as Untitled for television, your work reduces the audiovisual system to the most essential and rudimentary, with a reference to Bauhaus, to minimalist theories and to the idea-shape-colour study. You declare that “architecture provides an exact counterpoint to media art”; that’s why I would like to ask you what are the similarities and the main differences in the three works you named, or better which is the border between the two disciplines?
So as an artist, I can work more freely with space. In 7 Illinois Street, the architectural/spatial thought begins with content of the work (buildings and industrial landscapes), the spatialization of the sound, and the creation of new fictional spaces from real ones. In Static Room there is also the creation of new, albeit more abstract, visual spaces. One of the representative images of Static Room is of a tape glitch which really looks like it could be a building, an electrocastle. So as visual compositions, there is the use of space in the the mode of classical visual design and film theory. Images, abstractions, objects all exist within the frame, they overlap or occlude each other. Weather real or imagined, concrete or abstract, spaces are created by the formal interactions of these patterns of flickering light. This is the space within the screen.
Scott Arford: At a very base level my approach to all creative endeavors is spatial in nature. It is an intuitive organizational process, that somehow comes naturally. In architecture this relationship is very direct. Ideally, Architecture it is about creating tangible, physical spaces. With Sound and Video, the realization of space is maybe more abstract, but the thought process is the same. I would argue that I am much more free to explore space in sound and video works than in Architecture. Architects are required to reconcile spatial concerns through a very difficult reality of building codes, budgets, utilities, functionality, ownership, and the entire institution of building and construction. The kinds of geometries that give form to buildings are more often legal, political, and financial in nature than they are spatial or creative.
Perhaps more interesting is the space the screen can create outside of itself. 7 Illinois Street was originally designed as a 10 channel surround installation. So the space enclosed by the screens suddenly becomes a tranquil field surrounded by these surreal landscapes. The soundtrack furthers the illusion that there are no walls, only the industrial landscapes. Now we are talking about creating space!
Static room and Untitled for 8