Thelonius Monk in the same frame - full of their different trajectories and histories as people of color - I found a productive mix! Then, of course, there is doing the same thing while listening to Fox News
madness.
Yet, whether or not - other than my imposition - anybody can look at the resulting haptic composition and think it has anything to do with Obama is anybody's guess.
Perhaps the drawings can just end up being a provocative realization of the conflicting and various flows of anyone's life
At the rather big opening of my Gallery show the other day, I can only say that people seem to liven up, and be energized and happy in the presence of the work.
But I can say that is true for many of us in front of a Rembrandt,too!
By the way, some other artists I identify with haptics include Henri Michaux, Mark Toby, Cy Twombly, Dubuffet, aspects of Giacometti, and Robert Motherwell (particularly his 'automatic drawings').
Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net
--- On Tue, 1/27/09, Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: No Subject
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 11:57 AM
I believe I first encountered the concept "haptic" in relation to
Anthony McCall's
"sculptural" work within the medium of film. You can get a sense of
his most famous
piece here:
www.tate.org.uk/tateshots/episode.jsp?item=9117
The process of immaterial materialization (I was able to witness this work at
the
Hirshhorn museum during 2008) can perhaps be compared to watching Stephen
Vincent
gradually realize a far from traditionally mimetic image of a poet performing
during a
similar period of time.
Here's an overt contemporary application of the term at the University of
Warwick:
"This Wednesday¢s Perspective talk features Dr Darren Ambrose from the
Department of
Philosophy whose research on French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's philosophy
of art, in
particular his work on painting and cinema will form the basis of his
analytical
presentation of Anthony McCall¢s film installation.
This engaging talk will explore the number of ways in which the specificity of
Anthony
McCall's extraordinary film works can be productively considered through
certain
Deleuzian aesthetic concepts, including 'haptic vision', the
'time-image' and the 'sensation
of invisible forces'."
Barry Alpert
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