i. War Is Over, If You Want It
ii. Beckett’s Car With A Broken Window
iii. Micro Sushi

War Is Over, If You Want It: Artcite’s Fahrenheit Festival 2009

The original plans for the project proposal to Artcite.

Photograph by Justin Langlois.

Photograph by Justin Langlois.

Photograph by Justin Langlois.

Photograph by Justin Langlois.

Photograph by Justin Langlois.

War Is Over, If You Want It

Stephen Surlin 2009

Wood, straw, wire, screws

War is Over, If You Want It a piece I did for Artcite’s 2009 Fahrenheit Festival at the Volmer Culture & Recreation Complex in LaSalle, Ontario. The event took place in late September in a large park area with an artificial lake with a peninsula that houses the sculptures during the event.

Fahrenheit 2009 followed in the footsteps of Artcite’s 2001 “Autumnal Equinox & Bucolic BBQ Bacchanal”, which featured the (sanctioned) burning of four artist-made 20-foot high wood sculptures before a small crowd. In 2002 Artcite hosted the inaugural “Fahrenheit”, North America’s first Fire Festival. “Fahrenheit” has featured a number of fire artists, sculptors and performers from across Ontario, Canada, and the U.S., culminating in a daytime display of specially-created structures and a final nighttime “performing of the fire”.

According to the festival co-organizers (the ‘Control . Burn’ collective) “fire sculpture is fleeting, kinetic and encompasses a singular moment that cannot be restaged. It is a performative medium where the lasting value is created beforehand in the spectator’s eyes. The art work is only completed when it is finally torched and witnessed”.

-Artcite.ca

My “fire sculpture” is influenced by the holiday season ad campaign created by Yoko Ono and John Lennon. The AK-47 is also a very significant icon in the world today. I was originally drawn to the icon/object when learning about conflict in “developing” nations and child warfare problems. This gun is on the national crests and/or flags of several countries around the world. It is also considered the most “successful” industrial object of all time. All of these concepts lead me to consider the transformative ability of the fire sculpture medium. Witnessing the cycle of impermanence can be an inspirational experience, one that makes manifest, the fluidity and transitory nature of conflict.

Click Here to read the Fahrenheit Festival Interview with Stephen Surlin from the Windsor Star, about the festival and my work.

Beckett’s Car With A Broken Window

Beckett’s Car With A Broken Window 1

Beckett’s Car With A Broken Window 2

Beckett’s Car With A Broken Window 3

Beckett’s Car With A Broken Window

Paper model 2010

By Stephen Surlin

This was a project assigned to me in my Intermedia class in my Bachelor of Fine Arts Program at the University of Windsor. This class focuses on the artistic practices of many mid-sixties artists who were associated with the Fluxus movement, especially the works of Vito Acconci, Allan Kaprow, Karen Finley, Robert Wilson and more.

Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting and theater could be described as intermedia. With repeated occurrences, these new genres between genres could develop their own names (e.g. visual poetry or performance art.)

Higgins described the tendency of the most interesting and best in the new art to cross the boundaries of recognized media or even to fuse the boundaries of art with media that had not previously been considered for art forms, including computers.

“Part of the reason that Duchamp‘s objects are fascinating while Picasso‘s voice is fading is that the Duchamp pieces are truly between media, between sculpture and something else, while a Picasso is readily classifiable as a painted ornament. Similarly, by invading the land between collage and photography, the German John Heartfieldproduced the what are probably the greatest graphics of our century…”

—Higgins, Intermedia, 1966)

My process was one of cause and effect, a reactionary exercise based on the repetetive routine of the “everyday”. My early inclination was to examine my relationship with my car, especially driving. Though, over time my focus fell upon my mental state while driving. This state of mind I found myself in tended to be one of isolation, subtle unrest, possibly even fear and sadness. These concepts felt reminiscent of the post WWII era theatrical work of Samuel Beckett, especially the appearance of various states of “purgatory” in his work, i.e. “Waiting For Godot”, ”Rough For Theatre I”, “Act Without Words I”, “Krapp’s Last Tape”, etc.

Since I began studying Beckett’s life and works, I found a kinship to him. It might have started with my leanings toward post WWII French pop. philosophy, especially that of Albert Camus, in my high-school days, that led me to resonate with works like “Waiting for Godot”. Though it might be the way we, Beckett and I, are connected most through our detestment of violence, especially that of wars and other grand-scale violence. After discussions in class with my classmates and instructors, it became clear that I should investigate our connection through his car. It was quite interesting to discover that Beckett owned a car that was similar in colour and fuel economy to my own. The day I found a paper model on the internet of Beckett’s car to build in order to further my examination, my car was broken into. This kind of intrusive violence seemed to make manifest our connection, therefore, I made this connection a physical and metaphorical manifestation in my work by removing the window of Beckett’s car as mine was.

Micro Sushi

Cutting Board and Tools

Cut Nori

Vegetables

Rice

Pepper

Cutting Pepper

Cutting Onion

Preparing Maki Roll

Prepared Maki Roll

Maki Roll

Nigiri Roll

Nigiri Roll 2

Nigiri Roll 3

Maki Roll On Glass Slide

Nigiri Roll On Glass Slide

Nigiri Roll and Maki Roll On Glass Slides

Micro Sushi

Mixed Media 2010

by Stephen Surlin

The Micro Sushi piece was a project made for the BioArt: Contemporary Art and the Life Sciences class in my Bachelor Of Fine Arts Program in the Visual Arts at the University Of Windsor. The assignment was to create a “tiny” sculpture, one that might be observed through a microscope or utilize some sort of aesthetic of the small scale processes of the life sciences.

My work focuses on the already precise and relatively small scale processes of sushi and sushi making aesthetics. I exaggerated these aspects by introducing the tools of the laboratory that we have at our disposal within the Lebel Building for the Arts, where the class takes place. There are several parallels between the precision tools of traditional sushi making and the tools of the life sciences. The hocho, or Japanese cutlery, is a major part of the process:

Much high-quality Japanese cutlery originates from Sakai, the capital of samurai sword manufacturing since the 14th century. After the Meiji Restoration, the carrying of swords by the samurai class was banned as part of an attempt to modernise Japan. Though demand for military swords remained and some swordsmiths still produced traditional samurai swords as art, the majority of swordsmiths refocused their skill to cutlery production.

In my project, the scalpel acted as the precision cutting tool, becoming the transition point between the two traditions of Sushi making and the laboratory research of the Life Sciences.