Tom Burtonwood: Codes and Permutations / Patrick Lichty http://patricklichty.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/tom-burtonwood-codes-and-permutations/
We could say that all art, painting or otherwise, is a set of codes designed to elicit affective responses. Done well, these codes consist of a finely-crafted set of signifiers set in place like a set of pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Everything is in its place, in a concise set of relations that speaks directly and legibly. Greenberg spoke of formalism where art must be reduced to its essentials, but this brevity is iconic of contemporary art, whether minimal or not. “Tight” and minimal work are not necessarily the same. But, given the work of art and the question of form, is there a limit to how much information can be embedded into any given piece? What systems of information can works of art investigate? Are there techniques that can create layers of signification, or multiple encoding methods that allow for expanded experiences that link the viewer to sites outside work of art itself? Tom Burtonwood employs numerous systems to embed his own cultural codes into painting, which is not surprising in that much of his work employs concepts of permutation and tropes like actual 2D (QR) barcodes. The series in this book is a meticulous exploration and expansion of a 3-dimensional form separated into a three-level projection of layered blocks Burtonwood has distilled into a set of 59 “faces”. These paintings reminds one of works like John Simon Jr’s Every Icon (which cycles through every possibility of a 32x32 black and white grid), the chance processes of John Cage, and the permutations employed by Brion Gysin, as well as the systems of Le Witt. In these 100 paintings, Burtonwood cycles through sets of emphasis, color and articulation of the forms and faces. This series originates from a series of sculptures that have built on rectangular form. The first was an articulating cube entitled Display Unit that continuously unfolds akin to a 3D origami. This resulted in a small series of reconfigurable sculptures that fold into numerous forms, but return to the general shape of the cube, and this would lay the ground for Burtonwood’s interest in permutation. The piece completely changes in form, and color as it unfolds, revealing additional parts of it. From this, the onlooker asks when looking at the work, “How many ways can this (un)fold?” The next works that follow the Display Unit series between the cube and the beginning of the “code” paintings are a series of 3-dimensional, small-format wood constructions made of cubic constructions tonally and formally reminiscent of the alluding to geometric forms used by artists like Fernand Leger. The brightly colored cubes grow organically off the wall, seemingly growing over time as if a manifest vision of Conway’s Game of Life, that is a computer “game” that simulates life using very simple rules. Or, perhaps these pieces resemble a geometric candy lichen. Regardless, in this progression of the work, 2d becomes 3D, the cube becomes cubes, and forms lift off the plane. The crux of Burtonwood’s system is that the work is, in essence, algorithmic. From the origami cube to the assemblages, the pieces follow ordered logic, but when the shift in the pieces begins it is when they begin to resemble 2D barcodes, much like those read using smartphones. The influence of the code creates two effects. First, in investigating the bar code, an order is put in place. In order to be readable, codes must follow rules of encoding that allows for their decoding. The form becomes standardized for the given information. Also, the use of the 2D code demands that the sculpture be flattened, in this case isometrically in order for the form to follow its function. Therefore in considering the work over time, Burtonwood’s form folds, expands, then flattens, keeping the projection of the 3D as it maintains its system, both as formal trope and allusion to encoded data. Burtonwood’s folding of form is a transitional state in moving from 3D to 2D projections. The cubic forms turn into Orthographic grids that create faces resembling Escher’s endless stairs, folding space into impossible angles when the paintings use fields of color across multiple faces of the shape. What might seem like a series of shifts from the cube to sculpture to the painting retains a conceptual continuity through its expansion and contraction, to be developed through iteration, which appears as another kind of folding. After the flattening of the piece, it stays stable for the series of one hundred. But the point of stability is the form set by the silkscreen outline of the composition, and it is this continuity that allows other variables like color, stroke, and texture to come into play. The composition is an allusion to layered 2D barcodes as 3-level set of cubes. It is curious to consider what code is embedded in Burtonwood’s image if we could read it, but this is not possible. Since Burtonwood has defined a Lewitt-esque system, he engages the exploration of permutation. This permutation sets up a path of exploration that shows itself in the cyclical development of the aforementioned aspects of stroke, texture, and color. Here, these paintings exhaustively permute, or explore the possibilities of combinations under certain choices. It is this set of combinations that Burtonwood brings to bear in terms of the way he works his restrained grammar in nearly every possible way. Four major sets of play make themselves evident in the work for permutation. These are color, level, stroke and color. The most dramatic of these is color, in which a system is used where adjacent faces on each of the nine sub-squares in the field add up. This can include green from blue and yellow and salmon from alizarin and fluorescent pink. These combinations writhe across the faces/levels in progression through the investigation of the limited faces, similar to Gysin’s poetry of “I am” expanding to “I am I am am I am” Also, his modulation of fluorescent and pastel gouaches create remarkable rhythms, and reflect the flatness and bright color of excess typified in the 00’s punk New Media movement of “dirtstyle” (Arcangel, Paperrad), and Murakami’s Superflat style. Where Burtonwood’s paintings are startling is when he plays with line and opacity. One surprise occurs when he combines two faces at 90 degrees and combines them into one without completely breaking the system through merging just two faces into one flat face. This flattening creates an Escher-like space, creating an optical dissonance that creates a tension within the pieces. On the other hand, Burtonwood also engages visual play through the use of loose and organic strokes that inject humanity into a rectilinear and sometimes nearly digital precision. As the paintings progress, modulating from hard, crisp lines to a broad, swoopy strokes create a visual jazz that remind one that this is not only about codes and systems, but as critic Andrew Forge would say, also human choices. Burtonwood’s set of permutations is a series of choices where he pins down all variables save one, like color, line, or opacity and then modulates it before moving on In discussing the work of Tom Burtonwood, his permutations and folds, one needs to note the new compositions that are emerging from this body of work. In the emergent work, he merges a more formal version of the 2D barcode, allegorically in color, but also with a scannable black and white one in the piece itself. To understand this, I am reminded of the mathematical theory of the tesseract, or 4-dimensional cube, where a fourth dimension is folded out at ninety degrees to the three (length, height, width) we know. The addition of the smartphone-accessible code is akin to overlaying an entire virtual space on top of the painted work. While I do not suggest that Burtonwood is using higher-dimensional geometry, he actually is again unfolding form, expanding the work into hyper(link) space of the World Wide Web. The idea is that the patron scans the barcode with their phone, and then the linked page comes up on the phone as a program or web content. This completes the function of placing an additional experiential layer on top of the painting, in a way, folding it out into cyberspace as a fourth dimension. The aesthetic arc of Tom Burtonwood’s work is an ongoing investigation of dimensional and parametric origami that deals with systems and codes while exploring aspects of Modern aesthetics. Where his last works are literally legible in terms of the bar code, his first works reveal their legibility in form and color as well as historical allusions to systemic artists like Sol LeWitt, and later Casey Reas, His later color work represents itself as using the tonal lexicon of the contemporary, and his use of line plays between the hard determinism of the system, reminding one of the sharp lines of Mondrian, and the looseness of Abstract Expressionism, almost to the degree of a boxed DeKooning. Burtonwood permutates combinations between the Modern use of systems art and formalism and the Postmodernist ambiguity of the code and excesses of color, while folding space, from 3D, 2D orthography, then up into a 4th (electronic) dimension. Between restraint of form and explosion of permutation, Burtonwood methodically paints the information landscape, grounded in traditions, but reaching forth into a cybernetic world of information and higher dimensionality. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
