I've had this idea in the back of my head for the past couple of days; it might be interesting, but I can't tell yet. It came from looking at this image, another shaker drawing, of the Holy City.
Obviously, this is a detailed map, with a key that is, irritatingly, not included with any version I've found so far. The neat thing is, this City apparently exists in the air, or in the heavens, directly above the Shaker settlements of Hancock and Edgefield. Hancock was then much smaller than this, but the text that accompanies the drawing apparently prophesies that Hancock will grow until it merges with Edgefield, and then the new mega-settlement will be a perfect earthly replica of the Holy City, directly beneath it.
So I've been looking at the floor plan of the Monroe Gallery, one of the first things posted to this blog. What I'd really like to do is to take this floor plan, reproduce it, and re-label it with the aspects it will have in the future, when it becomes the eventual Holy City (or Holy Gallery). This would be an enterprise in fiction; it would be a fake key to the grounds. We could maybe paint lines into the floor of the gallery and number the various areas, if that's allowed, so that if people are standing in the door they know they're standing in the Gate of Forgiveness or whatever.
I haven't mentioned it yet in this blog, because it doesn't really seem relevant, but for a long time I've been fascinated by old science fiction pulp imagery, the kind has this now-naive-seeming enthusiasm for the future as a place in which humans will have been alchemically transmuted into something better, war will have been cured like a disease, and so forth. So when I was thinking about this faux future Holy City, I immediately started to think in terms of sf pulp imagery; cherubs with jetpacks on, heavenly paradises consisting of revolutionary new labor-saving devices, and so forth. This doesn't follow so clearly out of everything else we've been talking about in this blog, I know; I'm just mentioning it.
I suppose I could justify it by framing the use of sf tropes as transformation of current everyday materials; cars are made better by becoming flying cars, dishwashers become sentient, we ourselves become functionally immortal, impervious to disease. But whatever.
I've also thought about using it in conjunction with the spirit writing thing, so that labels for the various parts would be writing themselves.
Posted by seth at June 1, 2004 05:27 PMThis sounds really interesting. Adam and I talked early on while we visited the gallery about how to incorporate the floor and its existing... "past". See, it used to be an auto dealership and you can clearly see where walls used to be and the floorplan of yesteryears.
Additionally, we were thinking that something has to happen on the floor.
I like the idea that the imaginary, heaven floorplan becomes ideal as in geometry and also in our mental projection of what could be...
I wonder if this could somehow be linked to the City of heaven that is actually constructed at Adam's gallery/studio? We have talked about constructing this city and then through cameras, allow people glimpses of it from the UICA. Also, people could actually visit Adam's (The Heartland) and look into the City of Heaven through peepholes... at least this was one idea that again furthers this idea of parts versus whole and causing a situation that forces one to LOOK harder.
So what's your vision? I see the floorplan drawing well enough, but are there going to be actual cherubs in the rafters? Things like that? Could there be a version that actually is overhead? I am still wondering how we can activate the height of this space.
Posted by: ct at June 7, 2004 10:36 AMSeth,
Your idea is one I too would be interested in pursuing. Perhaps we coould figure a collaboration here--barbara
Posted by: Barbara at June 7, 2004 12:04 PMAbsolutely, let's collaborate. I don't think I'll have time to scan in and post some of the Shaker images I'm looking at before I got to NY tomorrow, but I will at some point. Also, I'll be checking in with the blog from there, I think, so let's keep talking.
If you or Chris know about the Shaker drawing called the Road to zion, which consists of eight panels, each with a straight road bordered by various tools and objects, i've been thinking about that image too as a possible model. The fact that the tool represented in that drawing are such everyday objects seems to me to tie into some of the stuff we've been talking about for Ordinary Aura.
Posted by: seth at June 7, 2004 03:13 PM