New Podcast: Spection

Transcript of the first release of the upcoming podcast called Spection:

Welcome to the first issue of the Spection Podcast, straight from us to your earbuds.
How do we make reflection relevant to a me-me-me culture? There are thousands of ways to satisfy our need for entertainment today, but why do we end up choosing A over B? We aren’t frequently asked to question our tastes, but that’s what Spection is here to do. Through articulating preferences, we can sort out more than just the good from the bad. Understanding the essence of attraction to art leads to a dialogue about what we value in our culture. We’re not only interested in why people haven’t been out to see the latest international docu-drama yet, we’re wondering why that synth-heavy rap song is on everyone’s ipod. Music, art, films, and books don’t have to be mindless entertainment, but there’s a lot of inane stuff out there that makes it to the top. We’re not afraid to tackle the bad in the name of understanding the good.
To flip on the television and watch whatever happens to be playing is like playing Russian Roulette with our intellect. It’s a crime to waste an hour on reality tv when something more stimulating is on the next channel. Too often we take the easy route when it comes to culture, favoring what’s popular over what’s enriching. Too often we write off something like opera as too high brow to be understood by anyone without a monocle. And too often do we miss out on the best of what the world has to offer, all because we refused to put forth a little effort. Such intense satisfaction awaits, if only we’re willing to work for it. And you’ve already taken the first step.
We’re starting a dialogue to put high art within everyone’s reach and to make questioning culture second nature. If you’ve already clicked subscribe, you’ll be receiving content weekly from our team of contributors. Essays, interviews, and dialogues are all on the table as we search for something more from our media.
This week, we’re featuring an essay by weekly contributor Marcy Capron called (pola)Roid Rage, Or, What Instant Satisfaction Did to Photography. She’s explored Polaroid photography from its invention up to the boom of the iconic square photos in so-called hipster culture.
Guest contributor John Hodgman interviews author Jefferey Eugenides next week. He’ll be asking about his new collection of essays on love, My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead. Regular contributor Brian Hoffman also joins us next week to offer a review of Steppenwolf Theater’s production of The Tempest.
We’re here to sound off on cultural phenomena, but we want you to jump in too. Since culture is not a passive phenomenon, we’ll take your phone calls on your opinions, questions, and commentary in a monthly episode we’re calling FeedBack. But you won’t just be listening to our voicemail. Our contributors will offer their own two cents alongside yours for enhanced perspective.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to call in, and don’t forget to Stop. Look. Listen.

Spencer Finch: Light, Time, Chemistry

It would be easy for me to write a review of Spencer Finch’s Light, Time, Chemistry by focusing on the chemistry. Easy, yes, to discuss Shadow, Sculpture of Centaur, Tuileries (after Atget) (2007) as the obvious representation of Sir Isaac Newton’s electromagnetic spectrum on a fluorescent lamp, or to mention the speculated chemical traces on the sheet of paper exposed to the molecules of Emily Dickinson’s garden air, or to talk about the simply titled collection of ten photographs, Ag (2008) as his own sort of elemental analysis of the precious metal using silver gelatin prints. But I didn’t come here for “easy”.

The gallery district in the West Loop of Chicago where the Rhona Hoffman Gallery sits doesn’t fit my stereotype of an artsy scene. I couldn’t immediately picture the socialites zipping about in their sporty BMWs, buzzing themselves into their lofts kitty-corner from a meat packing plant and a Mexican grocer’s warehouse, but I quickly warmed to the idea of pairing art, luxury, and factory. The first piece, Periscope (sky over Chicago, 3/26/09—3/27/09) (2009), an indoor/outdoor installation, blended right into the naked brick and metal of the streetscape. It wasn’t until I saw the indoor component that I noticed it connecting outside through the storefront of the gallery. A large ventilation duct, opening upwards towards the sky just above the entrance to the building snaked through the window and ended just in front of a white wall in the lower level. Peering outside from inside was now easier than walking all the way to the window; looking up into the cold metal tube showed a tiny frame of the cheery blue sky thanks to some well placed mirrors. The cyanotype exposure on the facing white wall interpreted the light which entered the gallery through the pipe as streaks of blue, not unlike the color seen through the ventilation duct, but very much unlike the texture. Somewhere in between the sky and the cyanotype an error had occurred: like that mischievous “purple monkey dishwasher” kid playing telephone at day camp, some part of the system had failed to render the perfect image of the Chicago sky! Was this a misinterpretation of the photo-sensitive paper on the wall, or an error on the part of the ventilation duct? It was here that my mind first turned back to chemistry.

Perception is a tricky little thing. Many of Finch’s works seemed to circle around this concept, most overtly of all Periscope. Where chemists build large metallic machines to look at sub-microscopic atoms, Finch builds a tube to see the sky. (Yes, I said it would be too easy to revert to chemistry, but it’s unavoidable…and perhaps inevitable.) Chemistry constantly struggles with how to perceive a world we know is around us but cannot detect with just the five senses. And so chemists invent microscopes and spectroscopes and gadgets to enhance our eyes and ears, but we are still not limitless. Finch points out our limitations on the macroscopic scale. Periscope offers not only the instrumentation; it also treats the viewer to the sun-stained cyanotype as the best effort of his bulky creation.

