William Andrew Finlay Stewart
'Cycle'
February 25 - March 19, 2011
'Cycle'
February 25 - March 19, 2011
In response to "Cycle"
Written by Xenia Benivolski
Written by Xenia Benivolski
The archive is a memory that remains available to the public, it is simultaneously related to the process of forgetting – of forgetting that which operates in silence and consequently which never leaves its own archive. The process of silence and forgetting in the consignation of the archive is not innocent. The archive itself produces silences. It frames what is consigned in the archive as a unified whole and represses what is left outside the archive, denying its existence and consigning it to oblivion. But the archive, like the exergue, serves to lay down the law and give the order. This, Derrida describes as ‘the violence of the archive’ and is of significance because, as he suggests, the archive is always consigned and ordered ethically, as anticipation of the future.#(Hamilton, p. 166)
In his film work, Cycle (2010), William Andrew Stewart successfully marries a potentially critical observation with a real longing for nostalgia and meaning. Using an archived source material, he loosely follows a formula based in document. The looping film confronts a few challenges: the seemingly arbitrary sequence running in the background and the puzzling struggle of a young man on a unicycle hopping in spot. The location is at first a mystery. As the work progresses, it becomes evident that these events are connected to a premeditated sequence of events. When finally the shot expands to a bigger picture, the subject seems irrelevant and misguided. There is an element of danger to the activity, a certainty it is only a matter of time until he falls down and a comically disheartening awareness that when he falls it would make little difference. Instead, the screen fades to black as the year approaches 2011.
The film is divided into four equal parts with the number element counting up the years of OCAD's existence. Several levels of visibility form the confines of the history of OCAD: The presence of the student body, the first building, the second building, and the final addition. With each building revealed the student's activity becomes more visible and more ludicrous. The countdown becomes slower with the latest sequence, to accommodate its shorter duration. As a timer, it is tied to the appearance of new architecture and expanding frame, yet it seems those elements exist in a vacuum, independent of their surroundings or context save for the faint sounds of construction in the background.
The departure point of the work, a 125th anniversary OCAD Alumni Directory is an interesting document in itself. Starting with 1 enlisted student in the year 1907, the list of alumni growing exponentially leading up to the year 2000. The list includes not only the names but also the addresses and phone numbers of the former OCAD students, serving as some sort of detached and impossibly vast yearbook. The directory contains little personal or anecdotal evidence besides this information, a ridiculously dry summary for the Art School. The existence of this document and others ones like it presents a strange glimpse to how the art school presents itself and its students: a collection of names, some of which represent varied degrees of fame, all grouped together in this dense hardcover book. There is an intense urge to make sense of the list names and the structure of the book, discover a symbolic formula by which it abides. Stewart’s works interpret this information, constructing an alternate reality where the structures imposed by timing and personal choices come to life: Two additional forthcoming pieces are expected to emerge from the same document, within the same set of rules. One, a chronological list of the names of the alumni and another, a musical composition inspired by the alphabetical structures within that name list.
In a minimalist fashion, William Andrew Stewart works with the limited palette available to him within a strict set of aesthetic and archival rules: by setting the information in the document as a guideline, he attempts to insert meaning into this summary, in the process emphasizing how little meaning it actually contains. Stewart codifies the elements with new agency: the years become a countdown, the student body becomes one flinching participant absorbed in a meaningless and seemingly futile task, the surroundings, a growing repertoire of buildings, all triggered by anxious anticipation. Cycle illustrates the contents of the alumni archive, its anticlimactic conclusion leaving a disjointed feeling of simultaneous curiosity and disappointment.
Jacques Derrida had described the concept of archivazation as “a movement of the promise and of the future no less than of recording the past.”#(Deridda, p. 29) When viewing the piece, it is impossible to ignore that which is absent. The teachers, the studios, academia, the actual artwork. The work is emblematic of a generation that sees that past as an aesthetic guide. Guided by the source material, the artist saw an opportunity in referencing a multiplicity of phases in the history of the institution, none relating to the creative influences and paradigm shifts the school has seen over the years: This exposes a critical view of art academia at large, one that is formulaic and predetermined, devoid of personality or real agency. But what does this say about the future?
In his film work, Cycle (2010), William Andrew Stewart successfully marries a potentially critical observation with a real longing for nostalgia and meaning. Using an archived source material, he loosely follows a formula based in document. The looping film confronts a few challenges: the seemingly arbitrary sequence running in the background and the puzzling struggle of a young man on a unicycle hopping in spot. The location is at first a mystery. As the work progresses, it becomes evident that these events are connected to a premeditated sequence of events. When finally the shot expands to a bigger picture, the subject seems irrelevant and misguided. There is an element of danger to the activity, a certainty it is only a matter of time until he falls down and a comically disheartening awareness that when he falls it would make little difference. Instead, the screen fades to black as the year approaches 2011.
The film is divided into four equal parts with the number element counting up the years of OCAD's existence. Several levels of visibility form the confines of the history of OCAD: The presence of the student body, the first building, the second building, and the final addition. With each building revealed the student's activity becomes more visible and more ludicrous. The countdown becomes slower with the latest sequence, to accommodate its shorter duration. As a timer, it is tied to the appearance of new architecture and expanding frame, yet it seems those elements exist in a vacuum, independent of their surroundings or context save for the faint sounds of construction in the background.
The departure point of the work, a 125th anniversary OCAD Alumni Directory is an interesting document in itself. Starting with 1 enlisted student in the year 1907, the list of alumni growing exponentially leading up to the year 2000. The list includes not only the names but also the addresses and phone numbers of the former OCAD students, serving as some sort of detached and impossibly vast yearbook. The directory contains little personal or anecdotal evidence besides this information, a ridiculously dry summary for the Art School. The existence of this document and others ones like it presents a strange glimpse to how the art school presents itself and its students: a collection of names, some of which represent varied degrees of fame, all grouped together in this dense hardcover book. There is an intense urge to make sense of the list names and the structure of the book, discover a symbolic formula by which it abides. Stewart’s works interpret this information, constructing an alternate reality where the structures imposed by timing and personal choices come to life: Two additional forthcoming pieces are expected to emerge from the same document, within the same set of rules. One, a chronological list of the names of the alumni and another, a musical composition inspired by the alphabetical structures within that name list.
In a minimalist fashion, William Andrew Stewart works with the limited palette available to him within a strict set of aesthetic and archival rules: by setting the information in the document as a guideline, he attempts to insert meaning into this summary, in the process emphasizing how little meaning it actually contains. Stewart codifies the elements with new agency: the years become a countdown, the student body becomes one flinching participant absorbed in a meaningless and seemingly futile task, the surroundings, a growing repertoire of buildings, all triggered by anxious anticipation. Cycle illustrates the contents of the alumni archive, its anticlimactic conclusion leaving a disjointed feeling of simultaneous curiosity and disappointment.
Jacques Derrida had described the concept of archivazation as “a movement of the promise and of the future no less than of recording the past.”#(Deridda, p. 29) When viewing the piece, it is impossible to ignore that which is absent. The teachers, the studios, academia, the actual artwork. The work is emblematic of a generation that sees that past as an aesthetic guide. Guided by the source material, the artist saw an opportunity in referencing a multiplicity of phases in the history of the institution, none relating to the creative influences and paradigm shifts the school has seen over the years: This exposes a critical view of art academia at large, one that is formulaic and predetermined, devoid of personality or real agency. But what does this say about the future?