Pom Poms
I became interested in using pom poms to make artwork and in 1994. My attraction
included the craft, "low" or anti-art nature of these objects, their
simplicity, their feminine associations, their qualities of taking on a cathected
relationship, between the viewer and the fuzzy, their sizes, mostly small, suggested
vulnerability, their molecular resemblance as if they were parts of something
else, their use as decoration, as fringe rather than as primary subject, their
softness suggesting infantile vs. adult usage, the perceived need for comfort
or comfort implying trauma, particulate vs. collective identity, their ephemeral
nature; transience, impermanence, state of becoming, etc.
My surrounding interests included psychology, Freud's notion of the fetish,
the Fort Da stand in, part -objects, disappearance and return, presence and
absence, Objects Relations Theory; Winnicott's transitional objects. Feminist
theories including categories or traits of perceived gender and artwork associated
it. Resignification, appropriation, meaning shift, use value, ideological and
cultural shifts and amalgamations, polysemy and multivalence. Posing the theories
about the precision of the image through color theory, Pointillism (from Seurat
to Chuck Close), the phenomenology of seeing, the physiology of seeing, new
digital image technologies, the pixel image, against the problematics of representation
through setting up an image that cant be seen, except through a system,
or not yet seeable, not really fixable, not objectifyable, not knowable.
Fluffy Pom Pom Flemish Print Redecoration Project,
1997, instructional video, excerpts from the full 12 min. video. In this instructional
video I suggested that old outmoded Dutch prints could be redecorated using
different artwork strategies to arrange colorful pom poms on the prints and
then scanning them into the computer to create new and "better" digital
works. This is where I developed the idea of using lines of pom poms to trace
or emphasize existing formal elements or to create entirely new overlaid visual
imagery. The resulting hybrids imparted a new meaning to the original work.
In the opening introduction to the video:
"Fluffy Poms Poms are usually used at the fringe of things like clothing.
Even though they are often thought of as decorative or insignificant- they are
also very colorful, inescapably cozy and full of their own kind of life. Pom
poms come in a surprising range of sizes, all the way from 2 inches down to
2 or 3 millimeters. This allows for a wide range of uses as well as different
interpretations of what they mean. They are a perfect element to re redecorate
our 18th Century Dutch prints."
My texts about:
Venus Apartment, 9'x10.' 4000 1"
pom poms, exhibited at the Harn Museum of Art, 2000
Artwork instructions: Included in framed plaque next to artwork:
I went to landofvenus.com and Venus wasnt there. She was probably
out because it was about 3:30 PM her time. It was another 2:30 minutes till
her next show. I copied a still of her apartment and separated it out into 8
colors that matched the colors of pom poms I had. Using a projection of this
image I arranged the about 3750 pom poms to match the corresponding colors in
a 10 by 7 and a half foot square.
Recovered Websites:
There is an implication that despite the increased availability of images or
seeing through new technologies, something has been lost and needs to be recovered.
These works attempt to reconstruct or recuperate scenes from the World Wide
Web through a variety of means. At times I engage meticulous processes of correspondence,
carrying with it a mixture of science and obsession, rational and irrational.
At others I collect frames or footage from Internet sites and reconstitute them
as photography, video art or installation. The work is made with the idea of
remaking that which is desired to be seen or has the promise to be present.
However it is also simultaneously fixed on the unseeable, the expectation of
vision through vision disintegrated.
The exciting thing about this is that the Web promises global connection, and
with it the capability to see/experience all forms of exoticism, eroticism and
deviance, even at a great physical distance. Like Freud's notion of the unconscious
these experiences can be seen as latent even in the very everyday scenes and
locations where events will or have taken place. So the constant vigilance of
webcams rewards the viewer even if the view is banal. The uneventful moment
suggests the conduct of absolute documentation. The possibilities of staging
in real time are relegated to the realm of disbelief. The breadth or proximity
of this distance from the viewer to the erotic or deviant event is tested and
traversed through these works. Though we sense that these new technologies are
fetishistic, they nevertheless seem to serve intensely human needs. The care
with which the process of vision is reconstructed in this work represents my
sympathy for this situation.
These works utilize the principle of transubstantiation, that is, they transfer
of sites of desire at a distance, remote locations composed of ephemeral vision,
back into material, and to physical presence. These processes often happen through
another agent, the ready-made mass-produced image of comfort and innocence,
such as the baby face, the pom pom, themselves promising intimacy. Alternatively,
I engage a performative gesture which engages a particularly corporeal action
of construction. The results of these enactments recall reverberations between
body and mind, presence and absence, intimacy and distance. Each point (pixel)
that makes up the image is itself an activitythe image frieze is turned
back into the activity, recovered, if you will.
