”An experience, in short, that violates all logic and expectation. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that such anomalies produced a profound ‘sensation of the absurd,’ and he wasn’t the only one who took them seriously. Freud, in an essay called “The Uncanny,” traced the sensation to a fear of death, of castration or of ‘something that ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.’ ”(Benedict Cary, N.Y. Times ) In other words, being caught in an ambiguous psychological terrain.
The tape sculptures and street installations of Mark Jenkins and other environmental street artists such as George Segal and Joshua Allen Harris pierce the veil of accepted notions of perception and replace them with new contexts and unsusual juxtapositions resulting in a narrative that is somewhat disorienting since the notion of death and alienation is often the central theme.’‘The story is urgent, vivid and nonsensical — Kafkaesque.”
An intentional disorientation that catalyzes a creative response from the viewer; a confrontation with an unsettling dilemma requiring implicit learning, as the urge for order will seek some form of coherence, or crystalize into the imagination of patterns where none exist as an infinite black hole of illusion.
”The brain evolved to predict, and it does so by identifying patterns.When those patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense. It may retreat to a familiar ritual, like checking equipment. But it may also turn its attention outward, the researchers argue, and notice, say, a pattern in animal tracks that was previously hidden. The urge to find a coherent pattern makes it more likely that the brain will find one.”( Benedict Cary, N.Y. Times )
Is the medium subordinate to the emotion it is trying to portray ? Creating a work of art begins with an idea, an inner emotional experience, and the painting, music, poem, dance or whatever form then becomes a symbol for that experience. As a result of this model we do not look at the creation, but look for underlying emotional resonance and vibration. The act of physical creation of art becomes the evidence for the inner aesthetic meaning and our task is to interpret this meaning and in street art or public art, within the social context from which it is to be evaluated.
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Mark Jenkins