Mitzi Pederson’s Ciphers at Ratio 3 |

Transversing the Bay is a study of the San Francisco Bay Area that utilizes mass transit systems, malady
particularly the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and local ferries. By framing the movements of people and the spatial and affective domains created by these systems, healing
our aim was the documentation and distillation of the emotional resonances and ephemeral qualities of place found in this region. There is a unique social ecology that revolves around each transit hub that informs the surrounding landscape, varying by the age of the line and the density of the location.

The photographs and sound that we captured were constrained by a one mile diameter within walking distance of the various transit hubs and reflect our particular experiences. It became obvious over the course of our study that the core/periphery relationship is a crucial one and our documentation is a reflection of movements from the furthest flung suburbs inward. In addition we found that the core urban centers are oversaturated by photography, by an almost blinding amount of representative documentation that can be found within seconds, so a prioritization of the over-looked peripheral spaces of everyday life become the primary focus of the photographs.

This project was part of the Transit/Stasis Exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute in May of 2011.

See more from Transversing the Bay at the project site: transversing.net

This project was part of the Transit/Stasis Exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute in May of 2011.

See more from Transversing the Bay at the project site: transversing.net

The Situationist International (SI) has gone in and out of style for a number of decades. Nearly fifty years since the groups’ inception and against all odds, erectile
they continue to have critical, political, and historical import for many disciplines, including art. They were even cited as an influence for the Occupy movement—no small achievement for a relatively obscure avant-garde group of pan-European cultural troublemakers. Recent years have also seen an increase in their popularity as an academic subject. However, the rising interests of academics in the Situationist project and the popularity of psycho-geographical explorations within the art world skirts uncomfortably close to a calcification of their legacy into an ideology that the Situationists would reject. Members of the SI were explicitly against an ideology of Situationism—one became a Situationist only through active engagement with the group, by creating situations. Despite this, a number of academics have become specialists on the Situationists—the writings, art, and practices of the Situationists are seen as prime material for study, especially in cultural studies, media, and art history. Ken Wark is one such academic and The Beach Beneath the Street is his second book on the Situationists. To his credit, Wark embraces the politics of their project, something that many other authors have tended to avoid. This contrasts with recent books like Tom Macdonough’s Situationists and the City, which focus more about the S.I.’s avant-garde aesthetics and their early writings on urbanism rather than their radical political legacy.

The Beach Beneath the Street opens with an loose narrative about the bohemian culture of St. Germain in the 1950’s and Guy Debord’s fascination with itinerant youth. Wark sets the scene to place the SI’s development in its proper context; a chaotic, Bohemian, and youthful haze. Throughout the work, Mr. Wark takes a derivé through his research material: historical anecdotes, biographical sketches, and notes that establish the general cultural context—his format is somewhat disorganized on purpose. The resulting material constructs biographical and intellectual genealogies of various figures within and around the SI; how they came to various positions, passions, and projects, joined or left the SI, and how these conflicted with emerging orthodoxies within the SI itself. Ken Wark describes his project as a tactical approach to the subject matter as “an account which resists the sorting and selecting which parcels out a movement into bite size morsels, each to be swallowed by a specific discipline: art history, media studies, architecture or philosophy. The Situationist project implied the overcoming of separate and specialized knowledge, and has to be recalled in that spirit.”¹

Wark’s style of writing varies from a popular narrative history to a more specialized and academic critique of the subject. In the early chapters, the tone is akin to Griel Marcus’ Lipstick Traces²: loose, vibrant, and non-committal. This style works well enough in the introduction but a welcome change occurs when he becomes more focused by extracting the connections and conflicts that arose within the Situationists. He often drifts into comparisons with philosophers and thinkers of both their time and ours: Georges Bataille, Henri Lefebvre, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. He is careful to make clear a distinction between thinkers, that the SI was “low” theory, focused on the everyday rather than caged or restrained by the ivory tower or establishment thinking. Of course after May 1968, “the everyday” became a central part of academic philosophy. Wark also adds his own cultural theories and commentary to bring the influence and ideas of the SI into the contemporary moment.

