THE MAP AND ITS PORCELAIN GOAT
Peter Goché, 2018
When thinking about labour and being, Peter is drawn to the logic of Merleau-Ponty and his central thesis in which he refers to as the “primacy of perception” whereby we perceive the world through our bodies; we are embodied subjects. In the field of design, where realization seems to employ decisions that derive from utility and rejoin obligations of the world of aesthetics, the act of making surfaceworks provides an intersession during which revelations particular to what constitutes being are formed. In this engagement, we enter into a dialogue with the humanity of place; an intercourse with time, deep time; and thus, we are immersed in the visual and perceptual challenges of the inherited landscape and its cultural educe. This work began by reconsidering the nature of an internal space within the seed dryer formerly referred to as the plenum. Each inquiry is part of a process by which the perceptual experience of being “in here” while being “out there” is revealed.
The Map, a site-adjusted drawing assembly, is an experimental terrain. It situates material from another post-industrial site to this one. It locates and relocates the viewer. It unfolds a history and the dimension of being within and outside of equally. It is mistaken, misunderstood and misaligned. It makes architecture by conflating realities, geographies and topographies. It folds contingent constructs and agencies. It maps its guest to specific geographic, historical and personal conditions. It has to do with surveying realms that are yet to be understood. And this is what the assembly does: it, like a map, “constructs” –
The map does not reproduce the real but constructs one, it connects, it is open, multiple and reworkable. The map, that is, is never a finished product but remains a multiple open work, which inevitably refers to something that is both internal and external to it – a referent that is not represented but produced. [i]
Within is a new type of envelope that consists of sheet lead harvested from a 1924 printing warehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Originally a shower liner, the heavy metal has been suspended within the entrance hall sharing proximity with the slab on grade. The varied deformation of its topographic surface is incident with the southern light, which creeps in over the course of the day. The work consists of two halves, bisected for the sake of removal from its original host space, that have been rejoined and overlapped. It no longer is a single continuum but rather a multi-layered terrain of otherness similar to the landscape ‘out there.’
THE MAP AND ITS PORCELAIN GOAT was most recently developed as an experimental drawing in a former grain mill. The work consists of a dead goat, porcelain cups and drawer pulls, sheet lead and wood mantel. This piece is an extension of a surfaceworks drawing to which Peter refers to as The Map.
[i]Teresa Stoppani, Mapping: the locus of the project, (Angelaki Journal of Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2004), p. 186.
Show Sponsor: Lucky Bucket Brewing Co.
Peter Goché, 2018
When thinking about labour and being, Peter is drawn to the logic of Merleau-Ponty and his central thesis in which he refers to as the “primacy of perception” whereby we perceive the world through our bodies; we are embodied subjects. In the field of design, where realization seems to employ decisions that derive from utility and rejoin obligations of the world of aesthetics, the act of making surfaceworks provides an intersession during which revelations particular to what constitutes being are formed. In this engagement, we enter into a dialogue with the humanity of place; an intercourse with time, deep time; and thus, we are immersed in the visual and perceptual challenges of the inherited landscape and its cultural educe. This work began by reconsidering the nature of an internal space within the seed dryer formerly referred to as the plenum. Each inquiry is part of a process by which the perceptual experience of being “in here” while being “out there” is revealed.
The Map, a site-adjusted drawing assembly, is an experimental terrain. It situates material from another post-industrial site to this one. It locates and relocates the viewer. It unfolds a history and the dimension of being within and outside of equally. It is mistaken, misunderstood and misaligned. It makes architecture by conflating realities, geographies and topographies. It folds contingent constructs and agencies. It maps its guest to specific geographic, historical and personal conditions. It has to do with surveying realms that are yet to be understood. And this is what the assembly does: it, like a map, “constructs” –
The map does not reproduce the real but constructs one, it connects, it is open, multiple and reworkable. The map, that is, is never a finished product but remains a multiple open work, which inevitably refers to something that is both internal and external to it – a referent that is not represented but produced. [i]
Within is a new type of envelope that consists of sheet lead harvested from a 1924 printing warehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Originally a shower liner, the heavy metal has been suspended within the entrance hall sharing proximity with the slab on grade. The varied deformation of its topographic surface is incident with the southern light, which creeps in over the course of the day. The work consists of two halves, bisected for the sake of removal from its original host space, that have been rejoined and overlapped. It no longer is a single continuum but rather a multi-layered terrain of otherness similar to the landscape ‘out there.’
THE MAP AND ITS PORCELAIN GOAT was most recently developed as an experimental drawing in a former grain mill. The work consists of a dead goat, porcelain cups and drawer pulls, sheet lead and wood mantel. This piece is an extension of a surfaceworks drawing to which Peter refers to as The Map.
[i]Teresa Stoppani, Mapping: the locus of the project, (Angelaki Journal of Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2004), p. 186.
Show Sponsor: Lucky Bucket Brewing Co.
Photos Courtesy of Dan Schwalm
About the Artist:
Peter Goché is a practicing architect, artist and educator. Using site-adjusted installations Goché deploys an integrated approach to theoretical and practical questions pertaining to materiality and the re-occupation of post-industrial spaces. His work explores not only what material cultivations can be, but also what they do. He employs full-scale, three-dimensional methodologies—concurrent with drawing, photography and videography—that seek to express the affects (immaterial harmonics) latent in postindustrial landscapes. He coordinates and teaches design studios in the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University, and is the founder of Black Contemporary, a field station dedicated to the study of perception and atmosphere.
www.goche.com
www.blackcontemporary.org
Peter Goché is a practicing architect, artist and educator. Using site-adjusted installations Goché deploys an integrated approach to theoretical and practical questions pertaining to materiality and the re-occupation of post-industrial spaces. His work explores not only what material cultivations can be, but also what they do. He employs full-scale, three-dimensional methodologies—concurrent with drawing, photography and videography—that seek to express the affects (immaterial harmonics) latent in postindustrial landscapes. He coordinates and teaches design studios in the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University, and is the founder of Black Contemporary, a field station dedicated to the study of perception and atmosphere.
www.goche.com
www.blackcontemporary.org