Cambell Thibo

Conceptual Artist working in Systems

System for Systems

To begin with, I seek impressions from wherever I am.

This effort is periodic, though not necessarily daily. It might coincide with an arrival or an approaching departure from somewhere. Often, I work during a times of transition but also in static moments, when I observe patterns and conditions around me. I can also use brief impressions from literature, which generally come during the very opening moments of reading, while I orient myself to someone else's world.

The impressions I seek are tuning exercises – I explore harmony and dissonance of a place, then use aesthetic indicators to interpret what I sense. I observe what is interesting, harmonious, or has qualities which are particularly valuable. My judgement of beauty or harmony is, of course, subjective. However, I have the experience through communication with other individuals that my aesthetic sense – my very own personal interpretation of what particularly resonates in a place or piece or idea – brings value to a community. I certainly recognize what does and does not work for me, personally. The experience of tuning is part exploration into my surroundings – a way to teach myself new appreciation for how things are – and part starting place for offering suggestions of how things could change.

In observing my surroundings, I attempt to remain in an artistic mindset, thus I interpret my surroundings qualitatively. I try to avoid concepts of right, wrong, healthy, good, disgusting and the like, at least initially. Rather, I seek to understand the complex chain of motivations and circumstances which allow this moment. I pay particular attention to processes and their replication value. I also seek to assess a subtle sense of freedom or democracy within the process I have observed. I believe, namely, that aspects of the architecture of our lives, surroundings, work, etc. indicate slightly towards or away from the beautiful unfolding of what is unique in each person. And I maintain that art appreciation and participation has the effect of reminding of or refining this development.

As I seek insight from my settings, I concurrently play with context. What if an action or object were part of a system in a different way? I may overlay two established, unrelated processes. Working in this way, I aesthetically assess new combinations until I find one which I judge to have particular life or resonance or purchase. I tend to remain most interested in combinations which have the capacity for repetition, and which hold qualities which support freedom, the unfolding openness of life.

Once I have the beginnings of such a concept, I begin translating it to language. First, I often enact a part of it as a sort of living poem of exploration. This is a performative aspect of my process, which necessitates overcoming inhibition, yet also requires awareness for the unusual nature of public experimentation and its effect on other people. The overall experience may enhance or detract from the joy of discovering. An otherwise promising idea can feel unworkable if its initial airing is inelegant, lacks resonance, or just hurts. Alternatively, an effort which feels congruent, which in its process encapsulates growing curiosity, discovery and interest has grounds for further development.

The language which I imagine during this process becomes a seed of how I communicate the idea. I prefer simple names of one or two words. In analyzing my work up to this point, I believe the names which work for me best all synthesize an action or state with a location or object. This implied relationship vitalizes an imaginary process – it becomes, simply by being named, active. I do not require that the name be sufficient to describe all aspects of the project. Truly, it is better that it be loose enough to be repeatable without losing its peak. Thus a system name is generally rather oblique, and I must create words – a succinct sentence – to give it flesh. This sentence is also important – it describes the essential aspects of the piece in one continuous stroke or breath which becomes, as it were, a repeatable gesture.

During this development process, I begin to document the unfolding of an idea. Principally, I use photography, as it is at present a most immediate and translatable medium. Equally important to me personally, however, are the interpersonal reactions I experience in the process of enacting my thought. Because I search, work and document primarily in public, my actions engender interest, curiosity, anger, annoyance, wonder, gratitude. Owing to the resonance of some ideas, passers-by may participate, ask questions, or document the experience in their own way. These multifaceted experiences are also aesthetically and personally valuable, though I must still reflect on how/if to accumulate them and in what form or forms. The location and cultural norms of a place have great bearing on whether I feel able to guide ideas into public view.

I use specific means to communicate fully developed ideas, though I hesitate to use the word fully, as each project has potential for continued unfolding. These means include: photography (instagram); interpersonal conversation; and experiential events. The last is for me the most important, as my goal in exploring systems is not so much to call attention to a process itself, but to enable settings in which people feel individually able to unfold. It is conceivable, that in instituting a show of my work according to accepted tradition, I would find myself working within a system which is antithetical to the intent of the work itself. I wish to approach this carefully. I therefore intentionally seek and conceptualize patterns for my work to reach others. At present, I assess myself young in practice, and rely on input from and conversation with outside, as well as my own realizations. New media may require an appropriately novel format of presentation, and I am still uncertain what this could be.

