2007 - 2008.
BOOK Available at La Tertulia, Rios Piedras and Amazon
IDEA STAGE
[1] «Jacinto de agua» (Water
hyacinth) is a Latin-American floating plant that grows pretty rapidly
over the water surface suffocating the ecosystem underneath in tropical
climates. Artist concern has nothing to do with this fact. The ideas
are textural changes, liquid under floor, and an intention of dethrone
visual phenomena with other senses especially the tactual. Texture,
resistance to touch of the material's surface, variations in elevation
from the surface, and weight are what is important. Although an
illusional trick might be present. The collaboration will be finish on
site at Centro Cultural Casapoli, Península de Coliumo, Chile, for 2008. [8] Casapoli was designed in 2005 by Mauricio Pezo and Sofía von Ellrichshausen.
Artist invites architect Andrés Mignucci to do a collaboration piece. Among his works are «Ventana al Mar» plaza and «Parque del Indio», both in Condado, Puerto Rico; Children's Park of «Parque Central», a 40,540 square-meter municipal sports and leisure center in the district of Santurce (2000, San Juan, Puerto Rico) and the restoration of «Parque Luis Muñoz Rivera», Puerta de Tierra, Puerto Rico, in 2003. The «Luis Muñoz Rivera Park» was designed by Bennet, Parsons & Frost of Chicago in 1924. Construction began four years later in 1928. In 1990 the park was first restored by the architect Otto Reyes Casanova. Also in 2002, Mignucci participated in the design of the «Parque Central de Santiago de los Caballeros», Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, with Dominican architect Gustavo More. Mignucci was the editor of «Arquitectura Contemporánea en Puerto Rico 1976-1992» (American Institute of Architects, Puerto Rico Chapter, San Juan, 1992).
Both agree to explore the ideas of liquidity and horizontality.
This proyect was funded partially by Programa de Artes Plásticas and Programa Básico de las Artes of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Review can be acces at El naufragio de las palabras.by Carlos Otero Aponte (January 26, 2009).
[2]Window detail of Carlo Scarpa's Gypsoteca Canoviana, Possagno Plastercast Gallery, (1956-57). Sent by Mignucci in references to «Enable Blue»: "In both, the box gets destroy by the corner's opening. The content's form creates a light (built light) so solid, that the light becomes tangible." (Email sent to O'Neill, June 2, 2007).
PRODUCCTION STAGE
AUGUST
[3]Digital pattern
by artist for magnetic stripes (24 inches wide and 150 feet long),
printed by Sign Engineering Group. The flexible magnet will be
intervene by Mignucci. Conversation between artist and architect
(Thursday, August 30, 2007) about "built light", "charge void" and
color. [5] On the first audio (33:49), artist
explains to Mignucci the magnetic stripes and they discuss the
possibility of separating the piece instead of being floor and ceiling
at the same time, 'charged void', as Mignucci call it, in reference to [4] Richard Serra's «Delineator» (1974-75) at exhibition at MOMA (Sculpture: Forty Years). [6] On the second audio (13:24), Mignucci discuss his essay «Inhabiting Shadows», among others things. [7] Test of the color strip.
SEPTEMBER
Mignucci responded to O'Neill interest that the pieces
make sound provoke by the expectador weight when walking over it with a
reference to Charles Olson, «Projective Verse»,
1950. An American modernist poet that proposed that silence, the breath
of the reader, even the layout of words considering negative space on
paper, poems meant to be read at loud as way for the reader to finish
the poem. Olson is credited as one of the thinkers who coined the term
postmodern. On a email sent to O'Neill (Saturday, September 22, 2007),
Mignucci explained: "Whitehead (Alfred North) philosophical core is
that 'fundamental elements in the universe are just instances of
experiences'. Meaning that what we consider concrete objects are really
a sequential of instances. Time as pulse, all experiences are
influenced by previous experiences and it will do the same with future
experiences. We perceived, we live them and react to them. For
Whitehead the universe is incomplete and in a continuous change. Unity
for him is just the constant process of experiences and perceptions.
Olson acknowledges Whitehead influences in his creative work (…) As
soon as the idea, the concept of the object separate from the object,
as soon as religion lost its divine representation on the secular
society, according to Olson, the multiplicity in unity decline and
becomes instead homogeneous (…) Olson starts giving more importance to
the process than the finished product. He said that poetry is 'a
high-energy construct and that this is a spontaneous (open) process, as
opposed to inherited line, stanza and overall form, or closed verse'.