The Beach Beneath the Street succeeds most prominently by de-centering the SI. Most secondary materials on the SI have tended to focus on the contributions of key members and develop a narrative of their disintegrating interpersonal relationships. Guy Debord is almost always centralized as the figurehead—the hub through which all activity revolved. Indeed his role was crucial through his prolific output and rigid ideological positions; and Debord is always presented as the loudest voice in these studies. Wark wisely chooses to de-emphasize Debord in his book, framing his role as the group’s secretary (he was indeed the journal’s editor). This decision opens up all sorts of spaces for other, more marginalized figures like Constant Nieuwenhuys, René Viénet, Ivan Chelov and Jacquiline DeJong.

The back stories that emerge of the marginal figures is crucial to understanding the breadth of the projects—people like Ivan Cheglov, a Russian exile and one of the earliest writers on their idea of Unitary Urbanism. Or Jacquiline de Jong and the Situationist Times, who funded the “rogue” Nordic branch of the SI. The precedence of these marginal or former figures reconstruct a broader idea of what the SI was about, the diversity of its activities and its web of (continuing) influences across Europe.

This book is far from flawless but it offers something of a helpful corrective by actively de-centering the Situationist International. No one can dethrone Debord or his enduring influence but by making room for the other marginalized figures, fragments, competing and cooperative ideas that came from this milieu, our understanding can be that much broadened. With the recent release of Fraternité Avant Tout³, Asger Jorn’s collected writings and Expect Anything Fear Nothing ⁴ renewed interest in the Scandinavian and other minor figures in the Situationist project one can begin to complete the picture.

Endnotes
(1) Beach Beneath the Street pg. 5

(2) Griel Marcus Lipstick Traces a poor but popular introduction to “20th Century Avant-Gardes.”
(3) Fraternité Avant Tout: Asger Jorn’s writings on art and architecture, 1938-1958 edited by ruth baumster on 010 Press(2011)
(4) Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Jakob Jakobsen (eds.): Expect Anything Fear Nothing: The Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere (2011)
There is also an interactive companion website to the book at http://www.beachbeneaththestreet.com/

This project was part of the Transit/Stasis Exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute in May of 2011.

See more from Transversing the Bay at the project site: transversing.net

The Situationist International (SI) has gone in and out of style for a number of decades. Nearly fifty years since the groups’ inception and against all odds, health they continue to have critical, sale political, ampoule and historical import for many disciplines, including art. They were even cited as an influence for the Occupy movement—no small achievement for a relatively obscure avant-garde group of pan-European cultural troublemakers. Recent years have also seen an increase in their popularity as an academic subject. However, the rising interests of academics in the Situationist project and the popularity of psycho-geographical explorations within the art world skirts uncomfortably close to a calcification of their legacy into an ideology that the Situationists would reject. Members of the SI were explicitly against an ideology of Situationism—one became a Situationist only through active engagement with the group, by creating situations. Despite this, a number of academics have become specialists on the Situationists—the writings, art, and practices of the Situationists are seen as prime material for study, especially in cultural studies, media, and art history. Ken Wark is one such academic and The Beach Beneath the Street is his second book on the Situationists. To his credit, Wark embraces the politics of their project, something that many other authors have tended to avoid. This contrasts with recent books like Tom Macdonough’s Situationists and the City, which focus more about the S.I.’s avant-garde aesthetics and their early writings on urbanism rather than their radical political legacy.

>The Beach Beneath the Street succeeds most prominently by de-centering the SI. Most secondary materials on the SI have tended to focus on the contributions of key members and develop a narrative of their disintegrating interpersonal relationships. Guy Debord is almost always centralized as the figurehead—the hub through which all activity revolved. Indeed his role was crucial through his prolific output and rigid ideological positions; and Debord is always presented as the loudest voice in these studies. Wark wisely chooses to de-emphasize Debord in his book, framing his role as the group’s secretary (he was indeed the journal’s editor). This decision opens up all sorts of spaces for other, more marginalized figures like Constant Nieuwenhuys, René Viénet, Ivan Chelov and Jacquiline DeJong.

