practice | Moving inside the Icosahedron in Sun Farm, at Noon

Last Sunday my movement practice inside the icosahedron —which has been recently installed at Sun Farm— was coincident with sun crossing the meridian. The geometry of the three anatomical planes inscribing the vertices of the icosahedron was in turn framed by the cubic structure of the trellis. The sharp shadows of the icosahedron and trellis created a strong geometry on the ground. My moving body had clear geometric references in both the icosahedron, the interventions in the landscape and the sunlight. The movement sequence included Laban scales as well as yoga poses flows. Below are sequential frames from video of the movement routines which have been referencing to the geometric context.

The cycle begins in tadasana

Extensions in the three anatomical planes following Laban's scales.

Hands in namaste marks transitions from sequences

Rotation of arm and opposite legs with centers in the vertices defining the frontal plane

Transition to a yoga sequence including:
tadasana, uttanasana (standing forward bend), chaturanga, sirsasana variations 

The cycle ends in tadasana

camminando | Jeff Koons Retrospective: The Art of Banality (and Making Money with Banality)

Jeff Koons is definitely one of the greatest geniuses in one of the talents the majority of us artists are devoid of: making money with art. The name itself of his one of his sculpture series "banalities" well render the content of his art.

Koons is not the first in the art world to use everyday objects and commodities as artwork. Andy Warhol himself gained fame and money from similar gestures, drawing art content from celebrities photos, everyday consumption objects. And there are even much earlier examples with dadaists or Marcel Duchamp "Readymades" which include common objects such as urinals or bicycle wheels.
Koons also shares with the Warhol's "Factory" the production of the "artwork" by others: it is a practice in a certain way opposite  making the art object mass production.
Nevertheless I enjoyed strolling through this larger than life retrospective at the Whitney Museum (closing this week), a playful and engaging example of how art can be made of everyday life objects.

The other Jeff Koons extravaganza was "Split-Rocker" at the Rockefeller Center, the 37-foot tall planted "puppies" which was on view until September 18.

camminando | NYC, October 9, Art of Walking Art

Sequential memories from my walk, between Chelsea vernissages, urban landmarks and nocturnal views of city lights and traffic.

The New York Times Building and Empire State seen from Tenth Avenue

Wang Guangle at Pace Gallery

Gruuppo Zero at De Buck Gallery

Google NYC offices at Ninth Avenue

Sixth Avenue at 18 Street

Views from the Flat Iron Hotel Penthouse, at the Bespoke party

Total Walk Length: 9.5km

commentary on Nobel Prize in Physiology | I Walk, Therefore I Remember

‘A’ Figure, from Ramon Llull's memory wheel “Ars Brevis” (1617)

We learned yesterday that 2014 Nobel Prize in  Physiology or Medicine  (8 million Swedish kronor equivalent to $1.1 million) has been awarded to three neuroscientists "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain". John O'Keefe, who receives one half of the prize, is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London; he discovered in 1971  the first component of a spatial positioning system. Quoting from http://www.nobelprize.org: "He found that a type of nerve cell in an area of the brain called the hippocampus that was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. Other nerve cells were activated when the rat was at other places. O'Keefe concluded that these 'place cells' formed a map of the room." The other half of the prize will be shared by the married couple May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. In 2005 the couple "discovered another key component of the brain's positioning system. They identified another type of nerve cell, which they called 'grid cells', that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding. Their subsequent research showed how place and grid cells make it possible to determine position and to navigate."
Hugo Spiers, director of the spatial cognition group at University College London, gives a summary of the relevance of these discoveries “Grid cells and place cells offer one of the few bridges neuroscientists have linking the cellular level to the cognitive level, as they help explain how individual brain cells help us navigate, remember the past and imagine the future.”

The Memory Theatre of Giulio Camillo from "The Art of Memory" (France Yates, 1966)

J. Publicius. Oratoriae artis epitome (1482)

The media announced this identification of the neural cells responsible for our spatial orientation as the discovery of an  "internal GPS". I was quite intrigued by learning how scientific discoveries are proving concepts which have present in humanistic approaches to knowledge for thousand years. Frances Yates in "The Art of Memory" (1966) recounts how the mental process of remembering has been augmented by several techniques for thousand years, back to the ancient Greek and Rome. This tradition/body of knowledge developed further in the Middle Ages and Renaissance with memory theatres and "memory wheels". Related iconography includes diagrams from treatises by Giulio Camillo, Giordano Bruno and Ramon Llull —only to mention a few names from a longstanding tradition. In all this examples, brought to attention by Yates scholarly work, there is a clear connection between space, representation and the process of memory. Spatial orientation — defined by the media defines as internal GPS— relates to cognitive process and memory, and finally scientific evidence proofs with neuroimaging. Is this another example of how intuition and art methods are essential to progress knowledge, even before scientific evidence proofs it? Or perhaps artists and scientists —although I have a hard time separating the terms— should collaborate? Paraphrasing once more Mahatma Gandhi's  "Truth is one, paths are many",  a quote used in so many different context, I would add, even if it does not sound catchy:

Knowledge is one, methodologies are many

As a research artist I have been involved for years with movement, space and memory; one of my latest work "My Geospatial Self" the awareness of where we are in space and time, mapping places to thoughts of emotion. I constantly use my phone GPS as tool to record my presence in space and time in the ephemeral footprints of the encounter between myself and the surface of planet earth. I relentlessly take photos of trying to find beauty or whatever aesthetic commentary in everyday life encounters of places and people, in the social or natural environment. I am sure that something happens to the neurons and synaptic connections of my brain, even if I cannot document it. My walks creates memories and promote healing from emotional pain and stress. And I am satisfied with it, even if will not bring a Nobel prize.

My "mind walk" wearing a EEG headset, on October 3, 2014, Hudson Waterfront, New York

Movement Infrastructure | Laban Icosahedron at Sun Farm

Last Sunday the fabrication of the prototype of the first movement structure, the icosahedron was completed at Sun Farm.
The icosahedron is made of PVC pipes connected by 3D printed joints which I designed following the principles of material efficiency and easy assembly. I started a practice with my own yoga vocabulary based interpretation of the Laban scale A.