Releasing a Metaphor

Combine a video of performance art with a three dimensional piece created during the filming and the result—a fascinating metaphor for an effect that cannot be predicted, or can only be partially foretold.

The artist started with a large eight foot high board with ten long tubes attached. Each tube was cut in half vertically so that the tubes or pipes resembled elongated halves of bamboo—save for the fact that they were at least forty times the size of a bamboo shaft.

A platform ran the width of the twelve foot wide board. The artist, dressed in a flowered dress and short heels with a propensity for clacking, climbed a ladder and deposited a twenty inch high container of white paint in front of the furthermost board. She then turned and descended from the platform and walked across to the other side, picked up another container and repeated the action. She did this ten times.

Her heels click-clacked and she never changed her gait, nor the tilt of her head, nor her expression—which was locked into place.

When all ten tubes had a paint container she climbed onto the platform and walked across. As she passed each container she thrust her heel out and propelled the container with its white paint down the tube.

The slide happened seamlessly—and as the containers slid down the tube the white paint splattered over the tube and onto the black vinyl floor. When the container landed it split apart.

The culmination of the performance—a piece of sculpture that happened by the actions initiated by the artist.

Everything was planned, but the end result could not be controlled. The splatter and the way the containers split apart had an additional variable—chance, an unpredictable phenomenon.

We can only control so much and then there are variables that are beyond our control.