Use of careful systems for the reconstruction of site/sight can act as the promise
of all reliable scientific processes for generating vision, such as color theory
or the precision of computer pixel numerology. On the other hand the repetitious
practices required in this work point towards more psychologically driven motives.
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
5 World Trade Center, Suite 9235
New York, NY 10048
March 7, 2001
Proposals for World Views Studio Residency Program...
2.) The WTC Fluffy Pom Pom Window Display Project
This project would involve a performative installation gesture consisting of
a giant " image" placed in the windows of the World Trade Center tower
(WTC). The image would be composed of up to 20,000 small multi-colored pom poms
positioned as a stand-ins for pixels, one in each window of approximately 100
floors of the WTC. The source image would be derived from a webcam download
from a location and subject at great distance from the WTC. The nature of this
source image would have to be determined through research and aesthetic considerations.
The image dimensions, approximately 200 wide x 100 high in pixels or pom poms,
would wrap around the building. It would only be visible conceptually. Pictures
of as many pom poms in situ as possible would be taken and archived on a WWW
site in the configuration of the image.
In a message dated 7/1702 4:08 PM,
Willpap writes:
Pom Pom Addendum
<<Greg,
One important item I missed in my it pom pom chronology that figured very importantly
in my mind and interests in doing a memorial with pom poms was an application/proposal
to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) submitted the previous March,
2001. (see attached to Microsoft 2001 word document with images). The LMCC offered
a yearly artists residences on the 92nd floor of Tower One. I had visited a
friend in the residency there in 1999 and had been considering site specific
ideas for the proposal the previous spring.
There were two proposals I submitted, one involving webcams associated with
each business in the building and the other to install a huge "image"
made of pom poms which were to be distributed to each business within the building
and displayed in each window. The resulting displays, one colored pom per window,
in theory, would create a wraparound image around on the entire skyscraper.
The image, interestingly enough, was yet to be determined and my proposal was
never accepted.
Through this process there was at some level a kind of emotional investment
and bonding I had with both the artist program and the buildings. After September
11th I reflected this proposal, in particular calculating the number of windows
in each building, the haunting psychological image of the windows broken and
the pom poms scattered across the area, had I executed my project. Additionally
there would of been a high likelihood that I might have been in the buildings
when they were hit. (One of the artists accepted, Micheal Richards, was in fact
killed.) There was also the unfinished in question of what was the image to
be? I suppose this is all part of my burning question.
WPr>>
Some Ideas generated around
the use Pom Poms in the Soft Wishing Y Memorial:
Pom poms as paths, as navigating
points:
Hansel and Gretyl, the story of, laying stones into the forest to be able to
find their way out, even though they word of successful.
Installing the Y as a "wishing walk" (Ulmer/Walker)
Navigating the stars, constellations, sextons (see video footage of New York
Nautical Society proximate to the in not why installation).
Navigation of ships = Navigation of airplanes, points and trajectories, The
suicidal navigation of the hijackers as navigation gone awry.
Common saying: "you connect the dots." The Rorschach test, recognition,
Freuds Uncanny
Recent questions in the news about 9/11, the FBI and the CIA had the information
but they "didn't connect the dots," (need to find it texts source)
Pre-Sept.11 Report Faults Agencies Aol NEWs
By JEFFREY McMURRAY
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (July 17) - U.S. intelligence agencies didn't adequately use traditional
spying networks or high technology to penetrate Osama bin Laden's terrorist
network, a House panel said in a report Wednesday.
In its review of intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, the
House Intelligence subcommittee on Terrorism found a wide range of problems
at the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.
AP-NY-07-17-02 1158EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news
report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without
the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have
been inserted by AOL.
Pom poms as structure:
pom pom as pixel, this structure of the digital image, in what do we invest
libido, the micro or the macro, what is it that makes an image?, the cathected
image.
The Y installation as a digital image made up of dots/pixels, laid down at the
micro level but to be potentially viewed from space. Interesting with respect
to Ulmers notion: Poststructural theory shows that conventional
consultants remain within a middle reality and ignore the macro- and micro-cosmic
dimensions of disaster.
Scale:
In a message dated 4/23/02 3:50:06 AM, derekj_pasquill@HOTMAIL.COM
writes:
Re: Y Activities Y Practice
<< 'When I see three oranges I juggle; when I see two towers I walk.'
