Konrad Jarodzki

Space as a Material

First, it should be specified, at least approximately, what it means. According to a definition “apart from time, space is the basic form of existence of matter.” Along with the advances of science, different ideas regarding the character of space develop. Can space be considered a self-existing, independent, and transcendent element or is it an attribute (like time) of the existence of matter? Plato considered space as an element between the world of ideas and the world of objects. Plato’s ideas, like the ideas of atomists, who believed in the existence of atoms in empty space rejected Aristotle who connected space with matter and sometimes with movement. Until modern times, the dominant ideas on space had been based on Aristotle’s physics. The objective character of physical space as a ‘necessary and universal form of things’ in general had not been questioned. It was only Descartes who first questioned the existence of space as a vacuum. He claimed a spatial character of matter which is omnipresent, and that continuity is one of its characteristic features. Newton, on the other hand, believed in absolute space which is independent of the phenomena occurring within it. Still, Leibniz and Kant rejected that idea of space. It is rather an “order of co-existences.” Leibniz claimed that space beyond the body is fiction. Kant specified that space does not have an objective character. It is a “form of sensuality,” a prerequisite of all perception (beautifully formulated from the visual point of view). Einstein’s special theory of relativity refuting the idea of the simultaneous existence of phenomena as well as the concept of consistency of dimensions prevailing in the Euclidean geometrical space provided the possibility to join space and time in one whole. They no longer depend on anything; they constitute a uniform continuum: “space-time.” This new concept of the four-dimensional, some theorists sometimes even call it multidimensional, world posed one general question: What is the space universe like? What is the cosmological space like? It was proved that its features change depending on gravity. There exists an influence of all masses of matter on the form of space. Space becomes spherical and it warps. As a result, it may have the form of a super-sphere, it may close without being limited. It is one of the possibilities in case when the radius of the curve has a positive sign. There are hypotheses on different signs of the radii of the cosmological space curves. Another interesting aspect of our discussion of visual art is the awareness that it is not only matter but also space that can have its form. This makes the concept of space closer to man; it makes it a more sensitive material cooperating as much as matter. In cosmology there exists a phenomenon of expansion of space, its growth along with the matter of galaxies in different directions – their escape. Does the universe pulsate? Does it increase its capacity so that later it can go back to its initial state of matter? These are the questions for scientists. Now turning to the issues of space on the human scale, it should be stressed that there is an unusual change in the proportion of the space size to material phenomena. In cosmic conditions there is one atom of matter in 1 cubic centimetre in interstellar space – the so-called vacuum – whereas there are forty quintillion of atoms in 1 cubic centimetre in the earth’s atmosphere. It looks similar in the case of such great concentrations of matter as planets or stars and their position in cosmic space. Microcosm provides analogous examples. The material nucleus of an atom is separated by extremely huge ’emptiness from electrons which circle around it and mark its borders. As we can see, spaces have a great advantage over matter in both micro and macrocosm. In our living conditions on earth with our possibilities of perception, the situation is totally different. First of all, we have at our disposal only ‘half’ of the space. The other half is taken away from us by the earth’s surface. The distances between objects are extremely small; it is almost crowded. This feeling intensifies in such places as forests or cities. The very structure of space changes too. It is filled with gas (air), vapour and visible light. It has special consequences for our sensory and visual perception of space, and especially for our perception of objects located in space. Furthermore, space absorbs highly organized symptoms of life. As a result of such phenomena as bio-currents, bio-plasma or bio-gravitational waves emitted by organisms, space can become a bridge between physics and the psyche. Obviously, it cannot affect the character of space visually, but I think that being aware of such phenomena can help the artist treat space as a live tissue – as a material. Space and time are two elements which man has to face. In fact, man determines them because he exists in time and fills the space. The earth’s mental reality is a transitional state between micro and macrocosm. Compared to them it is something untrue, an illusion, something elusive and ephemeral. It is a sphere of creating shapes which change, emerge and disappear; they are perceived and experienced by equally an ephemeral creature that is man and his senses. This is the basis on which we build civilization and art. Since the origin of humankind, human activity has been a kind of coexistence and at the same time a struggle with space and time. Space is between objects, and time is between events. Objects and events provide rhythm and determine time and space. The primal strive of man to conquer space has been expressed by creating all kinds of elements joining distant human locations. This is why the Romans built their roads and aqueducts; this is why engineers built railroad lines, expressways, freeways, wires, cables, ducts, pipelines, and sea and air routes. Space is divided by electromagnetic waves and lasers. This whole can be compared to a tangle of tightly stretched veins through which civilization substances flow. Getting closer and shrinking the distances for the purposes of peace, commerce or annexation has always been within the sphere of human activity. At the same time, space fascinates and draws man; it is mysterious, it holds new unknown possibilities, it draws great explorers to great adventures. The longing to be in space is also visible in the history of building an urban design. Cavemen lived in deep and dark caves (the fascinating paintings from Altamira and Lascaux are well-known) as if in the middle of matter. Later on, people would build houses and temples on the ground, closer to open space but still within closed spaces, surrounded by walls, confined by columns or deep inside pyramids and labyrinths. Still, in the Middle Ages, there were trends to build tight walls, narrowing streets and city markets tightly surrounded by houses. Only churches, especially those built in the Gothic style, demonstrate the human pursuit of space and rejection of the constraints of matter. Matter was used only as a structure. This trend is further developed in modern architecture which uses more and more class, penetrates space inside houses and buildings. Urban designers give up further extending of the streets and their projects become more open, coexist with space, and determine its form. However, at the beginning, it happens within the space determined by the surface of the area. When there was not enough surface area, designers started to penetrate the earth beneath it and the air above it. Structures suspended in the air in the futuristic cities above the ground and above water testify to human pursuit of six-dimensional open space (Michel Ragon describes those trends in detail in his books “Où vivrons-nous demain ?” and “L’URMANISME SPATIAL.”) Thus, from the very heart of the cave of primitive man we get to the very heart of futuristic cities suspended in space. Here, there is a functional division of space. The earth’s surface becomes more and more precious. We know the possibilities of the expansion of human civilization in space. Its four basic activities, agriculture, industry, housing and recreation with culture demonstrate, in my opinion, certain trends of positioning in the following spheres of space:

