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| MARTHA GELARDEN |
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Martha Gelarden, Personal Hybridity
"Self-Serve Self-Portraits: a personal interpretation of Hybrid Narrativity"
If a hybridizer crosses two unrelated species or elements of words from different languages and a narrator is one who relates a story or account between the scenes of a play, then these definitions provide clues to the nature of my inquiry. Like a hybridizer of plants, I have a reasonable sense of the solution before I begin the process. Hybridizers systematically develop an idea, or cross, the outcome is anticipated beforehand, form and context are the variables. My hypothesis is fueled by observation of current events, the mass media and technology and mostly an insatiable curiosity. Please do not think that I am simply preaching to the converted or whining about society. If I knew all the answers, I would take another tack.
As a narrator, I get to tell a story any way I choose, as long as I reveal something hidden or an "aside". The narrator, restates and interprets the narrative between the scenes. The "between" or the time space interval between the notes or parts is really interesting to me. Traditionally, sculptors formally speak of three-dimensional form as primary and secondary. Secondary forms are created when two primary forms and ideas converge, a hybrid. Whereas the narrator is the connector by proximity between space and time. My role of narrator historically is linked to the Fool that walks a tightrope with an eye on both sides of the rope. My commentary is inspired by the humorist, Dave Barry, the non-linear lightening speed thought processes of comedian Robin Williams, reading the NY Times and the wisdom of Albert Einstein.
I do use seemingly unrelated parts and cross them. Why not cross the mind-boggling discoveries of science with popular culture? It seems as if daily, the news reports reflect yet another scientific achievement or blunder that involves genetics. Genetic manipulation is part of everyday modern life, go to the supermarket, look at the identical perfectly shaped fruits and vegetables shipped out of season from far away lands. Some events such as Dolly the sheep and OJ Simpson's DNA rich bloody glove were reported and re-reported by the media and comedians alike. As a narrator sparked by current events, history and language, hybridity is a conceptual process that seems to accommodate my observations, questioning and collecting of information throughout space and time.
My images may be experienced like reading a newspaper. Something visual, a headline or photographic image teases the reader and then a smaller boxed paragraph may restate the teaser and direct the reader to actually enter the publication. In other words, my hybrid narratives are visually accessible to the viewer on the most basic level. The reader then has choices, turn the page directly to the story or read from front to back, accumulating information en route to the original teaser story. Both readers get to the story, but in the end because of the collective experience the in depth reader is rewarded with "discoveries made on the way to looking something else up." Many quiet bits of information when added to the original continue to compound creating multiple layers.
Self-Serve Self-Portrait: art and science for the do-it-yourselfer is an ongoing series of hybrid narratives that will continue to evolve and accumulate. Objects are inspired by the mapping of the Human Genome code and the works may be organized into three categories: The Trail, Collecting and Alterations. In this series, the Foolish hybridizer sets the stage for the viewer to participate both as observer/ narrator but also the viewer is encouraged to take the conceptual role of creator.
The mass media and publications such as the NY Times provide ongoing coverage of the 21st century's "Great Race". Technology can compute necessary mathematical calculations and database organization far faster than humans. The absurdity of this Human Genome Project is that billions of bits of genetic information have been identified without a specific goal. Laboratories and investors are betting on portions of the code's supposed disease curing potential and it appears as though the posing of serious ethical questions like…"Should patents be granted on humans?" "Is the ownership and replication of humans and the potential to manipulate humanity scientifically part of our ugly past?" Have we forgotten? The Human Genome code's four little letters "c a t g" repeated 30,000 times makes up a teeny portion of an individual's DNA. The number seems to change constantly. CATG is the anagram for the amino acids, cytosine-guanine, adenine-thymine, thymine-adenine and guanine-sytosine. Human DNA is a long molecule-it would measure up to six feet in length if stretched out-but is packed into an elaborate coil only 1/2500 of an inch across. (Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines, 1999. p. 40). I make no claim to understanding the ever-changing world of science. I do however, use this REALLY big invisible world and imagine how it effects domestic life.
The Trail
A trail is a physical record, a line or path made up of tracks, like footprints on a sandy beach. Wild animals leave direct trails that mark the shortest distance between two points. Domestic animals like dogs leave meandering trails that reflect a powerful sense of smell and marking of territory. Humans participate in this activity, too, though public urination and physically leaving a scent on strangers is not considered polite behavior. However, as the narrator, I get to "hide in the bushes" and watch and make comments. I am no different from the mark makers of cultures past and present and this body of work evolved from the simple repetitive act of making marks and counting them. News happens and the marks took the shape of a DNA chart, Genetic Quilt, 2000.
