If you’ve read the previous two blog entries regarding Jane Philbrick’s large-scale landscape project, you’re probably fairly well versed in the concept and process of transforming the 1.5 acre outdoor space on MASS MoCA’s campus into an industrial garden. The third and final blog installation reveals how The Expanded Field will welcome museum-goers and North Adams community when it opens next fall. Here’s a glimpse of the artist’s vision for the public’s use of this “industrial garden�. To answer our question of how this space will be used, Jane explained that, for her, a visit to a museum “succeeds� when the encounter with an artwork becomes a portal to possibility rather than an artifact for information. As a cultural “compression zone,� a museum should be a venue for inviting dialogue that can’t be or isn’t happening otherwise. Jane sees MASS MoCA as a place of pilgrimage, a dynamic oasis from the grazing and herding behavior of global tourism. She cites the examples of architects Luis Barragán (Mexico) and Charles Correa (India), who believed garden spaces were essential to the museum experience, serving as both a preparatory place for thought and a sanctuary for reflection and contemplation.

When asked whether visitors would be encouraged to move in certain ways through the architectural, spatial, and temporal choices of the site, Jane offered her vision of the space as a performance of possibilities. The Expanded Field becomes a venue for social gathering while still allowing the opportunity to be on one’s own, the solitary company of one among many. The option of different pathways provides focused engagement and freedom to the viewer, offering a journey-like experience, whose final destination is discovery.

Visitors to The Expanded Field will sit among The Rounds, made of dry stack wall and rammed earth, and wander the Asphalt Meadow, planted with native grasses and wildflowers. They can follow the fragmentary path of the Allée under the shade of river birches bordering the Hoosic. The viewer can swing on the “Sing Set� (a swing set that sings the harmonic scale), while viewing the optical illusion mural based on the Lorentz Transformation (which states that space and time are not absolute, but depend upon the observer’s relative motion). They can gather in the Body Pockets, seating carved into the sloping wall of the foundation ruin that are metaphoric of musical notes on sheet music, while sampling the “audio mobile� of the Sound Wall, featuring Jane’s original spoken text compositions in collaboration with Brad Wells and the Williams College vocal group Roomful of Teeth, mingling with the “found sound� of the site.

Jane Philbrick’s Expanded Field marks a convergence of the performing, visual, and media arts that makes the MASS MoCA experience one that is so fearlessly unconventional and steeped in possibility. With the weather turning, and the planting season coming to an end, stay tuned as Phase I draws to close and Phase II picks up speed.

BIO: Jane Philbrick is an artist and educator. Recent exhibitions include “Everything Trembles� (Skissernas Museum, Archives of Public Art, Lund University), “The End� (The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh), “Pull� (Location One, New York), “Insight Out� (Wanås Foundation, Sweden). 2007-10, Jane was an artist Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. 2008-09, she was the inaugural International Fellow at Location One. Jane is currently an artist research affiliate with the Singapore-MIT International Design Center and Visiting Professor and Director of Programme, C : Art, an MFA program at Valand School of Fine Arts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

It seems that most of the art at MASS MoCA comes and goes almost as quickly as the leaves in the fall! We at the museum are excited to have the opportunity to constantly present new pieces to museum goers, but also love to keep up with the artists who have shown their work here. Do you (past visitors) remember artist Chris Doyle’s Apocalypse Management, which showed in the museum from April of 2009 through February of 2010 as a part of the exhibition These Days: Elegies for Modern Times? It was the digital animation installation that existed as an elegy to disaster. The piece portrayed contemporary disaster imagery in the form of a city lying in the path of an oncoming storm, as well as people coping in the aftermath. Although the piece had an overwhelmingly harrowing outlook for the future state of the world, it maintained a sense of hope as wounded, lost, and dying characters worked their way out of the destruction. The video, which was commissioned for MASS MoCA in 2009, was the first of a series of five that Doyle has based on 19^th-century Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire.

