"Buildings Possess Intelligence"

At the end of Carol Emmon's talk, MJ brought up "text as texture," in relation to Emmons' use of cut out text over windows and walls in her installation spaces. This stuck out to me because it stuck to my tongue, and still repeats in my brain whenever I read it. It's such a physically and verbally attractive phrase to say over and over again- and it's probably why Emmons' attention to light, and how it adds to/creates a place for her pieces. 

I say this because the image of light being controlled through cut-out letter spaces on a window is the image that I return to, so it is the detail in her work that I've been pondering the most. I love how the words on the windows are also hinting at her art pieces' relationship to their place, their environment. Even it they feel entirely separate from where they are, or what's going on, the way we experience many of her installations is influenced by how the light from outside shines on it through the word cut-outs on the window. They visually remind us that the light is helping to create our perspective of the piece, which extrapolates to how we carry in perspective with us when we enter her installations. 

Cosmogony 2.0 (2014) by Carol Emmons 

Kosmos (2012) by Carol Emmons 

I think it was Johnie who said that Carol's work reminds him how buildings possess intelligence. To me, this perfectly articulates how buildings and spaces gather up meaning and life from people and things as time passes, all of which ultimately become part of the way we experience that building or space. Through her careful consideration of light, and how she fills a space or underlines parts of it, Carol Emmons recreates how it feels to step into a place and get bombarded by it's life, it's importance. 

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