The Total Moron's Brief Guide To All That Confusing SCULPTURAL STUFF

"SCULPTURE: Frozen music. MUSIC: Gaseous sculpture." —Anon.

You sculpt because you must, because you're driven to it by inner forces, inner voices, inner needs. You live to sculpt, you sculpt to live, the same as eating and focking. That's WHY you sculpt. Here's HOW you sculpt:

BASIC SCULPTING THEORY:
1. Assume the proper artistic attitude.
2. Get your raw materials (stuff); then:
   1. Add stuff (assemble, insert, etc); and/or
   2. Remove stuff (chisel, carve, etc); and/or
   3. Squish stuff (mold, manipulate, etc); until done.
3. Mount, label, price, and sell your creation.
4. (optional) Engage in intense discussions with zero (0) or more persons (or other entities) about the mental, moral, sexual, ideological, aesthetic, and other motivations and experiences encapsulated by your work. Do not be deterred by the reactions of others.
5. Using drugs, purge yourself of the work.
6. Goto #1.

BASIC SCULPTURE ANALYSIS:
1. Assume the proper analytic attitude.
2. Approach a sculpture; then:
   1. Look at it from all possible angles; and
   2. Feel as much of it as you can; and
   3. Hum softly in joy or rage.
3. Note all features and details that appear to be: mechanistic; sexual; organic; sexual; abstract; sexual; polemic; sexual; retrograde; sexual; imitative; sexual; revolutionary; sexual; commercial; sexual; alien; sexual; divine; sexual; condescending; sexual; ordinary.
4. Catalogue the work mentally, or write something down.
5. Spin in circles and proceed in a random direction.
6. Goto #1.

How To Tell Whether You've Made ARCHITECTURE or SCULPTURE

John Cage taught us that just as music is any sound that we can induce someone to listen to (and perhaps purchase), so is art anything that we can put a frame around and induce someone to look at (and perhaps purchase). Similarly, architecture is any (somewhat solid) thing we can induce someone to put themselves or something else into (and possibly purchase), while sculpture is any (somewhat solid) thing we can induce someone to consider to be sculpture (and maybe purchase). But it can be more subtle than that. (And who listens to John Cage, anyway?) Here are some guidelines for determining whether you've created architecture or sculpture:

  Throw some shit together.
•   If doesn't cover or enclose something, it's SCULPTURE.
    If it falls over and stays put, it's STABLE sculpture.
    If it moves more-or-less on its own, then it's KINETIC sculpture; and if it sits on the floor it's STABILE sculpture, but if it hangs it's MOBILE sculpture, unless it floats away in the wind, in which case it's AERIAL sculpture.
    Otherwise, it's ARCHITECTURE.
•   If it floats, it's MARINE architecture.
•   If it's familiar, it's CLASSIC architecture.
•   If it's older than your grandfather, it's ANCIENT architecture.
    Otherwise, it's MODERN architecture. Or worse.
    If it seems to be falling apart, it's DECONSTRUCTIONIST architecture.
    But if it's been put back together, it's POSTMODERN architecture.
    And if it's bold and bright, it's GOOGIE architecture.
•   If it's hideously intimidating it's RELIGIOUS or GOVERNMENT-MILITARY or COMMERCIAL-FINANCIAL architecture (these are distinguishable primarily by the LOGOS emblazoned on them, the UNIFORMS worn by occupants, and other external SYMBOLOGY).
•   If it's hideously plain, it's CORPORATE architecture.
    If it's hideously cute, it's RETAIL architecture.
    If it's hideously expensive, it's TRENDY architecture.
    Otherwise, it's ORDINARY architecture.
•   If it violates building codes, it's VERNACULAR architecture.
•   If it's beyond your seeing, it's VISIONARY architecture.
    If it's exquisitely beautiful, it's FORBIDDEN architecture.
    And if it's too good to be true, it's FANTASTIC architecture.
•   If it's microelectronic, it's COMPUTER architecture.
    If it's organic / genetic, it's BIOLOGICAL architecture.
    And if it's not there at all, it's VIRTUAL architecture.