Following are examples of systems currently in various stages of development. Each of these holds the memory of more stories, images and resolutions than I could readily include here. A few are outcomes of collaboration, though I play a decisive creative role in each.

Corridor – produce performances of sound|light|movement in vast, in-between use spaces

Coral – administer a shared studio with edible garden and overlapping creative interests

Porchlit – collect recorded submissions of literature read from semi-public spaces – porches, windows

Madison Square Garden – adopt a prominent corner in Seattle and publicly maintain it

Veinaffair – elevate the legs for health and document the view from recline

Homestead Knoll – adopt a piece of land in NYC to secretly discover, live on and improve

Culling Bulk – secretly clean fallen items from grocery bulk sections to later eat

Cap Problema – collect discarded plastic caps, compose them photographically to new constellations

Can Portraits – aesthetically select smashed cans and photograph them on contrasting surfaces

Truck Smash Can – collect and distribute masses of aluminum cans in areas of slow freight traffic, watch the trucks smash them

Sucker Dunk – remove, by hand, water suckers/sprouts from street trees

Greenhousing (concept in progress) – build adaptable greenhouses which double as miniature hotels

Toxic Fleurs – grow flowers in toxic soils. selectively pick to sell on roadsides or markets

Party Trash – performative system of sorting, by hand and as it comes, trash in public places

Resonance – choral performances in locations of especial resonant or cultural value, often outdoors

Step Velocity (title in progress) – perform/clean by hand the stairs to a culturally significant place

Gum Paint (title in progress) – publicly paint near-fossilized chewing gum on sidewalks.

outdoor, public water storage (title and concept in progress) – accumulate rain water and humidity for maintenance of highway-bound planting strips

DecoRoot – create durable, customizable cloth containers for plants. These may function as liners in ceramic pots or come with decorative outer cloth.

Birdwatchers - dance/performance piece which slowly cleans up and restores public places (e.g. town squares, train stations) by mirroring the movements and motivations of pigeons.

Thought Fires – ignite a contained fire in a public place and entertain conversation or private thought until it burns out.

It may be valuable to differentiate between these examples of aesthetic systems and what one might just call a good idea. I feel it important to say they are not the same.

Innovation, for instance, belongs to every field of thought. We can approach innovation with varying tools and different motivations. An innovation for how to provide water to areas affected by drought, for instance, may come from a different frame of mind than an innovation in product development. Implementing equally novel ideas also requires different sorts of involvement and mindset. Finally, the outcome of such implementation is so different that one might even be at odds with the other. Thus innovations of different sorts have different qualitative and even definite value.

Traditional ideas – or the rediscovery, revaluing or reinvention of them – are also wonderful and deserve affection. These, too, come from many diverse sources, often from time immemorial, and their exercise engenders, as well, various mindsets and motivations. While one can notice common themes among them, there is to my knowledge no definite concordance of all traditional wisdom. Hence one must encounter it as it comes and decide what is true or valuable, especially considering one's particular circumstances.

Using an aesthetic process towards system creation is neither better nor worse than any other paradigm from which one approaches an issue. Its defining value, nevertheless, lies in an established acceptance and use of qualitative judgement in the artistic disciplines. This means to me that an artistic innovation which does not necessarily outperform its counterpart in, say, health or social sciences, technology or politics can still contribute aesthetic value as a factor of it's overall function.

This is also not to say aesthetic value alone is important. I select and nurture processes which evidence multiple aspects (as I believe all systems have, though they frequently neglect to mention some aspects in favor of one defining feature). My intent in working with systems is, among all these various facets, to focus on aesthetic interrelationship – the qualities, the intrinsic artistic value of a process.

Specific themes evident in my work include:

ecological discovery and renewal
interconnectivity
value of solitude from others
unique pattern formation and appreciation
multiple motivations working in concert
ambient processes
thoroughness as embodied in a light, detailed, patient idea
excessive work which becomes wholesome
the breath of life in speech
appreciation of what is

In the context of systems, each of these exists in my work in various shades and at different times. The individual aims with which I work (and to which I may add) could each merit other approaches. In my work, and valuable to me, however, is the aesthetic nature of the connections between and among these directions of thought. I believe the concept of systems art is that which best encapsulates my native inclination and effort.