living sphere – in the suspended space
industrial sphere – mostly automated in the underground space
ecological plant growing sphere – on the earth’s surface, on fertile soil
recreation, culture, art and science sphere – also on the earth’s surface in enclaves with such characteristic features as spas or attractive landscapes and those which are not so precious for agriculture.

The trend described above of horizontal and vertical positioning of civilization spheres seems logical from the point of view of optimal use of space. Space laboratories located on the earth’s orbits and on the moon constitute a separate space penetration subject. From among many disciplines regarding mathematics and physics, space science separated a division commonly referred to as geometry whose knowledge exerted a valuable influence on responsible human activity in space, its understanding and exploration. The principles of central projection and collineation provided the basics for the science of perspective and the visual rendition of the world on a plane. The laws of geometry allowed for designing and developing spatial forms as well as the creative use of knowledge of space in architecture, sculpture and other disciplines of art. Their role of space in art is huge because a work of art is a material phenomenon. Consequently, space is a fundamental factor in the existence of a work of art. Furthermore, it is also a basic element of the perception of a work of art by the viewer. It is its ‘negative’ which means it creates perspectives and fills the silence between a work of art and a viewer. It becomes an emotional space filled with the experience of a work of art. As we know from modern art history, apart from being used by a work of art, space itself can become a subject of art, an aim of artistic experience, a material, the very work of art. Then, space does not determine a material work of art, but a material element determines space.

So, one can:

determine space
close space
open space
fill space
arrange space
conceal space
divide space
wrap space
think space
create an illusion of space

