Movement in Retrospect
Master of Fine Arts Thesis by Emily Cappa, 2011
PREFACE
-- In my pursuit to create works that bring "art and life closer together1", I create art concepts to be implemented into the practice of everyday living. These artistic concepts are built as models for better ways of living and existing in the world2, as well as an attempt to "emancipate individuals3."
-- My artistic practice for the past three years has been to document and create a shape based on my daily movements which has contributed to a heightened consciousness and self-awareness of locality. Seeing a narrative form through the abundance of shapes acquired by each passing day has furthered my interests and desire to create a shape for each day I have been alive. These shapes formulated in retrospect are created under the same regulation and guideline of connecting the destinations of each day in consecutive order like the series, Every Destination in One Day Connected From Each Location in Consecutive Order.
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-- However, the perplexities of memory and questionable legitimacy causes the production of shape to not be so straightforward as suggested. Therefore, how does one articulate a line drawing of movements when particulars for the day have been forgotten or travel cannot be coordinated to a specific date?
-- The research to be conducted will be of my own personal movements and will be implemented to inform a text written in a nontraditional and non-verbal script as the previous series. The drawn shapes are considered an extension and genuine form of coherent writing, further authenticating the research and fluently communicating my autobiographical history of ritual and motion. Presented as an artist's book, Movement in Retrospect captures the exuberance of journeys taken in one's life.
INTRODUCTION
-- Starting in March 2008, and still presently executed each day, I began documenting my travels by creating a drawn shape to commemorate the day. The series is appropriately titled Every Destination in One Day Connected From Each Location in Consecutive Order. As a result, I have become overly conscious of my actions and the impact every movement has had on the day's final result. Each day my natural tendency is to create the most interesting shape possible and I will coordinate my schedule accordingly to achieve this. There are days, however, when I do lose primary control over the outcome (such as when running unanticipated errands), but will always attempt to compensate by eliminating or adding areas of interest to my journeys.
-- The series was created to connect with the art of everyday and bring value to what would be normally overlooked. The objective is to make an audience aware of the worth derived from ordinary action. Although the lines rendered are specific to my journeys the concept is inevitable and applicable to everyone everywhere.
-- Each day begins as a blank slate that is ripe with rendering possibilities. The completed shapes are fitted into a square, equal in size to the previous days before, representing the current Gregorian calendar date. The even proportions referencing the calendar suggest time's solid and calculated structure, continuous occurrence to happen everyday, and never discriminatory to a day past or future. A shape ends and a new shape begins each midnight of wherever I am. For most days the single shape is created within a twenty-four hour time frame, however, exceptions such as Daylight Savings Time or traveling through a different time zone will either extend or reduce the allowed time to make the shape. Regardless of the amount of time the shape reflects for formation, it is always fitted to the same-sized calendar square as all other days.
-- The completed drawings are displayed in a calendar grid that communicates my life's narrative. Onlookers are able to distinguish my daily routine through the repetitiveness of similar shapes, as well as realize any substantial life changes when a considerable transformation in the pattern has occurred.
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-- Realizing the restrictions that the series placed on my daily actions and travels, I began addressing those subjects of movement that I was avoiding or preventing myself from undergoing. A new series of lines represented the immobile and indecisive movements, like staying home and wandering, that had a strong likelihood of eventually occurring again in my lifetime and would cause a predicament to the regulations set by the day-to-day shape series.
-- The conclusion was to render curved and loosely drawn lines representing the less structured methods of movement as opposed to a straight line (as seen in the previous series) reflecting a certainty and confidence within my travels.
MOVEMENT IN RETROSPECT: PROCESS
-- Seeing the shapes that form a narrative, I found myself imaging how the narrative would appear had I started documenting my travels many years sooner. During my child and adolescent years, my family and I moved to a new home on several occasions. As a result, I attended many different schools and was constantly forming new acquaintances. Now in my adulthood, the changes to my daily life seem to happen with growing infrequency. Had I been documenting my movements from when I was born, the gradual shift in patterns seen between the years would certainly make an interesting visual-narrative.
-- The undertaking of making a shape for everyday alive, however, comes with a set of difficulties and complications. Most notable has been my inability to remember all my past whereabouts and associating travels to a specific date in time. This set of complications causes me to then additionally compensate for (within the drawing) my memory's inaccuracy and uncertainty. By associating the likeness of uncertainty to the drawings of indecisive movements (like wandering and meandering), the same curved lines were utilized again for demonstrating the mind's forgetfulness.
-- To begin with the reconstruction, I first identified each of my home addresses to a specific and definite calendar date. Home is used as the starting point for all reconstructed days because of home's constant role and persistent existence in my life and thus demonstrating the importance of home to the project as a whole. This association allows me to pinpoint and layer in the various occupations and activities, such as schools and jobs, to a certain era in my lifetime. Simultaneously, I extract the various ordinary exceptions to daily routine, such as holidays and vacations. These exceptions are marked by inverting the white square to black, as a reminder that this day acted outside the everyday and is different from the presumed routine. Therefore, an entirely different shape will be drawn. The process of reconstruction is one of continuously drawing, erasing, drawing, and erasing as memories arise.
