Title
Screen of Controversies
Artist
Terrance DePietro
Medium
Mixed Media - Dot Matrix
Description
In 1987 I first toyed with a computer's image program...Using a serendipitous process of automatic drawing and the humble tool-of-the-day this image unfolded. Now, with more advanced programs, et al, it will be rendered to an original size - one time and one size. Then, and only then, it will be 'objectified', fixed as 'some-thing', and have 'its' presence.
Briefly, the distinction and the necessity of 'thingness' is as follows: Left in virtuality, an image may be perceivable but it lacks true definition, distinctness and being [lacking its independent, self-sufficient portion of substance] in the sense of its objectified absoluteness - as object. Left as a virtual-reality it remains pliable, dependent; and yet still: 'sub-real', and prey to revamp and misappropriation. All because it can be 'redefined'; just like an 'imagined thought' can plummet into conjecture, or worst 'fantasy'. Then, in 'virtual' ghost-like fashion, merely haunt perception, always 'to echo but never to be': a definite 'thing', entity, sufficient reality that stands alone of itself; without contrive or necessity to be 'plugged-in' to exist!
On the other hand, object image - if it must be reminded, we are concerned only to static, unique, imagery of two dimensional measure - cannot be mistaken as a mock-up; replicate itself in diverse appearance, or be conditional or contingent to be recognized. Its 'substantive thingness' allows it to be an artifact; how it echoes its place-n-time can be subjectively arrived at but as a fixed object it is enjoyable immediately and unconditionally [except to regard].
Much else can be issued by way of the thingness of an image but the more important necessities lie in the event of them. How they are perceived? What they stimulate? Is there unrecognized purpose or potential attached to them or the process of crafting them? Are they more or other than they appear to be - and why? All intriguing questions and more so when is recognized the implication that they exceed our definitions of imagination and companion function of intuition; all to the proposition and imply of 'imaginal' as true, real, and other than yesterday or today.
What intrigues me most about this serendipitous process of image making is that it affords the imagination a venue to correspond with mind (intellect), yet leave the contemplation simmering in question. In so doing, a dialectic develops that questions, demands rather than answers; so allowing new associations for the pre-dispositions that viewers bring to the sensibility of perception - and the viewer may in reality be myself as much as another, yet at another period of receptiveness.
In this specific image we find a quasi abstract figuration that allows a viewer to take hold of and start to question...And it is that 'quasi' figuration, form as imply, that I next wish to touch on; rather than preempt by suggestion a viewer's personal dialogue with the image at hand.
In the first place, image that proceeds to the viewer, where, as little as a segment suggests familiar outline, presents the viewer with a handle to dialogue with the image. If I said of the dialogue that it intuitively proceeded, not many would take exception; if I added the word imagination, dare, all would affirm. But if there is no suggest; if there is no handle, will the viewer be denied a handle to enter in exchange with the image?
That was the courage of Abstract Expressionism, removing the last reminiscence of discernible reality from the image surface, rendering it subjective of chaos and other than reality; and for that it is considered the crescendo of Modern Art and its telos. Yet might we have jumped the gun, on the whole idea of it being an end? I am not alone in thinking it was more an institutional or industrial 'convenience' than an actual ramification of a telos. And it suggests a necessity to revisit said viewpoint; not from the aged mindset of modern [that would be fantasy, impossible] but from the knowledge of its triumphs, tribulations and the historical hindsight of it and all that came after it.
I contend that the informative value of the period was but a meager 'halfway point' of Modernism. And its ascending trajectory - consequential to Abstract Expressionism - was just in naissance. Explicit refer is exampled in Pollack's final works that announce his re-direct to cultivate the ambiguous forms that constellate in the chaos of non-objective expressionistic imagery. Specifically, the projected, secondary possibilities of 'form'; that require, first, to be recognized, and secondly, to then be actively validated by volition and cultivation.
Said practice was shunned, considered reckless and most intimidating at the time. And with that pulling-back, shunning of intuition's announce, a door for a more 'popular' approach opened, paving the way of Post Modern as the next.
But even if the door closed on the potentials of that 'halfway point', the dynamic of it was not dissipated because it had its 'threshold', and what went through it is now surfacing in reaction to the entropy of the 'popular approach' that has already closed-in on itself and the society that is desperate to reinvent itself...and its Art.
What remains in question is: will the industry of Art capitulate, let qualification be reevaluated, suffer indignity? I doubt it could survive; so any return would be less than fluid. And in light of decades of institutional fostering and grooming, such an event would be shattering to countless followers who would be left outmoded...
8jan17 tdp
Copyright 2017 All rights reserved
Uploaded
October 16th, 2016
Statistics
Viewed 789 Times - Last Visitor from Cupertino, CA on 04/13/2024 at 5:46 PM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet
Similar Images
Comments (2)
Amine Cadi
Read and re-read you. You are setting up a real master class. Gratitude.
Terrance DePietro replied:
That you find the relevance in my methods is most appreciated. It is not a course that I am attempting; rather it is an accounting of one individuated experience - an example of the potential that 'image' holds when it is appreciated for the language it is. Each person is a Bundle of Circumstance; an artist has the appropriate tools to hear the wordless whispers... Much thanks for your attentive regard of my attempts. - tdp
VIVA Anderson
Terrance, I've been sitting here, contemplating this artwork,and digesting your thoughts proffered about the direction of Art........and am most struck by your complete comprehension about life itself needing to "reinvent itself", for survival,for affirmation......a world view, inclusive of the world of Art's future.......Once I took all that in, well, mostly all, I came away, finally, feeling 'right' ..... once I accept your premise that 'reinventing one's self' is natural, not founded on negativity.....I felt a freedom needed for so long...selfishly, just for me, myself, and I .....Thank you for the erudition,insights,backstory written for this artwork, and I hope many do read, digest, remember..........in quiet contemplation. That said, now I can let 'go' and go see your two new forest images, without being zoned into your description here. 2/01/19........VIVA
Terrance DePietro replied:
Thank you VIVA, I so appreciate when the words are not lost; even that the images have so much to offer, the wonderful platform of space on these pages allows for added perspective to be mounted to viewers. For so many reasons, I feel it necessary to talk about issues that get glanced over in the normal course of 'art-speak' - the concerns prompted from my writing are for many 'dead issue' But they are not so dead, only made to sleep by an appointed few. Even in their slumber, beneath the hyped rhetoric, they are felt today - but not many address these important 'feelings'. More talk is needed to wake viewers to the whispers of creative image...perhaps these simple exchanges can affect as much! Thank you once again for engaging, head on, into this prospecting of subjective implications in a world of object-oriented exuberance!
Recently Viewed