The second part of the series and Doyle’s first solo exhibition, a video of hand-drawn animation, is now on view at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York City. Doyle’s new installation, Waste_Generation, is a commentary on the cycle of consumption and transformation and is set in a world threatened by the technology that it has become so reliant upon. The animation is in a constant state of flux and metamorphosis as a “dump site for outmoded tools of production, such as computers and oil drills, dissolves into a paper mill whose smokestack generates paper money. The currency condenses into the pulsating plant life of a jungle, where falling trees shape themselves into a bleak factory silhouette that belches pastel clouds. Black crows fly out of them, only to divide and metastasize into the replicating patterns of Victorian wallpaper and oriental rugs. The rugs frame a suburban development of homes with Islamic domes, as seen in on TV in a flash that brings the cycle back to its beginning.�

Of the follow-up video to the one shown as MASS MoCA last spring, Chris Doyle says, “First, I wanted to explore the way ornament has been used throughout history, and across civilizations, as a cultural representation of nature,” Doyle says of the piece. “Secondly, while the generation of waste is basically destructive, it serves a tremendous creative urge that is ultimately, and gloriously, the essence of being human.â€� Learn more about the project here.

In our previous entry, we gave you insight into some of the considerations and ideas that prefaced the development of the southern-most extent of MASS MoCA’s campus by artist Jane Philbrick and her team. Now we’ll let you in on what’s currently going on in the space: the excavating, the building, the planting, and the elbow grease that’s required for the initial phase of creation.

Reflecting on when an impulse becomes art and whether anything is ever finished, Jane considers art a leap of faith because it can’t be strategized. Art must be allowed to unfold and evolve. “The challenge of the artist,� Jane explains to students , “is to keep your focus while remaining open and alert to possibility. Art is emergent behavior. You can’t know what it is while it’s happening as it’s always ‘becoming.’� The recuperation of the idle parking lot and beautiful amphitheatre-esque wall sited behind the museum has been conceptually underway for quite some time. Jane’s working process goes from idea to reality in four stages: proposition, sketch, model, and physical creation. Each stage is subject to scrutiny and critique, with curiosity the litmus test for advance. As Louise Gydell, one of the three Swedish architecture students from Lund University working on site at MASS MoCA with Jane, states, “We kill a lot of ‘darlings.’� Small clay sculptures of the stone wall indented with body pockets, a miniature wire swing set, crumpled, graphite-covered pieces of paper representing the texture of asphalt, mathematically-driven sketches, and a hand-beaded muslin field map are only some of the pieces in the studio space that are used to express and explore the garden.

Since August 16, Jane has been in-residence with a team of students and professionals, adapting the 1.5-acre industrial site into museum green space. So what does it take to make this transformation happen? Jane cites Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s response to director David Lean’s question, “How do you make your films?� Bergman replied, “I make my films with fifteen friends.� “That’s interesting,� replied Lean. “I make mine with 150 enemies.� “Here at MASS MoCA,� Jane assures us, “we’re à la Bergman – amongst friends.�

Meet Jane’s crew of fearless coworkers working on and off-site to contribute their individual expertise to the project.

