Portfolio Jack Wathieu
Contents 4
Resonant Void
12
Sculpture at Exorcist steps
14
Soapstone Sculpture
16
Paintings
20
Watercolors
22
Drawings
24
Conceptual Drawings
Resonant Void 2017-2019
“Resonant Void” is a thought experiment I created that uses the characteristics of wind to explore the transition between sculpture and architecture. The theoretical foundation for this project is inspired by K. Michael Hays’ essay “Architecture’s Appearance and The Practices of Imagination,” which discusses the transition from raw sensory data to an understanding of cultural truths through a process called the “architectural imagination.” In my adaptation, I explore a similar transition between the raw sensory experiences of wind in a void to an understanding of nature and time. The thought experiment hypothesizes a large and windy tundra landscape. A visitor of the tundra takes note of the way that the surrounding grass is animated by the gusts of wind: complex patterns emerge in the grass as the wind dances along, delicately making its way across the field. This represents a sensory experience for the visitor. The visitor realizes that the wind-front on the grass seems to have no beginning or end; the wind is an invisible stratum emerging across space and time. The dynamic and fluid motion in the grass is ephemeral and not apparently contingent on the state of the wind previously. This dissolves any sense of time passing, since the events in the grass do not follow a clear linear sequence.
4
The drawings I present here depict a set of hypothetical earthwork sculptures that I imagine would indicate the passage of time if placed in the tundra. Two parallel walls create a void that resonates acoustically only in the event that a gust of wind intersects the sculpture in a specific and known way.
The sculpture acts as an index, describing the state of the wind at a point in space and time. As a visitor moves across the landscape and hears the sculpture humming at mixed intervals, the visitor can anticipate future acoustic events, and a sense of the passage of time emerges from the pulsating encounter with the sculpture. The sculpture gives an invisible, timeless stratum a sense of serendipity, framing the experience of an invisible and delicate entity in the landscape.
The sculptures provide discrete events that provide a way for the visitor to have a sense of time passing.
5
This is not a wind vane. There are many kinds of sculptures that interact with the wind. A wind vane, for example, indicates its direction. It does not change its nature for any particular direction, and so one does not gain a sense of time passing. The Glider The extreme case of this idea would be a glider. Since the sculpture is dependent on the existence and direction of wind, I imagine a flying sculpture that would only take flight if the wind is strong enough. A spectator would see the passage of time in the trajectory of the glider.
Because the Sculpture began as an earthwork, I denote the airflow in the atmosphere using topographical line work.
6
The Copenhagen Interpretation These hypothetical sculptures were developed while I was learning about the Copenhagen Interpretation in Quantum Mechanics. This idea reconciles the two identities of light - the wave and the particle - by postulating that it is in fact both. Specifically, prior to a measurement of a photon with a momentum and position, it exists in a probabilistic wave-form. It is everywhere until it is “collapsed” into being seen as a photon. I think of my earthwork sculptures as the “collapse” of the wind front. As the visitor begins to learn that time passes, the sculpture begins to be an epistemic object.
It is in the translation of pure sensory experience to an understanding of the passage of time that the sculpture becomes a work of architecture. By compounding these sculptures, the wind can interact with different voids, and a picture of the three-dimensional wind as a vector field could be manifested in the visitor’s mind.
7
Resonant Void: Sculpture December 2019 Sculpture 2: Independent Study
12� x 48� Sakrete cardboard column for setting concrete Cardboard, Plywood, Monofilament, Steel rod, Galvanized steel from airduct Built from found materials This piece is easy to assemble and disassemble. There is no glue holding its component parts, so one only has to untie several monofilament knots, and unscrew the top panel for disassembly and reassembly. This makes it easy to carry around and explore the landscape with the sculpture.
8
Wind enters this sculpture and is channeled upward into a dark compartment that holds a wire sculpture suspended with monofilament. As wind bursts into the compartment, the wire sculpture twists the monofilament and spins an amount proportional to the wind’s power. When spectators encounter the sculpture in the landscape, they are made aware of the direction and power of the wind at a particular place and time. A video of this phenomenon can be found at vimeo.com/382191569
9
10
11
Sculpture at Exorcist steps December 2019 Sculpture 2: Independent Study
Found materials (Cardboard)
12
This sculpture explores geometric relationships in the built environment. Each of these arms intersects the wall and ground differently. The sculpture was installed at the top of the iconic Exorcist Steps on the Georgetown University campus. It was exciting to me that the celebrated site, with its parallel railings and wall, could give rise to a dynamic intermediary sculpture.
13
Hand-Carved Soapstone Sculptures November 2018 Sculpture 1: Studio Two sculptures have unique identities that make for an interesting and varied array of possible arrangements. That two shapes could generate so many geometric relations was fascinating to me.
14
15
View On NYC Highline
Summer 2019: Dailey Travel Award
Watercolor on Paper. 7” x 13”
16
Alleyway in Philadelphia December 2019: Introduction to Oil Painting
Oil on Canvas. 24” x 30”
17
a Maine landscape a still of Philip Glass’ Opera Akhnaten a portrait of Philip Johnson
18
Collage December 2019; Introduction to Oil Painting
Oil on Canvas. 24” x 30”
19
Georgetown Meditation Center February 2019: Watercolor Studio
10” x 8”
20
View from N Street
January 2019: Watercolor Studio
8” x 13”
21
22
Charcoal Sculpture Drawings February 2017: Drawing Studio
23
Speculative and Conceptual Drawings 2018 - 2019
Museum Concept
My sketches often depict human figures in procession through space. Stairs, bridges, and walkways engage figures with the architecture. Here, the two primary axes of the axonometric sketch hold walkways, and the architecture frames the procession. Pen and Pencil on Paper Summer 2019
24
Assembly
This sketch represents a curiosity I have with dense arrangements. The shape is generated based on the forms that have been drawn before. [Left] Pen on paper Summer 2019 Unfinished
[Below] Pen on Paper Fall 2018
Suspension
Walkways have ambiguous points of support, and serve to complete a fictional walk above a forest that aligns with the two point perspective of the space.
25
Grids
Here, I experimented with a set of surfaces with designs iterated from a basic square. Walls and walkways would be connected at each line, and the grid would produce an interior space. Pen Fall 2018
Ramps
Here, ramps are used to engage the landscape and complete the composition. The structures call for a new way to travel through and experience nature. Pen, Summer 2019
26
Abstraction
The following sketch was developed while I was thinking about the Resonant Void project. It is abstracted into a series of lines which give the impression of the landscape and the sculptures simultaneously, and put the idea into a diagram-like form.
27
28
29