*The following is an excerpt from the manuscript.

Tekton: The Poet Architect, the Art Situation & Models

John Wheeler was a twentieth century American physicist who helped shape the way we understand the quantum realm. His quote regarding our place, as more than just observers, but as participators is a poignant opening to our study.  The quantum universe is far outside our scope of exploration, but Wheeler’s belief that we shape, or bring about what we are seeing, that we live in a “participatory universe” is relevant to our investigation. 

Tekton, very likely this is an unknown and foreign sounding word. True, certainly on the second count and most likely on the first count as well. In a moment I will walk you through the origins of the word, its earliest meanings and how I am reshaping the term to build from the original idea but also to reshape its initial intention into the way I practice Art; the exploration of discovery uncovering elements igniting passive activity into cognitive and physical action. We will see this in two ways, primarily in that we shape, via behaviors, perceptions and interpretations of the physical world we in habit. And slightly less obvious, though, is the analogous relationship we can posit the quantum-verse shares with the specifics of art situation. More on this after we have examined the basic and more measurable factors at play in the art situation. 

However, before we explore the idea of tekton let’s frame our focus. To start, our arena is the art situation, and this is where we will position our viewing angle. Art situation is the scientific exploration of what is commonly know as an Installation. An installation is an intentionally purposed place where the artist has designed an interactive gallery, or collection of art objects that elicit interaction the viewers. The distinction I ma making is that the “installation” becomes a controlled environment where I can examine and define fields and forces that measure and describe how we establish presentness and being. Most of the time we will examine these forces separately, but as we do I hope you will try to place yourself in the art situation experiencing each set of factors.

An art situation is both a kind of art installation, and for me, a theoretical setting in which to test my ideas regarding the kind of change the individual under goes; so it is art and it is a control environment. Existing around us are disparate artifacts, ideas, notions, absolutes, all seemingly unconnected and unrelated. And yet, I believe, in everything is interconnectivity. For example, in the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional rely on perception, a condition of the mind, 2-D requiring thought processing to erect, in the mind, a physical manifestation of a conceptual drawing, where 3-D is physical and experiential. These are psychological responses within the interaction. All of these make connection points with the person engaged with the work. Sensual, these are alive with possibility and vitality. Composed of line, shape, depth, color, mass, scale these set alive our senses, becoming a bright aurora in the mind, or a companion to the body. They are capable of integrating the specific, the segmented, the fragmented parts of self, they must be, then, visceral, vast, and communicative; timeless and timely.

The art situation is complete when someone becomes present within it. They are in a state of being. This is composed differing zones. Within these zones are art objects and the individual.  Each type of zone, there are six, reside in the larger field of the site. The site is simply made up of a physical, architectural place. Taken together these form a very particular kind of environment. The slip out of passivity and into action reveals how our nature reacts in our day to day environment even though we aren’t as aware as are within the art situation. That’s exciting point I want to make, the control environment is designed for interaction, is something measurable and becomes a platform that can help us find new ways to be present in our mundane world. This requires psychological and physical connection, though, and in essence is where the art situation coalesces into a charged and energetic circumstance. 

Permeating the entire environment is SpaceTime. The way we understand SpaceTime in this place is to know that space and time are not separate but linked together. In separable each become an artifice of experience in site, zone and with the art objects. The catalyst making this happen is our dual nature. Known as the Dual Bodily Unity, we live within this milieu and share SpaceTime with the total space, its architecture as well as any given thing, be those unremarkable or extraordinary. This establishes our location. Removed is staid physical separation of passive viewer to art hung on a wall. The viewer is transformed into participant, becoming one with art, and also becoming the art. Because this is experiential, the totality of the self being involved, the individual also becomes art through psych connection. The art situation become living, vibrant and active. This is the outcome of the Tekton, the art architect, whose work is designed through theory, and revealed through experience.

Working Models

From the macro environmental to the individual’s micro psychological, Wheeler’s “out there”, is semantic but also tailored to fit our focus. Wheeler’s career was dedicated to understanding the universe through the lens of Physics but at a fundamental level. The thinking of Wheeler and myself is in the way we speculate interaction and participation. So I work less in traditional artistic methods and materials and more with theoretical and experimental thinking and design in order to understand the factors bringing out presentness and being within an environment of art. To use scientific vernacular, I am trying to knit together a unified field theory. The art situation is the lens through which I view how participation is brought about by specific rules governing cognitive and physical behavior.  

The knowledge gained from other fields of inquiry have helped inform and develop a lexicon explaining the forces bearing upon the individual. Figure 1.1 shows one of six diagrams elucidating measurable transformations. We’ll get deeper into these later, but giving you a peak at transformation diagram will give you some sense of what we will discover. These transformation diagrams act as a key. For now we’ll put a pin here and move to what a tekton is and why I am one.

An excerpt from my manuscript, “ Connection Points, Bridging the Expanse Between Self and Art Objects in SpaceTime”. (Working title.)

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