Material Contingencies by Lama Alissa

MATERIAL CONTINGENCIES

MATERIAL CONTINGENCIES An exhibition by curator Mathilde Sauzet and the students of Parsons Paris MA program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies May 17th - 19th 2019 Mona Bismarck American Center 34 Avenue de New York Paris 75116

The History of Design and Curatorial Studies MA is pleased to present Material Contingencies, an exhibition examining contemporary notions of “object” and “objecthood” and how they may or may not materialise. We live in an age of contradictory relationships with materiality. The avant-gardes of the 1960s-1970s have expanded the field of art to include conceptual and immaterial practices and digital technologies have developed in a seemingly dematerialised realm of networks and interfaces. At the same time, digital economies have a social and environmental impact that is anything but immaterial. We also cannot ignore today’s renewed interest in crafts and materiality in the arts, and how this reveals a need to reclaim the authenticity of an embodied experience. Where materiality had previously described the physical, tangible and concrete world of objects, we chose to explore shifting and blurring boundaries to consider a range of potential material forms: an aquarium TV containing fish that do not require feeding, drops of concrete percolating through a coffee machine, electromagnetic waves appearing like a swarm of fireflies—and, of course, floors, walls, smells, air drafts, our bodies, your bodies. Material Contingencies attempts to create zones through an assemblage of objects that radiate feelings, reactions and emotions. Each of these objects has a presence—a manner through which they appear to us in the world. This presence may eventually disappear into thin air. This is the strange contingency of material things. Material Contingencies is a curatorial project developed by curator Mathilde Sauzet with the students of Parsons Paris History of Design and Curatorial Studies MA Program: Lama Alissa, Pamela Arellano, Jennifer Briasco, Reynaldo Gomez, Renée Hong, Nicolette Kabitsis, Sif Lindblad, Ruchanan Patarapanich and Jorge Torrens. This catalogue contains a selection of texts to accompany the works on display: excerpts borrowed from authors central to the research process, translations of Lawrence Weiner’s Opus 15 wall text, as well as original material written by the Material Contingencies team.

“FROM THE OPENED WINDOWS” Upon arriving to the main room at our

of the work itself, blurring the limits of

first visit to the Mona Bismarck American

architecture and nature in the city of Paris.

Center, we immediately asked:

Is there something that exists beyond

Can we open the windows? Our tour guide

what the eye can see?

gladly obliged, and from the inside of the

In order to answer our initial question for

building we could admire the landscape

the extended duration of the exhibition,

as we took in the smells of the garden, the

the team at the Mona Bismarck had to

sounds of the cars, and the breeze of fresh

make a request to their superiors and

air drafting through.

consider the security plan. Are bees or

Hors-champ by Quentin Lazzareschi is composed of a hive, a flowerpot of pansies (pensées, in French, meaning “thoughts”), and an open window, welcoming bees to potentially come and collaborate with the artwork. Aussi loin que mes yeux by Laëtitia BadautHaussmann refers to one of Lawrence Weiner’s famous works, As Far as the Eye Can See. The title questions the limits

flowers, sun or wind authorized inside the building? In the end, we were given permission by the institution to open the window for the exhibition—a gesture to unlock the system and a gaze beyond human-based perception. Take care: the windows, the hive, the cushion and all the elements emit zones, according to Timothy Morton—including your presence.

ON HYPEROB JECT S Hyperobjects

are

defined

“objects

The

effects

hyperobjects

may

which have a vitality to them but you can’t

experienced, even if the hyperobject itself

touch them, like race or class, or climate

cannot necessarily be seen or touched —

change,” according to philosopher Timothy

for example, global warming, evolution,

Morton.

bureaucracy,

Exploring

the

intersection

petroleum,

styrofoam,

between object-oriented philosophy and

uranium (we cannot touch global warming,

ecological studies, Morton proposed to

but we are affected by it daily). By this token,

expand dramatically the realm of objects

the world is full of hyperobjects; a network

in his 2013 seminal essay Hyperobject,

of conceptual objects which humans inhabit,

Philosophy and Ecology after the End of

obliging us to consider their implications.

the World to include natural, physical

According to Kant, there is a gap between

and environmental matter of such vast

how things are and how they appear, and it

temporal and spatial dimensions. While

is this gap that the concept of hyperobjects

parts of hyperobjects may be observable,

ventures to bridge with the application of

the whole is not, thus challenging our

both science and philosophy.

ideas of what constitutes an “object”.

