Despite the discontinuity of material, a natural continuity exists between things, a logical fluidity among languages as if everything were literature seeking to explain the world, as if ideas were fluid and could adopt different forms and transmute by means of a mysterious alchemy from one place to another in a virtual mechanics of communicating glasses, although these glasses would not exist and neither would these connections be tangible. Michael Faraday discovered that a changing magnetic field can create an electric current in a nearby cable in a random bridge between discontinuous entities. From this transcendent chain, we can postulate that imperceptible links exist between distant materials. Throughout history, all leaps in scientific and artistic comprehension in the world have been woven by invisible threads connecting different concepts, metaphors and contiguities, in short: TRANSFERENCES. Occurrences in science or art can be explained through inductions and extrapolations, as in all writings, works and projects. Perhaps this is all another metonymy of intelligence.
In his notes on art, Lawrence Wiener proclaimed this famous triad of postulates: The artist may construct the piece. The piece may be fabricated. The piece need not be built. Perhaps among the three, short circuits and nuances appear between art and architecture which the authors of the cross-cutting essays comprising this collection – free and creative investigations – sought to explore. Wiener himself once wrote that art is not a metaphor upon the relationship of human beings to objects but a representation of an empirical existing fact. Common to our point of view on architecture and art as a history of transfers, in one of his written works he argued: “If communication exists, it is a form of translation. The needs and desires of a human being require translation into language (art, music, architecture) in order to produce a structure or situation that responds to these needs and desires. A translation from one language to another. A stone is a stone. This does not eliminate the sensuality of the original object; rather translation allows each culture to adapt the object to the fulfilment of its particular needs. A translation is the movement of an object from one place to another”. Art, like architecture, is a story. In all pieces of work there beats a literary breath. All creative processes are mechanisms for translating different languages and transferring among different planes.
Joseph Beuys demonstrated that information is a relationship between two beings who think. “Every man is an artist” was one of his memorable quotes. Art and architecture are relationships between entities, real or fictitious, our universe and other simultaneous conjectures. At the same time, a crossed network of relationships is created, like interlinking particles without a physical relation but with invisible connections. Joining seemingly non-coplanar yet attracting fields, such as the alternative current that flows between art and architecture, in the same way that Beuys did in Capri Batterie, the collection, TRANSFERENCES, aims to reflect the relationship between spirit and material, power and action, inherent in all artistic and architectonic practice and thought. Thought is already plastic, a transformation principle; all thought is creation.
© ÁNGEL MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA-POSADA
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 Licence
ÁNGEL MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA-POSADA obtained a degree in architecture from the School of Seville in 2001 and a PhD in 2008. He has been a professor in the Department of Architectonic Projects of the University of Seville since 2005 and member of the Project and Heritage research group since 2007. He carries out his professional activity from his own studio and collaborates on diverse projects with Sol89 and Juan Luis Trillo de Leyva.
He has been working in the editorial field since 2002 on various projects. He was co-director of the magazine for the School of Architecture of Seville, Neutra (2002-2005), and co-editor of Cuaderno Rojo (University of Seville, 2010) and proyectandoleyendo.wordpress.com. He works in collaboration with Lampreave publishing house as head of the collection La palabra y el dibujo. He is also the author of various books, including Sueños y polvo. Cuentos de tiempo sobre arte y arquitectura (Lampreave, 2009) and Tiempos de Central Park (IUACC, 2011). He has published numerous articles in architecture magazines such as Formas de Arquitectura y Arte, Arquitectura Viva o Circo and has participated in various research projects including Viviendas Experimentales for the Ministry of Public Works of the Junta of Andalusia.
Image: Joseph Beuys. Capri-Batterie, 1985
