GEOMANCIA

My work focuses on the meaning behind the print, the printed word, and the photograph as culturally accepted signifiers of truth and how this affects personal and cultural genealogy. Written and visual documentation have created a problematic, linear pattern to how history is recorded and a belief that one can trace all information to a point of origin. Not only is this irrational because the past recedes to a point that can never be known, but its structure suggests a knowable future as well.

The clipboard, like a camera, is a recording device. Where paper and film are the actual recording substrates respectively, the clipboard and camera stand as symbols of linear memory recording devices. The clipboard is a mechanical device for recording oral history, the camera a device to record singular viewpoints. Both are significant contributors to the construction of linear cultural history and genealogy.

Soon after its inception, the printed word became simply, the word, the standard and measure of truth. Written rather than oral histories seemed grounded in fact, the others mere mythology. Photography in turn upped the truth ante. Photographic as well as written documentation could provide one with the better foothold to historical significance. Living memory became fallible and recording one’s life became serious business. With records one became immortal, without, one’s existence could evaporate.

This anxiety to record one’s present has today shifted toward ownership of the future. During the post-war suburban homes buildup in America, the promise of a utopian future emerged. The necessity for new homes at the time was, to a large degree, real. However, what was set into motion was the context for the preview and the concept that one could live in the future. Unlike a few decades ago when predictions of the future would be made and potential innovations showcased, always with the knowledge that they may not actually happen, today the preview is concrete. It does not allow for doubt; it says and then it does.

This is an unprecedented development in linear thinking. We can see the homes before they are built, we know what is coming and if we miss it we can catch it again a few miles down the road. The preview is a solution waiting for a problem, its words provide significance without historical foundation. It is a reversed sign. It records the future and insists we stake our claims within its pretext. The preview is a link to a potential history, but, with its removal, the memory of actual events is forgotten. We project a selected genealogy but then forget what role we were supposed to play within it. We forget the lesson of the future and are doomed to repeat it.

 

Martin Kruck was born in Toronto, Canada and currently resides in New Haven, CT. Recent exhibitions of his work have been held at The Joseph D. Carrier Art Center in Toronto, The Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Milton Rhodes Gallery at Winston-Salem, NC, and the Blackbridge Gallery of Georgia University. He is currently Assistant Director at Big Orbit Gallery.