The Artistic Objectives: Reference

Reflecting on the social, sculptural aspects of Joseph Beuys’ work, I realized that institutional forces and technology would shape the art. Project conversations, e-mail, telephone calls and letters acted as performance elements, with a fluctuating script co-authored by all the individuals involved, each adding a new voice or personal nuance to the narrative. This performance, like the drift painting itself, developed by chance and continues to play out over time. I have saved all of these performance documents and will include them in future work as appropriate.

“I built up a theory and a system of sculpture and art, and also a system of wider understanding, anthropological understanding of sculpture as being related to the social body, and to everyone’s lives.”
—Joseph Beuys [22]

I wanted to reference earlier modernist conventions by employing abstract expressionists’ techniques, yet amplify the postmodern nature of my work by siting it within NASA’s technological space. In such a situation, formal structures such as those utilized by abstract expressionists can be eliminated. The traditional paint stroke can be liberated from its containment to a particular time or space when it drifts in weightlessness. My processes involved composition, volume, light and texture; however, the flight of a jet and institutional policies served as the structural context [23].

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