rather to expose that what is thought of as essential is possibly not, and may even be standing in the way of innovation. So we equally question assumptions that a) define excess and b) dictate what is essential. We try to identify the hidden and unarticulated desires that are behind a set of articulated constraints, and then we speculate about the different ways we might satisfy those desires to exceed expectations — through clarity, possible cleverness of our propositions, how the project looks, but most importantly in what it does. As Stan Allen contrasts with theoretical constructs, “how a project operates in and on the real world.” And hopefully we do this in ways that the public may not see coming and that may provide a new kind of satisfaction.
SUMMER 2013 ABSENCE
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Absence is not a theme that we consciously explore in our work, yet I realized as I was preparing for this talk that we are constantly exploring it. Absence is like that. Though it seems as if it would be, absence is not absolute. It can be partial, intermittent, diluted. I am sure you have been having these discussions. The experience of absence can be gradual and subtle, or it can be shocking. Joseph Beuys’ Fond series are large stacks of felt separated with enough space to walk around and through them. The effect is penetrating, or actually just the opposite. Somehow the ambient sound around the work is subtracted from the environment. It leaves one with a sense of depressurization in which the inner ear is somehow being drawn out of the head into this vacuum of the gallery. What is important here is that one’s normative experience is disrupted, and it is through this disruption that something new is revealed to us. These oversized works fill the gallery visually, spatially, but actually empty the room aurally, leaving a negatively charged space where one’s idea of silence and sound are profoundly expanded. So it seems that the profoundness of absence is made possible through presence in a way maybe that perception of light is reliant on surfaces, forms, and atmospheres to be revealed. We cannot see the effects on light in a total vacuum like deep space. Absence, in this way, can be extremely tactile, rather than an abstract idea. It can frame, shape, color, and heighten perception. Turning that thought around — for every presence one can imagine, that there