“THE POE TIC S OF SPACE ,” 1958 T R A N S L AT I O N B Y M A R I A J O L A S , 19 6 4 , E XC E R P T

If we could analyze impressions and

phenomenology of immense would refer

images of immensity, or what immensity

us directly to our imagining consciousness.

contributes to an image, we should soon

In analyzing images of immensity, we should

enter into a region of the purest sort of

realize within ourselves the pure being of

phenomenology

pure imagination. It then becomes clear

without

phenomena;

phenomenology less

that works of art are the by-products of this

existentialism of the imagining being. In this

know the productive flow of images,

direction of daydreams of immensity, the real

need not wait for the phenomena of the

product is consciousness of enlargement.

imagination to take form and become

We feel that we have been promoted to the

stabilized in completed images. In other

dignity of the admiring being.

paradoxically,

—

one

or,

that,

stated in

order

words, since immense is not an object, a

OPUS 15, 1968 Perception

with

Weiner invites the viewer to interrogate

time, context, and personal experience,

borders

the nature of borders both physical and

resulting in an intangible phenomenon—

conceptual

perhaps classifiable as a hyperobject.

neutrality and distance. Opus 15 does not seek

The

unemotional

changes

artistic

this

to impose a vision, which the artist considers “aesthetic fascism,” instead proposing a

for the viewer to form an understanding

message adaptable for different contexts and

of their own relationship with objects.

cultures. In service of this, it is also presented

Where is the border between object

on the following pages in various languages.

sculpture

maintaining

space

typographical

plasticity

while

allows

and non-object? Between material and immaterial? Between art and design? Between here and there?

While Weiner allows his work to be shown in any font, it is traditionally displayed in Franklin Gothic Condensed, a typeface chosen by the artist as one free of cultural baggage.

TR ANSL ATIONS OF L AWRENCE WEINER, OPUS 15 , 1968 9

ONE REGULAR RECTANGULAR OBJECT PLACED ON AN INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY ALLOWED TO REST THEN TURNED TO AND TURNED UPON TO INTRUDE THE PORTION OF ONE COUNTRY INTO THE OTHER

UN OBJETO RECTANGULAR COLOCADO EN UNA FRONTERA INTERNACIONAL, DEJADO POR UN TIEMPO Y LUEGO GIRADO Y GIRADO PARA SOBREPONER LA PORCIÓN DE UN PAÍS EN EL OTRO

‫شيء واحد مستطيل وضع عىل‬ ‫حد دولي يسمح له بالمكوث‬ ‫تحول له ثم تحول عليه من أجل‬ ‫اقتحام جزء من دولة إىل أخرى‬

JEDEN ZWYCZAJNY PROSTOKĄTNY OBIEKT UMIESZCZONY NA MIĘDZYNARODOWYCH GRANICACH, POZOSTAWIONY W SPOCZYNKU NASTĘPNIE OBRÓCONY I WŁĄCZONY ABY SKŁÓCIĆ CZĘŚĆ JEDNEGO KRAJU Z DRUGIM

EN REGULÆR REKTANGULÆR GENSTAND PLACERET PÅ EN INTERNATIONAL GRÆNSE FOR FØRST AT HVILE, DEREFTER HENVENDT TIL FOR AT TRÆNGE EN DEL AF ET LAND IND I ET ANDET

่ มผืนผ้าทีถ ่ ก วัตถุสเี่ หลีย ู ปล่อยไว้บน ขอบเขตระหว่างประเทศ ่ ยูใ่ นประเทศหนึง ถูกหมุนให้สว่ นทีอ ่ ก้าว ข้ามไปยังอีกประเทศหนึง ่

