Thinking and Technology

1 2 3 4 Vocabulary

LESSON FOUR – Communication

Despite advances in computer and telecommunications technologies as well as the widespread use of email, the fax machine continues to be an important mainstay of the modern office because it can transmit business documents around the world instantaneously. Since the widespread adoption of affordable fax machines in the 1980s, it has been an efficient means of visual communication and document transmission when other modes of communication, such as the telephone, have proven insufficient. It is not surprising, then, that many artists contributing to FAX have used the technology to communicate with museum visitors, although their faxes rarely feature conventional business directives.

In another contribution by Zoe Keramea, the artist encourages us to engage her in a puzzle of spatial relations. The piece, called F for Facsimile (2009), actually instructs us to cut up the submitted artwork and play with it. Keramea's transmission consists of four pages, the first of which provides a puzzle, while the remaining three offer up possible solutions. On the first page, Keramea has arranged a series of small F–shapes, eighteen in black and eighteen in white. A subtitle to the work gives us some guidance: "A fax–puzzle with multiple solutions to cut out and assemble." The subsequent three pages, then, map out possible "solutions" to the puzzle, or possible configurations of the F–shaped cut–outs. These are not the only configurations available, as we can imagine countless other "solutions" to Keramea's puzzle, perhaps even some we might transmit back to her via fax.

Keramea's F for Facsimile not only engages us in a game of spatial play for its own sake, but it also encourages us to enact modes of thinking that are not unlike Keramea's own creative processes. Her work often employs the repetition of serial forms in striking and sometimes implausible configurations. Take, for example, Keramea's folded paper sculptures. The artist creates what she calls "modular units" by folding strips of paper into three–dimensional hexahedrons. These units are then stitched together with needle and thread to create larger sculptural works that hang on the wall or lie on the floor. By transmitting a simple set of F–shaped "modular units" to us, Keramea inspires us to engage in similar processes of geometric experimentation. She literally communicates her working method to us via fax.

Similarly, in his submission to FAX, Eduardo Kac (b. 1962, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) communicates a set of instructions to us, which we may choose to follow or not. Kac (pronounced "katz") presents a three-page diagram called GFP Bunny, which shows the curator or museum visitor how she might construct a miniature origami rabbit from a six–inch square piece of green origami paper. The first two pages of Kac's submission present detailed folding instructions, and the third page presents instructions on how to create a display shelf out of foamcore for the folded rabbit. Kac's directives, however, remain open-ended: the museum may choose to present the faxed instructions alone, present a completed origami bunny, or present both..

Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny, 2009. Three facsimile pages, 8.5 x 11 in. each.

A first glance GFP Bunny appears to be a simple craft project, but the title of the work references an earlier project by the artist, which opens up new meanings for Kac's simple fax. Over the last decade, Kac has pioneered what he calls "Transgenic Art," or "a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering to transfer natural or synthetic genes to an organism, to create unique living beings." For his original GFP Bunny (2000), Kac commissioned French scientists to genetically engineer an albino rabbit with a fluorescent gene commonly found in jellyfish (GFP stands for green fluorescent protein). The result was Alba, a healthy bunny rabbit that glows green when exposed to a specific frequency of blue light. Thinking beyond the rabbit itself and the entailed processes of genetic engineering, Kac describes GFP Bunny as a "complex social event" that also includes public debate and education, calling into question accepted notions of purity and hybridity. More than just a simple craft project, Kac's fax submission results in the creation of our own GFP Bunny avatars, which function to extend public awareness and debate surrounding biotechnology.

Classroom Activities:

NEW DIRECTIONS IN FAXING

Zoe Keramea and Eduardo Kac expand the possibilities of fax art by encouraging us to use paper in unexpected ways. Paper is not just a drawing surface or a repository of words. It can have a variety of other functions and uses in space. We can cut it up and rearrange its parts, we can tape it and glue it, we can fold it or bend it into new three–dimensional shapes, we can collage and sculpt with it. The possibilities are endless if we imagine paper as a material, not just a blank page to hold images and words. Have your students consider paper as a material by asking them to execute sculptural, conceptual and/or functional art projects that employ common office materials. Since such projects will likely result in forms that cannot be faxed (you can't fax a sculpture), have your students draw up instructions for submission. This will encourage them to consider the construction of their projects logically in a step–by–step fashion. How might you instruct others to create your work of art at the other end of the fax line? Use Olav Westphalen's Smoke Signals (from the previous lesson) and Eduardo Kac's GFP Bunny as models for how to present instructional diagrams.

Materials: 8.5 x 11 in. paper; various office supplies and art materials, as available; pens and pencils; a fax machine for submission to teenFAX

Submission Instructions