This project was part of the Transit/Stasis Exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute in May of 2011.

See more from Transversing the Bay at the project site: transversing.net

The Situationist International (SI) has gone in and out of style for a number of decades. Nearly fifty years since the groups’ inception and against all odds, click
they continue to have critical, viagra
political, visit
and historical import for many disciplines, including art. They were even cited as an influence for the Occupy movement—no small achievement for a relatively obscure avant-garde group of pan-European cultural troublemakers. Recent years have also seen an increase in their popularity as an academic subject. However, the rising interests of academics in the Situationist project and the popularity of psycho-geographical explorations within the art world skirts uncomfortably close to a calcification of their legacy into an ideology that the Situationists would reject. Members of the SI were explicitly against an ideology of Situationism—one became a Situationist only through active engagement with the group, by creating situations. Despite this, a number of academics have become specialists on the Situationists—the writings, art, and practices of the Situationists are seen as prime material for study, especially in cultural studies, media, and art history. Ken Wark is one such academic and The Beach Beneath the Street is his second book on the Situationists. To his credit, Wark embraces the politics of their project, something that many other authors have tended to avoid. This contrasts with recent books like Tom Macdonough’s Situationists and the City, which focus more about the S.I.’s avant-garde aesthetics and their early writings on urbanism rather than their radical political legacy.

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Mitzi Pederson’s current exhibition at Ratio 3, Ciphers, is best situated within an ongoing tradition of post-minimalist sculpture—sculptural works formed with the barest and thinnest of materials to affect the viewer, challenge the object, and embrace the surrounding space. These types of works have emerged primarily in Europe over the past fifteen years with artists like Karla Black (Scotland), Ian Kiear (England), and Gedi Sibony (US) coming to mind. Ephemeral sculpture in this vein also derives from and alludes to some the works and philosophies of Gilberto Zorio and Arte Povera artists in the 1960’s.

Using tulle, paint, sand, wood, glitter, and wire; Pederson casts a subtle screen over the walls of Ratio 3. There are a dozen pieces to Ciphers. Several are draped across wooden stretcher bars, while others just float from the wall defying gravity with apparent ease. One of the works is simply a four foot piece of pale blue tulle rippled like a curtain. Other pieces contain subtle color shifts in the tulle cast by paint drops, sand and glitter applications, adding shadows and indeterminate depths to many of the pieces. Other pieces are punctured and tented by wood, disturbing the surface and hazily floating beyond the focus of the eye. Ephemerality of this sort is a difficult thing to capture, by its nature elusive and in equal parts there and not there. The effect of the works’ lightness is varied—certain pieces are spectral while others merely insubstantial.

Like other artists working in this tradition, Pederson’s work tries to be responsive to space. The treatments and fold of the tulle are speaking to the paint drips and rippling of the floor. The installation at Ratio 3 challenges the work and the transparency of her pieces poses a challenge when the architectural space starts to dominate the work. Whereas Karla Black has a consistent output, playful content, and varied scales and Kiaer’s work has a strong conceptual foundation, Pederson’s Ciphers is more defined by what it lacks. A cipher is a code-breakers term for characters that stand in place letters and numbers in the construction of secret passcodes. It was not necessarily clear what condition Ciphers was trying to create or interrogate. The exhibition is not exactly about the materials themselves or about drawing attention to the space, instead it becomes a vague commentary on the elusive nature of sculpture within the contemporary scene. Mitzi Pedersons’ Ciphers float in front of the eye, defying the forces of gravity, and darkness which is perhaps a statement of collusion with the ephemerality of the passing moment: timeless, weightless, suspended and contingent.

Mitzi Pederson’s Ciphers is at Ratio 3 until June 16th
all images courtesy of Ratio 3.

Mitzi Pederson Untitled, 2012

Mitzi Pederson, Ciphers, 2012 (installation view)