J K
But let’s go back to this question of the Resonance sculptures. If you think of them as simulations, then the effect is to be fascinated by how close they imitate something else. I have a different concept that I use, but I am not trying to impose it on this work. I want to suggest the concept of Federico that helps me understand his work; it’s basically called “re-origination.” The idea is something like this: Let’s say you read a book, and you make a movie of it. Then I’m interested; first of all, in…
J K
On the other hand, what’s really interesting to me is when the movie can do something that the book couldn’t do. So, the book gets inside the movie and then becomes a new original condition. When I look at the Resonance sculptures, it’s really fascinating to me, not because they look like water, not because I don’t recognize the representation, but because they do something completely different; mostly because they are still, not because they are moving. And so, it feels like, not that it’s stopped, not…
J K
And what I think is interesting to me is that I don’t think that this could be created by any other technique or technology, but this is only something that could be done in rapid prototyping, not because of the ability to represent so well, but the material itself, and the way it’s made, has this uncanny ability to produce this effect that nothing else can produce.
F D
But let’s go back to this question of the Resonance sculptures.(→p.36+133) If you think of them as simulations, then the effect is to be fascinated by how close they imitate something else. I have a different concept that I use, but I am not trying to impose it on this work. I want to suggest the concept of Federico that helps me understand his work; it’s basically called “re-origination.” The idea is something like this: Let’s say you read a book, and you make a movie of it. Then I’m interested; first of all, in the power of one medium to represent another medium is a really fantastic thing, and we should respect that and not be afraid of it. So, the power of representation is really good, is important. On the other hand, what’s really interesting to me is when the movie can do something that the book couldn’t do. So, the book gets inside the movie and then becomes a new original condition.
When I look at the Resonance sculptures, it’s really fascinating to me, not because they look like water, not because I don’t recognize the representation, but because they do something completely different; mostly because they are still, not because they are moving. And so, it feels like, not that it’s stopped, not that it is a picture of something that’s been stopped, but that it actually stops all the time around it, like in the Matrix.
J K
I’m going to make it very simple. Caravaggio was a great painter, and most of his great work began with religion. Not all of it, but most of it. He would paint, for example, John the Baptist. But he would remove all of the evidence, the traditional symbols of religion. The art would make us confront the living reality of miraculous moments. I think that today science is like religion. In a certain way, that’s interesting to me; Federico is like Caravaggio in that he starts with science and then removes …
J K
Basically, there is something, and I don’t know what to say about this, there is some reason that digital methods can do it and paint can’t. Nietzsche was the first philosopher to ever use a typewriter. And his first publisher refused to publish anything because he didn’t think you could write philosophy on a machine. There was a belief that there had to be a kind of intimate connection between the soul and the medium of expression.
Jeffrey Kipnis: architectural critic, theorist, curator, educator
For more than two decades Jeffrey Kipnis’ work has shaped the thinking, imagination and creative work of architects and critics. From seminal studies of the work of such key practitioners as Philip Johnson, Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind, to theoretical reflections on the intellectual, cultural and political role of contemporary architecture in such essays as “Toward a New Architecture,” “Twisting the Separatrix,” and “Political Space I,” to his award-winning film on the work of Fran…
Professorship:
Knowlton School of Architecture (OSU)
Harvard (GSD), Columbia (GSAPP)
Angewandte Kunst, Vienna