• • Brian Turton, owner and president of New England Landscapes & Aquatics first met Jane in November 2009 and has worked closely with her on all phases of design development and now execution. Brian has assembled an amazing crew hard at work on site, including Billy Piantoni (foreman), Frank James (stone mason), Valerie Ross (vice president), Jill Rickert (landscape assistant), and numerous others who all seem to enjoy the freedom, unbridled creativity and thoughtfulness that is involved in this constantly evolving project. The group has worked from the ground up, from site clearing, trenching, and excavating to innovating the engineering and construction of the Body Pockets and patiently laying the New York bluestone for the dry stack walls of The Rounds with sensitive attention to pattern, contour, and the rhythmic arrangement of heights. The Expanded Field has introduced rammed earth to their repertoire, a centuries-old building technology with a small ecological footprint, much smaller, for example, than concrete. They’ve been shaping the Body Pockets by compacting soil over geogrids for base reinforcement on the slope, and are readying to loam the site in preparation for the planting of native trees and grasses. On October 23 the group will break for the winter, to return in the spring and begin Phase II.
• • Daniel Frey, professor, Mechanical Engineering, MIT, and director, Singapore-MIT International Design Center, began working with Jane last spring at MIT, where Jane had a three-year fellowship at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). In her new appointment as artist affiliate at the Singapore-MIT IDC, Jane is continuing to work with Dan developing a swing set that sings the harmonic scale. “Sing Setâ€� is due for installation in spring 2011.
• • Evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall, Berkeley, previously consulted at Harvard with Jane on her 2009 exhibition at the Skissernas Museum, Archives of Public Art, in Lund, Sweden. The two joined forces once again to tackle the initial investigation of “re-conceiving the pastoral for the 21st century.â€�
• • Aksel Widoff, Emil Lillo, and Louise Gydell, three students from the Lund School of Architecture in Sweden, previously worked with Jane at the Skissernas Museum, helping to create The Rammed Earth Sculpture Garden, sited in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden. The three have been in the studio designing, drafting, and building models while working on-site in all aspects of development and construction, contributing their Skissernas expertise on rammed earth construction, from drafting form work to ramming with pneumatic rammers that pound the soil and clay mixture like jack hammers.
• • MIT students Danielle Hicks (mechanical engineering), Tymor Hamamsy (physicist), and Samantha Cohen (architecture and civil engineering) worked with Jane on the conceptual phase under the auspices of the MIT UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) Office last spring. Tymor added sweat equity this summer, along with Leah Brunetto (architecture and visual arts). Leah and Dani Hicks are continuing on the project at MIT, working with Dan Frey on the “Sing Setâ€� and researching the waste management system.
• • Kristopher Spohn, a sculpture student from the Rhode Island School of Design, crossed paths with Jane when his RISD class unexpectedly appeared in her CAVS studio, prompting an impromptu MASS MoCA project presentation. Kristopher went on to contact Jane and intern with her over the summer.
• • Richard Criddle, the Director of Fabrication and Art Installment at MASS MoCA and his assistant, Jason Wilcox, jump-started the project with fast-response form work construction for the rammed earth and continue to provide generous assistance and expertise as needed.

The Expanded Field’s collaborative effort is almost overwhelming. It exists as a forum where people from a variety of backgrounds match skill, knowledge, and imagination in a generous environment of creative exploration. Tune in to the final blog entry to find out how, when finished, this project will become a part of the MASS MoCA museum experience.

Check back soon for part three of Sarah’s blog.

BIO: Jane Philbrick is an artist and educator. Recent exhibitions include “Everything Trembles� (Skissernas Museum, Archives of Public Art, Lund University), “The End� (The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh), “Pull� (Location One, New York), “Insight Out� (Wanås Foundation, Sweden). 2007-10, Jane was an artist Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. 2008-09, she was the inaugural International Fellow at Location One. Jane is currently an artist research affiliate with the Singapore-MIT International Design Center and Visiting Professor and Director of Programme, C : Art, an MFA program at Valand School of Fine Arts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

When you view contemporary art do you sometimes feel like there’s something that you’re missing? It’s probably all of the background information on the concept, the development of the idea, the process of installation, and access to the artist’s brain. Here at MASS MoCA, we’re dedicated to providing you with all the tools to get the most out of your viewing experience. If you’re coming to the opening of Federico Díaz’s Geometric Death Frequency 141 this Saturday, October 23, or plan on visiting the museum in the near future, here are some things you should know before you come face-to-face with the long-term installation located in the museum’s entrance courtyard.

In brief, the site-specific data sculpture is an extremely abstract and complex technological breakdown of the transformation of matter to energy and back to matter again. Díaz used the principle of reverse transcription, working off of a photograph of the MASS MoCA courtyard. The 2D image was broken down into digital bits and pixels that were then robotically and technologically reconstructed as 3D black spheres to create a densely sculpted black wave form that while static, seems to contain a reverberating internal energy that simulates fluid movement.

CONCEPT

One of the phenomenons that Díaz considered in the early stages of this project was the evolution of the communication landscape and how society has come to rely on the transfer of information. In the not-so-far past information was transferred verbally, but in modernity communication rituals have shifted. Díaz applies these contemporary technological methods in his approach to gathering and presenting data to viewers.

