Critical Statement
Semiotic expressions project themselves onto reality. We all happen to perceive the same happenings differently. Individually, we have unintentional associations between symbols, images, and ideas that cause us to cast our preconceived notions onto our surroundings and our total reality. Idiosyncratic thoughts and emotions change individual perception of reality. No two people have the same perceptions. I evoke this phenomenon in my work, and therefore force the semiotic relationship between viewer and perception. I allow the viewer to see their real surroundings, but I have changed them slightly through shaped, textured glass.
Using my developed visual language, I am creating a painting in physical space as not to separate viewers from their environment, but to distort their view of it. I use clear, textured glass to allow viewers to physically see behind the individual objects, however they see skewed versions of their environment. The more layers of glass there are, the more that the viewers’ perceptions change. They will see some things clearly and others warped. The forms of the pieces of glass connect to those in my two-dimensional paintings, emphasizing how I uniquely see our shared world.
Development of Ideas
Myriad: The Untimely Observation that No One Cares as Much as I Think They Do focuses on the ways we individually see ourselves, each other, and our world. Each of us views their life through a lens of lived experiences and idiosyncratic thoughts. Our conscious and subconscious processes are all unique. They depend on what we have experienced and how we think. When we perceive any happening, we shift it subconsciously to align with our unique existence. Our minds give us a mere impression of what is actually happening. Thoughts, memories, feelings, and many other factors affect the way each person perceives their surroundings. No two minds view the same reality. Changing attitudes and gaining experiences are two of the ways that we can change our overall view of the world, and Myriad highlights those perceptions that can skew reality.
The many glass shapes in Myriad layer and embellish each other to shape a different reality when the viewer peers through the collective object. The glass pieces work individually and together to make new textures, forms, and colors that change their environment. The clear quality of some glass distinguishes it from other media, like a painted canvas or plaster forms. When one looks at glass, they see mostly its surrounding environment: the walls, the floor, and any objects behind it. The glass’ texture and outline are the only things separating it from the rest of the space, and this effect compounds with each additional layer of glass. The shapes of glass encompass drawing techniques, because they are simply an outline with textures and minimal color between the lines. When those outlines cross over each other, they create intriguing coinciding shapes and complex lines. They create an other. The different textures of layered glass create a unique space that changes as the viewer walks around the whole artwork. The piece itself completely changes with just a few steps around it, and it therefore changes the whole environment.
Myriad is intended for viewers to interact with the original space of the work through a veil, or lens of multiple layers of glass. The work itself is nearly invisible until the viewer approaches it and physically interacts with it. One must walk around the collective object in order to see all of its individual and compounded elements. The intent was to prompt the viewer to physically move their body to see the work at all angles. By doing this, they can see how the work distorts its environment differently with every step. Each way the viewer sees Myriad is unique.
My previous work with painting was the inspiration for this method of production. My abstract paintings take on layer after layer of thin and thick paint to create one cohesive image made up of many others. I wanted to be able to create this effect within physical space, so that viewers could see the process and interact with either one layer at a time or all at once. Just as my paintings lack a focal point, Myriad has no singular way of viewing it. The shapes of the glass echo those in my paintings. I have developed a signature visual language within my work. I create independent forms that interact with and react to each other, and they follow a set of rules: they must have only curves, unless they are expressive lines emphasizing the relationships between forms. They also must interact with at least one other shape within a painting, as well as interact with the environment of the painting as a whole. The forms are based from my imagination, as well as from glob-like forms like bacteria. They are largely inspired by manipulated outlines of objects, notably of my cat.
Soo Sunny Park and Wassily Kandinsky were two of many inspirations for this work. Although they are from vastly different periods within visual art, their work encompasses a natural flow which Myriad attempts to echo. Park’s installation work fills rooms with a dreaming, floating quality. Her work utilizes light and color that is already present in that environment by using reflective surfaces in her work, like mylar and plexiglas. Unwoven Light, in particular, causes ambient light in the immediate environment to reveal itself rather than revealing other objects in the room. This is especially influential in the making of Myriad. Alternatively, Wassily Kandinsky’s work is largely inspired by music, another semiotic mode of understanding. His paintings create harmony within themselves based on the shapes and colors he uses. The individual forms, processes, and layers of his paintings largely inspired the paintings that preceded Myriad.
