CladioAnnotation
what?
how?
why?
choices?
what came before?
what will follow?
Sam on Claudio:
What is Claudio working on? A project near and dear to his heart, yet geographically distant. A subject of obsession for some time now, he is looking at the remote land of North Sentinel Island, located in the Indian ocean. Since I have met him (but likely longer) he has been busy with researching this place, the history, the current state and the (few) images in existence of the place. As we have an opportunity to screen a project as part of the EYE Research Lab, Claudio aims to make a video-based work that may present a fraction (or it's entirety) of the ongoing research study. The contents or precise format of this work has yet to be determined. Likely using different archive material, potentially the changing representations of this island from the west through maps, maybe also with text and narration.
The island is a place that is officially owned by the Indian Government and is deemed illegal to visit. There is a true local, natural way of life there, that does not wish to be harmed. The people there are not necessarily interested in contact attempts from the outside/western world.
There are troubling stories and even some videos of attempts in the past of people trying to visit and connect with the Sentinelese. Claudio has extensive notes, reflections and studies on the tough yet thought provoking endless list of questions surrounding this place. Ultimately, he begins to speculate over the protection of the island. He mentions that if someone was so inclined, the island could easily be conquered. just as so much else of the world has been by 'stronger' powers. However, this island and its relatively untouched way of life still exists. He asks, do we need places like this? The starting point may be desire.
The manner in how this work is coming together is through extensive research as mentioned, through text, still and moving image. Lots of what exists to be found on the island comes of course from a western perspective. Especially the violent nature of images, shot at extreme distances, with intruding zoom lenses, feeling like a sort of modern warfare tactic. A forced representation void of honesty comes about in this difficult material to look at. As mentioned earlier, many difficult, important and somewhat existential questions rise to the surface. The questions seem to be the most crucial and intriguing element to this work, especially when it comes to images, making them and making meaning of them.
One might ask why? Well, he does not intend to copy and paste these failed disrespectful tactics that have been used by others in the past who were fascinated by the island.
In an effort to see beyond the fixed latitude and longitudinal characteristics of this place, Claudio has allowed his understanding of this island and the questions surrounding it to lead him into other worlds as a space to contemplate. Drawing parallels to Rothko and abstract expressionism for example, layering this overtop of Google satellite images. It's difficult to put the inquisitions and work he is doing into words but there is a fascinating world of deep thought and reflection he is letting himself sink into. The goal is still to continue to learn more and more about his subject, but ultimately do this in a humanistic rather than scientific manner.
In summation, Claudio has been navigating a range of choices in an effort to navigate his and societies interest and comprehension of a foreign place, a particularly peculiar one at that. What to include, what not to, contemplating the sublime, and contemplating his own position in this work. He has laid the ground work for an intriguing project that will speak volumes about the island but also about power, representation, desire and more at large.
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A text very-much-in-progress I've written in the days after the session about the two images I showed in class. MIght become the textual core of my EYE project. I wrote it in a freewriting session, currenlty in the phase of editing and expanding through recursive annotations. Currently - as always - struggling with finding the right words to say what I want to say in the most concise way. I only have 4 minutes. I want it to have a rather observational character, while adding some extra layer of reading of the two images. Dual-dialectic structure - two images, so different, yet so similar on multiple layers. Have to find the right structure / sequence of the different information in the text
1 or 2 images (possible title)
These-Here are two images. 1 and 2.
1 was made in 1953 in New York City, supposedly in an open space studio loft. Large windows, wooden floor, rats.
2 was made between 2020 and 2022, somewhere between a satellite orbiting around Earth and supposedly in a data center somewhere on Earth - in a remote location.
1 was made by an artist famous painter
2 by an obscure cryptic algorhitm - software.
Both 1 and 2 bear-carry-show-expose the marks-traces-signs of the conditions of their own making, the technical conditions of their existence as images.
