//September 2007

thursday, september 27
DUMBO, Brooklyn: NY September 25, 2007 - “The Third Bridge” an artwork in fiber optics by Osman Akan, will be installed on the waterfront in the Brooklyn Bridge Park near the Manhattan Bridge from October 14, 2007 to January 14, 2008. "The Third Bridge" is Dumbo Art Center’s first solo commission and the pilot in a developing series, titled “Outer Space.” For directions, visit www.dumboartscenter.org


THE THIRD BRIDGE

“Life is a bridge,” the Eastern proverb goes. “Cross over it, but build no house on its span.” An invitation since time immemorial to ramble on, the idea of the bridge has served—literally and metaphorically—to connect where we are now to where we wish to arrive. Like the romance of the road, it is best considered as a means and not an end; to act otherwise invites arrested development, immaturity, dreams deferred.

Also a powerful metaphor for unity, the desire to build bridges is, by definition, a progressive urge. The driving force behind bridges propels the race toward improvements of both the material and metaphysical kind. Think of the telephone, the railroad and the multistory building, for example. Each of these, in its time, was a piece of cutting edge technology—a bridge linking ambition and achievement. Inventions like these made men dream and, just as importantly, improved the way they got their wares to market.

It comes as no surprise, then, that bridges—in their ideal form and as feats of engineering—have long inspired artists to sing their praises. >From Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” to Hart Crane’s ecstatic canto to the Brooklyn Bridge to a recent documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge’s suicide appeal, bridges — especially the world’s more impressive structures — invite the mind to dream big, pushing the limits of the imagination toward new ideas beyond the established.

A new work of contemporary art that plays on the traits of these grandiose and useful monuments is Osman Akan’s “The Third Bridge,” a sculptural installation using unorthodox and volatile materials like light, wind and fiber optic cables. Sited outdoors on a walkway in Brooklyn Bridge Park, itself located on the East River waterfront — virtually beneath the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges — Akan’s sculpture taps into the natural and man-made aspects of a landscape heavily trafficked by folks immersed in their most reflexive, meditative moments.

Not so much a demonstration of artistic innovation as a challenge to activate the mind’s trap and chutes in relation to its physical as well as its metaphorical surroundings, Akan’s “Third Bridge” uses prosaic if advanced contemporary technology — namely, the fiber optic strands that form the plumbing and architecture beneath and above our most routine daily exchanges — to comment on and render visible the vast networks of information that envelop our everyday lives. Planted in individual strands to form curving pathways of fiber optic “grass,” the imitation meadows pose a basic question about the environment of our 21st century information age — specifically, what is natural? A public sculpture that demands interactivity of the tactile and cogitative kind, Akan’s work also incorporates air into its artistic effects, swaying and bending with the wind, an anti-monument to the variable fortunes of human communication.

Located between two towering examples of 19th century “connectivity, ”Akan’s “Third Bridge” enacts a sculptural metaphor for our digitally dependent present. In this formulation, t he high-speed information transmitted by light impulses represents the bridge’s finished span. The sculpture’s fiber optic rods, for their part, stand in for the stone, mortar and cable work that does the heavy lifting for many of the globe’s most essential networks. The “grass” itself eschews monumentality as a site-specific expression of hidden networks and values begat by new technologies.

“I use fiber optics for many reasons, but most importantly because of their ability to form networks,” Akan has said, by which he means all such networks, from “the flux of information from late night television to surveillance cameras, from chat lines to stock markets, as well as cultural networks such as artist networks.” However invisible, Akan’s “The Third Bridge” suggests, fiber optics constitute the pathways that traffic in our most important symbolic and material values — information, linkage, trade, among others — even to the degree that they help reshape what passes for human nature today and in the future.

Figurative and literal in its commentary on the networks that make possible our most basic and complex exchanges, Akan’s “The Third Bridge” carves out a perfectly shifting aesthetic middle ground from which to contemplate the consequences of our most important technologies. To paraphrase the Austrian novelist Robert Musil, Osman Akan’s public light sculpture displays, among other things, the structure of a terrific work of art: if analyzed properly, it is not an experience that is frozen, instead it operates like the vibrating of a bridge, a road that changes with every step one takes on it.  

-Christian Viveros-Fauné and Dumbo Arts Center, 2007

wednesday, september 26
The New Yorker favors Ed Schmidt's Dumbolio. Read it here.

Travel Notes update: Get the latest from photojournalist Christoph Bangert's African adventure.

tuesday, september 25
The New York Photo Festival is coming to DUMBO! Check out this hot teaser from the Snorri Bros.

monday, september 24
The Brooklynites party photos.... get 'em here.

friday, september 21
Last night's Brooklynites party went off! Check back soon for photos. In the meantime, check out this highlight film by Miana Grafals.

thursday, september 20
Women Who Light The Dark hit Kepler's SF... check it out if you're in the neighborhood.


photo by CYNTHIA ST. JOHN

wednesday, september 19
Ode to our infamous bathrooms... may they rest in peace


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tuesday, september 18
GRBG photo show...

monday, september 17
A couple photos from the Brooklyn Book Festival. Seth Kushner and Anthony LaSala were on location signing books.


friday, september 14
Paul P. (left) at Printed Matter, celebrates the launch of his first monograph Nonchaloir.

 

thursday, september 13
Good news! The VH1 Hip Hop Honors weekend will be hosted at The powerHouse Arena. We've lined up a deep list of documenters of the Hip Hop scene to lay it out for you like they saw it. Check out the schedule here.

wednesday, september 12
Wild Style hits current tv- check it out here.

tuesday, september 11
3rd Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival Slideshow

monday, september 10
Paola Gianturco came through NY to promote her new title Women Who Light The Dark - check out the photo roll




friday, september 7
Wee Craic is just around the corner, check this out!

thursday, september 6
What would I do without KEL 1ST?

Probably keep wearing a ton of cheap jewelry from Claire’s is likely. But since having the pleasure to meet him for the launch of No Sleep til Brooklyn in 2006, I ordered my first custom made piece, a simple necklace with my initials. Since then, I began ordering pieces made every time I hosted an exhibition: The 70s Show and Wild Style. The necklaces have caught everyone’s eye—with his distinctive style, it seems everyone loves graffiti when it’s hanging from my neck. For real, ladies in my elevator will be like, “Wow, that’s amazing. Is that your name?” to which I must reply, “Umm, no. It’s the year I was born.” Well, you can’t fault them for trying!

KEL is now launching his website, offering an amazing opportunity for YOU to get your own pieces. Ladies, he’s got bamboos !! Fellas, he’s got necklaces. What What? Don’t front—you know you gotta have it...

wednesday, september 5
The Brooklynites set up has begun. With over 100 images, Kushner and LaSala pen a love letter to the borough in photo and story.
Check out the book and exhibition.

 

tuesday, september 4
The Missshapes have hit B & N... corner window status!

Want more Blog? Get the goods from August and older here.