Many prototypes came before Myriad, including traditional stretched canvas paintings, plexiglas layered paintings, and a smaller, hanging, glass sculpture. All of this experimentation lead me to the conclusion that I needed to create this work using a larger space. I wanted to be able to dissect each layer of the ‘painting’ and show viewers exactly how the work was made. I wanted it to be beautiful as well as thought provoking. Each piece of glass is cut and grinded, before being either drilled or glued to long pieces of monofilament. These pieces of monofilament hang from braided wire going across the second floor railing in the lobby of the Leu Center for the Visual Arts. Having each piece hang independently emphasizes the importance of each form having its own personality. Because each glass form is different, they all interact differently with each other based on the other pieces in their close environment. Myriad allows different conversations to occur between pieces on a smaller scale, as well as a larger dialogue between every piece. By using the existing environment as the majority of the content of this work, I can manipulate elements that are already present as my materials. Using light and color that already exist within the space, Myriad shows viewers how things can change, as well as how they do change.
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The lens of textured and colored glass in Myriad: The Untimely Observation that No One Cares as Much as I Do emphasizes how each viewer subconsciously distorts reality with their own expression, as different semiotic modes are interpreted uniquely by each individual. Semiotic modes refer to the visual, verbal, gestural, musical, and other resources for communication. Humankind communicates with verbal language, but only some of the time. We have accepted gestures, facial expressions, art, and music which point others to what we feel. These are semiotics. There are many different ways aside from language to communicate thoughts and ideas, and many of these are signs and symbols within art. However, people’s own semiotic expressions differ slightly across humanity. Therefore, no one can ever successfully interpret a conversation, a situation, or an art object exactly the same as another intends. Ferdinand de Saussure’s concept of social semiotics encompasses the notion that humans communicate in many different signs and codes. We produce verbal and nonverbal cues in human interaction, similar to semiotic modes of expression. However, these signs are often misunderstood and contribute to social and emotional ambiguity. No matter how efficiently we speak, sing, play, or make, no other person will ever fully understand what we mean because of their unique perception. Our arguments are lost in translation.
Myriad is an attempt to contribute to the conversation of semiotics and pragmatics, commenting on how everyone projects their meanings onto situations and objects. Pragmatics refers to the different modes of language, and how it is used. Different from linguistics, it does not depend upon an actual spoken or written language to exist. Pragmatics can also refer to different semiotic signs notifying others of ideas. Humans are mainly verbal creatures, but there are countless nuanced ways in which we communicate. The more nuanced these signs become, there is a broader possibility that they can be misinterpreted. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, everyone’s individual and global semiotic signs cloud their perception of any happening. No two individuals can ever perceive the exact same situation because of their different lived experiences and thoughts. This cloud of perception produces isolation in certain situations, but it can also promote community when individuals think similarly. We relate to those who see the world like we do, and although it will never be exactly the same, unique perceptions of reality foster relationships. Human beings are designed to connect. We crave communication and relation with other people in order to function properly, and similar outlooks on the world help us to create those connections. Our personalities are examples of how different experiences can shape the way we think and perceive. However, we will never be able to accurately communicate because of the cloud of perception. Our consciousnesses are all idiosyncratic, and therefore we will never truly understand one another. But we can try.
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Myriad not only embodies many individual, unique glass shapes, but it is also a collective object. “The whole is other than the sum of its parts,” like Kurt Koffka said, Myriad produces extraneous images and colors around it and creates its own form comprised of many smaller pieces. The work physically embodies the Gestalt effect, because it not only exists as 300 glass forms, but it also exists as one larger body whose parts change each other and the whole. The work can be viewed as individual pieces, but it is impossible for those individuals not to be perceived in relation to those around them. The light and color will always coincide, so long as the glass forms are in close physical position to each other. Some pieces even reflect other objects around their environment, if the viewer is close enough to them. Each piece reacts differently within its environment because of its unique texture and shape, but Myriad can also be read as a different, whole object.
The title, Myriad: The Untimely Observation that No One Cares as Much as I Do represents my unique perspective as its creator. I am aware of my cloud of perception and how I see everyone as hyper-aware of others and, specifically, myself. I discovered my tendency to assume that other people in my life were far more concerned about me and my faults than they ever are. I am extremely aware of my mistakes. However, becoming aware of this cloud of perception will help individuals to connect better with others. It will always be there, but becoming familiar with one’s own perspective will help to break it down. My attempt by creating Myriad is to make its viewers more aware of their own presence in the world, how their thoughts differ from others’, and how those thoughts can shift the way they see the surrounding world. I personally lean toward being disengaged in reality and more focused within my own thoughts, and I hope that Myriad helps others to see where they see reality clearly or unclearly.
Bibliography
Berger, J. (2008).Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Dillon, G. L. (n.d.).Writing with Images: Toward a Semiotics of the Web. Retrieved from
https://courses.washington.edu/hypertxt/cgi-bin/book/