個長方形物品置放在國際性的邊界，靜置而後轉至與轉入，被允許侵入一個國家的一部分到另一境地

UN OBJET RECTANGULAIRE QUELCONQUE PLACÉ SUR UNE FRONTIERE INTERNATIONALE LAISSÉ POUR UN TEMPS PUIS TOURNÉ HORIZONTALEMENT AFIN QUE LA PARTIE DU RECTANGLE SE TROUVANT D’UN CÔTÉ DE LA FRONTIERE PASSE DE L’AUTRE ET VICE-VERSA

ОДИН ОБЫЧНЫЙ ПРЯМОУГОЛЬНЫЙ ОБЪЕКТ, РАЗМЕЩЕННЫЙ НА МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ ГРАНИЦЕ ПОЗВОЛИЛА ОТДОХНУТЬ ЗАТЕМ ПОВЕРНУЛАСЬ К И ОБРАТИЛАСЬ ЧТОБЫ ВТОРГНУТЬСЯ ЧАСТЬ ОДНОЙ СТРАНЫ В ДРУГУЮ

“SUPP OR T S TRUCTURE MANIFE S TO,” 2004 1

We will design and create a universally adaptive Support Structure in support of artefacts, information and human activities.

To achieve this we will put Support Structure through a learning process. Support Structure will manifest a process of adaptation and development in relation to a series of different activities and sites.

Support Structure is universal but never generic; each application is specific to a particular situation. Each output will generate a different result and, through a cumulative process, will also contain a process of translation.

Support Structure is not an exhibition, but can be used as a tool to translate and facilitate the idea of exhibiting.

Support Structure embodies the temporary through an aesthetic positioned between ad hoc and permanence.

Existing support systems such as scaffolding and stud walls will be combined with examples of radical exhibition design from the early twentieth century such as Frederick Kiesler’s L-Type and T-Type Display Systems (1924, Vienna); El Lissitzky’s Room for Constructive Art (1926, Dresden); and Lilly Reich’s The Velvet and Silk Café (1927, Berlin).

Support Structure questions the potential of a place by focusing on the interface between user and system. This is the starting point for Support Structure to establish new infrastructures for individuals within the site.

Support Structure generates an impulse to change through reconsideration and adjustment of space both physically and conceptually.

THE PARSONS TABLE According to an oral account from The

Of course, this traditional history of the

New School archives, the Parsons Table

Parsons Table can be challenged if we

originates in the 1930s in the “Paris

consider that tables whose tops are the

Ateliers” of the Parsons School of Design

same thickness as their legs could be seen

– the original iteration of Parsons Paris.

in various 1930s interiors by designers

At the time, Paris was home to both the

such as Mies Van der Rohe and Lily Reich,

luxurious Art Deco movement, known as

Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius of the

“Moderne”, and the spare design style

Bauhaus, Mart Stam, and even Jean-Michel

of Modernism. French decorator Jean-

Frank himself. But the Parsons table, by its

Michel Frank, whose own work embodies

very name, reminds us that design icons

the encounter of both styles, challenged

can also be produced through collective

his Parsons students from the “Paris

and anonymous processes. Today, it has

Ateliers” to design “a table so basic that

become a ubiquitous object, available in

it would retain its integrity whether

multiple versions of varying material,

sheathed in gold leaf, mica, parchment,

size and price.

split straw or painted burlap, or even left robustly unvarnished.” The result of this collective process was initially called the T-square table, a plain table with a stylistic distinction: whatever its length or width, the legs would be the same thickness as the top.

Students

from

Parsons

Paris

History

of Design and Curatorial Studies MA constructed the Parsons table on display in the exhibition; it is meant as a support structure for Bat Shit Coffee, a project by Reynaldo Gomez and Renée Hong.

