James S. Lee

(Under arches)

”Physicians are interested in art’s apparent ability to manipulate matter: the ability to transform basic chemical bonds into an object worthy of critical attention and ultimately emotional response. Also, we are intrigued by an art object’s ability to send information across time. The art object is a time traveller for the artist. It is no wonder science is interested in this phenomena.

( suggest walking away)

Now the art object, she is very fragile, so I’m just warning you…

( NOW IN  GALLERY TWO  PROPER, AS EMILIA PERFORMS ON BLANKET)

An artist – through the medium of the art object- can break down the art object’s object hood and allow it to attain an ‘aura’. This ‘aura’ allows information to be carried over onto the subject that is the viewer.

The art object, therefore, can transmit signals through the communicating essence. However this transfer of information can become interfered with by manipulating the context to which the art object appears within.

The art object here is struggling against its de-contextualisation- its placement from a private space into an arena of public exposure. If half the work is its context, the object seems as if it would only be ‘half a work’ outside any given context. We have here an orphan. This relationship between placement and viewer means the art object is a fragile thing, always ‘lost’, never finding its home. Here we pity the art object, even though the art object can never take pity on us. The viewer is still fully realised as subject, acting out this response to art. This spontaneously acted out impulse are the tears of art.

So what is it that allows the art object to become over-burdened with this role?

If the theoretical particle the Higgs-Boson is the guarantor of mass, then the Higgs-Boson of the art world is a critics’ word. No artist can escape the monolith of art theory, for this filters the inadequate: too light and the artist spontaneously disappears into a parallel dimension, never seen or talked of again. However, if a particle passes through the Higgs field and attains ‘mass’- comparibly, if an artists’ work passes through the critic’s field – we have an artist able to take on the measurable properties of momentum, gravity and trajectory.

You know, life is a pretty tough deal when you think about it. We really didn’t cut out a good deal with our maker, the astrophysicist’s peer review journal. There has been 13.7 billion years of time so far, and we’re here for a blink of an eye, and then to add insult to injury there will be another 15 billion and then that’s it. The problem is not that the portions are too small and the meal is over to quickly but rather you have to wait an eternity to be seated and then all you get is a night of bad indigestion afterwards.

It seems a shame therefore in such a small time we have that we must split people, like atoms, in two camps: the good and bad people. Being bad gives you an eternity of bad indigestion in the after life, whilst being good means you can’t really enjoy your waking hours as much. It does mean the good get to sleep better though. A bad conscience is the worst.

The art object does not have to worry about immortality. All it has to worry about is not being dropped by an art handler.

I now invite you all to take a moment of reflection upon both the generic and the specific art object. This has been pretty intense for me. Therefore, the years of training and conditioning both the art object and the viewer must go through to appreciate what art can be are tested here. I invite you to step into your own private space, as I shall now go into mine. Please take a moment of silence before we finish here to consider the art object in a private space.”

( BEGIN WALKING TOWARD INVIGILATORS CHAIR)