2018
dimensions 84’’ x 84’’x 60’’
In The Question Concerning Technology published in 1954, philosopher Martin Heiddegger posits that technology was originally a means of revealing the truth, its essence ascending from the very nature of humanity, thus unearthing and fomenting questions in ethics and agency within contemporary life. He writes that ultimately, technology resides in the constellation of revealing and concealing in which the coming to presence of truth comes to pass, and art is a way to navigate this constellation, this paradox, because artists and poets view the world both as it is and as it reveals itself to be.
Philosopher Theodore Adorno’s 1951 seminal book Minima Moralia was dedicated to the Sorrowful science of the teaching of the good life. Adorno maintained that a good and honest life is no longer tenable because we live in an inhuman society. Poignant reflections and insights on late industrial societies dreadfully resonate into life in contemporary societies, exploring themes such as the ungenuineness of being genuine, the desolation of the family, the decay of conversation, and the history of tact. An attempt to illuminate humanity’s descent towards inhumanity, it still offers some enlightening mitigating thoughts to dampen and perhaps escape the clutches of our fall:
“A gaze averted from the beaten path, a hatred of brutality, a search for fresh concepts not yet encompassed by the general pattern, is the last hope for thought.”
This sculpture depicts the tension and contradictions that lie within and beyond the complex relationship between the interplay of forces that meld and impact nature, culture and the vast unknown. I am influenced by Western and Eastern philosophical musings. The Tao is the notion of the flow of the Universe as elaborated in Eastern philosophy. It is believed that energy (the Qi) is dispersed across the universe and where it coalesces being results, and where it dissipates nothingness results. A precarious balance is created by the found wood branches resting above an aluminum TIG-welded root system, such that a single displaced branch makes the structure tip off-balance and collapse. Such is the equilibrium that is maintained between frenzied humanity, indifferent technology and energetic nature. Always we dance blindly on tiptoes knowing not when the next fall will happen.