Compressed Art Cube #2

Compressed Art Cube #2
4 1/2 " x 4 1/2 " x 4 1/2 "
Ren Dodge
2009

Compressed Art Cube #1

Compressed Art Cube #1
4 1/2 " x 4 1/2 " x 4 1/2 "
Ren Dodge
2009

Jedediah Caesar

My friend pointed out that in the video, behind the painted styrofoam block sculptor Jedediah Caesar is talking about, there are pieces more similar to the Art Cubes; "he put studio debris into big cubes and then uses resin and then has them sliced after they become like huge cement blocks he sliced them industrially and the cross sections illustrate the materials and process". I can see the relevance to what I'm doing, and I like how it's written about on the Whitney Biennial site (below). The use of compression and old acrylic medium is more sustainable than encasing is resin, and perhaps less common. I would like to see a compressed art cube sliced.

[EXERPTED]

"The faceted cut-resin blocks, which he exhibits alone or in stacked groupings, have been likened to geodes and marbled agate. Their variegated compositions allude to the “allover” abstraction of certain Abstract Expressionists, and when cut into cubes and rectilinear forms they replace the pristine geometry of Minimalism with a chaos of matter in space. “Encasing everything in resin puts things at the same material level, but reveals a pre-functional object materiality,” the artist notes. “It’s like destroying the meaning of a thing and reengaging with another meaning of it at the same time.” Recently, he has sliced his resin blocks into rectangular panels and mounted them in rows on the wall, allowing the viewer to follow the embedded objects from one cross-sectioned tile to the next, like the frames of a film. An untitled 2007 piece includes a full-size lounge chair elevated on a wooden platform and rendered useless by an accumulation of debris on the seat and around it; another untitled work from 2007 incorporates various natural materials encased in resin to form a freestanding block, its sides cut smooth, with palm branches, flowers, and wood sprouting from the top like plants from a core sample of earth. "
© 2008 Whitney Museum of American Art
http://whitney.org/www/2008biennial/www/?section=artists&page=artist_caesar

Why?

As I've described and shown this project to people, the question arises why crush art into cubes? What is the significance of this action. For someone who has read this blog so far I think I've described it from a largely technical point of view, but I know there is more meaning and purpose lying beneath the crumpled veneer of the art cube. I like to say "there are five or ten artworks crushed into a single cube, thus making a more valuable art object and increasing the art-value density of it. " Is this really true? The statement points to the notion that art is a special quality given to an object by the artist creator, and that special property somehow continues to exist even if the object has been damaged or crushed or whatever. What is the art-value of objects people throw out? Does the artist or owner have the power to remove the artistic value from an object simply by placing it in a dumpster or the curbside? Or once an object is art, is it always art as long as it continues to exist? how is that object changed by being included in another artwork and combined with other artworks?

The art cube asks these questions and posits some possible answers. Searching through the trash of art schools and soliciting unwanted artworks from people, I have found that other people are always questioning the notion of special art-value. In some cases the owner of a piece has felt liberated by the opportunity to shed their unwanted art; as though it's special art-value has prevented them from throwing it out, yet when they hear there is an opportunity for it to be included in an ongoing art-making project they see the opportunity to get rid of something that is both precious and unwanted. When creating the cubes, I feel compelled to include some remainder of each pieces essential and unique art properties. A beautiful brush stroke, a colorful section of glaze, some compelling detail of a photograph - I seek to reveal the strengths f my component artworks and not leave them utterly destroyed and unrecognizable. In this way the art cube retains some of the essential art-value of each of the minor peices included in it. As an artist I sought to challenge the limits of sacred art-value, but have thus far found that there are limits to challenging - that I do find special, perhaps even sacred art-value in the most mundane piece of art school trash.

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction" - Pablo Picasso

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction" - Pablo Picasso

Making the First Cube

I began production of the first cube today. After lining the cube mold with vaseline, I stuffed it with shredded and shattered art. Wearing latex gloves, I smeared some acrylic medium of each piece before putting it in the mold, so that It will all stick together. I stuffed it full, which is about 10" of art. Inside are bits of glass art, ceramic, canvas, paint and paper, my idea is that the more compressible elements will fill in the space around the glass and ceramic.




