When I see images like this, I generally do not consider it art–or maybe I do not see it as complete art. So much of the detail is not in the scene–the boxes at the bottom are cut off, the nobs move across the image in a way that makes me see that I am not seeing the entire image. And when I know that I am not getting the “whole picture” I stop looking. For some reason I am only interested in Art that I can “understand completely”.
At some level, I know that this is ridiculous, any attempt to fully understand authorial intent is always going to end in tragedy, but at another level, I am worried about art that will not stand up to serious scrutiny. If I do not see the entire thing, I doubt that I will every be able to figure it all out. And I am a figure outer–knowing the whole story is important to me.
Thus, I research the image & the artist–I do not trust that the image can contain the entire story. I need to work on that. I need to be more present with the art. To respond to what it says on the surface–I need to work to develop a more flat critical approach.
This images talks to me about mass production. It has yellows, browns, and purples. Their is a rainbow like metaphor in the movements of color. The bottom of the image is framed by a wooden structure that is part of the machine. There is a chain, like a bike chain, which rises from the wood into the machine. The brown wood transforms into the white metal that holds the dials. The top of the image is very similar to the bottom–there is a parallelism which is somehow slopping from the bottom right up to the top left–as the colors slide so does the image.
And there is a sense of slipping, the machine is slipping into or out of something. The chain has slipped.
I can read that this image comments on the means of production slipping into an imaginary purple space.
David Given Schwarm 