Sampling strata I Galeria Bangbang
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
Strata l Galeria Carlos Carvalho
Solo show
Galeria Carlos Carvalho, Lisboa
15.05 to 14.06.2014
 |
| © Galeria Carlos Carvalho |
Thinking the
non-stratified with Sergio
Costa’s >Strata<
By following a Minerva’s flight of wonder in Costa’s
experimental >strata< series, we follow a form of artistic
experimentation on strata as archive of captured nature in which we are invited to deviate from geological
principles such as >original horizontality< in which sedimentary rock
strata are supposed to form in horizontal positions. >Strata< question
horizontally layered archives of reality. In
Sérgio Costa’s series Strata we are given a new diagramming strategy of art not
only by the means of painting but as well by changes of dimension in strata
experiments from 2012 onwards introducing a fragmentary map principle in Strata
#15 and an anaglyphic principle in Strata #19, #20, #21 as shown first in the Geological Museum of Lisbon (5th
of April to 3rd of May 2014) and now in his exhibition – linked to
the shortlist of the Arte Laguna prize
[Venice 2014] in May-June 2014 at the gallery Carlos Carvalho. Arte Contemporânea in Lisbon (14.5-4.6.2014),
Portugal.
*
Strata come at least in a pair, in a double bound or in multiple layers.
One stratum therefore serves the others as a “substratum”(Deleuze/ Guattari, A thousand Plateaus) -and one might
add- as double pinchers of a lobster (Deleuze/ Guattari’s image of strata) or
as earthly rock layers, or atmospheric strata as well the stratified peel of an
onion. Strata-layers can be rigid or twisted, elastic or tense; in any case
strata move, can be moved and are not timeless, but on the contrary, even that
we as humans might observe them as relatively stabile, strata are already part of a time lag and a local shift, as are
strata of experiences, or as we call them here: attentional strata that Sergio
Costa develops.
Strata appear not necessarily as rock layers and stratification
does not equal horizontal petrifaction, but >strata< can - as in the image sujet of Sérgio Costa’s paintings-
show up as layers of rock- not only densified by pressure, and broken up-
refolded or transformed into maps, smoke, clay and even exhumed dust of decaying
proto-objects.
*
Strata appear as layers of two images on the two sides of an interstice line. The interstice line
often orients us in Sergio Costa’s Strata paintings, and as such lets us
discover his work as maps of unknown or
anonymous materials in the observation of which we gain a certain complicity and that we in a first necessary
“disillusive moment” identify with rock. However, Costa’s work is a meditations
on the virtualization of our (visible) and touchable supposedly stable and firm
reality. It is therefore not merely a matter of deciding, whether the Strata-maps are
indexical or related with a material object (the territory of the painting) or
whether it is the “territory itself”, index
sui, pointing at itself. The getting
visible of strata grids becomes a technique
and strategy of orientation in Strata #15, #17, #18 a series of three Strata oil
paintings that come close to the former principle of Costa’s work on “Sampling
puzzles” in order to create maps to orient in an ungrounded world.
*
In its majority the oil on canvas/linen >Strata< paintings are
composed of at least two strata or layers that we perceptually unify habitually
at first sight- the exception hereby are >Strata< #5 and anaglyphic
Strata #19, #20, #21 that seem to convey a unity of the image, however one has
to remember that the >Strata [#1]< is missing and as such a first
strata or grounding of reality in Sergio Costa confronts us with the anti-foundationalist
multiplicity of >strata< and his artistic strategy of destratification. Therefore the line in
between the two layers of the image are sometimes more (#2, #6, #8-11, #13-14,
#16) sometimes less (#3, #4, #7, #12) visible interstice lines between two parts depicting stratified calcium
formations on the oil painting, leading us to a geo-philosophical reflection on
strata in the tradition of Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze or recently Negarestani.
*
Strata#15 de-stratify not only the rest of the painting
series before and after number 15.
This means: >Strata #15< shows other strata not only as rests of maps,
but Strata#15 also shifts our attention towards the fact that strata in the
sense of Sérgio Costa are foremost maps, and as such would be better studied - not
in the science of geography or geology- but “in painting” -as Deleuze famously
claimed in his small and precious text “What Children say”. Strata #15 is an
excellent way to study painting as map-making- a temporarily orienting strategy
in time, space and affective intensity- and all of it still in the making.
