The Iron Ring, an Art Project by Cecilia Jonsson (2014)

While “green mining” aims for a more ecological approach to mining metals, The Iron Ring explores how contaminated mining grounds may benefit from the mining of metals. For this work, 24kg of iron-tainted grass was removed from contaminated mining grounds and transformed into a ring of 2g metallic iron.

The project elaborates on the possibilities to utilize the cleansing process of the naturalized, wild growing grass: Imperata cylindrica. An invasive vile weed, which overlooked tolerance and ability to hyper accumulate iron inside its roots, stems and leaves are left unutilized. The Iron Ring proposes to harvest the grass for the purpose of extracting the ore that is inside them. The result is a scenario for iron mining that, instead of furthering destruction, could actually contribute to the environmental rehabilitation of abandoned metal mines.

The Iron Ring came about through trials and failures, in a process of close collaboration with smiths, scientists, technicians and farmers met along the way.

This e-book consists of two parts. The first is a visual essay by Cecilia Jonsson that reports on the seven chronological steps that were required to create an iron ring out of 24kg of grass harvested from the acidic river banks of a landscape in Spain severely transformed by opencast mining. In the second part, professor James Jackson Griffith, who participated in Jonsson’s preliminary research on mining restoration in Brazil, discusses The Iron Ring from an environmental-philosophical perspective.

Publisher V2_, Rotterdam, 2014
Open Access

Publisher

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Raphael Montañez Ortíz: Laser/Disc/Scratch/Destruction (2011)

An edition of documents and facsimiles of the artist published to accompany his exhibition at LABOR in México City.

In 1957 Raphael Montañez Ortíz (New York, 1934) began exhibiting sculptures and experimental films. From the start of his career he incorporated destruction and deconstruction as elements of his work, converting them into key figures for understanding the development of avant-gardes during the post-war period. In addition to producing film, music, sculpture, performance and video, Montañez Ortíz pioneered practices such as working with food, computers, and founding portable museums. His works often operate as a counter-anthropology, and he has taken ethnographic methods used to study tribal behavior and applied them to contemporary society.

The LABOR exhibition focused on two aspects of his diverse oeuvre: the first is comprised of documentation surrounding his destruction of pianos and his production of written manifestos; the second is his video work, which he began in the 1980s.

When he participated in the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) held in London in 1966, Montañez Ortíz already had a reputation in the art world for destroying pianos. In the documents it is interesting to observe the contrast between the primal brutality of his actions and the elaborateness of his thoughts as recorded in his manifestos from the same era. The shock of these actions was not directed exclusively at a group of initiates, but at a larger audience that was reflected in the stupor of the mass media.

The Laser Disc Scratch Videos were the result of an interface designed especially by the artist, which allowed him, through the use of a joystick and little knobs, to control a laser disc player in real time. This instantaneous manipulation of video allowed him to work without having to cut or paste, inaugurating a totally new way of working with images without resorting to conventional processes of editing. The result is a zoom though time. Three seconds of footage are stretched out in a spastic movement that ceaselessly deconstructs and reconstructs the narrative. The effect is hypnotizing, and one might say that these videos function like a psychotropic substance absorbed through the eyes and ears. Nevertheless, the physiological effects of these pieces are just the first level among many. At the center of the vortex there is a deconstruction of cultural roles and conventions, an exorcism of the ghosts of contemporary society. (adapted from a press release for the exhibition

The volume contains an interview with Raphael Montañez Ortíz by Pedro Reyes, selections from his archive: “Destructivism: A Manifesto” (1962, handwritten manuscript + transcript, 4 pp), “Destruction Art: Survival Kit” (1968, typed manuscript, 3 pp), “D.I.A.S. Destruction in Art Symposium” (1966), “Diary of a Ritual” (1969, typed manuscript, 9 pp), and a number of photographs.

Edited by Pedro Reyes
Publisher LABOR, México City, 2011
37 pages
via L_A_B_O_R

PDF
1988 print of the Destructivism Manifesto (via ICAA Docs)
2013 Tate exhibition of the 1966 “DIAS” piano

Liam Gillick: Why Work? (2010)

Art is a place where the rules of engagement are open to question. The knowledge worker also appears to challenge rules of engagement but can only do so in the production of software or a set of new fragmented relationships. The artist can create alienated relationships without all these intricacies.

Why Work? was first presented in New York as part of the Goethe Institut Wyoming Building series What Is the Good of Work? organised by Maria Lind, Director of the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies and Simon Critchley, Chair of Philosophy at the New School. This short text comprises the presentation made by artist, Liam Gillick – who responded to Lind and Critchley alongside Professor Gianni Vattimo on January 30, 2010.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Post-Office, May-June 2010, Auckland, New Zealand.

Publisher Artspace, Auckland
ISBN 978047316950
49 pages

exhibition
publisher

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