Musical Minimalism
Martin Creed can even make music ‒ or at least sound. In the Summer of 2018 the Birmingham Museum in Britain had on display a work called Three Metronomes installed by Creed. Look at the photo in which three Yamaha metronomes are attached to a wall. They are just compact green disc-like devices and each one makes a tapping sound at a set interval.
It sounded a bit like this to me. ba-dat ______ dat-a-dat_______a-dat_________a-dat-a-a-dat-a-dat___. It continues in that fashion. You hear the dat sounds spaced further apart or closer together and in different combinations ‒ almost like some unexpected little rhythm played with drumsticks on a table.
What is going on? A metronome can be set to tap at a chosen specific interval, say one beat per second. To explain creed’s work suppose the first A metronome makes a tap every 1.0 seconds, the second B metronome taps every 2.1 seconds, and the third C metronome taps every 3.1 seconds. Let's make a timeline of the taps for the three metronomes, starting at time zero.
A 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
B 0 2.1 4.2 6.3
C 0 3.1 6.2
As time goes on, sometimes the taps will be spread out and sometimes they will cluster closer. In our example there are two taps near the 2 second time, two near the 3 second time, two near the 4 second time, and three near the 6 second time. In science, engineering, and in nature cyclic events sometimes are isolated and sometimes they coincide to produce a larger effect.
My optimism about Martin Creed’s art is based on the realization that his kind of homespun art seems to be all around us, just waiting for us to spot it and make it.
In the photo with the metronomes, on the upper right there is a work by a local artist named Kurt Hickson. It is an acrylic painting called Red, White, and Blue, 30 by 30 inches, done on a cork tile . The painting doesn’t look minimal in design although it is modest in size. Given that it appears in the photo let’s see if we can understand it.
It looks as if small pieces of blue and red confetti were dropped onto a white canvas. Another theory might be that if the cork surface is made from odd pieces of cork pressed together the artist could color those individual pieces. The second theory is correct. I have not seen that particular odd and interesting texture effect anywhere else.
Mechanized Minimalism
Nearby the Creed and Hickson works there was an interesting motorized work by Mona Hatoum called + and ‒ . Due to the ideas involved Hatoum’s work could also qualify for our conceptual chapter. Many of these works fall into multiple categories.
Hatoum constructed a square wooden box about 18 inches on a side containing smooth leveled sand. A motorized arm swings around with a kind of trailing rake on it to create ridges in the sand. It makes a nice pattern.
But the other end of the arm has a trailing tilted flap that smoothes the sand. So what one side of the arm does the other side of the arm undoes. This doing and undoing goes on so smoothly and inexorably that it is fascinating. You feel like a deity looking down on things happening ‒ creation ‒ destruction. For that matter, which is which?
On Youtube, you can find a video of Hatoum’s + and ‒ machine in operation.
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