Self-Serve Self Portrait, 2001 is the hybridization of a mechanical numbering machine whose function has been largely replaced by computerized inventory controls and other high tech marking devices and the most basic elements of the Genome Code. The object itself is a combine, a "customized" commercial product ordered by telephone and delivered to me. When pressed the letters CATG are stamped out, an act of creation has occurred. Each visitor to the gallery is invited to engage the passive device and "make their unique mark". The process of stamping, the cah-chunk, cah-chunk, cah-chunk, the sound the tool makes is evocative of low level gatekeepers (train conductors and customs agents stamping passports). Cah-chunk, "May I see your identification please?" Cah-chunk. Self-Serve Self-Portraits record the mark, making the trail. Some participants just don't get it, stamp the code CATGCATGCATG and retreat. Still others cannot resist the urge to make images and children never seem to question "secret code", they enjoy the sensory experience. Cah-chunk.
The subtitle art and science for the do-it-yourselfer acknowledges the adaptation of art and science for the home market. Like the Brownie camera changed photography, technical advancement continues to trickle down. In the past artists created the tools needed to make their marks, today technology pushes the artist. Today home chemistry kits have been replaced with Web pages and EBAY and Brownie cameras have been transformed by IMOVIE. How-to and self-expression is big business just look at talk show hosts like Oprah Winfrey and "down home Texan" Self Matters psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw and the specialized cable television How-to- TV channels. Nevertheless personal expression and the need to leave a trail persists. This is the physical evidence made by an individual, recording and remaking the self. The thumbprint of the maker continues to be created and re-created.
Collecting
Today, fingerprints long prized by courts of law to make positive identification of criminals and connect criminals to a crime are not considered to be conclusive. The notion of the "thumbprint of the maker" once a measure of quality in art and still considered important by many, is not conclusive?? DNA samples (genetic code) are said to be something like 99.99… percent accurate for identification. And from what trails can the CATG coded marks be collected? And in what can they be stored?
Self-Serve Self-Portraits demonstrate a few possibilities of "how-to create and catalog your own personal collection" of Self-Portraits. Saving the bits of ourselves for the future adds to or creates our personal myth. For example June 6, 1996, 2002, records a specific event that apparently involved human fluids. Is it a crime scene Rape Kit or perhaps a Wedding Night or just a recorded sexual encounter made special by the act of collecting? Compact Travel Kit, 2002 contains cotton swabs, fingerprints, lipstick and saliva (code bearing) on the glass that have been collected and stored in a "Special Field Collector", like the amateur collectors of the past creating Wunderkammers. The trail of evidence is removed from its original context and becomes part of a conceptual collection of art and science. Recently, surviving marital and blood relatives of victims of the September 11 World Trade Center bombing were given cotton swabs and plastic bags in which to collect their fluid samples to aid in the identification of human remains from Ground Zero. Proving once again that truth and fiction can be strangely aligned. What makes one Self-Portrait medical evidence and another a hybrid narrative? Intent, the witty attractive packaging and of course the thumbprint of the maker.
Selection of items for Self-Serve Self-Portrait collections starts with self-disclosure. This is a difficult process for those that have blamed external appearance on genetics. Standards of beauty for personal appearance today are well documented and diverse. Obesity once a sign of economic prosperity in the West, is becoming an equal opportunity global health risk. The tables have turned. The economically prosperous are working out with personal fitness trainers and thin is a status symbol.
To help everyone participate in the self-disclosure process and generate new Self-Serve Self-Portrait ideas I have devised the Select-O-Rama, 2002. It bears a remarkable resemblance to a child's educational toy. A lever is pulled, a pointer spins and randomly stops at a Self-Serve Self-Portrait collection marker/maker. Each choice also audibly announces the name of a color, red, yellow, blue, pink. This also gives the creator an opportunity to play, collect or consider the possibility if color influences a selection or vice versa.
Alteration/liquidity
When something is mass marketed and becomes adopted by the many, early adapters (often the wealthy few) personalize the traditional practice or old technology and reinvent it as a luxury item, like electricity and candles, automobiles and horses, computers and fountain pens, live concerts and recorded music. For example, the development of the MP3 format and the ease of sampling/personal editing of music is made possible by technology. New technology has made the information liquid and many are convinced that recorded music and images will no longer "belong to the artist". The thumbprint of the maker can be re-mixed and manipulated by anyone with a computer. Does this predict a resurgence in portrait painting? Can Paint-by-Number be far behind?
Popular culture already wants to utilize and manipulate the Human Genome Project. Cures for cancer are sought and the fountain of youth is a bigger quest than ever. My response is a designed collection of consumer products that may spark some interest in the possibilities for liquid narratives. If the obesity gene could be "accidentally" discovered through a transcription error, then why not "liquefy the narrative" and hybridize it with the personal hygiene market? Imagine Genetic Cream, 2002 designed to fight aging and wrinkles. Personal Choice, 2002 pills that control women's reproductive destiny and lives. Perhaps, the code could be manipulated so smokers can light up without fear. Fun For Smokers. It Sucks, 2002 is a physical therapy tool transformed into a carnival like game of skill. Finally just in case we are tempted to ignore that with the Human Genome code comes societal and personal responsibility, Genetic Cleanser,2002 is presented like a domestic cleaning product that might be found on the supermarket shelves. Self-Serve Self-Portraiture is an interesting notion, marks and trails are left behind, collected and transformed. Truth and fiction can be fun and frightening.
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