THINGS THAT AREN'T
NOISE Journal No. 1: 2016-2017
Prints and Critical Writing from the first year of NOISE.
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No. 1 features original essays from Andrew Wang, James Payne, Mary-Claire Pappas, Jason Wonnell, and Raphael Cornford along with show documentation, artist's writings, as well as reproductions of work by Malcolm Mobutu Smith, Zachary Carlisle Davidson, Tiny Splendor, Jeron Braxton, and others.
No. 1 is edited and designed by William Bass and Raphael Cornford.
NOISE Volume 1 was released September 18th, 2017.
THINGS MADE POSSIBLE BY THINGS THAT AREN'T
Essay by Jason Wonnell for the grand opening of NOISE and THINGS THAT AREN'T
The communication chain assumes a Source that, through a Transmitter, emits a Signal via a Channel. At the end of the Channel the Signal, through a Receiver, is transformed into a Message for the Addressee. Since the Signal, while traveling through the Channel, can be disturbed by Noise, one must make the Message redundant, so that the information is transmitted clearly. But the other fundamental requirement of this chain is a Code, shared by the Source and the Addressee. A Code is an established system of probabilities, and only on the basis of the Code can we decide whether the elements of the message are intentional (desired by the Source) or the result of Noise.
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Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare, Umberto Eco -1983
Within the model of communication quoted above, artists and authors can be assumed to be the source, at least in the traditional sense. In that position we possess a certain amount of control, or influence over the signal, the message and the code in which it is arranged. In that traditional sense of visual arts, the role of the signal can be applied to a painting or sculpture. The channel may be the gallery, or a review in a newspaper or on a website. Even in the case of purely aesthetic abstract and minimalist works there remains a certain amount of aesthetic code employed, both by the source and by the addressee, regardless of whether the codes at each end agree. But as Eco goes on to discuss, while the ubiquitous bombardment of media increases with growing numbers of sources and messages, what is received by the addressee is not individual messages but a, “global ideological lesson, a call to narcotic passiveness”, described by some as the triumph of mass media over individual human freedom. But in this apocalyptic view what are not recognized are the individualized codes through which the addressees decipher the messages.
Extended Family is an exhibition seeking to understand and utilize the imprint as a critical lens for describing a new taxonomy of the print, one based on multivalent possibility rather than exclusion. This is an inversion of common ideas (stereotypes) surrounding printmaking as a medium tied to process and tradition. Narrow definitions may speak to certain kinds of printing but fail to encompass the extended family so apparent and visible to us at events like Mid-America Print Council and Southern Graphics Council.
Essay written by Raphael Cornford for the exhibition "Extended Family" at MAPC 2016