“When you look at a photograph, it is flat. In the same way, when you start off with a sculpture, it is flat. Here we are reconstituting a 3D space from a 2D surface according to an algorithm: the intensity of light of a pixel defines the position and velocity of a point, a “voxel�, which is then represented by a small black sphere in the sculpture. The assembled spheres create a wave. At least that was the first idea, but I thought that was too simple, that there would be too much of the photograph still visible in it; so I decided to add in more turbulence, more fluid movement: our world is created from turbulence and is full of fluid movement. To do that, I applied to the photographic data a simulated model of fluid motion. Each light particle, as represented by sphere, was treated as if it were a water molecule, and then “shaken“. I added this fluid dynamic action one bit at a time, interpolated, frame by frame, second by second. It was in frame 141 of the simulation that the photograph disappeared in the wave, and that’s the moment I froze it.�

Also central to Díaz’s project is the idea of death and resurrection. The moment that has been documented via photograph is dead in time and space. By using recorded data to recreate that moment anew in the form of sculpture, Díaz gives it a second life. He rediscovers the original molecular energy that existed and allows it to subsist once again, almost paralleling the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that “energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.�

TECHNOLOGY

According to Díaz, “every space sends out some geometric parameters�. In his sculpture, he extracts data (from the site) that is intangible without the use of computer technology and reinterprets it as a material object using CAD software for which he composed specialized codes and simulations. The procedure, described by the artist below, reconstructs the 2D information as a 3D form based on particle physics.

“Using this software I created a code that converted pixels which describe the lighter parts of the photographs into “fastâ€� spheres; they bounce higher and move faster when stimulated by energy. The darker elements of the photograph are slower, less reactive, and therefore remain lower in the sculpture. Through another computer simulation, these pixels-turned-3D spheres (“voxelsâ€� or “volumetric picture elementsâ€�) can be energized like a wave. The entire simulation is driven by a code. It is actually the code that makes it possible for a living form to be born again from something that was dead.”

Because of the precise nature of the project, Díaz employed the use of robots, which best understand pure data, to assemble the sculpture. Check out a video of the robots here.

MATERIAL

The 420,000 black balls used in the 50-feet long by 20-feet high sculpture are sphere of ABS, or a light polymer (also used in the production of LEGO blocks). In his consideration of material, Díaz was not only interested in simulated fluid movement, but also wanted to allow a visible movement of light. Because motion is a fundamental concept in the piece, he incorporated the way the human eye processes velocity. When something is faster, visibility is lessened. Theoretically, “velocity drains color�, which led Díaz to use the color black in his representation of the particles of light.

“Light is something that enables us to see. Light is made of particles. In the sculpture, light particles were replaced by black spheres. So they represent the fluid movement of light, like a wave, as much as they represent the motion of fluids. There is a parallel between light and water; the turbulent movement of light is similar to the movement of the particles of water. They are basically molecules that move in the same way as light does.�

This long-term installation opens to the public Saturday, October 23. Of his installation, artist Federico Díaz comments, “Creating a unique object, which transformed the museum into a new form of algorithmic architecture was a fascinating journey full of unforgettable emotions.”

Our fabulous Marketing intern Sarah worked with artist Jane Philbrick on a three part blog to give you a little more info on the project Jane is working on for 2011.

Part of MASS MoCA’s mission as an art center is to “expose our visitors to bold visual and performing art in all stages of production.�  Museum-goers often lack access to the early planning and building phase of the works of art that are on view in a museum.  We decided it was time to let you in on this process and, in series of blogs, we’ll tell you all about the development of the southern-most section of MASS MoCA’s campus by artist Jane Philbrick and her international, cross-discipline team of students and professionals.  This first entry will explore the beginnings of the project, The Expanded Field: how the ideas were conceived and where the inspiration comes from.

Jane Philbrick was in the midst of developing a new 14-channel sound piece for the Wanås Foundation, a sculpture park, medieval castle estate, and organic dairy farm in southwestern Sweden, when she first met MASS MoCA director Joe Thompson in 2006.  Joe invited Jane to bring the piece to MASS MoCA for long-term installation at a site on campus tagged for future development.  When curator Denise Markonish joined the Museum in 2007, ideas began to brew and the project grew to encompass 1.5 acres.  Here’s a peek into the artist’s conceptual approach, some questions we asked, and thoughts we exchanged.

Q: When working with a public space, artistic concerns are rooted in and draw from the context of place.  How does this work?

