Download PDF - David Fried

Inteview excerpt from an article by Christopher Chambers on David Fried
Following is a discussion with the artist regarding his ideas and motivations
CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS: Regarding your recent works, the
Self Organizing Still Life sculptures and the In bed with Lucy
and Dolly photograms: At first glance these appear to be two
completely unrelated seriatim. Do their themes spring from a
common underlying concept? What are the ideas that led you
in these directions and how do they tie together?
DAVID FRIED: I have always worked from concept. Finding
the right medium to fit the concept - or in the case of
the SOS sculptures combining techniques and even inventing
new mediums like interactive granite - allows me much
greater flexibility to express my ideas. Consequently, I am
free to pursue ideas that might not have occurred to me if
I were to begin within the constraints of a single medium.
Still, the road between intent and outcome may take some
incubation time and a lot of patience to develop skills previously
unpracticed. For instance, before the first functioning
SOS was created, I needed 2 years of research. I had to take
my ideas from pure theory to engineering reality, which as a
painter was completely new for me. This process incorporated
studying physics, mould making, working with stone and
electronics, and then, putting it all together in this unique
way - that was extremely challenging for me. Back to your
question: My particular concepts themselves are guided by
certain criteria which are essential to all my works both past
and present. One of the basic criteria leading up to both the
SOS and the Lucy & Dolly work was, to find a way of expressing
my understanding of life in a symbolic way that could
reveal networks of relationships which do not follow linear
and hierarchal patterns.
C.C.: Those concepts are also apparent in chaos and deepecology
theories. Was this a source of inspiration?
D.F.: Let‘s say, the research and understanding of certain individuals
who are now able to prove those theories has given
me a feeling of reassurance because although Descartes is
long gone, the separatist view of the world still has a very
firm grip on the way technology, culture, and politics are
moving. The knowledge is there, but the new model has not
been fully adopted. I‘d say my experiences growing up in the
New York City with its quick moves, abrupt truths, and door-die
endeavors; with all these people networking within the
framework of such a concentrated and diverse environment,
has probably been a much greater source of inspiration as
to how I see relationships, and the impact certain individual
actions can have on the whole - be it of private, cultural,
or even of spiritual nature. So, I‘d like to stress that I am
not merely attempting to illustrate scientific understanding.
I want to create works that explore inter-dependant relationships
and the energy distributed within a dynamic but
closed
system, and subsequently, raise questions about contemporary
individuality within the global village.
C.C.: So, philosophically, you are positioning yourself as a
sort of catalyst, a fulcrum between science and the sublime?
D.F.: By way of choosing my subject matter, perhaps yes, but
there is no attempt to be didactic here. I can only hope to
pass on what interests me, in a way that is accessible to as
many cultures as possible. This is not art-about-art, nor is it
a manifesto of what could be. Since years, I have distilled the
imagery of my work into more and more symbolic forms that
can trigger fundamental senses common to the human experience.
Like, music doesn‘t beg for explanation. If my work
can connect with a layman, that‘s good, regardless of their
interpretation. This is liberating for me also because so much
of what we see in the arts lately is so specific, and often very
inaccessible indeed. Of course as we speak there is a great
deal of background information that can be communicated,
but I try to make that aspect somewhat less important in
my work. Although people are also very curious about the
technical aspects of the SOS sculptures, any knowledge of
it‘s hand engineered system simply cannot help you access
the content any better. Y‘know, technical queries are clearly
beside the point, and when I‘m asked; how does it work?
My answer often follows, “It does! How you work with it is
primary.”
C.C.: We are living through yet another revolution in communications
technology. Do you think the future of art will
also thrive on the accessibility offered by e-mail, sms, chat
rooms and the like?
D.F.: Certainly, but content and integrity of what is being
communicated will always be a driving force. Nonetheless, in
any part of the world, what reaches the public will continue
to fluctuate between serious and trendy tendencies. Living
in this post-Gutenberg-galaxy is reality.. Things move faster,
and although I am happy we do not need to copy books by
hand like Monks anymore, our collective attention span isn‘t
getting any longer either. To be plugged in to this availability
the viewer must participate much more actively. The whole
point is there is little need for the silver-spoon of cultural
dictators to fill you up passively. There are a lot of people
who are making really fascinating art, and there is a lot of
laziness out there too, in spite of the larger room and ease
for individuals to express themselves. I‘ve seen too many recent
artworks that are really good too, but not original in the
least! Repeating previously pioneered art may make a living
for some, but it isn‘t going to take us anywhere further.
