Form 1

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PRIME FORM

Michael Joo (@michaeljoostudio):

So, on the topic of flux… thanks for agreeing to do this experimental conversation. We're thinking about the idea of flux. I always think about its definition of relating to fluidity, and things in transition or movement. As a sculptor I have a certain perspective in relation to media or material and such, but I'm really curious about your take on flux, John, coming from science, data science in particular, and the many other aspects of research you work in, as well as Isabel's take on the idea of flux as a fashion designer and artist.

John Burns (@themegalab):

Well, to me, flux from a science perspective is the holy grail that you're trying to understand. It entertains me wildly because we will so often try to understand the dynamic beauty of nature, which never stops. That's the element of time in the universe. But we boil it down into discrete units and say, okay, I looked at this system from this one time point, with these few parameters, and we're always trying to control things, and hold everything constant. Then build almost a wiring schematic that says, this is how the system works. Why it entertains me is because you're destined to fail in doing so, which means that we can scratch the surface of understanding these natural mysteries. But the reality is that there's so much more complex and mystifying than we can even grasp, because we're simply incapable of even measuring so many things in a flux. It’s this overwhelming reality of the world around you, but it keeps you chasing it, because if you truly understood it you would probably unlock the secrets of the world and universe.

Isabel (@toqa.tv):

Yeah, I think there's definitely a similarity in the way that I think about flux. As somebody who's been on the move literally and also in flux in my own practice recently, it feels like a never ending state of change, that you simultaneously want to understand and distill into something that's a little bit more stable. By its very nature, it changes you, it changes your practice and leads you down a different path. I also think about motion and process in this way. You're always in flux when you're seeking out something. That's what, I guess, the search for learning and understanding are about. A constant state of motion…

Michael Joo:

That has a lot of bearing with textile and fashion too, doesn't it? Motion, movement and activation. For me, the great question, as a maker of things in a world that has far too much material that we’ve made already in it, is why should we make more? I'm really interested in questioning the idea of the object itself. And one of the things that's fascinating to me about the idea of flux is it implicates everything else but the thing itself. Questions that are generative in and of themselves, and if you took any cross section of that process, you could create a whole new pathway. But what's interesting to me about flux is the idea that flux itself could be seen as context, and a way of enacting not only the process that it takes to get to something, but all the things around the object that lead up to and surround it. I think if you take them at face value, I'm really interested in those parts of the process that are in motion and in transition on the way to becoming something, as if they’re coalescing like a material changing states. I guess, I think of the potential for process itself to generate meaning by seeing it as an observable entity, the solid formed in the negative space around a thing. Almost like a mold.

Isabel:

I think the main thing is that we agreed that flux to each of us in our respective disciplines is never something which is static. So much of my own work is experiential. Like the currents that you're swimming in, physically when you're installing your sculptures under water, or when you're trying to navigate how to source materials, or figure out how to piece together a project. All of these things, which are behind the scenes are never really centered. Instead pushing out at the boundaries of how we understand our disciplines and where we'd like them to go.

John Burns:

I love that cross sectional aspect. It's so true. The process is really the journey. It does relate so much to the crystal, because it's like you take one discreet moment, but then by placing it in the sea… It's what I love about the ocean. It's infinite flux. It truly never sits still, and so now once it's underwater, and it's a static being that's living in a flux environment… It almost breathes life into it.

Michael Joo:

So cool. This coalescing of material into a particular solid state being placed into another less stable context that’s in motion.

I’m drawn to the idea of research being generative, and not outcome based... I like what you were saying about the thought that you're just scratching the surface of something that's in motion, but that you have to arrest it for a second to make it something we can all grasp, and the fact that we’d then have to let it go again, because it's still on its way somewhere else.

Isabel:

But don't you think that's also how this applies to how you work with the misfits at the megalab, or maybe how you and I like to work with people? Again, it's like an organic moving thing that comes together by virtue of life. It echoes throughout in concept. It's not just the physical material that you guys make, but it's also how you choose to work again, with other people, with other ideas and expand those frameworks of understanding what science can be, what art can be, what storytelling through clothing might also be…

John Burns:

The key word there, I think, is the story. Cliff and I were just talking about this on our expedition to Fiji. It's like the story is the beautiful part. The story is that process of finding the right people, bringing everything together. Like you said, it often doesn't take center stage enough, but that's the meat, that's where the drama and the intrigue lies, is how do you get these people to come together? How do you make this whole process lead to this one point? That’s where the real journey is, where the real magic happens.

Isabel:

Exactly. The end point is not actually the end point. The event is the entire journey.

