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Claremont Museum of Art

I went to the Claremont Museum of Art and checked out Ephemeral: Explorations in Light. After passing through the haunted house entrance, the art behind the spooky curtains is really nice. The Claremont Museum of Art has a touch of the progress-oriented style seen at the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood. They partition the space creating an enclave for technoetic art, turning off the lights while blasting the wattage of wow.

C.E.B Reas displayed his triumph TI. He is an extremely talented guy who created an open source art-oriented programming language, Processing.org, during studious endeavors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Labs. Currently he is the director of the Media Lab/Design Program at UCLA. He has a surplus of technical expertise to validate any piece that he projects, while displaying as the supine faction to Yoko Ono’s brigade.

I mention the term “validation”. When one goes to analyze the progress of digital media, technical critics will quickly search into their back pocket of software/hardware experience to judge the legitimacy of a piece. When one looks at fine art, it seems that there is an impetus by critical mass to judge whether or not the work is difficult, or does it pass the question: “Can I do that?”

When this stream of rhetoric sets out toward the work of C.E.B Reas, the answer is going to be a resounding “No. You can’t do that.” In order to demystify the question, one would need the programming background to create a software language, and then utilize the language in a way that is unique and progressive. With all that in tow, Reas sets the icing on the cake with some Dadaist revelry. The kind of revelry that includes projecting IT through an opaque lens filter that breaks the images in distinct pieces, then off a 45 degree mirror, and floor-bound to rest on cylindrical, hovering cuts of white wood. IT achieves the ultimate compliment for a programmer. IT achieves elegance..

Elegance is the ability of a programmer to recite and deduce equations, formulae, and code in the most concise manner possible. Elegance is a virtue that may be tweaked and minimized until infinite proportions. IT physically demonstrates a virtuous form of elegance with eight autonomous pods displayed by three projectors. This demonstration of beam efficiency would usually be represented with one projector per each pod.

The pods are a representation of the digital medium acting in a very organic manner. The imagery of a conglomeration of tiny fractals is representative of time-lapse photography with the blossoming of flowers. The process is metamorphosing while being viewed and evolves within the algorithm or code set forth through programming. The idea of programming is very similar to the organic ideal. One may give birth to an idea, prescribing a manifestation where a new software may replicate on its own, and according to the parameters of the environment.

This analogy is all the more prescient when one reflects the philosophy of some of the other works of C.E.B. He amplifies the temporary state of technology, and identifies how its carnivorous impermanence metastasizes every six months. IT and past works are utilizing a form of presentation that will be impossibly permanent.

“The hardware running this software Process is inconsequential. In time, the hardware will inevitably fail. The current hardware was selected to be as robust as is possible with current technology, but contemporary electronics are fragile. If an element of the hardware fails, it can be replaced without diminishing the work. Eventually compatible components will no longer be available because computing technologies are continually changing. When this event inevitably occurs, a new hardware system will need to be purchased and the software should be rewritten for the new hardware to take advantage of the technical advancements since [YEAR].” (C.E.B Reas)

I think C.E.B.’s art dealer just pointed a loaded six shooter to his temple. C.E.B. openly states the components of his precious light bulbs will die out, the projector’s fan will age stuttering to a stop, and the technology used to create the piece will cease its confluence to the age’s current hardware device. This idea of mortality demonstrates an organic characteristic of technology, the blossoming of an idea only to wilt and be deconstructed via physical and philosophical modalities.

One may wonder if the deconstruction of this piece of fine art over time creates a larger form of preciousness. Does the impermanence deteriorate the overall value for the work? I wonder the financial motivations for C.E.B. Reas, because his art dealer must be at odds with the distinctive anti-materialistic values of the shows title and his press release. Is he a Tesla-like mad scientist, inept at the financial ramifications of his message and aloofness? I hope that his current teaching job pays well and he continues to make great works of fine art, because the combination of an open-source software and aforementioned statements regarding the progress of technology are plenty of negative materialistic bricks for Humpty Dumpty’s wall.