Phillipe
Petit, aerialist, commenting after his arrest in 1974, for crossing between
the Twin Towers on a tightrope.
From the same book, Skyscrapers by Judith Dupre, Black Dog and Leventhal,
New York, 1996, a big coffee-table book, dimensions 18 by 7.5 inches), a
mention of the diminuitive size of the architect, Yamasaki, at 5 foot 1
inch. The aerialist, Petit, and Yamasaki, forming a Vierendaal-type truss
in the memory?
Pierre qui roule n'amasse pas mousse
regards pasquill >>
Infrastructure: the problem of September 11th as
an invasion or overturning of American infrastructure, bureaucracy
James Bogardus Triangle park (at the confluence of the Y, see website images),
according to Bill Tilson, Bogardus is a risk of responsible for the been a structure
of early skyscrapers, which can be envisioned as a structure of links and points.
Bill also mentioned Bogardus 's structures as being able to withstand stress
or damage in a localized area with out in compromising the structure as whole.
Note: in a recent Frontline investigation It has been suggested by a structural
engineers that the World Trade Centers ultimately fell because of structural
problems, debris from the blasts removed fire retardants from the internal cross
beams which then melted and sagged leaving the outer square structures as the
only and insufficient support system. The plaque reads:
"James Bogardus (1800-1874) was an architect, engineer and inventor who
devised the iron front building and the freestanding iron fire towers and shot
towers that foretold the construction of the skyscraper as a building type.
Bogardus built the world's first cast-iron building (184y) at nor the northwest
corner of Washington and Murray streets. To surviving embargoed is cast-iron
buildings can be seen nearby at 75 Murray Street (1857) and 85 Leonard Street
(1860).
David N.. Dickens, Mayor
New York City Department of Transportation
Lucas J. Riccio, Ph.D., P.E. Commissioner"
Note: the use of the word foretold as a divining reference
Note: that the world's first cast-iron building was labeled "184y"
ending in Y
Need to investigate this building
lookup, Bogardus, for images and info
Pom poms As code, as encryption:
pom pom = asterisks,
Secrecy: see the Wishbone tradition
Warumverbot: See Ulmer on Conduction: The wish does not replace empirical
reason, but resonates with the Holocaust imperative of Warumverbot ("here
there is no 'why,'" said of
the concentration camps)
In a message dated 3/16/02 12:49 PM, Willpap writes:
Wish/Y Interactive
<<Josh,
We've been developing an idea for a simple input page for the accompanying
Website which would collect wishes/questions surrounding both 911 event as well
as the audiences own personal wishes/questions. To be consistent with the wishbone
idea, where your wish must be kept secret, we've devised the idea that a person
could input wish /question online and then that question would be encrypted
by replacing letters with password-type dots (looking also like pom poms). The
questions would then be stored and displayed on another page online, in order
of their input, with sentences looking like groups of dots and spaces between
where the words were.>>
In a message dated 4/18/02 8:23 PM, Willpap writes:
Re: Finding Y and Sizing Y
<<So we say that wishs/questions are encrypted and then compressed before
they are added to the Y as poms. But lets keep the first encryption so that
password dots appear as the original words and spaces so that users can "see"
the outline proof of their wishes.
A typical 94 charactor sentence wish would become about 12 poms.>>
Secrecy and Internet encryption was also the method Al Queda and the hijackers
use to communicate with each other.
In a message dated 4/13/02 1:28 PM, Willpap writes:
Re- Soft Wishing Y Memorial Sp
<<
Can you say more about the particulars of the Pythagorean correspondences, I've
been looking up what of his unspoken/unwritten (therefore wishbone) theories
you might be after. Is it buried in a book of yours?
<<Some interesting things about Pythagoris relevant to the Y:>>
<<"(5) that all brothers of the order should observe strict loyalty
and secrecy.">>
Pom Poms as Particulate/Between:
In a message dated 4/13/02 1:28 PM, Willpap writes:
Re- Soft Wishing Y Memorial Sp
<<
Some interesting things about Pythagoris relevant to the Y:>>
<<In certain fundamental cases, the early Pythagoreans represented numbers
and explained their properties by means of dots arranged in certain 'figures'
or patterns.>>
Pom poms as Scale Micro/Macro:
Ulmers Website text:
Poststructural theory shows
that conventional consultants remain within a middle reality and ignore
the macro- and micro-cosmic dimensions of disaster.
