The Evolution of Space Transport: Establishing Frames
Michael Demers
The First Transformation: Establishing Frames
Let us begin with the proposition that my work involves a multiple transformation of information which, when observed and reconstituted, explores particular aspects of contemporary Western culture. Specifically, this transformation involves taking real elements (razor blades, semi trucks, contemporary transportation of goods, etc.), converting them into fictional elements (the space-semi, space transport, etc.), then re-presenting them under the guise of non-fiction (a chronicle of space transportation).
The first stage of transformation, from reality to fiction, arises out of a system of frames. By frames, I mean the way in which information is presented so as to lend to it a particular context (as an example, this statement is itself a frame, setting up a discussion of “frames” – of course, this itself is what Bateson would call the paradoxical nature of framing. See Bateson, A Theory of Play and Fantasy in Steps to an Ecology of Mind).
A more concrete example of framing would be the “Primitivism in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1984-85. Much has been written about the supposed similarity between African tribal objects and Western art in the early 1900s, about the ways in which any comparison, when culled from a large enough range, will increase the likelihood for similarities. In fact, James Clifford states that the collection as exhibited in the MOMA show does not characterize any affinity of the type MOMA proposes: “The ‘limitation of possibilities’ recognizes that invention, while highly diverse, is not infinite…There is thus a priori no reason to claim evidence for affinity (rather than a resemblance or coincidence) because an exhibition of tribal works that seem impressively ‘modern’ in style can be gathered. An equally striking collection could be made demonstrating sharp dissimilarities between tribal and modern objects.” (Clifford, Histories of the Tribal and the Modern in The Predicament of Culture, 191-92). In this case, the similarities come after the fact, once the information has been pulled together. Thus, the argument can be made that the MOMA exhibition was organized according to certain framing devices, through which a context was created to show the affinities between Western and non-Western art and artifact as pre-existing.
The terms “tribal object” and “art” are key, as they are the indicators of frames (as are, to different degrees, the terms “African” and “Western”). As Gregory Bateson states, “Language bears to the objects which it denotes a relationship comparable to that which a map bears to a territory.” (Bateson, 180) These terms, addressed to these objects, set these objects into a particular realm, where they will be viewed in a very particular context, as decided upon by the method of framing. Meaning will very much be inscribed. “What is really on display here, then, is the rhetorical strategy where words are used to provide images with meanings they would, and should, hot have.” (Bal, Telling, Showing, Showing Off in Critical Inquiry, Spring 1992, 572)
The important thing to understand here, in our discussion of frames, is addressed succinctly by the anthropologist James Clifford in his investigation of the MOMA exhibit:
Since 1900 non-Western objects have generally been classified as either primitive art or ethnographic specimens. Before the modernist revolution associated with Picasso and the simultaneous rise of cultural anthropology associated with Boas and Malinowski, these objects were differently sorted – as antiquities, exotic curiosities, orientalia, the remains of early man, and so on. With the emergence of twentieth-century modernism and anthropology figures formerly called “fetishes” (to take just one class of object) became works either of “sculpture” or of “material culture.” (Clifford, 198-99)
In this excerpt, Clifford illustrates the transformative nature of framing. In his exploration of the MOMA exhibition, this framing was important because of the way it allowed modernism (and the museum) a privileged position, one in which the Western institutions were raised at the cost of sacrificing the “original cultural context” of the tribal objects. Of course, Clifford’s evaluation establishes its own system of framing, but one which he views to be closer to the tribal object. In this example we see how framing can be utilized to transform, hide, expose, etc.
Let us now turn our attention to the issue of frames and framing as found in The Evolution of Space Transport. The first, most obvious framing occurs in that the work is exhibited in an art gallery. Immediately the connotation is “this is art.” With that decree comes an acceptance of the information as being a created account (this will have an impact on the observance of the work as an allegory, as discussed later). This is a frame inherent in this particular institution, and brings with it its own context.
But it is also at this point that the fiction (or perhaps one of the fictions) becomes apparent. Through the combination of visual information being presented, I am providing another frame which states: These are not only disposable razor blades – they are models for futuristic space transportation.
Another frame is apparent in the lineage of information I am presenting: An evolution. Here, I am framing the growth and development of a phenomenon – the movement of goods – through the growth and development of the means by which that movement is actualized.
Just as one object, through different frames, may have multiple meanings imposed upon it (as tribal objects turned art in the “Primitive Modernism” show) the objects in the exhibit will also have multiple meanings. And just as the framing devices used by museums guide the viewer toward a specific understanding(s), my particular arrangement of information will seek to do the same, leading the viewer toward an examination of mass production, consumer culture, and the global movement of goods.