1 was made by the repeated, prolonged-in-time combination and interaction of hands, eyes, and a full body moving in space.
2 was made by the approximatedly instant interaction, driven by an algorhitm / algorithm-driven, of satellites, planes, large scale cameras, lenses, sensors, chips, solar panels, antennas, computers, software, servers, hard drives.
1 is made of oil paint brushed on a cotton canvas stapled on a wooden frame. 292.74 x 233.68 x 4.45 cm. Dried in a cold winter - or a sweaty summer of NYC.
2 is a composition-mosaic of an unspecified number of overlapping digital photographs presumably shot by satellites and planes-aircraft for mapping purposes , computer-processed and merged-rendered into one, seamless, spatially continuous image, stored in a server, uploaded on the internet as part of a user-accessible 3D model of the Earth. Pixels, (meta)data, variable resolution are as its raw materials-components.
(other?)
Both 1 and 2 bear-carry-show-expose the marks-traces-signs of the conditions of their own making, the technical conditions of their existence as images.
One could easily say/claim/argue that these two images/they stand at the extreme opposite sides of-within the image-making spectrum-range of possibilities. That they are the most different ones/That their difference is utter, irreducible. Alpha and omega, zero and one. That their juxtaposition is the most paradoxical, contradictory possible. That they are irreconcilable in every respect/aspect.
opaque vs transparent
abstract vs realistic
self-referential vs representational
unique vs reproducible
authorial vs anonymous
artistic vs operational - mechanical - technical
analog vs digital
(other? couples of opposing notions)
But is that really so?
1 (or 2?) is No. 61 (Rust and Blue) [Brown Blue, Brown on Blue] by Latvian-American painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970), who is commonly regarded as one of the most prominent names of New York City's abstract expressionism and color field movements of the 1950s and 1960s.
2 (or 1?) is a snippet/fragment/--- taken from Google Earth Pro's satellite imagery in the immediate surroundings of North Sentinel, an island in the Indian Ocean/Bay of Bengal, whose inhabitants have been living in voluntary isolation for centuries, avoiding any contact with the outside world.
But is that really so?
Close reading of 1: / Notes on 1: / Observations on 1:
brush strokes in multiple directions - brush is stroked in multiple directions
brush lingers lingering on the edges between shades of blue - edges as liminal spaces, spaces of chromatic cross contamination, constant clash, spaces that open up the canvas (?)
the engagement, the search, the quest made visible through the repeated gesture of painting over, all over
layering movement leads to layered structure of the painting
process of "getting" the colour, the shade, the nuance, the hue in what is by no means a plain impenetrable monochrome, a solid colour surface
a quest, an elan, a search for something further, beyond the canvas' surface
(other observations ?)
Close reading of 2: / Notes on 2: / Observations on 2:
2 exposes the exact, precise moment of superposition of google grid/gaze onto the surface of the ocean. a plain, virtual, theoretical plane, a matrix made of square modules, pixels repetition of the identical, is imposed over a complex, 3d, unknown surface. the grain of the real is encased in a grid, reduced to discrete units, pixels, and simplified to / associated to metadata. everything becomes measurable. the grid is supposed to be infinite, virtually endless, boundless, a 1 to 1, flexible mesh covering the Earth all over. it is not. 2 shows that, exposes its fiction, its arbitrary premises-nature, the virtuality of its infiniteness. 2 is taken along the edge between what is inside, caught in the grid, and what is outside, escaping its hold-grasp. from a supposedly realistic reproduction of the ocean, to a solid blue (RGB ......) flat surface - a color field indeed. in the middle, the grid's frayed outer edge, glitching in its failed attempt to be infinite, to grab on something more.
Both 1 and 2 feature edges as key elements in their compositions.
Edges at the shared border between surfaces.
Edges that escape the two dimensional nature of the image.
That give depth. That open up spaces.
Liminal spaces, in-between spaces, spaces of possibility, spaces of questioning, spaces of revelation, spaces of quest