He further explores this concept with Thank You, Fog (2009), a photographic piece in 60 frames, each taken 60 seconds after the previous one and arranged in a line around the four walls of the upper gallery. The images overlooking a small patch of pine trees are only decipherable from a close distance; a thick fog provides a low resolution, variable from frame to frame. And thus we get a temporal picture of the problem of interpretation: clarity is not a constant. The press release states that this piece explores fog as it “both reveals and conceals, frustrating our desire to capture an accurate image”, hinting that the title of the piece may contain a hint of sarcasm. But were the viewer sitting next to Finch in Sonoma as he snapped those photographs, I suspect she would have seen much the same thing as the film shows: vague suggestions of trees underneath a blanket of soft gray. The frustration may exist, but it is not directed at a desire to capture an “accurate image”, it is a frustration at the inability to capture the non-existent image we desire. Thank You, Fog could not be exhibited in a more appropriate place; large wooden structural supports of the building interrupt the emptiness of the room, teasing viewers as they obstruct and reveal that idealized forest image so hungered for. The interference of the fog allows the viewer to project onto each image her own forest, complete with pinecones and that fresh, green scent. If Schroedinger’s cat is still in the box, it is simultaneously alive and dead. It is the act of observation which determines the outcome. And so the gratitude expressed in the title Thank You, Fog may actually be sincere.

Light, Time, Chemistry delivers what it promises, but not completely in the traditional form. He swerves around the kitsch of presenting the obvious graphs and charts, instead favoring the meaty idea at the heart of all science: perception. Finch lays out a nice collection, using his tools as best he can to explore perception in his spatial language. I could discuss a connection to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, wherein Heisenberg proves that a full knowledge of space and time cannot simultaneously exist, and the choice to understand one means knowing nothing of the other.
But that would be too easy.

Spencer Finch’s Light, Time, Chemistry is showing at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery (118 N. Peoria St, Chicago) from March 27 – May 2, 2009.

Top 5

...Things that have gone in my ears recently.

1) Malcolm Gladwell talking about spaghetti sauce

Currently up to my neck in decisions to make about my life post-graduation, it makes me feel better that nobody knows what they want until someone tells them. Our tastes aren’t just shaped by some innate desire, they’re a reflection of preferences we develop when given an array of choices. We’re starting to develop a society which honors the principles Gladwell talks about in this TED lecture. Gosh, we are already there with technology evolving so rapidly that personalizing everything from the arrangement of content on my blog to the features of my new computer can be done at the click of a few buttons. Gladwell seems to suggest that we are happier for this, but the regret lies on squarely on our own shoulders when we make an unsatisfactory choice, and for big choices, that can be very overwhelming. So I must ask you—are you happier with an aisle full of spaghetti sauce?

2) Radiolab – Tell Me a Story

If you are familiar at all with Radiolab, this episode is a bit of a break from the norm. The “norm” is a series of radio documentaries incorporating audio in innovative ways to help dissect one popular science issue in an hour. While I wholly appreciate the exposure to science that Radiolab offers non-scientists on a weekly basis, the episode that makes my heart flutter happens to be a break from this delightful format: it is a graduation speech to Caltech students given by one of the hosts, Robert Krulwich. I get a feeling from this one that he’s saying all of the things I have ever wanted to say about how my less-scientifically minded peers interact with science. Though Northwestern is a highly intellectual community, I seem to run into an awful lot of people who back away slowly when I mention that I’m into chemistry. I like to listen to this for a little inspiration to alleviate the frustration on those days when I hear, “Oh, you do chemistry? I’ll never understand that stuff."
"Well, allow me to explain…”

3) The Tallest Man On Earth – The Gardner

I appreciate a little intellect in my music, a lot of acoustic, and it’s always gotta be pretty chill. The Tallest Man On Earth is the most recent to fit the bill, and this song is just so darn catchy! A friend recently described it as “one of those songs that, as soon as it ends, you want to play again,” and I couldn’t agree more. The melody is so bubbly, it never fails to make me skip down the street, but it’s lyrics are just dark enough to keep my brain intrigued. I find I am most attracted to happy songs about depressing topics (see Okkervil River, Streetlight Manifesto, Noah and the Whale…). I like things to get more complex with a second listen…or a second viewing, for that matter.

4) Jon Stewart’s interview of Jim Cramer

The Daily Show has gone from a late night laugh to a triumph of sense over nonsense. The humor required by the format of the show allows the host to explain things simply without feeling like he is talking down to us. He points out the absurdity of the media with an angle of amusement, but when the laughter subsides, we’re left staring at the sad truth of what the networks are feeding us. On occasion, we get a gem like this clip, where Stewart confronts the offenders and points out their underestimation of the American public. Stewart’s popularity is heartwarming, and I like to believe it is for his interviews like this one where he has a chance to change our relationship to the media, but I am afraid that most people (especially ones my age) tune in for the laughter and don’t get the point of the meatier stuff. But I don’t want to underestimate the American public.

5) Jay-Z Mashups: Jaydiohead - Lucifer's Jigsaw

Someone once told me that I would get over my aversion to coffee if I started drinking mochas. My reaction was simple: why do I want to get over an aversion to coffee? I like my tea and hot chocolate just fine, thank you.

I am usually surprised by my generation’s tolerance for the ubiquity of rap music. Personally, I hate it. The lyrics are rude, the culture is womanizing, and my body can’t figure out the right way to move to it. I’ll admit that I don’t expose my ears to it all that often, but if I know I don’t like something, I won’t seek it out. My relationship to rap changed when my roommate shared her favorite stuff with me: Kanye West and Jay-Z. I shook my head when they mentioned pimps and shuddered at every “ho”. Shortly thereafter, another friend introduced me to Jaydiohead—remixes of Jay-Z and Radiohead songs. I latched on to the comforting Radiohead melody underneath the coarse, unfamiliar lyrics and…I couldn’t get enough. I’ve been scouring youtube for Jay-Z remixes and keeping the Jaydiohead album on repeat. I came for the Radiohead, and stayed for the Jay-Z…but, if you’re curious, I’m still a tea drinker.