The closer one
gets to Costa’s >Strata< the more the process view of painting as
map-creation becomes visible, the more far the observer distances herself from
the >Strata<, the more virtual the surface of Costa’s art in general
becomes. >Strata 15< is also the place where Costa’s >strata< are openly
stratified formations and map at the same time, ruler and pencil, hand and
thought, breath and rhythm., all on the surface. Thus >Strata< #15
invites us to go beyond the possibilities we always imagined things to be in
their historical stratified forms and methods- and in relation to our lives.
Sergio Cost’s >Strata< ask us:
How do we orient in between and above strata?
How do we orient ourselves in between and above what we always thought was
stable, fixed, grounded, or based on scientific facts and principles?
*
There is another important new
dimension in this series of >Strata< from 2013-2014 starting with
underdetermined proto-amorphous things: The forming of mesh of clay and the
drying of the wet mesh through which its porosity appears in Strata #20 and
#21, exhibited in a showcase before we had entered the exhibition space at the
Geological Museum. And even after transporting these frail underdetermined
things into the realm of painting, in which we can see them as paradoxes
(simultaneously a proto-brain slice or/and a slice of petrified toasted bread)
our imagination while observing these >things< is unlimited in a trivial
matching game of similarity. The concreteness of these sub-(jectival) objects
brings us further due to its contextual embeddings and transport into the realm
of a museum space, the geological museum, in the building of the Portuguese
Academy of Sciences. Strata of Sergio Costa turn into a “real counterpart”, a
virtual syncope of petrified objects, first conceptually exhibited in the Lisbon
Museum of Geology in the building of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences, an
artistic principle of ungrounding and
virtualization of the material Museum
space and its displayed objects, and the putting into question of scientific
grounding or the “un-changeability” of scientific laws and orthodox orders.
*
In >Strata< #20 and #21 the porosity that is an
openness of craters and valleys unlike its geological counterpart of
sedimentation can be put into perspective as artistic strategy opposed to an
geological sedimentation principle of stratification. Costa´s >Strata<
exhume the fixity of our habitual perception of things and thus strata as rock
layers start decomposing, while not even the most hard rock on which religions
belief to be build, escapes this virtualizing
principle of de-stratification or ungrounding.
By the introduction of new anaglyphic works of strata, Sergio Costa can now be
seen in 3D, without any need to go to a multiplex cinema- the cinematic
anaglyphic mode in 2014 reached the geological museum, it catapults the
observer to a nature 2.0. The more the observer seems to recover in this
optical illusion the “original” 3D structure of the object in study, in a
“regrounding” of reality, the more he tries to root them on a platonic plane,
the more >strata< virtualize and ungrounds.
Lisbon, 17 of April 2014
from the upcoming book:
Alexander Gerner (2014). Strata. Sérgio
Costa. Books on Demand: Norderstedt
Alexander Gerner is a German researcher
in philosophy based in Lisbon. He is member of the CFCUL at the University of
Lisbon with his project http://cognitiveenhancement.weebly.com/
His work is supported by a Post-Doc grant
by the FCT foundation: SFRH/BPD/90360/2012
Strata l Geology Museum
Solo show
Museu
Geológico, Lisboa
05.04 to 03.05.2014
 |
© Sérgio Costa
“Strata”: Ungrounding and Virtualisation in Sergio Costa´s
‘Wunderkammer’
“In
Exhumation the distribution of surfaces is thoroughly undermined and the
movements associated with them are derailed; the edge no longer belongs to the
periphery; anterior surfaces come after all other surfaces, layers of strata
are displaced and perforated, peripheries and the last protecting surfaces
become the very conductors of invasion. Exhumation is defined as a collapse and
trauma introduced to the solid part by vermiculate activities; it is the body
of solidity replaced by the full body of trauma. As in disinterment — scarring
the hot and cold surfaces of a grave — exhumation proliferates surfaces through
each other. Exhumation transmutes architectures into excessive scarring
processes, fibroses of tissues, membranes and surfaces of the solid body.”
Negarestani, R. (2008).