«Projective Verse» used the ear as a meter in relationship with rhythm
and syllable - analogous, I think, to our formal relationship with
form/material/space and void."
FEBRUARY
On a meeting on February 5, 2008, O'Neill proposed to
Mignucci taking out the piece from Casa Poli. In reaction to the house
structural base, bury underneath the rock ([9] and [10]).
The fact that there is something underneath, done with certain violence
to the terrain, in able to secure the house on a cliff ([11] and [12]),
capture O'Neill's attention and her initial reference to the Jacintos.
Pezo comments: "the landscape engineers warned us that we could only
build close to the edge if we left a security margin towards the east
side. They said the weight of the construction could make the clay
composition of the soil slide against the tilted granite of the base.
This forced us to limit the volume to a compact figure that would
occupy a minimal amount of land and whose telluric composition would be
in charge of transferring the load directly to the ground (...) Once we
established this position that obstructed the flattest area, it was
necessary to elevate the floor until we recovered at least two things:
both the sensation of a natural podium surrounded by nothing and the
morbid and unavoidable sight of the foot of the cliffs, where the sea
explodes against the rocks."(David Basulto, Plataforma arquitectura,
January, 2007). O'Neill and Mignucci agreed that an incision will be
made as an echo to the house base, with stair (that include the magneto
stripes) and half clear "pérbola" that will end in a version of
Alberti's windows used as a motiff in the Poli House. Wind, manipulated
by the incision on the terrain and the stair giving up a little under
the weight of the expectador, will be the platform for sound [13].
JULY
Consulting with Simonetta Rossi, curator of Casa Poli,
proposal have to change due that permanent installation and
intervention with terrain was not allow. Mignucci proposed then to move
the piece inside Casa Poli, first floor, and use the different views of
the triple height the room has in able to install a temporary modulary
floor with the magnets [14-16]. The fact that is a modular system
(floor plan, PDF, 4.51 MB) allows the flexibility to finishing the
piece on site, so, there is a word game with the "specific". The floor
gives a little, creating sound acording to body weigth and will have
ligths underneath. The posibility of inviting coreographer Viveca
Vázquez was discussed and photographer Ivonne María Marcial to document
performance, since Casa Poli is isolated and remote. On this meeting,
July 30, 2008, Mignucci gave O'Neill a process book documenting the whole process up to date and his reaction to the artist's magnetic stripes (PDF, 3.66 MB, 33 pages). Audio [17] of July 30 meeting below, where Mignucci explained in detail the content of the process book (01:03:07.27, MOV, 10.83 MB).
SEPTEMBER
[18]First prototype, discard, because of its ridigity.
Also discard, the light underneath, Mignucci agrees with O'Neill that
it not needed it due to its optical effect and color luminosity.[19]Discussion
on how to assemble,on how to achieve liquidity effect and ideas of
changing the material, also participating in the discussion are
architects Carlos Rivera and Miguel Angel Pagán from Mignucci's Office
(00:07:44.77, MOV, 27.4 MB) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
OCTOBER
[20]Testing layout of magnetic modules on front of Mignucci's Office. [21]Short
discussion between artist and architect about withdrawing wood panels,
considering O'Neill proposal to attach foam to magnetic by a plastic
wrap (or just attaching it by magnets) and they consider lowering the
volume of foam, in able for achieving a more suggestive movement under
body weight (00:01:23.16, MOV, 6.1 MB), on Monday, October 6, 2008.
ON SITE
NOVEMBER
[22 and 23]Conversation between O'Neill and Mignucci
about the whole process, changes on site and written notes in O'Neill's
Mental Map, November 10, 2008 (00:34:29.50, MOV, 8.6 MB, November 14,
2008). [24 and 25] Architectural students from the
University of Bio Bio at site with curator Simonetta Rossi (at right),
Quicktime movie (00:11:14.65, MOV, 8.6MB, November 14, 2008). Adobe
Acrobat file documenting the whole process and final piece (4.57MB, 112 pages, color).[26]With Rosemarie Prim de Meissner, one of the owner of the house, Mignucci and O'Neill, on Casa Poli's cliff. [27]Detail and view of final work.
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