Paulina Perlwitz

"On Allowing Space for Magic"

Lately when viewing work I’ve been trying to keep one phrase in mind, and that is “Can I be the space for this?” It seems like an easy enough concept, and I am able to digest it intellectually at least, but when put to the test I begin to notice the resistance I have set up quite often to just being open and present for a work of art. Often it has to do with breaking down my preconceived notions of what I should get from an art-viewing experience. That’s when the magic happens, for me at least- when I’m completely untethered by the chains of my belief systems and able to receive what is there for me. The problem sometimes, that comes with being this vulnerable in viewing work, and maybe in life, too, is where to draw the line of self-preservation.

I came up against this dilemma this past weekend while visiting Mono No Aware, an experimental film event hosted by Lightspace Studios off the Morgan L stop in Brooklyn. The work being shown here is mostly 16 millimeter film work, as well as performance and some film installations. I was in awe for most of my time in the space. The title “Mono No Aware” is a Japanese saying which is translated to “the pathos of things” or also “the empathy of things”, and is a term meant in reverence for that which is ephemeral and fleeting in this life. The name of the show was perfectly suited to what was encountered in this space, and to the event as a whole. I felt like I was in the middle of some 1960’s “happening” for much of the time. And that full on group experience is something I often crave and seek out. I enjoy the feeling of interconnectivity that happens when everyone in a room is put on a similar feeling/sensorial plane. You can often get this when you go to a concert, or during any situation which dictates a prevalent energy to the mass consciousness of the room. You don’t have to be doing something arty- it could be a sing-along in a bar, but I have a high level of respect for the art that tunes into this and takes advantage of it.

What’s interested me as I’ve gotten older is that sometimes I’m amazed and intrigued by that which simultaneously revolts me. Anything that produces a severe reaction seems like good art to me, as it was able to reach me on some base level. “TASTEFULLY TAUT AGAINST GERMANIUM SATIN” is one such piece. This was a live optical/sound performance that seemed to infiltrate mine and everyone in the room’s interior space. The artist, Bruce McClure (Brooklyn,NY) spoke beforehand for a few minutes, mumbling something about the predatory, animalistic instinct apparent on wall street, an introduction which was met with awkward giggling by the audience. Then the piece began; the room began to pulsate and vibrate with the sounds coming from the speakers, a harsh clanging sound as of metal being banged with something heavy, but still unnamable in its source, was linked up to the timing of a flashing square of color upon the screen, yielded by 16mm film. The colors moved within a small range of about three mustardy yellow hues, and the flashing was syncopated seamlessly with the clangs. Within the first few minutes it became clear that everyone in the room was completely entranced and enraptured, even. I was having a more difficult time. The difficulty stemmed from what I chalk up to resistance. I don’t like loud clanging sounds; I don’t like things that hurt my senses. The flashing was abrasive and intense. I almost felt like I was going to cry, until there was a moment of release.

At one point I gave myself up to it and was able to be there with it. I became one with it, like everyone else had. I was no longer the viewer but I WAS the piece, as was everyone else in the room. We had no choice but to embody this energy, to be vessels through which it could move. The only experience I’ve had which was similar to this was working as a cocktail waitress when I first moved to New York City. In that environment (the night club environment) you either spend much of your time in resistance to the loud thumping, and the hectic energy, or you become one with it, to survive. I was curious as to whether this was the mentality of the artist in terms of the matter; did he think that aligning with that frantic wall-street mentality was crucial to our survival? I didn’t get a chance to ask him.

A piece which had a more gently mesmerizing effect was “The Telepathy Sessions”, which was a beautiful 16mm dual projection billed as being a “guided meditation with hypnotic suggestion”. This work could be viewed as the counterpoint to vibration of the predatory money hungry type explored in “Tastefully Taught..” Brittany Gravely (Boston, MA) and Kenneth Linehan (Providence, RI) created the work, a charming component of which was that every member of the audience received a “Zener-like card containing a personal divination for this night and the coming days.” There was no way out, as equally in the fore-mentioned piece, yet this way was one of a meditative sort. We were asked to inhabit a space of magic as layers of beautifully colored imagery referencing the ritual, supernatural and ceremony were projected onto the screen. The imagery involved a woman (or possibly a few, it’s all a blur) engaged in some sort of preparative ritualistic procedure, the root of which we are never given much information on, but the feeling of preciousness, of delicacy and specificity in placement and motion pervades the film. A sort of buzzing sound accompanied by what sounds like sort of angelic synths echoing up and down a small scale set the auditory tone for this piece to have a revelatory effect. The color palate was reminiscent of 1960’s Technicolor films, which strangely didn’t denote the work in my mind as being particularly linked to a period of time, but rather made it feel un-rooted and floating; as if the film had been found in some vault with works of unknown origin. The double projection served this feeling of flowing, of time and space swimming around in an ungraspable sphere. It was truly beautiful to behold. I felt the denoument was when these free flowing designs began to be projected – amazing, simple, possibly hand drawn doodles which referenced all sorts of archaic art including Sumerian and Egyptian symbols. When it ended I looked around to see my exact emotional state on those of the faces around me- it was as if we had just experienced some ritual ceremony together and were now coming out of a trance-like state.

There were various film installations inhabiting the space in addition to these performance pieces. The one that struck me the most was “Laser/Water Installation” by artist Juliette Dumas (Brooklyn, NY) This piece seemed to be magic and not just inhabit its qualities. It’s one of those works that points out our limits of comprehension and attempts to poke holes in our perceived sense of order and logic. I had to look up how this piece was made after experiencing the spectacle of it as I had no idea. A single beam of light (a laser) cuts across space in this piece, as a rainbow is projected onto the wall by the interaction of light and water, at least that is how I understood it mechanically. In the description it is written “a drop of water falls through the laser beam and diffracts the light”. Mechanics aside the piece had an incredible impact in terms of peeling back the layers of what we know of the pheonomena which surrounds us, it seemed to cut right to the bone of the theory of “Mono No Aware” in that it made a monument to the ephemeral. The piece is, one level, a display of how this perceptual magic can happen and doesn’t aim to hide the source of the generative properties of such an occurrence. So it does have that science project feel; nothing is being put under a wizard of oz curtain. Yet I still didn’t understand how this gentle beam of light and rainbow were suddenly co-habiting space with me. It was truly awe-inspiring.

I recently went to a talk given by Svetlana Alpers at the New York Studio School on her new book. Her main problem with and critique of our culture at the present was the general need to document. She complained that by placing this screen between us and reality (referencing the impulse to take pictures of everything with our phones or with a camera), we were cutting ourselves off and missing what it’s like to truly see what is. As I left Lightworks Space I kept thinking about Alpers’ point in regards to the work there. Why do we so often feel the need to have a barrier between us and experience? We often create vices which we use as a shield or sense of control over that which simply “is”. I believe there is a duality in this need, one motive being to be once removed from what we are experiencing (a form of self preservation) and the other a sense of documenting what is here as some sort of proof of our experience. These are definitely 21^st century coping mechanisms, and instead of degrading ourselves for utilizing them surely it’s more productive to recognize that they are there and incorporate them into our lives in a healthy way. But I was left struck by this dichotomy that night. I felt a surge of gratitude for being able to be fully present in that room, with those people, and at the moment in time and space. Perhaps such events could be viewed as ritualistic in themselves, mimicking the content of some of the work being shown. They are opportunities for us to lose ourselves to the moment, the catalyst being the celebration of works of art. Hopefully when we leave situations like this we can pause and take a breath, and reflect on what a valuable offering that is in and of itself.