Determining space with rhythmic elements is the basic cultic and artistic activity in prehistory. Vertical boulders or moais arranged in rows a few dozen steps away from one another are scattered along the ocean coast of France in the area of CARNAC. We still don’t know the purpose of the stones or what they were supposed to connote in the cultic sense but what we know is that they determine space perfectly. The stone moais from Easter Island convey a similar message. The huge stone faces located all around the island, staring into space, as if awaiting somebody, are a puzzle for archaeologists as well. Art emphasizes rhythmicity, synthesizes reality and takes inspiration from the rhythmic character of the order of the universe. The rhythm of sounds determines time. The rhythm of the forms determines space. This feature is evident in the rows of stone lions leading to the Egyptian temples in the gates marking the way toward the Japanese temples or finally in contemporary forms along the freeway of friendship in Mexico. There are examples of marking space with a continuous form of a line in art, too. For instance, the famous spiral by Jetty Richard Long, a drawing of a line in the desert sand or a white tape stretched by me over a coal mine in the “TURÓW ’70” action.
Closing space consists of separating a part of it and determining its shape. Examples of such a shape include the space inside a vase, the interior of a cathedral or a market square. Tadeusz Barucki in his article “Building of Space” quoted a philosopher LAO TSY: “The essence of a vase is its empty space inside.” Thus, despite its exquisite lid and other decorations, its essence is the part of space closed inside. The magnificent form of the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral holds in its interior the very essence of its purpose – space needed to create an atmosphere of concentration and quietness. In general, nobody remembers the shapes of the buildings surrounding St. Mark’s Square in Venice, but everybody remembers the form of the very square, the space closed by the facades of the houses surrounding it. The closed space of the Piazza flows over the towering Piazzetta to open again toward the unlimited space of the sea. This is a perfect example of treating the space creatively and shaping it as a material shaped by a sculptor or an architect. The pursuit of closing space and shaping it in a specific way resulted in an interesting movement in modern art, namely ‘environment.’ The austere black and white world of Gostomski surrounded the viewers and closed the space. The exquisite colours and bright paintings by Rosenquist were filled with the space of a small museum hall in Cologne. The dramatic realization by Szajna in a pavilion at a Biennial in Venice can be yet another example of this movement. The geometrical movement of spatial structures in modern architecture allowed for impressive designs in size and form, such as Fuller’s spherical pavilions or Nowicki’s saddle halls. The spatial structures which in the mass of design structures demonstrate advantage over matter (analogy to the construction of outer space and atom) at the same time close huge volumes of air and perfectly shape them geometrically.
Opening of the space is a necessity arising consequently from the fact of the closing space, an attempt at penetrating open space through matter. An interesting example of this cooperation of matter and space in painting can be found in Berdyszak’s works, whose frames become a painting and the inside of the painting becomes space. Apart from St. Mark’s Square where Piazzetta opens to the sea, the completely open de la Concorde square in Paris is another great example from the field of urban design. The square’s space is determined only by two small fountains and Egyptian obelisks. Often art of the earth solves the problem of far-reaching insights into space. A good example of this is Heiser’s “Double Negative.” The sculpture presents perhaps the most possibilities with closing and opening space. It is a specific kind of laboratory of discernments regarding the co-dependencies between matter and space. It is obvious with Poncet’s spherical stone shells where the air is being almost sucked in only to find a moment later a slot or a hole to flow through it to the other side to freedom and spread over a widening plane. Moor drills through hard and heavy marble to make it act together with such an elusive and ephemeral phenomenon as a random and distant landscape captured within the frame of the hole. Zadkine achieves a fully tragic rendition in the monument of “Torn City.” Pierced human torso with wrung hands and bent knees create a triple spatial image of the destroyed city. Zemła directed the central mass of space from the huge square toward slots in the triple wings so that after touching them it could return to the peripherals. Hasior combines the expressive concrete shapes cast in the earth with space with the use of fire and smoke. This phenomenon relates to the issue of filling space with an element which helps to notice and experience it. The emptiness disturbs and irritates him. A need arises to fill it with substance.
Let’s begin our studies on the attempts at filling space in art with a workshop metaphor. A casting mould in its empty space holds a future shape. After it is filled with material and then, when it is opened, a metamorphosis occurs – matter becomes vacuum, and vacuum becomes matter. Obviously, in order to materialize space, it is not necessary to petrify it completely. It can be filled with ten thousand butterflies (biennial in Venice), it can be filled with an air-filled balloon (“Hassel Dokumenta”), it can be filled with reflector light (Henryk Stażewski at the symposium “Wroclaw 70”) or with gas (Foksal gallery.)
The arrangement of space logically combines with its filling, but it displays a little different character. It is about creating a visual situation taking place in an independent and self-contained space. Space plays a role of Kant’s “sphere of perception.” It enables a phenomenon to exist. The concept of arrangement includes the whole area of exhibition and theatre. While visiting an exposition, space determines rhythm and time for perceiving feelings. Space can be shaped by expanding the range of perception or narrowing it to a single important element. Appropriately shaped space can affect the mental state of the viewer. He can be forced to bend over, climb or descend; he can be led to nowhere, get through narrow passages, he can be attacked with colour, light, sound or smell, he can be surprised with an abrupt change of a situation, appearance of disappearance of elements. In the famous production by Claude Parant, space was shaped by sliding platforms, ramps and stairs leading nowhere, etc. or by vertical elements (Soto) hanging down through which the viewers were forced to find their way like through a thick forest. Morel’s production at the exhibition of the “Golden Grapes”, where the viewers move forward as if inside a giant monster’s entrails, is also worth reminding of. Another form of arranging space is creating a situation in which the viewer is a dumb witness. Works by Kienholz would belong here. In the “Monument of Victory,” the interior of a café is a repetition of reality and the grey silver paint which covers the furniture and people as well as the melody of military songs create the background of an unusual situation of sticking of the victory flag on the consumer’s table. Segal arranges space with his gypsum naturalistic castings of human figures in specific situations. The live situations with the participation of the artist and the viewers called ‘happenings’ took place in a specially prepared space. The characteristic feature of modern understanding of theatrical art is the attempt at integrating two, so far separated, spaces: stage and audience. Grotowski in his “Apocalipsis cum figuris” tells the actors to play among the viewers scattered around them. Szajna in “Dante’s Hell’, while maintaining the stage space, penetrates the audience space by building decorations and actors’ play far in the hall.