These guidelines should not be mistaken nor substituted for either an ARCHITECTURE GLOSSARY nor a SCULPTURE GLOSSARY. These guidelines may be useful in helping you plan, execute, label and price your creation(s). These guidelines are copyright © 2001 by Ric Carter, all rights reserved. Royalty payments of 10% of your revenues resultant from reading these guidelines should be transferred to Ric Carter no later than the first day of each month. This payment schedule is implicit in the architecture of these guidelines. Violators will be forced (at gunpoint) to decorate with plastic sculptures of pink flamingos.

New Approaches To Sculpting Without Breaking A Sweat

The word 'sculpture' traditionally conjures the images of carved and chiseled stone. A looser interpretation also includes objects cast from metal or plaster or plastic, molded from clay or dough or dung, carved from wood or bone, or assembled from diverse debris and trash.

But the modern sculptor need not be limited to such materials. New technologies give whole new realms of media to be manipulated, forms to be shaped, ideas to be materialized, often without having to performs such physical labor that the artist may actually perspire.

Some areas the imaginative but physically inactive sculptor may wish to explore, realms open to addition and subtraction and mixmastering, that can be pushed around and twisted and baked like challah bread, include:

SOUND — LIGHT — CLOUD — WORD — SEXUAL — DIGITAL — CAREER — VAPOR — GENETIC — MAGNETIC — LOST & FOUND & STOLEN — ROBOT & ALIEN — IMPOSSIBLE — INVISIBLE — OUTRAGEOUS — UNTHINKABLE — SPIRIT & SOUL & EMOTION — DREAM & NIGHTMARE — FIRE — NEURON — MUTANT — BASTARD

And many, many more. In general, just think of some word or idea, append 'sculpt' or 'sculpting' or 'sculpture' to it, search for that and see what people are doing with it. Then do something else with it yourself. Maybe you can construct it, or teach it, or criticize it, or misconstrue it, or mutate it, or whatever. Get going.

REVOLUTIONARY ARCHITECTURE & POLITICS, And Vice-Versa: Some Questions

"Whenever I hear the word 'art' I reach for my gun."   —J.Goebbels

Wherein we shall investigate the relationships between radical and revolutionary doctrines in architecture, politics, academia, society, and the voices in your head, and whatever other questionable shit occurs to us. (That's the editorial 'us', not the internal-parasites 'us'.) Such questions include:

• Can and should architects redesign Political / Ideological / Economic / Social (PIES) reality and norms? (See RE-ENGINEERING DEMOCRACY and RE-ENGINEERING SPACE/TIME for similar efforts.)
• Why do advocates of radical PIES change tend to cluster in architectural fields? Why do their opponents cluster in engineering fields?
• What theoretical influences can successfully be migrated across disciplines, such as political-architectural osmosis? Which have done so in the past, and why?
• Is a solid architectural framework for politics necessarily dictatorial? Is a workable political framework for architecture necessarily hideous? Should we shoot all architects espousing political views; all politicians espousing architectural views; all architects and politicians espousing any views?
• Why has the architecture of public space become the prime playground for terrorist politics? Do terrorists exploit the weaknesses of public space, or is public space directly designed for terrorist activities? Can terrorism be thwarted by abolishing public space? What would abolishing public space do to radical political movements?
• Does cinema create architectures with political motives? Does every action film that is set in public and private spaces serve to articulate certain political doctrines? Do radically revolutionary and reactionary filmmakers establish distinct architectural environments?
• How does vernacular architecture (architecture without architects) parallel vernacular politics (politics without politicians)? What are the political implications of ancient art? Does rejection of orchestration, authority, theory in both politics and architecture mark the true "people's" movements? Has it ever?
• How many political and architectural theorists live in trailer parks, the vernacular architecture of modern America?
• Is all public space actually military space, space amenable to control by (para)military forces? Does the proliferation of monitoring cameras extend military space into every corner of every architectural construct?

ARTICLES

 HYPERNORMAL: 
ArchiSculpture
Barbecuing
Deconstruction
Existence
Evolution
Knowledge & Belief
Labyrinths & Mazes
Logic
Millennial Madness
Proof
Redefining Time
ReDoing Space-Time

 PARANORMAL: 
Buddha
ChemTrails
Crop Circles
(De)Material­ization
InnerSpace Exploration
Levitation
Lycanthropy
Mental Radio
NewAge Buzzwords
Paranormal Research
Perpetual Motion
Pyramidology
Self-Delusion
TeleKinesis
Time Travel
Vampirism
Vril Power
X-Entities