Composition/Entropy
part of No Dogs Were Harmed
vizKult/Transient Exhibition
Antonio Serna (books) + Brian Zegeer (videos)
Bucharest, Romania
July 23-25, 2010
Installation Week 1:
Young rhizomes, books unbound. Landscape painting found in Bucharest hangs on wall.
Installation Week 2:
Compositions begin to degrade as they multiply and expand. When the compositions are fully exhausted they are bound. Sunset, or cloudy day, the minimal light makes the setting perfect for the videos by Brian Zegeer, "They Turn Over Their Little Purple Moonlight Pages…" (stop-motion animation, 1 minute, 2010)
Instructions:
1. Travel to Bucharest, roam the streets, choose 2 emblematic images of the city; all the while befriend the feral dog population. A. Parliament, or People’s House; B. An abandoned lot with a “for sale” sign, a sure sign the capitalism is here. This location is situated perfectly near a squat in the vicinity of official government buildings.
2. Take this visual dialectic and perform "Composition/Entropy", an operation by which a new composition is taken from the previous, and then repeated, resulting in an abundance of new compositions simultaneously leaving behind only fragments.
3. Add to the mix "Kraj Majales" (2008) and "They Turn Over Their Little Purple Moonlight Pages…"(2010), two video animations by American artist Brian Zegeer. "Kraj Majales" references both the physical and poetic space of American Beat Poet, Allen Ginsberg. "Kraj Majales" (King of May), Zegeer’s film was recorded on location in Allen Ginsberg's former apartment in the East Village, NY. "Kraj Majales", Ginsberg’s poem, was written on board a plane after being deported from Prague. Though the subject matter is different, they are united in examining our understanding of "composition". "Kraj Majales" promotes the instability of compositions. At most we might catch glimpse of a pair of feeble wings that appear to stretch out to flap and then disappear, or the face of Ginsberg dangling in a shard of mirror. "They Turn Over Their Little Purple Moonlight Pages…" contains a similar aspect of entropy, one that runs deep in film and animation but never discussed: that with each new image/frame/composition, the previous one must be torn apart to make room for the next.
4. The Bucharest is big and full of vacant lots. Forget the Institute, this exhibition is transient.
Composition/Entropy process:
After photos of the locations were composed into panoramic images, I started the task of setting them on paper and systematically producing new compositions from them each day and pressing them onto new sheets and letting them dry overnight. The next morning I would repeat this process on the compositions created the day before until I am left with fragments.
Subjects/Locations for "Diverging States" books:
Geographically, the two areas chosen are within close proximity to be designated neighbors, but architecturally they are completely different worlds. The Parliament aka Casa populi (People's House) is without a doubt a symbol of permanance and confidence. The buildings around the main boulevards are like urban canyons leading up to the it, the buildings produces a kind of tunnel vision in this corridor of buildings, directing your vision to the mammoth building. Towards the northeast of the Parliament grounds, blocked out of sight by the buildings that line Bulevardul Unirii (Union) lies the second area I have chosen. It is a site that remains in ruins, with evidence of previous buildings, a recent history demolished, perhaps to make room for the new government buildings and new city planning.
There is, in this area, standing oddly apart from the rest of the structure is an old two-story building without windows or doors where a family(s) lives. By the looks of it, the living conditions are apparently very basic, possibly no running water as I've seen the children defecating in the grounds surrounding the building, and surely no heat or electricity, as it is always dark and with very few window and door coverings for insulation. It is a building that must have some importance having withstood the fate that the other buildings once in this area. The ironic thing is all the municipal buildings that surround to obscure this building have the adverse effect from the backside of making it look as if it were center stage.
Below, aerial view of the proximity between the two locations. On the left is Parliament aka Casa Populi (The People's House). On the right, the abandoned lots hidden by the buildings that line the major boulevards leading to the Parliament.
No Dogs Were Harmed main page.
Bucharest, July 2010. vizKult/antonio serna