“77SQM_9:26MIN,” 2017 E XC E R P T S F R O M F O R E N S I C A R C H I T E C T U R E ’S W R I T T E N R E P O R T O N T H E I N V E S T I G AT I O N O F T H E M U R D E R O F H A L I YO Z G AT I N K A S S E L O N A P R I L 6 , 2 0 0 6

Shortly after 5:00pm on 6 April 2006,

situated knowledge and experience of the

21-year-old Halit Yozgat was murdered at

country’s immigrant communities, and

the desk of his family-run internet café in

comprehensively failed to apprehend a

Kassel, Germany. His death was the ninth

violent terror cell over more than a decade,

of ten murders committed across Germany

leading to the deaths of ten German

between 2000 and 2007, by a neo-Nazi

citizens.

group known as the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

seventy-seven

square

metres

the internet café, and the nine-and-a-

It was not until 2011, however, that the NSU and their killing spree was exposed, when two members of the group committed suicide after being pursued by police from the scene of a bank robbery. In the months and years that followed, more than a dozen parliamentary inquiries and Germany’s longest post-war criminal trial would expose the shocking extent to which Germany’s security services were aware

The

half minutes during which the incident unfolded, can be seen as a microcosm of the NSU Complex. At the time of the killing, an intelligence officer named Andreas Temme was sitting in the next room. Temme was at the time an employee of the Verfassungsschutz, the intelligence agency for the German state of Hessen. Temme’s use of a computer in the café that day tied him to the scene.

of the NSU, and in constant contact with

Temme

many of its supporters. Those revelations

questioned.

laid bare what became known as the ‘NSU

police, he denied being a witness to

Complex’—the

and

the incident. A few weeks after the

institutional blindness that ignored the

murder, investigating police declared

structural

racism

was

briefly Under

arrested interrogation

and by

that Temme was no longer a suspect. Years later, the German courts would also accept his testimony. At the trial of the remaining members and supporters of the NSU, which ran from 2013 to 2018, judges determined that while Temme had been present in the back room of the internet café at the time of the murder, it was possible not to have witnessed the killing from that position. In November 2016, a decade after the murder, an alliance of civil society organisations known as ‘Unraveling the NSU Complex’ commissioned Forensic

Architecture

(FA)

investigate

Temme’s testimony. FA’s investigation became possible when hundreds of documents from the original police investigation into the murder— reports, witness depositions, photographs, and computer and phone logs—were leaked to the internet in late 2015. We constructed a 1:1-scale physical model of the internet café and reenacted Temme’s reenactment, in order to investigate his testimony. Could he have smelled, heard, or seen evidence of the murder?

“SURVIVAL OF THE FIREFLIE S,” 2002 E N G L I S H T R A N S L AT I O N B Y L I S A S WO P E M I T C H E L L , 2 018 , E XC E R P T

Have the fireflies truly disappeared?

The intermittence of the survival image,

Have they all disappeared? Do they still

flash leads us back to the fireflies, of

emit—but from where?—their wondrous

course: a passing, fragile pulse of light.

intermittent signals? Do they still seek

Seven years after Pasolini’s death, did the

each other out somewhere, speak to

fireflies still make the epoch visible? The

each other, love each other in spite of

title that Denis Roche gives his text would

all, in spite of all the machine—in spite

seem to say no. However, at a certain

of the murky night, in spite of the fierce

moment in our reading, everything

spotlights? In 1982, a work actually titled

changes. The general theme sketched out

The Disappearance of Fireflies appeared

within this critique of Barthes suddenly

in France. In it, the author, Denis Roche,

gives way to a journal fragment, written

describes his experiences as a poet

on July 3, 1981, in an Italian village. Just

and photographer. Obviously the title

as in Pasolini’s 1941 letter, here is an

echoes, in homage, Pasolini, the poet

innocent stroll among friends, through

and filmmaker, murdered seven years

the countryside after nightfall. And here,

earlier. Denis Roche gives one chapter

too, is the reappearance, the magical

of his book the form of a letter—a style

discovery, of fireflies: “At least twenty of

that Pasolini himself had used often—

them are moving around in the brush.