Concealing space – a simple everyday gesture of drawing the window curtains separating us from space or a traditional view of the falling curtain in the theatre dramatically changes their significance when transferred to the mountain landscape. This is then something new happening in art; its surrealism moved to reality. This is what Christo did when he had a huge curtain hung on a line between two mountaintops. The same two things were separated – space was divided.
Wrapped space was displayed to the viewers at the biennial in Paris. Mark Brusse’s “Occupation totale de L’espace” is a portion of a hall capacity tightly surrounded by wood boards totally occupied and inaccessible to anybody. The concept of space, the very thought of it, without sensual perception became a component element of a work of art – a part of it. Dyeing a few bodies of water at the same time in a few places in the world leaves in the imagination a concept of those huge spaces which separate these phenomena. Imagination is, in this case, the object of the work, its mental space. Space and time in conceptual art, as two basic elements of material being, have had a number of interpreters. A set of photographs of the same road taken at equal intervals while moving through the space is such a combination. Klaus Greh uses the concept of space and movement in time. He presented a series of charts with a line and one word: horizon. On each next chart the line changes its position and through various angles goes back to its horizontal position turning by 180°. This suggests the movement of an airplane in space performing a barrel roll.
Since antiquity, artists have been interested in the illusion of space. Greek and Roman painting used the concept of space without knowing the laws of perspective. Renaissance and Baroque marked the peak development of that kind of art with the illusion of non-existent rooms, palaces, temples and figural scenes depicted in mural paintings. Such masters as Correggio, Mantegna and Pozzo created a perfect illusion of spatial depth. Masterly applied foreshortenings, linear and visual perspectives, chiaroscuros as well as value and colour intensity allowed for achieving excellent effects of going deeper and deeper into the flat wall surfaces. How did that movement develop in 19th and 20th-century painting? Impressionism considered space as a mass of air seen through light. It filled it with colour and erased borders between matter and air. Monet with his series of facades of Rouen cathedral, or earlier Turner – master of light and atmosphere – can be two great examples of that movement in painting. Surrealism turned the illusion of space into the background of the depicted events, the vision of subconsciousness, dream, and ambiguity of experiences. They are almost always rendered in abstract and unreal space. It emphasizes and overrates the world as the truth. Salvador Dali’s “Burning Giraffe,” Magritte’s “La traverse du miroir” or the works of Christo, Tanguy or Zbigniew Makowski are great examples of the surrealists’ sensitivity to space. Op-art – a movement which appeared relatively recently – brought the issue of the illusion of movement to the subject of the illusion of space. Steele’s “Baroque Experiment” may be an example of the combination of these two illusions. The exhibition of “Group W” by Italian representatives of Op-art with the introduction by Carlo Argan is another similar example regarding movement and space. We read in the introduction that “The use of geometrical signs is not a rule, however, interestingly, these signs appear most frequently as they are spatial symbols and as such, they suggest an idea of space which inevitably leads to perception or rather a possibility of a uniform and total experience of reality.” I could only add to that quite correct statement that space is necessary not only for the uniform and total experience of reality, but it is also necessary for the uniform and total creation. To conclude the chapter on creating through space on a painting plane, I must say that outside the latest main movements and currents, only a few loners keep probing into the subject, and create new values. I believe that these searches and new proposals will result in some new movement whose object will be still alive and always exist in space.
In conclusion of the discussion on the nine points listed at the beginning which outline the possibilities that emerge in art and regard space, I would like to say that the list is not complete; the subject is very broad, and it is only an attempt at clearing the basic issues.
“Space is a material” is a seemingly paradoxical or metaphorical phrase. Certainly, however, it is an attempt at broadening the systematic concept of material and enriching it with a new value. Something that cannot be taken in the hand, touched, formed, or shaped anew cannot be a material, at least in the conventional and traditional sense. I understand, however, that modern art to a large extent extended the concept of what a work of art can be made of or created from. Matter is not enough anymore. Art is also created from immaterial things as well as from things perceived and received sensually, such as the concepts of space and time, and attributes of the existence of matter. Obviously, these elements have always accompanied art and been used but only present art that has consciously revealed the significant character of these concepts as the building material of art. “Everything that I can do with objects I can also do with non-objects” – said Donald Judd. Space can be lengthened, shortened, broadened, tied, lowered, and raised, cut as matter can be cut, and shaped into form. Isn’t it a property of material? The form of space is of course determined by material forms located around it and as such it is determined by matter. It shall not be, however, forgotten that the dependency is bilateral: matter cannot exist without space. A new phrase could be coined of space-matter by analogy to space-time. A work of art exists then also outside an object; it is dependent on the shape of the space in which it exists; it is ‘perceived’ and it lasts. It is made of a material and immaterial substance. Only then is it the whole.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Translated by: Małgorzata Kaziów

SOURCE:

Text originally published in: Konrad Jarodzki, Przestrzeń jako tworzywo, didactic materials, ASP Wrocław, no. 1, 1999.