There is a gap between abstract thought and physical reality. In psychoanalytic theory, there is this idea of the ‘transitional object,’ which is an item played with during childhood. This object—often a teddy bear, blanket, or doll—serves as an aid to help a child reconcile the conflict between their inner self and the outside world. While the object is a separate physical entity from the child, it is easily controllable, and offers some comfort for the frustrations of being unable to control the world outside the child’s mind. The process of making things (artwork, games, food, etc.) serves a similar purpose for me, and I think an important part of an artist’s job is to try to bridge that gap between the thought and the physical.
I hate the fact that I can’t fly; that I don’t have laser-eyes; that I’m not even able to do one back flip. I’m equipped with a relatively feeble body that is saddled with some health problems that offer frequent reminders of the physical limitations my mind would so love to cast aside. As absurd as it is, and despite multiple daily examples of the contrary, I can’t help but want to control the world around me, to force it to exist in only my terms. Even with artwork, I find that it’s often difficult for me to really see what others are doing from their point of view.
Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing serves as a great example of the attitude in which I often find myself responding to the world. The piece is an actual Willem de Kooning drawing that Rauschenberg acquired from his friend, and erased. At first glance this may seem like a destructive act, but the two were quite close, and de Kooning not only agreed to the endeavor, but chose a drawing that would be particularly difficult to erase.
Making things often serves the purpose of fostering personal relationships with others, and I’ve found that I can overcome some of my social shortcomings by structuring projects which encourage me to interact with or involve other folks: by collaborative making, publishing or educating, or simply forming rules which require I ask something of others.
The recent collaborative work I’ve done with open source computer-controlled fabrication hardware design has been extremely rewarding in terms of fostering community and using art/creative processes to enable others to access and engage with advanced technology: by publishing plans and tutorials, as well as attending conferences related to art, engineering, technology and making, I’ve been able to engage and form relationships with people of many disciplines from all over the world.
Like Rauschenberg and his contemporaries including Duchamp and Pollock, I’m confident that the role of an artist is to engage new technologies and incorporate their use into contemporary life; even if this means making something that many connoisseurs would fail to recognize as art.
I plan to continue exploring the role of artist as toolmaker/enabler/educator by working collaboratively to develop software and hardware-based tools and objects that address digital and physical technology with thought processes drawn from a variety of disciplines including engineering, contemporary art, music, theology, etc., in addition to publishing educational materials, conducting workshops and engaging with others based on the technical and conceptual aspects of my work and research.
