Oliver Raupach

above is Umschreibung (rewriting), a sculpture-
experience by artist Ólafur Elíasson

it’s located in the courtyard of the the Munich head-
quarters of KPMG

KPMG is, “one of the largest professional services firms in the world. KPMG employs over 123,000 people in a global network of member firms spanning 145 countries. Composite revenues of KPMG member firms in 2007 were $19.8 billion USD . . . . KPMG has three lines of services: audit services, tax services, and advisory services. KPMG is a Big Four auditor, alongside . . . ” -Wikipedia

Elíasson’s sculpture can be “experienced” -

one can loop upwards and downwards, and then
upwards and downwards again, and again; cycling
like days in a week, weeks in a month . . .

looking at the Elíasson’s spiraling Umschreibung set
against the repeating patterns of the KPMG building,
you can’t help but wonder about routine -

the routine “experienced” by KPMG’s 123,000
employees

how many of their days are unique, meaningful and
memorable?

how many are routine and forgettable?

how many of our allotted days will we remember?

Where do we draw the line between art and porn-
ography?

this question was the subject of a film and digital
photography forum at usefilm.com

here is a sample of visitor responses:

- One person’s nude is another person’s pornographic image.

- “Where do you draw the line between nudes and pornography?” At the mid point between images that glorify and those that objectify.

- I draw the line where the photo is deliberately created or used for sexual content. A photo in a porn magazine might be artistic if taken out of there and placed in a book of artistic nudes. A photo in that book would become pornographic if put in that porn magazine.

- Somewhere between good and evil.

- Is pornography necessarily evil?

- At a philosophical level, pornography is about sex and nudes are about beauty.

- I know it when I see it.

- For me to know where my line is I apply the following: Will I show this to my family at the dinner table and say “Look what Pa did today? ” If not, it is on the wrong line of our family’s moral threshold.

- There is no single line between nude and porn. There are as many lines as people and these lines run parallel, cross each other, overlap, are perpendicular… Perfect composition and lighting, creative processing, the result is art. If it display two or more people having sex, it’s still art. But your personal line might run different than mine.

- I can’t remember who said it but it was the response of an artist when asked by a female journalist about the nudity in his paintings. He said ‘Art versus pornography is a question for censors. I’m an artist.’

can a date be considered a collaborative work of art?
the folks at WOOLOO.org seem to think so; they are
sponsoring a project called AVANT-GARDE DATING

here’s how they describe it,

“Right now, AVANT-GARDE DATING is selecting
individuals to be matched in carefully chosen couples.
The most innovative applicants among these couples
will receive an exhibition in Berlin, Germany during
the Art Forum (Sep-Oct) 2007.

To apply for the AVANT-GARDE DATING experience,
you must request what sort of person you would like
to meet.

In your application, you should explain how this
new relationship will explore the conventions of
monogamous love, challenge the idea of artistic
collaboration and/or explore one of the other
numerous stereotypes of human pairing.

Based on this information, the Dating Board will
match you with another artist somewhere in the
world.

Out of everyone matched, three outstanding
“couples” will each be rewarded a 1-week exhibition
in Berlin to further explore the concept of human
partnering. During their stay in Berlin, the couple will
be living together in the exhibition space.

Additionally, a 20-minute video piece will be made in
collaboration between Wooloo Productions and the
participating artists during the exhibitions. This work
will be shown as part of “In Pursuit: Art on Dating”
at the Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery in New York
from November 16th, 2007 until January 2008.”

Well, dating as collaborative art - why not?

wikipedia defines art as follows,

“Art is a (product of) human activity, made with the
intention of stimulating the human senses as well as
the human mind; thus art is an action, an object,
or a collection of actions and objects created with
the intention of transmitting emotions and/or ideas.”

there is nothing in this definition that is inconsistent
with WOOLOO’s notion of Dating as Art

further, the dating artist, like any artist, must make
judgments, take risks, surprise, and arouse feelings

he or she puts it on the line, takes a leap and ends
up with something that’s really great . . . . or
not so great

let’s be on the lookout for WOOLOO’s 20 minute
video piece to see what the dating artists will have
created

wikipedia defines conceptual art as,

“art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the
work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and
material concerns”

in other words, the concept is the key element of the
work - not its physical manifestation

Leif Inge’s 9 Beet Stretch is an example of concept-
ual art

Inge, a Norwegan artist, took Beethoven’s 9th
Symphony and he S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D it

that is, he converted a 1 hour symphony to a day-
long musical marathon

he did so with the use of audio software that de-
creased tempo by a factor of 24 while maintaining
pitch

therefore, as in the sample video below, 1 sec-
ond of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony becomes 24
seconds of Inge’s 9 Beet Stretch

the results of Inge’s experiment were surprisingly
good -

Kyle Gann, of The Village Voice called 9 Beet Stretch
a “conceptual tour de force”, he writes -

“The second and third movements are remarkably
lovely, eight hours of ethereal ambient music
between them. The isolated violin notes of the
scherzo’s fugue turn into gossamer lines, while the
slow movement’s dissonances and suspensions take
forever to melt, holding the ear rapt . . . I find this
330-minute version of the Adagio a considerable
improvement over the original. Who would have
thought that Beethoven could have been a great
ambient composer, if he had only divided his
metronome markings by a couple dozen?”

check out the video below for a sample of
9 Beet Stretch, it’s 24-second soundtrack is
1 second of Beethoven’s 9th__ S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D

Theo Jansen creates multi-legged mechanisms that
capture wind energy and convert it into motion:
walking motion

Jansen is an engineer by training who describes
himself as a kinetic sculptor -

he can be thought of as a scientist/artist and his art,
scientific art

and why not?

Jansen says, “the walls between art and engineering
exist only in our minds”

“part of me is an engineer who wants to map the
progress of mobility, another part is an artist who
wants to sculpt the earth that surrounds us and
give it shape”

the video below is a compilation of some of the the
many YouTube videos of Theo Jansen’s work