A few notes from our conversation on Friday. Let’s keep talking.
Realism (not the artistic movement or naturalism) is an aesthetic position based on estrangement. What does it mean to be estranged? Realism isn’t a commercial vehicle for predicting the future or establishing solid design alibis. It’s not the final frontier of positivism — everything that can be measured should be measured — enacted to monetize the world. It’s about making the world sensible and imagining many “realities.” Whatever “real” is, it should be put forth by our imagination.
There is no image-less thinking. In our heads, on screens, papers and canvases, images set forth “reality”. Click, drag, swipe, pinch, zoom, we do everything to images except look at them with intensity. Walter Benjamin said (I’m not going to look up the actual quote) that architecture is one of the few arts that is consumed in a perpetual state of distraction. This is terrifying and freeing. I’m not interested in freedom, but I like a bit of terror. Images should not contribute to our collective distraction unless they are willing to terrify us at the expense of our freedom. Imagination doesn’t cost a cent, but it makes you go all in with money you don’t have. It’s a terrifying gamble.
Memórias of Deep Digs 