addressed to Roland Barthes; and from

We’re all exclaiming to each other . . . each

beyond Barthes’s death, Roche delivers

of us talking about when and where we’d

a firm yet gentle reproach that, in his

seen them before.” A beauty so incredible,

Camera Lucida, Barthes omits all that

yet so modest. […] In a moment, though,

photography could set in motion in the

“the last fireflies go away, or they purely

areas of “style,” of “freedom,” and, he

and simply disappear.” And the chapter

says, of “intermittence.” At first this

of wonder closes. Re-disappearance of

pattern of intermittence seems surprising

fireflies. But how have the fireflies here

(but only if one thinks of photography as

disappeared or “re-disappeared”? It’s

an object rather than an act). In reality,

only from our view that they “purely

it is fundamental. How can we not think

and simply disappear.” It would be far

here about the “flashing” nature of Walter

more correct to say that they “go away,”

Benjamin’s dialectical image, a concept

purely and simply. That they “disappear”

intended precisely to understand the

only insofar as the viewer chooses not

way in which epochs become visible, how

to follow them. They disappear from

history itself can appear to us as a brief

the viewer’s sight because the viewer

flash that must be named an “image”?

remains in place, which is no longer the

right place to see fireflies. […] Fireflies busy with their intermittent lighting, flying at low altitude over the troubled hearts and spirits of our times. Soft clicks of wandering fireflies, brief little lights... with the addition of a motor that makes this attentive gaze into a psalmody of light, click clack, light, click clack, etc.”

THE ARCHITECTURE OF R ADIO AND BEE S Our

relies

own population. Fireflies, bats, insects,

signals

and

frogs, and certain plants have experienced

electromagnetic waves – an invisible yet

these effects. A pattern among bees,

ever-present

the

termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), has

world through these waves, we have

been traced to electromagnetic radiation

exhibited an application that visualizes

caused by the growth of wireless signals.

this

the

These signals interfere with the bees’

visible world, revealing the infosphere

ability to accurately detect the more subtle

that our digital lives depend on. These

electromagnetic fields naturally emitted by

electromagnetic

the

the planet, disabling their sense of direction

capacity of human perception, yet they

and natural means of navigating the return

impose very tangible effects on our

journey to the hive. Getting lost on their

ecosystem.

way to the colony results in the queen

modern-day intricate

society

network

landscape.

phenomenon

signals

Filtering

obscuring

transcend

Studies have demonstrated the effects that

electromagnetic radiation has on

some species’ ability to navigate their

not being adequately fed, leading to her reduced capacity for egg production, and ultimately, population decline.

environment, even to the detriment of their

“THE PE ARL DIVER,” 1968 E XC E R P T F R O M H A N N A H A R E N D T, “ R E F L E C T I O N S : WA LT E R B E N J A M I N ”, T H E N E W YO R K E R , O C T O B E R 15 T H , 19 6 8

Like a pearl diver who descends to the bottom of the sea, not to excavate the bottom and bring it to light but to pry loose the rich and the strange, the pearls and the coral in the depths, and to carry them to the surface, this thinking delves into the depths of the past - but not in order to resuscitate it the way it was and to contribute to the renewal of extinct ages. What guides this thinking is the conviction that although the living is subject to the ruin of the time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization, that in the depth of the sea, into which sinks and is dissolved what once was alive, some things “suffer a sea-change” and survive in new crystallized forms and shapes that remain immune to the elements, as though they waited only for the pearl diver who one day will come down to them and bring them up into the world of the living as “thought fragments,” as something “rich 26

and strange,” and perhaps even as everlasting Urphänomene.

“THE JE T T Y,” 1930 E N G L I S H T R A N S L AT I O N B Y R I C H A R D E L L M A N N I N P O E T R Y, F E B R UA R Y 19 4 9, E XC E R P T

During the month that I was living at

dress. And as he brought each being or

Honfleur I had not yet seen the sea, for the

thing to the surface, he looked at it carefully

doctor was making me stay in my room.

with high hopes, then without saying a

But last night, tired of being so isolated, I built, taking advantage of the fog, a jetty as far as the sea. Then, right at the end of it, letting my legs hang down, I looked at the sea, below me, which was breathing deeply. A murmur came from my right. It was a man sitting like me with legs swinging and looking at the sea. “Now that I am old”, he

word, while his face fell, he pushed it behind him. So we filled up the entire pier. I don’t remember exactly what there was, for I have no memory, but obviously it was not satisfactory, in everything something had been list which he hoped to recover and which had faded away. Then he began to throw everything back into the sea.