Michael Joo:

Totally. I think this collaborative story is the seedbed for which everything else occurs, and that context can be likened to a space. So, in fact, you're creating space. It's almost like we're building everything around what we might define as the center, and hovering all around that thing is the story, and the individual perspectives we bring to the collaborative space. I find this conflation of context, space and story through collaboration really exciting.

John Burns:

Yeah.

Isabel:

I’d like to be able to pin down motion through textile that uses photogrammetry based on any data points one could choose to extract from the research, to generate shapes, printing material or whatever, I guess. Those are all just ways to harness this energy in motion, and try be able to understand it.

Michael Joo:

It’s super relevant in a way to what just happened for instance, to the first crystal sculpture that was mounted on the strut and lost to the sea during that last epic swell. I mean, we gathered photographic and time-based imagery that you extrapolated from the data into a 3D model, John of what is now is no longer there. So the sculpture is now part of the rest of the other flotsam and movement in the sea. Itself is meaningless, as a thing. I mean, it doesn't have its context anymore. So, the trajectory of that piece is no longer about the thing itself at all. Its identity is totally in flux, and now we're going to interpret it by looking into the past through data and use that to suggest what’s next.

John Burns:

Yeah. It's crazy when you think about it that way. I mean, even going back to what you were saying, just the physics of matter. It's like when you take it at a snapshot, and all those parts become somewhat irrelevant when removed from the whole. The whole picture is that dynamic state.

Michael Joo:

Totally. The whole picture embodying flux itself, in a way.

Isabel:

Yeah. Whenever you say embodying of course, I think about clothing, because you embody an idea of yourself through fashion. And fashion itself involves flux through trends or whatever’s inherent in the industry or the nature of that field.

Michael Joo:

I love the idea that by acknowledging, recognizing there are different subsets of movement within larger things in motion, we can try to avoid getting stuck in a space of expected outcomes.

Isabel:

Everyone here is interested in reaching into the unknown, with an optimist's mindset. I think that kind of optimistic view of the future, what could be, has to embrace change and flux as much as someone like me. I want to just study something and have it be a static object, so I can understand it from every angle. But the reality is that that conflicts with the very nature of why you're drawn to something. Why it compels you to continue going and reaching off into something that's never been like understood or held before.

John Burns:

Yeah, I love that phrase of reaching in the unknown with an optimistic mindset, because it's so true. It's like when you're fascinated by it to a point of awe. You almost don't want to find out, you just want it to stay in its true form, and you just keep getting to enjoy every experience watching it, or being a part of it in a way. That's what's cool. The observer plays a role. So, even though you can talk about it from an exterior outside perspective, once your mind is locked in on that, you're actually now just as involved as any of the other parts.

Michael Joo:

That's so good. The idea that that kind of agency keeps shifting and participation and opening that up. Also, I think that the punk rock aspect of the whole unhinging of things that are stable within the nature of injecting flux into something, is also really intriguing. That it could not only be a catalyst, but can be a solvent and start to denature and dissolve some of the things that are solid. Maybe we could even see flux as an agent.

Isabel:

Yeah. Change the form. Isn't that like an optimist reaching into the unknown, denaturing, solving/dissolving, reforming, accessing different natural states of being. Ones that might not even occur... Think about how, I guess, the three of us in our respective practices might interact with each other, even then. It's completely, I think, foreign or new, but probably will result in something again, foreign, new, exciting, fun.

Michael Joo:

Absolutely. Opening up different pockets to try to accommodate a whole new perspective is really exciting. Trying to make another shape in the pathway of my brain.

John Burns:

Awesome. Yeah. This one of my favorite topics to think about.

Michael Joo:

Well, loved the path of where we took it. So, I'll transcribe our talk and turn it into the embodiment of flux itself anyway, and see what we have.

Isabel:

Might just be all nonsense.

Michael Joo:

It might be. Let's see now that the program's going to search the internet and try to find corollary with its own sensitivity to language and create new poetry. Yeah.

John Burns:

Well, it's such a beautiful thing, your idea is so brilliant because it's just everything we said then gets distilled down through an actually objective human removed process, based on human words and data to create a singular entity.

Michael Joo:

Awesome. Well, we're going to pick some gems out, might hyperlink in at the end an ability for someone to decipher what happened, and without explaining it. But let's see. I'm hoping we can have as minimal an explanation as possible, and maximal attempt at the reader participant trying lend their own take on it.

John Burns:

Hell yeah.

Michael Joo:

Right on man. Thanks for joining

John Burns:

Oh, man. My absolute pleasure.

was great to see you both.

Isabel:

Bye.

John Burns:

Okay. Bye.

Michael Joo:

Bye.

GMT20220807-000712_Recording (Completed 08/07/22) Transcript by

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