Part 8 – Philadelphia – Through the Large Glass Darkly

The Bioshaft® Design Process – what is it and how it came to be.

Part 8 – Philadelphia – Through the Large Glass Darkly

On December 2011 I arrived in Philadelphia to attend the Cities Alive conference, it was the first time my abstract was accepted by this organization after three previous attempts and it would be for a poster session not an oral presentation.  I came one day early so that I could make my habitual pilgrimage to the Museum of Art and specifically to the Marcel Duchamp collection held in two small galleries, this would be my fourth visit. The center of the first gallery is occupied by the ‘Large Glass’, on this day a group of children from a local school were being indoctrinated to the work. It was certainly a different experience than the first time I came here in the 1980’s when the tour guide upon entering the gallery exclaimed “and now for something bizarre”. I waited for the lesson to end absorbing the sculptures of Brancusi in the gallery next door. Once the room was clear I sat on the bench in front of the ‘Large Glass’ and immersed my mind into its transparent ethereal world. The ‘Large Glass’ is a portrayal of ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors Even’. I consider Duchamp to be the trickster artist, the wise, intelligent and naughty trickster present in North American Native mythologies. Duchamp as the chess master and word slight-of-hand illusionist creating clues in tongue-in-cheek hors d’oeuvres d’art. Whether it is in the guise of Duchamp, or his pseudonyms R. Mutt, Rrose Selavy or ‘marchand du-sel’ his works challenged the perception of art itself. He has been claimed by every modern movement, as a surrealist in a Bunuel film playing chess with Dali, as a cubist with ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’, the originator of ‘Art Trouve’, as a Conceptual artist, as a Dadaist from which his nickname Dad bestowed by artists he has influenced. He was open to embrace chance and accidents in his art; the Large Glass itself, shattering during a move, was recomposed absorbing the fractured glass into the theme. The work is in two sections, the top glass is inhabited by the bride, the bottom by the bachelors who are condemned to “grind their own chocolate”. In the past I had interpreted this work as the artist’s relation to art, the desired elusive bride. But this day I saw the bride as the Earth and the bachelors as human kind whose desire to conquer is mired in our own chocolate as we keep going in circles. The messages sent by the bride unrecognized or ignored, as we live within our own impenetrable silos.

Duchamp entered my world in the early 1970’s when I was a student at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. I had arrived in this magnificent city at the age of 17 wanting to become a painter. However in relatively short time my appreciation and understanding of the role of art broke the studio paradigm and opened my mind to an immense universe of possibilities. At the time conceptual art was at its peak with Sol LeWitt at its center, John Cage redefining music and the Fluxus Group of artists such as Gorge Brecht and Joseph Beuys practiced art as social and political activism. My graduating thesis was on the performances of Giuseppe Chiari who was in line with Cage, Charlotte Moorman and Nam Jun Paik. In fact I remember vividly my first encounter with the works of Paik (video forest) at the newly built Pompidou Center in Paris. The architecture itself had generated much heated discussion, a glass building that dared to expose its skeleton and guts of tubes and mechanics, like transparent anatomical illustrations with the red and blue colored veins, a landmark work for Renzo Piano. Its alien glittering form could be seen clearly from Sacre-Coeur basilica in Montmartre as it rose among the classical Parisian rooftops.  In its own way impacting architecture as the ‘Large Glass’ had impacted the world of art.

Years later while riding a subway, chance bit into my life. I was returning from an interview at York University in Toronto where I had been accepted into the Master of Fine Arts program when I spotted a colorful pamphlet on the seat in front of me. The pamphlet was on Landscape Architecture, it had a powerful impact. Here was a creative profession that promoted beauty but also had great potential to directly affect the physical world. In my studies and later in teaching landscape architecture I strived to include the arts as an inherent pertinent component. I asked my students to read haikus and create designs that would inspire such poetic thoughts. I encouraged photo diaries, sketches and notations on anything that came into their heads and to closely observe nature in the way stems hold petals and branches intersect and water moves on different surfaces and to be familiar with all the arts. I had mixed results, some students really embraced the methods others rejected them in favor of a nuts and bolt approach to design and construction. A clash occurred one year over a reading I assigned. I asked my students to read Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, at minimum the first chapter. I gave the reading as an example of genius loci; I wanted them to understand how Joyce had captured that in his writing right from the first lines of the novel in his use of the Irish dialect. I wanted them to understand the language of a local ecosystem with its dialects of plant associations and cultural inheritance. I did not expect the great backlash by some students that protested to the administration claiming that I was trespassing some imaginary boundary between literature and landscape architecture. The verbal spanking I received from the administration was enough to make me rethink my interest in teaching. They saw the course as preparing students to enter the workforce; I wanted the course to be a way for the students to have an impact on the world after all what would be the difference between a university education and that from a professional formation college? I did have a wonderful moment however a few years later (1998). I was back in Italy to present my work at INTECOL98 taking place at the Palazzo dei Congressi in my beloved Florence. I decided to spend a day in Rome to visit the Sistine Chapel which had been recently cleaned through the generosity of Japan, when I felt a hand on my shoulder, I turned to see Paul, one of my bright students who was now working in Germany.  He expressed his appreciation of my course that according to him expanded his creative outlook. Those words appeased the sour taste I had carried with me.

