Anthelion Projects: Where We Think We’re Going To

My goal for the final post in this series is not to brainstorm every form a future Anthelion Project might take, but to offer some of the possibilities that occur to me in the hope that they might entice an artist into collaboration.

The two crucial aspects of Anthelion Projects as I currently envision them are 1) the conversation between artists or artworks and 2) the construction of a Machine that will have a central role in determining the outcome of the project (see last week’s post for more about building a Machine). Up to now the projects have all involved a video element. At this point I’m not ready to commit to this being a necessary component of every Anthelion Project. It’s not difficult for me to imagine a Machine to construct a painting or a Machine to construct a dance, for example. With a little effort, it would be possible to build a Machine for any discipline.

With the Corona Lectures, the videos laid out by the Machines were the project. For the Absence collaboration, the videos and the canvases maintain a mutual distance and stand in conversation. The videos are an engagement with the paintings and the ideas behind them, so—at least in one sense—support the canvases at the center of the show. Holmberg supplied many of the raw materials processed by the Machines, but was not involved in building any of the Machines himself. A collaboration could work in either of these ways: as an encounter with another piece of art or an enacting of the process of art.

If an artist had what they considered a piece that might be challenging for the viewer—as Holmberg did—or a project underlain by ideas they wanted to see explored in more ways than allowed by either on one hand the central works of art themselves or on the other an explanatory note on a wall or in a playbill, commissioning a Machine from Anthelion Projects could be a compelling way to support the work. An artist interested in seeing how another artist engages with their work, who wants a document of an encounter between their art and a viewer, might consider collaborating on an Anthelion Project. 

With the possibilities mentioned immediately above, the artist creates their art mostly outside the realm of the Machine, then brings in Anthelion Projects to build a Machine and process an encounter with that art. But what about an artist who wants to work more directly on a Machine? Who might be interested in that option? An artist who’s stuck or blocked or bored might find building a Machine productive. It can help separate decisions of content from decisions of form, as one or both might be randomly determined, and in doing so offer the piece a new kind of freedom to develop and open up new and interesting possibilities that hadn’t been considered.

A Machine is an excellent tool for forcing an artist to break down their process into its component parts. Someone looking to simplify their work or challenge the premises under which they’ve been operating could benefit from employing one. 

For me, one of the helpful things the Machine did was introduce a level of frustration into my writing. The accustomed rhythm of flowing from sentence to sentence was broken. I was forced to consider each individual sentence as its own unit. The Machine also provided a means for injecting my dreams and the text of other writers directly into my work, unmediated (less mediated, anyway). I believe this helped constrain my conscious, decision-making mind and elevate chance in its place with interesting results.

For performers, I can see another possibility, one in which Anthelion Projects is given the assignment of building a Machine that the performer would then execute. This could be in the form of drama, dance, music, or other disciplines. Anthelion Projects could create a lecture much like the Corona Lectures, but instead of it being read by the Operator, it would be performed by an actor.

As I wrote above, my intent here was not to lay out every possible direction the Anthelion Projects might go, but to offer some possibilities that might be interesting to artists in different situations and to show the wide range of possibilities I might be interested in pursuing. I am eager to have a conversation, so if any of this appeals—either my descriptions of the last three weeks or the videos I’ve made over the last eighteen months—please be in touch. There’s a contact form at AnthelionProjects.com/contact, or I can be emailed at AnthelionProjects@gmail.com.