Using the car jack, I compressed it down: 10" of art compressed to 4" I wonder if i shouldn't have used more material.I didn't hear the glass and ceramic breaking as I cranked it down, which should be OK, as long as it all holds together in a nice cube. Now I have to wait until the acrylic medium dries a bit, I think. Maybe it won't dry inside there, but there are some holes in the wood. After a few days, I'll take one side off and see what it's like in there.

The Finished Compressor

The compressing device is now complete and ready to begin production of art cubes.

Is Acrylic Medium Sustainable?

I'm trying to examine this question, because I'd really like to use acrylic medium as a binder for the art cubes. I experimented with a few alernatives, such as using wheat paste or paper pulp. I made a little paper pulp pancake, and it turned out OK, but it is not very durable, and I think for the kind of effect I want, which is the different art mediums showing on the outside of the cube, it would not work. Plus it would be hard for it to dry in the center. Wheat paste ... I wanted to try it but I just don't see it working right, everything would become covered in white slimy wheat paste, and it would probably mold or break down or get eaten by insects. Also, Jason Liang's blog warned that it did not work for his straw bale compression. And it's not like wheat is totally "free" environmentally, considering all the energy put into it's production, I wouldn't automatically assume that is significantly less impact than acrylic.

Most sources on the internet, as well as Karen Michel's book describe acrylic as green or sustainable or at least non-toxic. I don't know how to evaluate it's total environmental impact with respect to wheat paste or some other binder like rabbit skin glue, gum arabic, or whatever. But, I think I can find acrylic discarded or at Scraps or East Bay Center for Creative Reuse and it does seem to be non toxic. So for my purposes it could be a very low impact material. Below is the MSDS for acrylic. I was suprised to learn just how safe it is (though this may not be true for some pigments used in paint) Just don't paint you eyeballs with boiling acrylc, and you should be ok.

Acrylic MSDS 882259

Compressor

So, I've almost got the compressor ready for action. I welded the frame out of 1 1/4" square tubing. The cube mold is made from 2"x8" douglass fir. I drilled some holes in the sides to let out any water or whatever goo i might squeeze from the art. Just some finishing touches to put on there to attach the jack. I need to figure out what kind of binder I'm going to use (acrylic medium?) and what might work as a mold release (olive oil?, linseed oil?) Also, I hope it can dry a little bit in the mold. I'll probably start by making a 1/4 cube, like a little pancake of art, see how that works out.





I love the smell of fresh cut wood.

The Compressed Art Cube

My mission at this point is to begin compressing the discarded artworks into simple cubes; about 4" square. Here is my sketch for the machine I am building to do the actual compression. It is a metal frame, with a wooden box as a mold and a car jack to compress it together. The walls of the cube mold come apart, so it will be easier to remove the art cube when it is finished

Inspiration for the Compressed Art Cube

I think my key inspiration has been the blog of edmund liang, who writes about his research making sustainable building materials. In this photo of his, he's created some blocks from compressed straw for use in straw bale+concrete house building.I love the simplicity of the idea, and the technique of force used to create. After reading his blog I learned so much about compressing things, his process warned me of a lot of potential pitfalls in the art of compressing materials - such as the need to address problems with adhesion of the material and with drying, both of which i think will be tricky with compressed art.

http://edliang.blogspot.com

CCA Dumpsters

So, I dumpstered some more art, this time from the california college of the arts, oakland. They make some pretty good trash there: I found lots of discarded prints from the printmaking studio, some glass bits, and a large ceramic sculpture of a girl on a couch. I want there to be at least a little inspiration and quality to the raw materials I'm putting into my sustainable work. there is a depth about working with these already worked medias, like my job is not so much to create something new, but to extract the creativity from already existing art. creativity that otherwise would have been lost. I am inspired to design a new fate for these collected discarded works: the compressed art cube. Basically I will find a way to crush many works together into a small cube of condensed art/creativity. Kind of like how a junkyard crushes cars, but in this case the compressed art cube is the ultimate destiny.