In a message dated 4/2/02 10:19:13 AM, gulmer@english.ufl.edu
writes:
Re: Soft Wishing Y Monument Online
<< I wonder how Claes Oldenberg would do this? A humongous POM, filling
ground zero (simulation of course)? But that's his thing. The tiny pom
has its own poignancy (Hansel and Grettel in the urban forest, leaving a
trail of emergency poms).>>
In a message dated 4/23/02 3:50:06 AM, derekj_pasquill@HOTMAIL.COM
writes:
Re: Y Activities Y Practice
<< 'When I see three oranges I juggle; when I see two towers I walk.'
Phillipe
Petit, aerialist, commenting after his arrest in 1974, for crossing between
the Twin Towers on a tightrope.
From the same book, Skyscrapers by Judith Dupre, Black Dog and Leventhal,
New York, 1996, a big coffee-table book, dimensions 18 by 7.5 inches), a
mention of the diminuitive size of the architect, Yamasaki, at 5 foot 1
inch. The aerialist, Petit, and Yamasaki, forming a Vierendaal-type truss
in the memory?
Pierre qui roule n'amasse pas mousse
regards pasquill >>
Other Associations:
Poms: 1/4 inch orange poms- for E-mergency
End of the Y installation, pom poms = rain, puddles with drops (see Video)
TRIBBLES:
In a message dated 4/13/02 1:04:41 PM, gulmer@ENGLISH.UFL.EDU
writes:
Re: Re2: Soft Wishing Y Glue
<< On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Will Pappenheimer wrote:
>
> My mother's maiden name: PALMER: originaling from: one who lays out poms:
> POMER
>
great SIGNATURE at work in your poetics! Does the "pom" have a
history? (like people went to wheelwrights to get their wheels made and
to palmer's to get their poms?)
Regarding your attraction for tri-items, the pom eidos connects with
Tribbles, from Star Trek (viz citation).
"The TRIBBLES are harmless and nice small spherical and hairy animals that
have the only fault of multiply vey quickly if they are able to find the
necessary food. The reproduction of the Tribbles happens for splitting,
equally in which they multiply the cells of the human body. The TRIBBLES
is notorious to be "sweetter animals of the whole universe," but also
to
be most useless!
The Tribbles have no mouths, but they aro neverless voracoius, expecially
of a particular kind of grain called "quadrotriticale".
The Tribbles hate Klingons!"
Here is another possible connection between us. I won't go into it, but
I have a mystorical connection with Shmoos (which are to L'il Abner what
Tribbles are to Star Trek, sorta). But Shmoos are shaped lke bowling pins.
best
glue >>
Fuzzy Attachments
Research
on Fuzzy Structures
What is a Fuzzy Structure?
A complex mechanical system, like a submarine (you know, one of those cylindrical
shells with hemispherical endcaps, submerged in water, strengthened with ribs
and bulkheads, and loaded with lots of classified stuff), is impossible to completely
model for two reasons. Firstly, the total number of degrees-of-freedom is
way to large for any computer in existence to handle efficiently or economically.
Secondly, even if it was computationally feasible to model such a structure,
it is impossible to obtain complete, detailed information about all internal
substructure details. The theory of fuzzy structures is a method
of predicting the vibration of,
and radiation and scattering from such a complex structure without having to
know all the internal details. The part of the structure which can be
modelled conventionally (shell, ribs, bulkheads, etc.) is called the master
structure. The remaining part of the structure, which cannot be modelled conventionally,
is called
the fuzzy substructure.
The Pierce, Sparrow, Russell theory of fuzzy
structures
Currently, at Penn State, the fuzzy substructure is modelled as a system of
1-DOF attachments whose properties are governed
by a principle of maximum ignorance.
That is, the number of attachments is unknown, though it is assumed that there
are a large number of them; their exact locations are unknown, though it is
assumed that they are "smeared" over a given area; their individual
masses, stiffnesses, and natural frequencies are unknown. What is assumed to
be known is how the total mass of all attachments is distributed according to
natural frequency. This information, termed the mass-frequency distribution,
is the key to the whole theory.
It has been shown theoretically, that the primary effects of the fuzzy
attachments are to add a frequency dependent damping and a frequency
dependent mass loading to the master structure.
See also Ephemera:
Pom Pom as Wish, as desire:
In a message dated 3/29/02 6:21:28 PM, ti@VA.COM.AU
writes:
more wish
<< Dear Linda, (and list)
I love the pom poms. this is a simple elegant project - in the web
layout to its projection (possibility). It really values exchange
between, and for me, exposes the (im)possibility of desire, of wish
and the way one wishes the world to be another world, and the
overwhelming v-a-s-t of I-deal.
