I Want All of This. All of This I Want.

Truth should always be thought of with a lowercase "t". Our knowledge bases -- spiritual, scientific, or other -- are foundations that require from us a continual process. No knowledge base is ever a method for definitively attaining truth, but a vehicle that uses practice or method to continually touch Truth, for a discrete moment of time. It is not in the starting point or the end that Truth is found, but in the process: in the beautiful and agonizingly complex middle.

The statement "I want to be a better person" is empty without reflection on the process to reach the goal. Unless I look at the steps I can take to reach this point, the statement has zero weight or possibility of being realized. The larger and more demanding statement, "I Want All of This. All of This I Want.", speaks to wanting a truth and understanding of the entirety of ones environment. It, like the previous statement, requires a reflection on process to become something other than an ambiguous, empty statement. The machine which writes this continually on the floor is a mirror to us as we get stuck in a place of only focusing on the goals of our lives and not the process: checking items from a list and removing ourselves from the process involved; removing ourselves from the ability to find truth through our actions.

We walk into a room to find this machine continually writing this phrase; this large machine striking awe in us, as its scale dwarfs us and we feel as if we are entering a temple of some other entity. What we are seeing, though, is a mirror of ourselves. And as our feet scuff the chalk writing on the floor, and the machine's process suddenly becomes the point of focus because of our interaction with it, we come to find truth in this place. We see that the shadow that this machine casts, which engulfs us, is a shadow of ourselves. That we maintain this ability to find truth through our attention to process and a desire to fill the space in which we stand. This room with this machine becomes a shrine for the process of finding Truth and a testament to our ability to create Truth from within.

< p> This project is in collaboration with Olson Kundig Architects. All renderings, photos, and mockups were completed by Olson Kundig Architects. Visit them here: http://www.olsonkundigarchitects.com/. There are some very nice, talented people there.

All posted photos of this project are credited to Joe Iano. You can visit more of his work at www.ianophotography.com. I encourage you to do so.

this time we see, this time we feel

we turn our heads towards the light (or wander aimlessly in the dark)

This piece was created to take advantage of the physical space where it was installed as well as mimic the way the space was used as an architecture firm. The wall itself was constantly bathed in light from an overhead skylight, creating a shifting pattern of light and shadow. By using a series of light sensors positioned around the stylus, the machine can determine where locally around it the wall is brightest. At each drawing interval it locates the two brightest areas around it and then moves in a direction weighted between these two areas. The length of line it draws is based on the brightness differential of where it currently is compared to the average of the area around it. In areas that are overall bright the machine draws short line segments, while in darker or more varied areas it ends up drawing longer line segments in an attempt to end up in consistently bright areas.

The machine, in a sense, basks in the light of the wall, content and lethargic, while becoming anxious and restless when faced with being in shadows. In this way the machine not only is interacting with the physical environment of the space -- the cycle of light -- but is mimicking aspects of the creative process that take place around it as well; we feel the bliss of finding creative solutions, yet these moments are always followed by a time where clarity seems to allude us persistently.

All posted photos of this project are credited to Joe Iano. You can visit more of his work at www.ianophotography.com. I encourage you to do so.

creatures as standing waves

I'm not sure it is possible to collect all the parts of anything. There are always pieces that will lay at different layers; at different scales. Smaller or bigger. Floating around a scene like electrons orbiting a nucleus -- far off in the distance but important to the global composition. In the moment of capturing and bounding our surroundings they cease to be what they were. They become an object made new: maybe angular or soft like the brush strokes that describe children's stories. The object is outside itself--projected/injected into a space that is not worse or better, but is undeniably different.

Talk to me.

Drop me a line if you want to talk about anything. You can also find me on Skype (mvonrose) if you're a voice sort of person.

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