For Jane, a work of art is a dialogue, a conversation between artist and material, artist and viewer, viewer and artwork.  She stresses the importance of building a rapport with the site in order to reveal and identify choices, and of the attention paid to engaging the pre-existing “canvas� of the Museum campus :   the industrial artifacts of abandoned buildings and foundation ruins, the concrete channel of the Hoosic River, the Doppler effect of the traffic on the Rt 2 overpass, the surrounding setting of the beautiful Berkshires. In the dialogue of art, Jane states, “it’s all about listening.�

Q: How do you approach creating green space for a museum?

A contemporary art museum makes a frame to current culture, within and around which we confront and engage the issues of our time.  While the early 20th century was defined by industrialization, by the machine, Jane identifies ecological crisis as the defining issue of the early 21st century.  The fundamental question underlying the The Expanded Field asks, “How do we re-conceive the pastoral in the crowded, increasingly spent 21st century?�  “How do we get beyond the binary concept of nature as ‘other’ to a more integrated reality of the 21st century?�  Jane is interested in ideas of reciprocity and of energetic possibility, connecting the “aliveness� of an industrial artifact with the “aliveness� of a native meadow:  one landscape as a hybrid ecosystem.  In a model illustrating the layout of trees on site, a visibly grid-like, geometric pattern is evident.  When viewing the model from an alternative perspective, though, the arrangement appears forest-like in the seemingly erratic placement of trees, a simultaneously organic array. It was also challenging to consider how to welcome people to a site that has been vacant and not previously open to the public.  The approach to the site has been developed to build curiosity, intriguing the eye with paths, plantings, and a procession of sitting areas, including The Rounds and the Body Pockets, geometric hollows carved into the slope of the foundation ruin on site.  Also in the works is a swing set that mimics the universally recognized musical pentatonic scale. Careful consideration is being given to waste management.  Jane explains, “We’re not going to perpetuate the fairy tale that garbage ‘goes away.’�  Following the “cradle to cradle protocol,� we’re researching how to manage the garbage, emulating nature, where “there is no waste.�

Q: How is the medium of the initial soundwork that began The Expanded Field incorporated into the pre-existing site canvas and newly sculpted space?

For the Wanås installation, Jane composed multi-layered text pieces that she integrated with passages of medieval polyphony – an apt musical expression for the 12th-century European venue.  For MASS MoCA, Jane will be collaborating with Brad Wells, artistic director of the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth to conceive and create a new, native soundscape, described by Brad as an “audio mobile.� Sound is an important element in the working process.  The Expanded Field itself is about listening, creating a rhythmic sequence of pattern recognition/pattern formation that acts as a subconscious invitation to the viewer.

Jane Philbrick observes, “art counterpoises culture.�  The fast pace of modern society proceeds in opposition to the patient, unhurried process of art.  Hers is in particular an investment in time (with a planned opening next September). Art offers the opportunity to engage ideas, live the question, and experience possibility.  “Art is in between language.  It is another space that lets the artist work,� she says.  Tune in to the next blog entry to find out about the collaborative efforts involved in bringing these plans to fruition.

Check back soon for part two of Sarah’s blog.

BIO

Jane Philbrick is an artist and educator.  Recent exhibitions include “Everything Trembles� (Skissernas Museum, Archives of Public Art, Lund University), “The End� (The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh), “Pull� (Location One, New York), “Insight Out� (Wanås Foundation, Sweden).  2007-10, Jane was an artist Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, Cambridge.  2008-09, she was the inaugural International Fellow at Location One.  Jane is currently  an artist research affiliate with the Singapore-MIT International Design Center and Visiting Professor and Director of Programme, C : Art, an MFA program at Valand School of Fine Arts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Education intern Kate fills us in on lobby question number 2.

Our second installment on the question board in the lobby queried what movie patrons felt should be set in the Sol LeWitt Retrospective. The 105 wall drawings on view in Building 7 generated many ideas for actual films, but fictitious ones as well.

One thing that makes the Sol LeWitt Retrospective fantastic, is the fact that viewers are continually able to revisit it, and, quite frequently notice something (or many things) new each time they enter the galleries. The eclectic variety of movie titles demonstrated individual reactions to the different phases of LeWitt’s career represented in the Retrospective. Responses included family favorites, musicals, and contemporary films.

Here are some of our favorites: