Aither. By Susi Cora. Bachelor of Architecture, B.S. Building Science, May 1994, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. A Thesis submitted to

Aither     By Susi Cora     Bachelor of Architecture, B.S. Building Science, May 1994,   Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.     A Thesis sub...
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Aither     By Susi Cora     Bachelor of Architecture, B.S. Building Science, May 1994,   Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.     A Thesis submitted to     The Faculty of   The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences   of The George Washington University   in partial fulfillment of the requirements   for the degree of Master of Fine Arts     May 15, 2016     Thesis directed by   Julia Brown   Assistant Professor of Painting Director of Graduate Studies in Fine Arts Turker Ozdogan Professor of Ceramics Lenore Miller Director, University Art Galleries and Chief Curator        

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Table of Contents     List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………….……………….iii   Introduction…………………………………………………..………………………………………………….……1 History………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……….3   Process……………………………………………………………………...……...……………………….………….4 Pit Firing………………………………..…………….……………………………………………………..4 Clay………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………4   Aither………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….….5   Installation…………………………………………………………………………………….…………...............5   Witnesses……………………………………………………………………….…………..…..……………………..6   Inscriptions……………………………………………………………………………..……..…………..8   Imprint…………………………………………………………………………..…………………………..9   Aither and Interstices………………….……..………………………………………....……………10   Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..12   Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………….……….…..19    

 

 

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List of Figures     1.

Venus of Dolni Vestnice. Photo: Stan Florek, © Australian Museum.

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Imprint (Detail) 2014-2016, 32” x 32”, Clay, oxides, wood, and stainless steel.

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Pit Fire. Photo by S. Cora, 2015.

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Installation View, Gallery 102, February 2016, GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History.

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Installation View in Gallery 102, February 2016, GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History.

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Inscriptions, Installation View in Gallery 102, February 2016, GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History.

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Inscriptions (Detail Views), Pit fired porcelain, oxides, flux.

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Imprint, 2014-2016, 32” x 32”, Clay, oxides, wood, stainless steel.

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Imprint 2014-2016, Installation view in Gallery 102, February 2016, GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History.

 

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INTRODUCTION   Aither: “Physics, archaic. A very rarefied and highly elastic substance formerly believed to permeate all space, including the interstices between the particles of matter, and to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light and other electromagnetic radiation” (Oxford Dictionary, n.p.).   In the early 1990’s several scholars extended the idea of aither to include the interrelatedness of human and non-human beings as well as of matter and non-matter. Bruno Latour touched on the former relationship when he wrote, “The human is not a constitutional pole to be opposed to that of nonhumans. The two expressions ‘humans’ and ‘nonhumans’ are belated results that no longer suffice to designate the other dimension (137).” Jane Bennet and David Abram discussed the interrelatedness of matter and non-matter—that humans did not exist as one component and everything else a separate non-human component. Bennett stated that “it is wrong to deny vitality to nonhuman bodies” (Bennett, 122).   This division in thought is also deliberated by the theoretical physicist/feminist theorist Karen Barad in her 2012 article On Touching - The Inhuman That Therefore I Am. Barad makes the case for a quantum perspective that allows for an intrinsic relationship for all matter and non-matter versus a classical physics system of separate particles, void, and fields (n.p.).   My work reinforces the position that the space between and around threedimensional works has an experiential energy and a force that supports and enlivens the work. For example one could consider the experience of walking in the catacombs of a cathedral. The columns of a catacomb are often thick and closely spaced with a low ceiling defined by multiple arches. The space is compressed by the architecture, and the experience or energy is very different than with a vault or nave exceeding 100 feet in  

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height. Sculpture has a similar spatial and experiential effect and some of Tara Donovan’s installations exhibit these qualities. Of less interest here is her use of everyday materials. What is pertinent to this discussion are the spaces that are present between the elements. In her installation at the fall 2015 Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery show “Wonder” Donovan stacks index cards in tall precipitous forms that fill the gallery space. The multiple towers leave narrow spaces between the forms. This is space, or void, that has been given agency and aligns with Jane Bennett’s statement that the “vitality of (nonhuman) bodies (have) the capacity … to act as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own” (viii). The space or volume around Donovan’s work should not be conceived as negative space. It holds an active role and is an energizing force that one can occupy and experience. Gallery visitors purposefully fit their bodies into the recesses of Donovan’s work, placing themselves into a physical space that reverberates with this vitality.   My practice incorporates this experiential element through the manipulation of surface and volume. The edges of work are concomitant with form and space and as such are equally considered. While I work with a variety of media the focus of my practice utilizes a ceramic pit firing process that is steeped in 30,000 years of ceramic making. My materials palette is limited to the most basic components of clay, oxides and simple fluxes. This approach places my work in the rich dialog of the makers of the past while firmly placing the work in the contemporary. This history of pit firing provides context to my way of working.      

 

 

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HISTORY   The Venus of Dolni Vestnice figurine from 29,000-25,000 BCE is one of the earliest known ceramic objects. The figurine was discovered in 1925 at an archeological site in the Moravian Basin in the Czech Republic and archeological study estimated that the figurine was fired to a temperature of approximately 700 degrees centigrade (Australian Museum, n.p.). Due to this low firing temperature it is likely that the ceramic artifact was pit fired. The pit fire process predates the structured kiln and is a process of firing where temperatures are significantly lower than

Figure 1 Photo: Stan Florek © Australian Museum

that of a structured kiln. The first known high temperature firing was not seen until the discovery of the closed chamber kilns of Mesopotamia from 7,000-5,000 BCE (Streily, n.p.).   The shift from pit firing to the structured or closed chamber kiln brought about more durable vessels that were more likely to survive the firing process. In its raw state clay contains a flux, which melts at a predetermined temperature and aids in the transformation of the clay to a glass-like vitrified ceramic material. High temperature firings yield a stronger vitrified ceramic material while low temperature firings do not reach vitrification and are not as durable. Another result of the use of the structured kiln was the reduction in breakage of ware during firing. This is because the structured kiln separates the fire from the ware while the pit fire combines the ware and the combustibles in a single pit where temperature differentials and the weight of the settling bonfire often break the work being fired.    

 

 

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PROCESS   PIT FIRING   My ceramic work is fired utilizing several pit firing techniques in order to obtain different results. When a dark surface is desired the work is pit fired in a thick layer of damp animal stall litter. This makes a very slow burning and smoky fire and because the clay surfaces are not fully vitrified they readily absorb carbon from the smoke. For work where more color from oxides and flashing is desired the combustibles can be dry sawdust, paper, or straw. These dry materials burn very quickly and as a result much less carbon is absorbed into the clay.   The pit firing takes place outdoors and may be in a ditch along the road or a fire ring made up of walls of stone and wet compacted dirt or ash. The work is placed into the pit and completely covered with a thick layer of combustibles. A bonfire is then lit on top and is left to burn until the lower layers of combustibles are alight. A fire may be set to completely burn in a few hours, overnight or can smolder for multiple days. While decisions regarding the type of combustible used influences the results, the fire are unpredictable and factors such as outdoor temperature, humidity and wind influence the firing. When the work is uncovered from the ashes, the unglazed clay is often marked with halos and flashes of color. The outcome is always uncertain and heavy with the physical manifestation of the fire.     CLAY   The type of clay utilized and the temperature it is fired to also impacts the outcome. If clay is fired to vitrification it becomes glass-like as the silica flux in the clay has reached a temperature where it melts and changes state. In pit firing the work is intentionally fired to a lower temperature than vitrification because the softer and more  

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porous the clay body is the more carbon and color is absorbed into the surfaces during the pit firing. This is important for my work because at pit firing temperatures the resulting surfaces exhibit a wide range of shades from bright white to black. Oxides vaporize in this atmosphere and are readily absorbed into the clay surface yielding flashes of color. As the low-fired work is still soft (in comparison to vitrified ceramic) it is also susceptible to breakage. Slabs of clay shrink and crack and frequently break during the firing. This effect from the process reinforces the themes of impermanence and chance in my work.   The pit firing process is a key component because the technique of making connects me to a rich history of ceramic makers. The methods of manipulating clay and placing the work in the fire are virtually unchanged in the 30,000 years from the making of the Venus of Dolni Vestnice figurine to today. Pit firing connects my work to a world history of making.     “[W]e discover that it's a reciprocal, interactive process -- a dynamic interaction, or participation, between oneself and what one perceives.”   David Abram   AITHER   INSTALLATION   The show Aither consisted of four ceramic installations and two works on paper. The ceramic work included three Witness sculptures and Inscriptions and Imprint. The two works on paper were Aither and Interstices.   The Witness ceramic sculptures are Witness (m), Witness (b), and Witness (p) and are tall abstract sculptures that are suggestive of the figure. The sculptures were specifically grouped to form a visual connection to each other as well as to Aither, the  

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work on paper. Aither was hung slightly off the wall by small copper nails so that the irregular edges of the crumpled paper cast shadows on the dark grey-blue painted wall. The modulated edges of the Witnesses formed visual relationships with the tattered and torn edges of the paper.   Thirty porcelain ceramic sheets, each approximately the size of a notebook page comprised the work Inscriptions. They were installed on a nearby wall so that a portion of the work could be seen in context with the Witnesses. The sheets were hung in two linear rows on the wall with spaces between some of them so it would look as if some of the sheets had been removed or lost. On the wall across from Inscriptions was the installation of Attrition. A small figurine was pinned to the wall above broken shards of pit fired ceramic pages colored by oxides and flux. The work Imprint was installed on the wall perpendicular to Inscriptions. The last work displayed in the show Aither was Interstices, a work on crumpled and smoothed out rice paper. Like the work on paper Aither, it was also pinned slightly off from the wall.     “We conceive of nature -- and indeed of the material world in general -- as a set of basically inert or mechanical objects. Such a conception profoundly influences the way we see the world around us. It closes our senses to the inexhaustible strangeness and wild otherness of the things around us.”   David Abram   WITNESS (m), (b), (p)   The Witness series is comprised of three sculptural works. The individual sculptures are coil built and the walls paddled to flatten and compress the clay. They are approximately sixty inches in height and are positioned upon eight inch grey wooden bases whose bottom edges are elevated from the floor by semi-concealed wheels. Large  

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scale clay sculptures are challenging to make as clay is a soft and malleable material that slumps and collapses when formed into tall walls. To ensure stability layers of coils are joined and compressed and then allowed to dry enough to stiffen but not so much that the next layers of coils do not adequately join the previous coils. When each section reaches the desired height sections of plastic are placed on the top edge so the next section can begin. This construction ensures continuity between the separate sections and the work as a whole. The clay is allowed to dry slowly and then bisque fired. After being splashed and painted with oxides and flux they are pit fired for two to three days. The sculptures retain the horizontal paddling marks of making and the surfaces are mottled with dark carbon markings, vague iridescence from the surface-applied flux, and yellow striations from the horse stall litter.   The Witness series is an exploration of resilience through the manipulation of surface and volume. Surface is always present in my work as a sort of hieroglyphics - a form of writing that conveys a language that allows for personal interpretation. The volumes, though abstract, possess the carriage of a human form. The forms are activated as a human torso might be and the top sections are slightly turned. One is rigid in its pose, another pushes forward while the third is in motion and starts the smallest movement to begin stepping off of the base. The works are blackened from the smoke of the firing and the surfaces marred with horizontal indentations from the process of making. The Witness series are forms that reflect human resilience through rigidity in volume and surfaces that bear the history of scarring. The Witnesses stand erect and challenge the viewer.    

 

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INSCRIPTIONS   The work Inscriptions is comprised of 30 flat porcelain page-like sheets that have been manipulated and distorted. The edges are thin and curl and the left edge has small perforations as if from a torn from a notebook. They are generally smooth with occasional grooves and ridges dragged horizontally across the surface. The colors range from white to black with vibrant atmospheric layers of green, red, black, and ochre. Intermittently used applications of fluxes result in small patches of glossy, reflective areas.   The sheets are arranged in groups in a grid pattern with blank spaces of the same unit size as the sheets. This flow of presence and absence allows the viewer to experience the work as pages of a personal history. The spaces stand in as placeholders for lost histories.   The work is very much of the fire and with it forms a conspiratorial and primeval relationship. As the fire burns and smokes it generates blackened edges, flashes of color and coppery metallic deposits on the porcelain surface. The pieces often break during the firing process and the edges of the shards are traced with drawing ink and rejoined.   This way of working accepts control and uncertainty, and permanence and transience. I frequently utilize porcelain because it is a clay body typically associated with preciousness. Chinese porcelain objects were brought to Europe in the fourteenth century and were “regarded as objects of great rarity and luxury” (Munger and Frelinghuysen, n.p.). When this refined material associated with wealth is fired using a pit firing process it renders the work non-precious and non-permanent. The thin pieces of porcelain are fragile under the stresses caused by the fire and emerge broken and blackened.      

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IMPRINT   In contrast to the thin and fragile sheets of Inscription, the work Imprint is a thick and heavy clay slab mounted in a wood frame. The frame was originally filled edge to edge with wet clay but as the clay dried it shrank and left an equal gap on all sides of the frame. The slab cracked apart as it dried and some of the layers of clay spalled off from the underlying layers of clay. The individual pieces were pit fired in a bed of horse stall litter and other combustibles. The slab is scorched and blackened with some areas retaining the pink color of the bisque-fired clay. A stainless steel ledger supports its bottom edge.   Imprint was initially developed as a substrate for printmaking. The damp slab fit flush to the edges of the wood frame and the surface painted with clay slip colored with oxides. Paper was laid on the slab and pressed into the wet clay slip to transfer the image. After printing was complete the slab was allowed to dry and then fired. The work was mounted vertically on the wall. While it occupies the picture plane I consider it sculpture. Clement Greenberg briefly discusses this debate of sculpture versus painting in his 1960 essay Modernist Art. He writes that the Old Masters paintings were able to conceive of three-dimensional space in their paintings through the study of sculpture. Conversely, the Modernists utilized flatness or lack of dimensional space in the work to underscore “insistence on the optical as the only sense that a completely and quintessentially pictorial art can invoke” (n.p.). This back and forth of the sculptural and pictorial and the horizontal and vertical is a key component of the work Imprint. It is certainly ‘optical’ but also dimensional.      

 

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Figure 2   Imprint (Detail) 2014-2016   Pit fired clay, oxides, wood and stainless steel   32” x 32”       AITHER AND INTERSTICES   The drawings Aither and Interstices illustrate the vitality present in the spaces between three-dimensional sculptural works. The drawings represent the voids between the forms. Karen Barad writes that “many voices speak here in the interstices” (1).  The close proximity between objects elicits a sense of tension and the space between them creates an organic morphology where a new existence emerges between the spaces made by the adjacent works. This aligns with Barad’s concepts where the inhuman (all that is not human, or ‘void’) yields …”a cacophony of whispered scream, gasps and cries, an infinite multitude of indeterminate beings diffracted through different spacetimes, the nothingness, is always already within us, or rather, it lives through us” (9).    

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The works Aither and Interstices represent unseen or inert space. Paper is utilized as a two-dimensional framework that shifts back and forth between two and three dimensions and the occupation of space. In Aither the two-dimensional surface is manipulated to become a three-dimensional object. Shadows are cast on the wall by the torn edges of the paper making yet another dimensional move. Like Imprint it is placed on the picture plane yet the work can also be interpreted as sculpture.   Aither was developed using stiff photo backdrop paper, starch, ink, acrylic paint, oil paint, linseed oil, ash and carbon from partially burned wood from a previous pit fire. The large roll of backdrop paper was drenched in water until it began to break down on its exposed edge. Once out of the water some areas of the large roll of heavy paper began to disintegrate back to paper pulp while remaining stiff and difficult to manipulate in other areas. I formed crumples and creases in the paper while it was still wet and then starched the surface so as to retain the crisp edges of the crumpling. These actions deformed the paper leaving a large vertical tear, as well as holes, and torn edges. Making Aither required me to physically wrestle with the work in order to manipulate the stiff paper under water and later during the crumpling. As a result the work retained the energy of making and communicated the aliveness of the aither between the Witness sculptures.   The work Interstices was formed from sheets of rice paper that were crumpled to provide volume to the flat surface. Ink wash was brushed on to form line and expression and the creases of the crumpled paper were traced using ink, acrylic, graphite, and marker. The tracings made pathways and networks of differing densities, light and dark. These frenetic pathways were intended to represent the diffraction of ‘spacetime’ that Barad describes as a living “nothingness” (1).      

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CONCLUSION   The works exhibited in the show Aither shared a relationship with space, object, surface and the role of process. Thoughts on space and object allow us to imagine life in places previously determined to be without life. This lifeform supports and provides vitality to an intermingling of past and present - the seen object and the unseen. Just as process links me to 30,000 years of artists’ interaction with clay and fire, my work provides an entry into the primeval. The process of pit firing I utilize is a way to create work from a simplified material palette - clay, oxides, a flux and fire. This process pares down current ceramics processes that utilize numerous manufacturer catalog options of pre-packaged clays and glazes to the most basic process used by maker of the Venus of Dolni Vestnice. The fire imprints its atmospheric image upon the work along with the perceptible smell of smoke. The work is layered with the history of ceramic making and shifts between the dimensions of the primeval, pictorial and sculptural.        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

               

 

     

 

Figure 3   Pit Fire   Photo: S. Cora, 2015    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

 

   

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Figure 4:   Installation View. Gallery 102, February 2016,   GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History     Witness (b), in foreground 2015-2016 Witness (p), in rear 2015-2016   68” x 16” x 12” 68” x 16” x 12”   Clay, oxides, and flux Clay, oxides, and flux     Aither 2016   78” x 72”   Paper, starch, carbon, ash, linseed oil, acrylic paint, oil paint, and ink   S. Cora    

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  Figure 5:   Installation View, Gallery 102, February 2016,   GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History     Witness (m), in foreground 2015-2016   68” x 16” x 12”   Clay, oxides, and flux     Witness (b), in rear 2015-2016   68” x 16” x 12”   Clay, oxides, and flux     Aither 2016   78” x 72”   Paper, starch, carbon, ash, linseed oil oil paint, acrylic paint, and ink   S. Cora      

 

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  Figure 6:   Installation View, Gallery 102, February 2016,   GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History     Inscriptions 2016   480” x 30”   Pit fired porcelain, oxides, and flux   S. Cora      

 

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                              Figure 7:   Detail Views   Inscriptions 2016   Pit fired porcelain, oxides, and flux   S. Cora    

 

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  Figure 8:   Imprint 2014-2016   Pit fired clay, oxides, wood, and stainless steel 32” x 32” x 1”   S. Cora              

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  Figure 9:   Installation View, Gallery 102, February 2016,   GW Department of Fine Arts and Art History     Imprint 2014-2016   Pit fired clay, oxides, wood and stainless steel   32” x 32” x 1”   S. Cora      

 

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Bibliography     1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/ether 2. Latour, Bruno. We Have never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Print. 3. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. Print. 4. Barad, K. "On Touching--The Inhuman That Therefore I Am." Differences 23.3 (2012): 206-23. Web. 5. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. Print. 6. Streily, A. Hansen. "Early Pottery Kilns in the Middle East." Paleorient. Vol.262, p69-81, 14 Dec. 2000. Web. 18 Apr. 2016. 7. Dolphijn, Rick, and Iris Van Der Tuin. "New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies." (2012): n. pag. Web.   8. Jensen, Derrik. "Alliance for Wild Ethics || The Perceptual Implications of Gaia || Copyright © David Abram. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016. http://www.wildethics.com/essays/interview_derrick_jensen.html 9. Munger, Jeffrey and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen. “East and West: Chinese Export Porcelain.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. April 24, 2016. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ewpor/hd_ewpor.htm 10. Greenberg, Clement. “Modernist Painting.” In Forum Lectures, Washington D.C.: Voice of America, 1960. April 24, 2016.    

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