-- The reconstructed shapes are never entirely finalized and are always in a state of flux. Days are edited when memories and events are either proven or new information arises and may potentially challenge the present represented shape. For most undocumented days, what I have drawn are the hypothesized routines. Missing are the mundane experiences such as grocery shopping, visiting a friend's home, or traveling to the local park. These destinations are neither an extreme exception far outside the everyday or enough within the systematic commonplace to be remembered. Mundane experiences are typically uncharted as a separate map coordinate because of the lack of the evidence needed to associate the visitation to a precise date in time. However, to amend and not devoid complete exclusion, the straight vs. curved lines (representing certainty or uncertainty) are used in varying arching degrees. For example, on days where I am certain I was in school but I am not certain of all points of destinations in travel, the arched line may be only slightly straightened and never exist entirely linear to compensate for mundane experiences.
-- Common objects aid the process of reconstructing my journeys by providing clues to past whereabouts. I first sought intimate collections of photographs and souvenirs because of their very purpose as keepsakes meant to facilitate memories about certain moments in time. However, upon closer examination and interrogation, all objects, personal possessions, and furnishings, found within any room of the home reveal a profound archive of history and information. Personal narrative is discoverable through identifying how each object came into ownership and correlates to its initial acquaintance. Equally revealing are documents (abundantly acquired and perhaps unconsciously kept) like old letters, postmarked envelopes, receipts, pay-stubs, and bills, which also provide abundant resources for unveiling the past. The action of studying common objects is the realization that material commodities contribute to a slew of emotions and reminiscences.
-- Researching an entire personal past becomes sentimental and emotional at times. Within the process of remembering, some memories are rejoiced in and fondly recalled, while others are considered undesirable and would rather be forgotten. Regardless of any personal disposition or preference, all past movements remembered are included and treated in an unbiased manner. Any conscious exclusion would compromise the narrative.
-- The perception of memory transforms with time and potentially reveals a different realization of events than originally thought or felt causing the legitimacy and accuracy of any memory to be questionable. A memory is always in a state of flux.
-- The integrity of memory and its initial emotional response are additionally represented in a series of line works. The curlicue line was adopted to allude to the romanticized, ideal and perhaps superficial notion of past events. However, once an event is researched and evidence revealing the past unfolds, the curlicue straightens to a linear line (like the arcs of uncertainty) to indicate the reality of the situation.
-- Throughout the process, a variety of fine artworks were made to help configure the gestures of different movements. Although these works do not necessarily represent a specific date per se, their construction helps to articulate a visual language and alphabet of imagery. These pieces are a byproduct of the process and support the communication of concept.
-- Additionally, physical art objects created are consciously crafted so they may be also deconstructed. The minimalist qualities and structures allow for the reuse and redistribution of materials (including repurposing for utilitarian functions.) Materials used are cloth, paper, wood, and string and media like pencil and chalk, which vanish with time and/or are easily erasable. The minimalist quality is another reminder of the attainability to make fine art and further establish art's ubiquitous availability.
-- Minimalism is as well applied in carrying out and recreating the concept for oneself as participant (in both Movement in Retrospect or Every Destination in One Day Connected From Each Location in Consecutive Order). The concept may be executed and documented with any tool available and no tool is dismissed for having either a complex or simplistic nature. Regardless of the instrumentation chosen and used, the true underlying importance is in gaining awareness of position and locality, the relationship of distances between places, and further understanding the attainable potency and impact of local activity.
CONCLUSION
-- Movement in Retrospect continues as a work in progress. It grows through recollection and the discovery of evidence of previously overlooked past instances, and causes which subject the memory to a constant and changing form. This makes for any definite conclusion of past to be a near impossibility and conditions the narrative characters and shapes to also be circumstanced to a continuing evolving appearance.
-- The act of researching continues within an indefinite time constraint. Individual days will be reevaluated and scrutinized for what is certain and unknown.
-- The next development of the project's research will be to obtain documents existing outside the convenience of solitary accessibility. Instead, interaction and participation with strangers is involved. These include medical and school attendance records whose access is only permitted by administrators. Research by conversing with old acquaintances will also take place to discuss the shared memories of our mutual movements. These dialogues, in addition to verifying or challenging pre-existing documentation within the project, also promote conversation and collectivity-- another stride towards community in the promotion of expressing the art within everyday life.
1. Johnston, Stephen, ed. The Everyday. (London: Whitechapel; Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008.) 13.
2. Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. (Dijon: Les Presse Du Réel, 1998.) 13.
3. ibid., pg. 11
Movement in Retrospect: Drawings >>
For more information, please contact: emilycappa (at) gmail.com
With thanks to my advisors David Dunn and Kerry Schuss.