“ILLOGICAL JUDGEMENTS LEAD TO NEW EXPERIENCE 08”

Re-presenting history as a visual-conceptual experience

“Illogical Judgements Lead to New Experience 08” (1) is a map and a system. It is obsessive, compulsive, analytical and intuitive. The work examines implied language and presents an art-navigation-investigation that is constructed as an image in 2 Dimensions. Through its concept and construction, the work functions as a random thought conductor that links and questions past events through the placement, consideration  and reaction to  marks on recycled note pages that occurred during their previous Art uses.

The work forms part of an ongoing enquiry that explores the overlapping functioning of concept and physical structure within a contemporary work of art.

“ILLOGICAL JUDGEMENTS LEAD TO NEW EXPERIENCE 08” AS SEMANTIC EXPERIENCE

The purpose of describing "Illogical Judgements 08" using text is to explore the difference between the encounter of the physical work and the work presented as documentation.

"Illogical Judgements 08" is constructed from unspecified quantities of used 59mm x 88mm note book pages, the exact number is irrelevant to the outcome of the concept. The note pages had formed the physical basis of a number of earlier works including, “Chair Structures” 2007, “Presented Structures” 2007, “What I see is The Noise of My Own Thinking”. These used pages were divided into four categories as a deliberate, conscious activity that formed the starting point for the physicalization of the object which is “Illogical Judgements 08”

NOTE PAGES DIVIDED INTO THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES

Written Marks, Dirt Marks, Crease Marks, Multiple Marks

UNSPECIFIED QUANTITIES AND LENGTHS OF BACKING PAPER FROM 12MM WIDE DOUBLE SIDED SELLOTAPE COLLECTED AND RECYCLED FROM EARLIER WORKS.

BROWN PARCEL TAPE, BLACK INSULATING TAPE AND MASKING TAPE.
These are items usually associated with joining or sealing containers or physical systems. In the work the tapes have been transformed into demarcation/ linkage structures, both separating and re-enforcing relationships.

ASSORTED DRAWING PINS RECYCLED FROM EARLIER WORKS.
Each pin physically anchors an object/ idea/ history to the structure, in this case the studio wall.

CONSTRUCTION

Prior to the construction of this work, the note pages were placed in piles relating to the type of marks they contained. The piles were designated; Written Marks, Dirt Marks, Crease Marks and Multiple Marks. The classification of the pages was the only conscious and predefined activity that took place during the construction of the work. The pages, tape and pins were placed next to each other based on intuitive reactions to relationships suggested by different combinations of marks. The various tapes form and re-enforce demarcations between the resulting combinations of note pages. Each mark references and links past events whilst the tape isolates and/or reinforces points of reference, creating a non-linear system of interdependency and interpretation.

The use of Note pages, like the earlier use of breeze blocks in" 2 Stools, 38 Breezeblocks, 5.1 Surround Sound, 1 Room "  2006  and the chip board sheets in "COMPOSITE WALL" 2005 , continues my exploration of materials that symbolically form both the foundation and structure of containers for human experience. Where as Breeze Blocks and Chipboard sheets are used to construct physical enclosures, note books provide a framework in which to physicalise thoughts and exteriorise ideas. These ideas become metaphorically enclosed and controlled within the boundaries of the page. The relationships created by the placement and presentation of the pages in this work suggest an implied use of language. The materials used in the construction of Illogical Judgements 08 should not be considered as serving any aesthetic function; they are however conceptually relevant to the idea being presented. Illogical Judgements 08 is the product of 1 or many ideas, rather than 1 or many pieces of paper.

The work evokes complexity through the documentation of multiple relationships, but appears to serve no purpose. The viewer may try to link the work to some notion of a mathematical formula but none is provided or intended. "Illogical Judgements 08" is very simple when stripped of its visual format. It presents an exploration, without explanation of the findings, into the relationship between four sets of identically sized recycled note book pages. The work exists as the result of an artistic enquiry into the re-presentation of thought process without the use of written or spoken language. The structure of mapping or charting develops from the illogical (lacking orderly continuity) use of the materials, suggesting links between past events and descriptive structure.

The removal of text from what is essentially a text work purges the non essential detail from the presented historical document, revealing fact relationships in the form of marks on paper, without the subjectivity of personal perspective.  By intuitively reacting to the evidential facts of history, rather than perspectives of history and re-presenting these reactions as relational facts, the work attempts to facilitate understanding without distorting meaning.

The physical form that “Illogical Judgements currently takes should not be considered final, exact or perfect. The work could be presented as a text that defines its construction and concept, or transformed into a sound or series of sounds that describe the idea. Equally it could be constructed as a series of HTML codes and presented as a web site. It could be described verbally to one person or every living person. The work could be addressed scientifically, constructing a formula that explains the idea, but it is not necessary to transform the work into any of these formats for it to become more “Art like”. The core concept of “Illogical Judgements 08” is mode indifferent, in as much as it does not rely on a specific presentational aesthetic as its primary mode of communication.

Due to the intuitive placing of the note book pages; the re-presentation of their history makes no attempt to become a revisionist or rhetorical account of the past. Past history has not been changed, erased or consciously manipulated to present a distorted version of the past. Each document has been re-presented in its entirety where each fact can be seen in isolation or relation to its neighbour. 

The re-presentation of the note pages is intended as both a self critical evaluation of Art history through the appropriation of my own earlier works and an invitation to engagement with an audience not just with the current work, but all the preceding, effecting functions, legacies and latent potentials of the idea.

Why use “Illogical Judgements Lead to New experience” from Sentences on Conceptual Art (I969) by Sol Le Witt for the title of this work? The statement seems at odds with the analytically framed art proposition that is described by Kosuth in Art After Philosophy.

“Works of art are analytic propositions. That is, if viewed within their context-as art-they provide no information whatsoever about any matter of fact. A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist's intention, that is, he is saying that that particular work of art is art, which means, is a definition of art.” (2)

Le Witt suggests in his 1967 text "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,

"That “In terms of idea the artist is free to even surprise himself. Ideas are discovered by intuition” . (3)

These two seemingly opposing views on conceptual art and my on going exploration of the relationships between the perceptual and the conceptual, describe the theory that underpins my practice.

“Art works are fundamentally about the idea, but it is not possible to completely remove the object or its method of construction”.

"Illogical Judgements 08" is an ephemeral, conceptual, aesthetic object that is also an historical document.

Copyright© 2009 Karl Hobbs. All rights reserved.