Cyclonopedia. complicity with anonymous materials. Melbourne: re.press
By following a Minerva´s flight
of wonder in Costa’s experimental strata series, we follow a form of artistic
experimentation given in a new diagramming strategy not only by the means of
painting but as well by changes of dimension in new strata experiments as
introduced by the anaglyphic principle in this new strata Series of Costa.
There is, however, a way more important new
dimension in this series of strata from 2013-2014 starting with underdetermined
proto-amorphous things: The forming of mesh of clay and the drying of the wet
mesh through which its porosity appears in Strata #20 and #21, exhibited in a
showcase before we enter the exhibition space. And even after transporting
these frail underdetermined things into the realm of painting, in which we can
see them as paradoxes (simultaneously a proto-brain slice or/and a slice of
petrified toasted bread) our imagination while observing these things is
unlimited in a trivial matching game of similiarity. The concreteness of these
sub(jectival) objects brings us further due to its contextual embeddings and
transport into the realm of a museum space, the geological museum, in the
building of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences. Strata of Sergio Costa turn
into a “real counterpart”, a virtual syncope of the petrified objects exhibited
in the museum, an artistic principle of ungrounding
and virtualization of the
museological material space and its displayed objects.
In Strata #20 and #21 the
porosity that is an openness of craters and valleys unlike its geological
counterpart of sedimentation can be put into perspective as artistic strategy
opposed to an geological sedimentation principle of stratification. The most
easily observable change in this new experimental strata series of Costa in
2014 is the introduction of another perceptual dimension, the anaglyphic two
color outlines that create a 3D effect of a 2D painting, a diagram based on the
interplay of two colors added to the actual painting, virtualizing the
stratification.
#Ungrounding
Strata#
Costa´s Strata exhume the fixity of our habitual perception of things
and thus strata as rock layers start decomposing, while not even the most hard
rock on which religions belief to be build, escapes this virtualizing principle
of de-stratification or ungrounding. By the introduction of new anaglypyic
works of strata, Sergio Costa can now be seen in 3D, without any need to go to
a multiplex cinema- the cinematic anaglyphic mode in 2014 reached the
geological museum, it catapults the observer to a nature 2.0. The more the
observer seems to recover in this optical illusion the “original” 3D structure
of the object in study, in a “regrounding” of reality, the more he tries to
root them on a platonic plane the more strata virtualize and ungrounds.
„If
geology, or the ‘mining process,’opens onto an ungroundedness at the core of
any object,
this is precisely because there is no ‘primal layer of the world’, no ‘ultimate
substrate’ or substance on which everything ultimately rests. The lines of
serial dependency, stratum upon stratum, that geology uncovers do not rest on
anything at all,
but are the records of actions antecedent in the production of consequents “Iain Hamilton Grant
(2010) “Mining Conditions”. In: The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism
and Realism, eds. Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman (Melbourne:
re.press, 2010), 41–46 here: 44
#Strata
Wunderkammer#
The exhibition of Sérgio Costa transposes the Geological Museum
intirely on the plane of his Strata. While presenting a transition of the
scientific plane of geologic objects shows an artistic strategy of
virtualization of a discrete and historical-material structured geological collection-
that in itself still preserved by the influence of a Baroque intention of the
Wunderkammer. Costa´s exhibition transports the entire museum onto the plane of
his strata. Thus by showing a transition of the scientific plane of actuality
of geological objects in a space-fold of the Museum space officially dedicated
to art, Costa allows us to grasp the strategy of virtualization of
stratification by the artistic diagrammatic machine of his paintings. This
principle of virtualization becomes actualized by a showcase that displays
Costa’s Strata three-dimensional Strata studies made of a demiurgic claylike
material always already in decay, in rupture: material strata syncope. The
interest of these strange object is exactly located in their fragility, their
porosity exhuming strata in decay, a
poromechanics of strata: A place where “[t]he cosmogenesis of decay unfolds
within solidity, [and] spreads from interior to outer surfaces.” Negarestani, Cyclonopedia, 181–182
Alexander Gerner
|
Landscape
Exposição colectiva l Group show
Galeria Bang Bang, Lisboa
28.02 - 12.04.2014
Sérgio Costa
Galeria Bang Bang, Lisboa
28.02 - 12.04.2014
 |
Exhibition view, © Galeria Bang Bang
|
Sérgio Costa
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