C.C.: Would you please explain your reference in the title of
the photographic works to Dolly, the first cloned sheep?
D.F.: With her arrival (Dolly), a media star was born. Suddenly
everyone knew a barrier was shattered between mankind‘s
practice of altering his environment, and mankind‘s
attempts at re-inventing himself. Man has always looked for
what separates himself from other species. For me, Dolly
became the missing link, fulfilling man‘s need to be supreme.
On the other hand, Lucy, an ancient hominid, is a woman of
more uncertain origin. Although we can clearly interpret her
physiological nature, the question is still posed, “How intelligent
was she really?” Well, at least clever enough to eat,
sleep and reproduce biologically, which is more than I can
say for our predecessors. So we find ourselves in bed with
our own past and future, trying to orientate ourselves to this
„brave new world.“
C.C.: By being “in bed” with ourselves, are you inferring that
society is ailing or lame?
D.F.: Yes, but not incurably so. If we are making genetic
cookbooks we must be prepared to sit at the table with our
own creations. Now, away from the title, I mean, just looking
at the work, the structure of the bubbles themselves reveal
to us a very delicate balance between water and air, and
more symbolically, remind us of just how fragile and beautiful
the architecture of nature is. Though they are pre-biological,
they could appear as primordial cells, or test-tube
creations. By combining several of these images in sequence
they take on a genetic code look. Whereby the SOS, through
it‘s reduced form, motion and interactivity, is able to provoke
interpretations about relationships from anywhere between
the social level and the cosmos, the Lucy & Dolly works deal
more specifically with processes that lead to biological life.
They are also symbolic of a non-hierarchal, but corruptible
network. Also related is the “Santiago Theory of Cognition”,
which postulates that cognition itself is closely linked to “autopoiesis;”
the self-generation of living networks. The defining
characteristic of such a system is that it undergoes
continual structural change, while preserving its web-like
pattern of organization. It also states that a nervous system
or a brain is not required to do this! Such a system learns
by feedback-loops and is continually exchanging with, and
adapting to its environment. These principles of self-organization
and the creation of new structures are applicable
to biological life, but it can also to be applied to perception:
emotions, social behavior, weather and the entire ecosystem
on the whole.
C.C.: Do you propose that society in general will eventually
come to respect the finite fragility of the Earth as an inherently
closed metabolic system?
D.F.: Right now, political problem solving certainly has not
displayed much enlightenment in this area. You know, there
is a very old hygienic saying that states that you aren‘t supposed
to shit where you eat. We must learn now that this is
utterly false, there is no elsewhere! But before this becomes
common sense to the industrialized world there will first have
to be a major crisis for change to take hold, as if we don‘t
have enough already.
C.C.: Let‘s hope it doesn‘t boil over too soon.
D.F.: Yes, we just might be able to avoid the kind of confrontations
that arise from disinformation and a lack of respect
for the common condition of mankind in the age of abbreviation
and qualitatively changed means of communication like
the e-mail, and web-forum systems you mentioned before,
and even when the myth of progress and science no longer
serves philosophy and wisdom in our societies, we still have
individuals and communications to help share information
and experience in a less corruptible way.
C.C.: Your SOS objects invite you to “communicate” with
them too. Why did you choose to explore sound as the stimulus?
D.F.: Sound and communication play a major roll in the development
of many species and their social spheres. The
acronym SOS itself stands for more than communicating a
distress call. It indicates belonging to an unwritten social
contract simply by being a human. To integrate this I thought
the stimulus should be something that we all depend on, but
also be something that can be interpreted very differently.
Like you and I would dance very differently to the same music,
so do the SOS spheres. I give each sphere a different
individual character. They also affect one another‘s path by
their individual actions, and even cause feedback through
the production of their own sounds of clicking, and so on.
The sound sensor allows the SOS to be a Still Life when all is
quiet, and a moving object when dialogue occurs. Of course,
it can also be stimulated by other sounds that occur when
people are active. The SOS can be “tuned” so that it may
only hear the very loudest of sounds, or allow it even to hear
a whisper. Another aspect is that the use of sound as a stimulus
allows the artwork to extend beyond its own borders,
integrating itself in a dialogue with its environment.
New York, April 2001