said, “I am going to pull everything I have

Like a long ribbon it fell and, when it wet

put there during the years.” He began to

you, froze you.

draw things up by means of pulleys. And he brought up riches in abundance. He brought up captains from other ages in dress uniforms, chests studded with all sorts of precious things, and women

A last piece of junk which he was pushing off dragged him in too. As for me, shivering with fever, I wonder how I was ever able to get back to my bed.

dressed lavishly but as they not longer

Francis Alÿs The Silence of Ani, 2015 Video (13:21’) Courtesy of the artist

Reynaldo Gomez & Renée Hong Batshit Coffee, 2019 Coffee machine, cement, sand Courtesy of the artists

Laëtitia Badaut-Haussmann L’Amour est plus froid que la mort n°6 [Wassermann, Wassermann], 2017 Velvet, polystyrene Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Allen, Paris

Material Contingencies team Multirec, 2019 Wooden structure Courtesy of the curatorial team

Laëtitia Badaut-Haussmann Aussi loin mes yeux, 2016 Open windows, view, sound, air Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Allen, Paris

Emilie Moutsis Tu aimeras ton prochain putain de merde, 2018 Text on sweatshirt Personal collection

Laëtitia Badaut-Haussmann Il Boom, 2018 Oak Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Allen, Paris

Ana Maria Lagos Gallego Mutación Nocturna, 2016 Mounted print Courtesy of the artist

Salvador Dalí Portrait de Madame Harrison (Mona Bismarck), 1943 (replica) Oil on canvas Collection of the Mona Bismarck American

Quentin Lazzareschi Hors-champ, 2018 Beehive, pot of pansy flowers, open window Courtesy of the artist

Center Forensic Architecture 77SQM_9:26MIN, 2018 Triptych video (28:54’) Courtesy of Forensic Architecture Attributed to Jean-Michel Frank and students from the “Paris Ateliers” of Parsons School of Design Parsons Table, 1936 / 2019 Plywood Constructed for the exhibition by the Material Contingencies team

Richard Vijgen Architecture of Radio, 2016 Mobile application (iOs, Android) Lawrence Weiner Opus 15, 1968 Vinyl wall text Courtesy of the artist and FRAC Grand Large – Hauts-de-France Anonymous TV Aquarium, ca. 2010s Selection of online aquarium tv channels and TV screen

Special thanks to: Mona Bismarck American Center: Efren Hernandez, Noëmie Desseaux, Audrey Gouimenou Frac Grand Large - Haut de France: Keren Detton, Elodie Condette Galerie Allen: Joseph Allen, Léa Chauvel-Lévy, Valérie Caillouet

Material Contingencies is an exhibition and catalogue developed by curator Mathilde Sauzet and the students of Parsons Paris History of Design and Curatorial Studies MA Program: Lama Alissa, Pamela Arellano, Jennifer Briasco, Reynaldo Gomez, Renée Hong, Nicolette Kabitsis, Sif Lindblad, Ruchanan Patarapanich and Jorge Torrens. Graphic design: Lama Alissa and Renée Hong Production and Installation: Ivan Twohig, Joseph Sobel, Mathis Collins, Martin de Bie, Fernanda Calderon History of Design and Curatorial Studies (HDCS) MA Program Director: Emmanuel Guy Faculty of the HDCS MA program: Christine Baltay, Isidore Bethel, Anne Bony, Rebecca Cavanaugh, Emmanuel Cohen, Emmanuel Guy, Clémence Imbert, Natasha Marie Llorens, Juliette Pollet, Claire Richard, Stephanie Nadalo, Gabriel Wick Parsons Paris Dean: Florence Leclerc-Dickler Administration: Loren Ringer and Karen Decter Communication: Lisa Sarma, Nicolette Kabitsis Translation of Opus 15 in various languages by Parsons students including Celia Hsu, Karla Jablonska and Aziza Rozi This catalogue is typed in Noto Sans and Franklin Gothic and printed on recycled paper Printed in May 2019