I felt the pressure of someone seating on the bench, I came back from my thoughts and gave one last look at the Large Glass before getting up and stepping into the adjacent room.  Here lies Duchamp’s last work,’ Etant Donnes’, (Given). Duchamp kept this work a secret for twenty years, it was installed after his death according to meticulous instructions he had left. It has been speculated over and again by numerous art historians and critics. The room little more than an under lit corridor houses the work as if in a crypt and this the artist’s epitaph. An ancient wooden door he had brought from Spain stands at one end held in place by a brick wall. If one is not attentive the two holes drilled at eye level could be missed and the experience forfeited. These are the only access to the work; we are cast in the role of a peeping Tom. What we see is a body of a woman (bride) laying on a stack of branches formed like a nest, with legs spread and in one hand a gas lamp to illuminate the path to her. In many ways this is the physical representation of the ethereal world of the Large Glass. Here the bride is flesh, ready to welcome us as lover but yet this door cannot be opened, our desires still unfulfilled, still bachelors.  On this day, following my analogy of the Large Glass, the bride was the Earth, a sprawling landscape. What if this is not an act of love but rather rape? We are witness to the crime unable to extend a helping hand. Or worse still we have committed that crime and closed this door and are now briefly looking back.  In this scenario the gas lamp held in her hand will soon topple onto the pyre of branches.  Duchamp certainly would not have predicted this reading of the work. The art outlives the artist, it is given and takes on connotations according to the times and baggage each one may bring to it.

As I walked down Benjamin Franklin Parkway to Logan Square and then across past the Cathedral of Peter and Paul into the hotel lobby I pondered over why Duchamp’s work had taken on that particular meaning, it was provoked by the thought of silos and the way professions attempt to claim turf in a time when we really need as many ideas on the table as possible. Perhaps it was a manifestation of my frustrations, expressed in my memories of a teaching experience, with the whole notion of accredited knowledge and lack of access that arises from an exclusive approach in place of an inclusive approach, where certificates and accreditation should play a less significant role. The role of accreditation is to strive for expertise but it can be victim to protocol that can stifle innovation and outbursts of ideas. A balance must be reached between number crunching and dreaming the impossible. The appeal of Duchamp was his elusive identity, claimed by all and yet remaining the outsider of any one thing. As he pointed out the 'amateur' (the lover),not the expert. His acceptance of stochasticity in his work; a controlled chaos that opened paths to alternative interpretations and outcomes.

The Cities Alive conference was well attended, my work was well received, many expressed their appreciation of my concepts and one particular chance encounter led me back to a Chicago pilot project opportunity. Peter Lowitt introduced himself, and asked me if I had tried to build a pilot project in Chicago for he knew the city would appreciate my work. After an initial smile I explained to him that indeed I had but without much success. He suggested I get in touch with Weslynne Ashton at the Illinois Institute of Technology. I had dealt with IIT before, I was guest member of juries for a few of Martin Felsen’s architectural class presentations and at one time was invited by him to submit my name for a faculty position at the newly established School of Landscape Architecture. In my submittal I outlined what I envisioned IIT’s role in the profession, that of providing a creative alternative to the many courses offered elsewhere where the urban arena could be placed in focus; given its location in Chicago it would make an ideal place. I described my urban focus interest and my research proposals. During the interview it became clear that my approach was distant from their program goals, my interviewer declared that IIT's goal was to prepare the students to enter today's workforce, I heard those words many years back.  Nevertheless upon my return to Chicago I met with Weslynne Ashton and had a great conversation with her about my concepts of decentralized small scale energy production and waste treatment systems. She in turn introduced me to Lesley Shower at the Institute of Cultural Affairs where I met Terry Bergdall C.E.O. and Pam Bergdall, his wife, a truly visionary spirit. More recently Liam Heneghan, a professor at DePaul University has consented to help in the research component of the project and we are applying for grants to carry out the work. It is ironic that the people willing to take chances and go the extra mile are not the often sited venture capitalists with their wads of money or those that are part of the political scene but rather far sighted individuals at the grass root level. All along I was knocking on the wrong doors. Changes come from the ground up, and mostly from 'amateurs' (lovers) whether they be experts or not. It is imperative to establish an open door policy to those with ideas not limit access only to those with professional credentials, after all if anyone claims much past success they are more likely to be part of the problem and not the solution. 

This ends the story of the evolution of the Bioshaft process to date. I am aiming at by this time next year the first working bioshaft will have proven itself. The goal of the pilot project is to clean and recycle black water from a bathroom facility at the Institute of Cultural Affairs only using the biogeochemical processes that exist in soil and sustain a vertical watershed habitat system on site, not to be confused with living wall systems promoted in the industry. Once this is proven to work we will size the system up to include all black and grey water recycling.  The goal of the Institute of Cultural Affairs is to achieve off grid status, this project will help in this endeavor.