ET.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” – there is no use for one stitch – there is strength in numbers.
Recent work concerns the abstract and philosophical nature of stitches. The stitch as a metaphor for family and society, as something that holds us all together. An allegorical device for that which repairs, gathers, strengthens and embellishes life.
I don’t know that I am the other end of things from you, most likely it is a circle… If the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, where else can the extra bits be, but maybe in the code, the minute, the microscopic, in the bits where God is?
BJ
Oh, but they’re real. That’s the point!
Your statement that I asked for specifically says the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I am blatantly disagreeing with that statement. The interest for me is the parts. The beauty of those parts and how they reconstruct themselves. There are parts that cannot reconstruct themselves, that seek out hosts to live in…… That interests me because it changes the meaning of existence.
I struggled this morning to put across my excitement at the path I follow…… This is much more than art now. When I have the time I will be far more concise. I was hinting as you suggest.
ET.
I think the “greater” is in our perception, belief…. the parts are all there, but our interpretation is the “extra”
All the parts are there… people, thinking, make the greater.
That is the art. That is where god is.
This has become my philosophical personal argument with myself…. God or god? art or Art?
BJ
I’m kinda more following the “Matrix” I think. But there’s a God in that to.
God holds enormous interest for me. But to deconstruct that? That’s like deconstructing the purpose of art?
ET.
Three letter words….big words…
BJ.
Yup……. DNA……..!
ET.
There’s also the way we….. by we I mean human beings, not just you and me…. assign meaning to things at the drop of a hat… we could choose a piece of thinking at random and decide it holds some sort of magical meaning. We could invent a new “religion” that lauded the three-letter word… a new trinity…
Human beings just do this, it is how we are made, we seek meaning everywhere….
Who’s to know if it’s true or just rubbish concocted out of a confused mind?
Sacrilege and blasphemy are everywhere, if god is!
I think I prefer art…. causes less violence.
BJ.
God don’t cause violence…….. Humans do……..
ET.
Having a God is fine. Religion is the problem….
Prefer art.
And that’s how it goes between the two of us… backwards and forwards as we unpick and reassemble…
I don’t know if we’ve said, or if it’s even obvious… but clearly it is becoming important…
This collaboration… this event… this show we embark on…
We do this from distance. We haven’t met up. We communicate electronically and share digitally. We haven’t sampled or felt the textures the other creates. The imagery that we share goes through its own process… dismantled and rebuilt as it leaves one screen, is broken into bits and bites… its own code of 1’s and 0’s… before reappearing on the other screen…
We communicate with remembered sound… our text conversations carrying the echoes of voice from the past two years…
This process underpins all that we do… whether Elena chooses to acknowledge it as a part of the process or not I’m not sure?.. But it was suggested that I might try and sew a bit in my own work… I have!
Perhaps, whilst Elena is laid up with her injured hand, someone might like to suggest that she attempts to digitally process her idea – (for me, the sewing provoked and challenged some interesting new lines of making) – but I wouldn’t be the person to do that… I’ve found that its best to rile a little and then stand back and gleefully watch as she eventually reaches the same conclusion…!
