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GATHERINGS on LINE |
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Leon Battista Alberti:
Leon Battista Alberti in 1435 set forth valuable principles for painters when he wrote On Painting. His definition of line and point is a good example of the ideal of both, "The first thing to know is that a point is a sign which one might say is not divisible into parts....So for us a line is a sign whose length can be divided into parts, but it will be so slender in width that it cannot be split." (pg.37)
Kandinsky:
Point and Line to Plane
Line is introduced in terms of the violence that it does to the inward-facing tension of the point, the line shatters the self sufficient world of the point.
“There exists still another force which develops not within the point, but outside of it. This force hurls itself upon the point which is digging its way into the surface, tears it out and pushes it about the surface in one direction or another. The concentric tension of the point is thereby immediately destroyed and, as a result, it perishes and a new being arises out of it which leads a new, independent life in accordance with its own laws. This is the Line.”
Quote from Kandinsky's Point and Line to Plane (pg. 54)
"The geometric line is an invisible thing. It is the track made by the moving point; that is, its product. It is created by movement."
Point and line to Plane (pg. 57)
A Line is the track made by points in motion so dance or movement is a way of exploring line with your body.
Dancing Lines
Fig. 9 A leap of the dancer Palucca Kandinsky's Point and Line to Pane
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Fig. 10 Graphic diagram of Palucca's leap. Kandinsky's Point and Line to Plane (pg. 42)
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Quote - Kandinsky -
" Already in the classical ballet form exsisted "points"- a designated terminology which unquestionably is derived from "point." The rapid running on the toes leaves behind on the floor a trace of points. The ballet dancer leaps to a point above, clearly aiming at it with his head and, in landing, again contacts a point on the floor."
Point and Line to Plane (pg. 42)
Point and Line to Plane (pg. 42)
Quote - Merce Cunningham -
“A prevalent feeling among many painters that lets them make a space in which anything can happen is a feeling dancers may have too. Imitating the way nature makes a space and puts lots of things in it, heavy and light, little and big, all unrelated, yet each affecting all the others.”
Merce Cunningham Art Performs Life (pg.19)
Merce Cunningham Art Performs Life (pg.19)
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Music- Point and Line
The drawings to the right show Kandinsky translating music into points. Point and Line to Plane (pg. 44 & 45) Musical notes rest on the line of the staff as points. Visually static points on a line become sounds when played by an instrument. The arrangement of the notes as points in motion form a linear organization, heard by the ear as music. |
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Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis created a computer program that could read his drawing as music. The lines curves and shapes within the drawings were interpreted by UPIC as real time instructions for the sound synthesis process. The composition of the drawing became a musical composition.
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Joan Jonas
Song Delay (1973)
Quote - Bodo Jax Theimer -
"Scientifically speaking, a line exists only in the imagination, since it has no depth or width, and thus cannot be visible. Everything seen consists entirely of surfaces; they may be exceptionally narrow, but they remain surfaces."
Nonetheless, the draftsman should never forget that a line is an abstraction, primarily the representation of a sensed but invisible boundary between two surfaces."
How to Paint and Draw (pgs 34-35)
Nonetheless, the draftsman should never forget that a line is an abstraction, primarily the representation of a sensed but invisible boundary between two surfaces."
How to Paint and Draw (pgs 34-35)
Quote - Paul Klee-
"At the dawn of civilization when writing and drawing were the same thing, line was the basic element. And as a rule our children begin with it; on the day they discover the phenomenon of the mobile point, with what enthusiasm it is hard for us grown-ups to imagine...
From point to line. The point is not dimensionless but an infinitely small planar element, an agent carrying out zero motion, i.e. resting. Mobility is the condition for change...The primordial movement, the agent, is a point that sets itself in motion (genesis of form). A line comes into being...In all these examples the principle and active line develops freely. It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk." -lecture notes, 1921
From point to line. The point is not dimensionless but an infinitely small planar element, an agent carrying out zero motion, i.e. resting. Mobility is the condition for change...The primordial movement, the agent, is a point that sets itself in motion (genesis of form). A line comes into being...In all these examples the principle and active line develops freely. It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk." -lecture notes, 1921
-WALKING LINES-
" The history of the origin of man is a history of walking, of migrations, of peoples and cultural and religious exchanges that took place along intercontinental trajectories." (pg. 44 Walkscapes)
Richard Long
A Line Made by Walking, 1967.
Quote:
Walkscapes by Francesco Careri
"Richard Long's intervention is free of any technological aid, but merely transforms the surface in a reversible way. The only means utilized is his own body, his possibility of movement, the strength of his arms and legs: the largest stone utilized is one that can be moved by a single person, and the longest path is the one the body can follow in a certain period of time. The body is a tool for measuring time and space. Through the body Long measures his own perception and the variations in atmospheric agents, he uses walking to capture the changes in the direction of the wind, in temperature and sounds. To measure means identifying points, indicating them, aligning them, circumscribing spaces, alternating them in keeping with a rhythm and a direction..." (pg.148)
Walkscapes by Francesco Careri
"Richard Long's intervention is free of any technological aid, but merely transforms the surface in a reversible way. The only means utilized is his own body, his possibility of movement, the strength of his arms and legs: the largest stone utilized is one that can be moved by a single person, and the longest path is the one the body can follow in a certain period of time. The body is a tool for measuring time and space. Through the body Long measures his own perception and the variations in atmospheric agents, he uses walking to capture the changes in the direction of the wind, in temperature and sounds. To measure means identifying points, indicating them, aligning them, circumscribing spaces, alternating them in keeping with a rhythm and a direction..." (pg.148)
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Steps of two Austraplopithecus, Laetoli, Tanzania. An adult and a child's footprints are solidified in volcanic rock 3.7 million years ago. These traces are known to be the oldest evidence of the existence of man. photo below: AKIRA KANAYAMA: (GUTAI) footprints, 1965
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Luis Camnitzer: Two Parellel Lines 1976-2010 -example of an object line.
Marcel Duchamp- Mile Of String 1942
EVA HESSE - Hang Up 1966
CHARLES RAY - Ink Line
A continuous stream of ink flows from the ceiling to the floor.
Illustration of the activity - Line Extensions -
Brief description: create a line that shifts from a two dimensional surface, to three dimensional space, to then become a plane. (ex. from chark, to yarn, to the red fabric)