Softness: Pom Poms are Soft:
In a message dated 3/30/02 12:28 PM, Willpap writes:
Soft Wishing Y Soft Beta
<<et al,
It seems that there is no question that pom poms are soft,
but why is software soft? Is it because entrepenurial types were worried that
computers wouldn't seem friendly (AI)? Or were they trying to escape producing
anything concrete, as in: use-value, or finished, as in: always possible to
upgraded, resold?
At the recent CAA conference in Philadelphia some artists hailed the concept
of beta sites as beta art, art always in a state of development, becoming. Others
questioned its stability, its longevity, perhaps its rigor?
In the tradition of beta software , the Soft Wishing Y Memorial has updated
the date of installation of pom poms to April 20th, 2002. Interesting in this
date is the preponderance of zeros and twos rather than zeros and ones. Perhaps
this suggests that even the digital world is mirrored. There's never nothing
and one and there's always at least two, the double, the switch.
I have begun to build the main homepage for the S W Y Memorial which will receive,
introduce and allow viewers to input wishes. Josh Wienaught is making progress
with this latter interactive component. I'm going to follow a pattern of bifurcation,
even in beta construction. There is lots of information gathered and text mostly
beautifully written by Greg Ulmer. I will start by including as much of this
as I can in a straightforward presentation and then it will begin to divide
and multiply in pages and design.
Lets for try to get Soft Wishing Y Soft, the interactive component of the MEmorial,
ready to receive Wish Input by Monday April 1st.
Beta-house-stylie, of course
Will>>
In a message dated 4/2/02 10:19:13 AM, gulmer@english.ufl.edu
writes:
Re: Soft Wishing Y Monument Online
<< I wonder how Claes Oldenberg would do this? A humongous POM, filling
ground zero (simulation of course)? But that's his thing. The tiny pom
has its own poignancy (Hansel and Grettel in the urban forest, leaving a
trail of emergency poms).>>
In a message dated 3/30/02 11:02 AM, Willpap writes:
2 Kinds of Balls
<<Larry,
Can I ask you a favor? As you can imagine trying to get old of 3000 to 4000
little orange pom poms. There is a really good craft store in Arlington called
"Play Time Inc." and they have a whole wall devoted to pom poms in
the downstairs section of their store. I am looking for as many packages of
the bright orange pom poms that I can get. Their size is one quarter inch or
10 mm. If you want to check the color you can go to the Website and there's
a little picture with a map: ( http://www.willpap-projects.com/WishY/SoftWishingYMonument.html)
Could you take a quick trip up there and see what they have and buy it if it
looks good and I will reimburse you.
The store is really quite close to you. You get on Mass Ave and drive West towards
Arlington. After you cross the intersection of routes 16 you drive perhaps another
mile until you are nearing the center of Arlington. Broadway, which comes in
from Teele Square, Somerville, merges with Mass Ave on the right at this point.
It is a Y formation of course. There's a little street that goes to the right
just before it merges which takes you right over to Play Time at 283 Broadway.
You will of course love the store! It would be so great if you could do this
soon so that I can sleep well on my bed of poms and not worry so much.
Play Time Crafts * 283 Broadway * Arlington, MA 02474
1-781-648-3230
attached is map file:
Da Best,
Willie
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In a message dated 4/21/02 6:53:33 PM, stfr@earthlink.net
writes:
wishing Y
<<
Hey Will,
I heard about you putting out the Y from your friend Alexa, who came on the
tour. I'm afraid the tour never made it very far south. A rather
bedraggled bunch trouped through the rain, but gave up about a third of the
way through the tour route at about Union Square. It was actually a very
peculiar & increasingly funny tour because at each stop we found only
traces or signs of art that had once been there, but had been removed.
I went down today, though, to look at the Y, and it was really spectacular.
I was moved by the tender little pompoms, fragile as wishes, blown around
but still there. I watched a guy try to dig one out of a sidewalk crack
with his toe & I asked him what he thought. "I don't know what they
are!"
he said, "but they're everywhere. They're multiplying!" I took lots
of
pictures -- a few are attached. I imagine you documented things well, but I
though perhaps I could add the element of time and fate. I think it would
be interesting to also go back in a week, and two weeks and see what was
still there. I'd be happy to put the pics I took on a cd and hand them over
or send them.
I would be really interested to know what your experience has been with this
piece -- how it felt to do something so large and so ephemeral. I've been
thinking alot about this because it is also characteristic of the biennial
as a whole.>>