temporary art

[dogbrain]

i recently learned about an artist named Andres Amador. his work involves etching large-scale geometric images on sandy beaches, and it's some really stunning stuff on its own, but what i find the most impactful is that it all gets washed away come high tide. he knows this when he makes every piece, and he's completely okay with it! he wrote the following about his art: "Through this art form I have come to value the contemplative act of creation for its own sake ... The entire act becomes a meditation on being in the moment, of celebrating and being at peace with life and death."

this got me thinking about "temporary art" in general; i.e. art created with the explicit knowledge that it won't exist for very long. an artist i follow once painted a mural on a building soon-to-be-demolished. i tried doing something like it last week on a much tinier scale where i doodled on a piece of paper, pondered it for a day or two, and shredded it. it gave me some perspective on the act of creating just to create, even if no one else sees it and even if it doesn't last very long.

what do you think about temporary art? have you tried making anything like it? i think net art can be inclusive under it in many ways as the internet constantly changes and old software becomes obsolete; i made my website very well aware that it won't be around forever (and especially not in its current state), but id love to know your thoughts 

[Horsey Chobunso]

I love the idea of temporary art. There are some monks that do a similar practice on a smaller scale with colorful sand. I am not much of a visual artist outside of photography, so I'm not sure how I would temporary visual art myself, but I take that mindset with cooking. When I make something more time consuming or complex I make sure to enjoy the process and do things the hard way because I know the actual result will be very fleeting.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Back at school, I remember seeing a short documentary about a guy who used the warmth of his fingers to melt icicles together; his hands looked pretty much done for after he finished, and you could see the whole sculpture melt away shortly afterwards. It certainly left an impression.

I believe most people do this naturally in their everyday life, they usually just don't do it overly elaborated - drawing something into the sand, doodling something on paper lying around, arranging fallen leaves - I sometimes deliberately run in ways to create specific patterns in the snow behind me.

There are some monks that do a similar practice on a smaller scale with colorful sand.

Not necessarily on smaler scale - there is a documentery called "Wheel of Time" by Werner Herzog about this - I can recommend it a lot. I think they use several weeks to create a sand mandala in it.

[IndigoGolem]

I work making pizzas and i sometimes make art out of flour when there are no orders to make. Sometimes drawings, sometimes 3D geometrical stuff. Trying to make polyhedra or tiny buildings before someone orders and i collapse whatever i've made back into a pile of flour so i can get back to work. I think it's fun, seeing how neat and detailed i can make something in the minutes i have at a time.

[rnottelovesowls]

amador's sand art washing away in high tide reminds me of a photographer i learned about at an art school. i can't remember their name, but they create small clouds inside human environments with some kind of machinery; the clouds last barely 10 seconds before they then snap a photo. it's "temporary art" in the sense that the subject of the photo vanishes as quickly as it comes

[Metropolis]

Omg I remember watching this somewhere, they created clouds in a warehouse or something right?

[rolypolyphonic]

I think for the creator of 'temporary art' the process of creating itself is the 'point' regardless of the final product, and if anything there's probably more 'temporary art' than one might think. Food made to be consumed, things like doodles done on scrap papers that get thrown away later, building structures out of toy blocks to dismantle later, stuff like that. Even if the 'product' doesn't live on, I feel that the experiences accumulate into their own meaning, whether it's through the practice it gives for the artist or merely the ambience of a singular pleasant 'moment' that is part of a timeline of many other moments.

I love the idea of temporary art. There are some monks that do a similar practice on a smaller scale with colorful sand. I am not much of a visual artist outside of photography, so I'm not sure how I would temporary visual art myself, but I take that mindset with cooking. When I make something more time consuming or complex I make sure to enjoy the process and do things the hard way because I know the actual result will be very fleeting.

Food is my first thought when it comes to things like this, especially in dishes where presentation is important (latte art comes to mind, but really any dish could count). I also think it's the best example of something where the 'point' is not simply about the product itself but the entire process engaged with it, whether as the one who cooks or the one who eats.