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Starting
with three straight lines (hard facts, one meter long, one meter above the
ground) and an apparently random act (dropping the string) Duchamp
achieved three curves, or stoppages, that
he refers to as “standard”, that is, specific and non-random.
The Duchamp-ian paradox here is that stoppages in themselves are
not random, but are designed curves (i.e. French curves from the days of
manual drafting) used by engineers to aid illustration of defined/designed
conditions.
Might
reverse engineering of such apparently random acts return us to the three
straight lines with which Duchamp started?
Contour
maps use a convention, a “standard” engineering system to depict the
shapes of the land – shapes randomly generated in Nature through
erosion, geological forces, bio-intervention, and human acts.
Contour
lines appear as whorls, sweeps, curlicues, convergences and divergences,
… seemingly random gestures by some un-recognized hand ….
to the un-initiated they are random, nearly meaningless.
However,
there is a non-depicted underlying condition of even layers in this
system, layers identical in thickness.
No map shows the horizontal view because all maps would then look
the same, totally lacking in pertinent data, a series of evenly spaced
straight lines, the “standard” tool (or stoppage) used to generate the
contour illustration of apparently random earth forms.
This
project traces three literal contours on the land, in an appropriately
“active” location, illustrating the apparently random curves that
constitute the contours.
As we move in this real, three dimensional world, circling the
installation, we are able to view these lines from several vantages.
Laterally, seeing the curves, but also from a horizontal viewpoint,
revealing the parallel layers, the seemingly straight lines that underlie
the “standard-ized” system.
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