Solo show
Galeria Bangbang, Lisboa
22.05 - 25.07.2015
© Galeria Bangbang
Notes on >fucking hazziness<. Sérgio
Costa’s “Strata- Sampling Puzzles”
(2015) [1]
Alexander Gerner[2]
I Working-Images as Observational Program Sérgio Costa is not
observing any kind of biological microcosm by a microscope, nor does he take up
the telescope and observes nebulae -Nebula
for Latin >cloud<: a name used for any nebulous, that is,
diffuse astronomical object. Nevertheless, nebula and gullies can be found in
Sergio Costa’s recent painting works, in which materials (hand-molded
clay-things, different types of painted textiles, cracks of painting layers) are
confronted in an observational program[3] called >Strata< in which a variety of oil paintings, and
material try-outs are presented in a systematic way. In the Sampling Puzzles
exhibit, strata show an intimate conceptual relation to “working images”[4]
(Nasim 2010) as experimental praxis. In the case of Costa’s
strata, the molds, gullies on the different canvas materials are conducted as
experiments of >working images< in the artist lab between science
and art. These working images
interact with scientific instruments
of observation, but as well with descriptions/depictions of other images (in the case of Costa with images of explosions/ volcanic
eruptions; Strata#23-#27), maps, oil paintings, etchings, drawings and sampled paint/media
experiments (Gullies), molds and crack-samplers.
II Experiments in matter behavior Strata Sampling Puzzles –e.g.
gullies- appear as experimentation in matter behavior
and deal with >entrainments< on different media. In physical geography >entrainment< is a process in which surface sediments are incorporated into a fluid flow (air, water, ice). Geological Entrainment is inherent
in the operation of erosion. In Costa´s >gullies< the diluted oil paint is poured on
different textile supports (“veludo”=velvet and “cetim”=satin) taking advantage of their different textures, while minimizing
subsequent interventions. The ink proceeds similarly
to formation of water in the
ground or dust,
particles and gases in the
formation of nebulae. Subsequently
the fabric is mounted on wooden grids of small formats.
III Vapor of the events Costa
in his long term strata series is interested in showing the differences,
strategies and time lags, of an >Aesthetics of appearing<[5](Martin
Seel 2005) in experience: First, the >neptunic< longtime development is
difficult to be experienced escaping human experiential limitations, and the
meditation of which is thematic in earlier paintings (Strata #2-22) on rock
stratification. Costa’s strata series (2014/2015) develops another mode of
experience though: the intimacy of the small and medium scale gullies
experiments and the meditation on volcanic explosive cloud strata (Strata #23-27). In
these explosive events we become reminded on our temporal and rhythmical
absolute experiential thresholds such as the 30ms of temporal order threshold of experience, in which events appear to
be happening in distinguishable temporal orders and not simultaneous, or the fusion threshold of 2-3ms in which
events are distinguished as two and not as one event, need the retardandis of painting as a form of
observing the too fast phenomena, the too nebulous, the explosive, that escapes
our experience otherwise. Costa in this Strata-Sampling Puzzles exhibition
searches for “key events”[6](Waldenfels
2007, 42) a) attentional >scenic events< and >dramatic events<
(Waldenfels 2007, 42) the eruptive “vulcanic”
fast events in contrast to b) geophilosophic
longtime-events, the “neptunic”
(slow and steadily evolving) experience: What
if we would live more than 500 years? Maybe then even the neptunic experience of earth’s kinetics
of strata that Sérgio Costa Strata series hinges on would become part of our
daily experience. This vulcanic experience that Costa pain(t)s seems to
have a matrix, a black hole from which all emerges or is sucked into.
IV Explosive geo-sampling What matters in vapor-becomings- “this isn´t yet a
duskscape” is that
Vapors hints towards transformations
of matter, not just in their strata of aggregation, but of bodily form in
general. With Jean-Luc Nancy[7]
we can say: „If we wish to keep the word matter,
then we should say that it´s the impenetrability of what is form – in other
words, relation, sensing oneself, being sensed, and sensing something as if from
the outside“. We experience strata even in
its vaporous blurred form as if from the outside, we are never located inside
strata, the knowledge strata, the sensing strata, the social strata being sensed,
the material strata: we are already puzzled by a multiplicity of layers and
relations, but always from the outside, by their uncertainty in hazziness without
the one clear strata appearing for us in experience: >this isn´t yet a
duskscape<. The vulcano explosions contrasting the slow artistic process
of Costa’s delicate oil paintings, remind us on
the foggy atmospheres created by the 19th century painter J.M.W. Turner- a mix
of a Victorian steamboat in which steam immerses the painting in mist, sea-motion
and a lightscape from the harbour („Snow storm. Of a Habours mouth“ 1842)- but,
in Costa’s Strata #23-#27 (2014/2015) we are
deprived of anthropocentric reference of ports and boats, nor do they refer to
anthropcenical responsability in global domicides[8];
on the contrary, >Strata< confront us by natural hazzards and evaporating
life: blurred thoughts on >fucking
hazziness<! Vulcano Explosions… Just yesterday on
the 23rd of April 2015 while writing this text -two days before the Nepal
earthquake in which thousands are killed-, the >Calbuco< Vulcano eruption
in Chile interrupts me, thinking as far
as a 20 km radar of evacuation: breaks,
cracks and ruptures, the fragility of our existence, its necessity for our
experience.... Sérgio Costa’s >Strata< ask us two questions: Are we
prepared for >vulcanic< events? How are we able to experience long-time
change?
[1] Excerpt from the book: Gerner, A.
(upcoming). Strata. Geophilosophical
notes on Sérgio Costa
[2]
Alexander Gerner is a researcher at the CFCUL (University of Lisbon). His research
is supported by a FCT Post-doc grant: SFRH/BPD/90360/2012
[3]
Nasim, O. (2014). Observing by Hand.
Sketching the Nebulae in the Ninteenth Century. Chicago: Chicago University
Press
[4]
Nasim, O. (2010). “Observation, Working images and procedure: The ´Great Spiral
in Lord Rosse´s astronomical record books and beyond,” BJHS 43 (3), 353-389
[5]
Seel, M. (2005). Aesthetics of Appearing.
Stanford: Stanford University Press
[6]
Waldenfels, B. (2007).”The Power of Events”. In: Bernhard Waldenfels. The Question of the Other. Hong Kong:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 37-51
[7] Nancy, J.-L. (2008). „On the Soul“. In: Jean-Luc Nancy. Corpus. Translated by Richard A. Rand. New York: Fordham University
Press, 127
[8]
Porteous, D.J. & Smith, S.E. (2001). Domicide.
The Global Destruction of Home. Montreal: Mc Gill Queens University Press
Alexander Gerner
Sérgio Costa
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