barren day 17
Absurdity at 11am with Kippers
So the image of Icarus falling preys on images here, subtly, not as a myth making device but similar to other artists giving it meaning via failure, ineptitude, foolishness and folly. I like to see this image falling against the vertical structures of architecture and our absurd notion that neutral non gendered sites are possible. I myself am absurd for attempting to develop new approaches to architecture through art by developing activity that occupies edges in a revolt against growth. The growth of architecture seems to signify so much of the cavern for capitalist towers vertically dominating. In our foolishness cities vie for a better, more modern more iconic tower. Interestingly we did not learn from the narrative of the tower of Babel which I now see as the architecture of internet and global economies. This is not a rant against social networking, information sharing or otherwise but an observation as one side of the coin to Camus’ discussion on absurdity in relation to the Greek Myth Sisyphus. Sisyphus is pictured as relentlessly pushing a boulder up a hill. Building and development is relentless in its quest to do better social housing, greener solutionsand organistation for more accessability, choice and information etc. So why not picture Sisyphus in these images instead of Icarus?
Icarus is the son of a craftsman and bears the signature of those who craft. Daedalus is the image of those who work for fine finishes and hand craft, develop craft. There is an attention to care and a honing of skills in order to achieve it. We give meaning to those crafted objects and what is well crafted or deliberately produced in cack-handed design. Therefore Icarus gives two sides to the other side of the coin to Sisyphus. Sisyphus the labourer relentless, persistent and absurd; Icarus foolish and absurd but son of Daedalus the craftsman. Icarus and Daedalus together provide the revealed element to the Sisyphus myth that it is absurd to apply meaning to objects and what we make, futile seeking meaning in the course of our humanity and indeed finding satisfaction, accomplishment and pleasure from these endeavours. Yes we do. Humanity is foolish for many things, accountable for many wrongs but the endearing and baffling part I would see through the eyes of a badger is that persistence to do better, the toil and pleasure in our efforts are utterly absurd we are.
The opening of an exhibition to then work on and convert, the perverse nature to embark on a process to challenge how we use space at our edgelands as some kind of protest to sprawl, is in fact absurd. However while the struggle is applauded there is a poetry that can be accepted in this contradiction.
Daedalus and his son Icarus become more potent when he is the inventor and builder of the Labyrinth. There is no labyrinth here but there is the use of floor plans, frames, space frames, airborne and building elements that are labyrinthian in their concepts, notions and perception of space. Homer provides one further thought on these perceptions, Daedalus was considered the clever craftsman so much so that in Ovid’s metamorphoses he refers to Daedalus entrapping himself within his own labyrinth.
When surveying the body of work under progression against that of my research I begin to see that the investigations into space, architecture, occupation, gender and environment, open connect and reconnect to make pathways. They have become the architecture of my own labyrinth. And this is the absurdity; in attempting to escape the restriction and determinist conceptions of space in architecture and organisation I have constructed my own and it is limiting. The boulder then, is to keep escaping and moving beyond the architectural limitations I set for myself within my body of work – kippers!
