was at the art school I had a full time job, so I could
afford to do that, and I’ve found the travel really important.
I would go back to England, travel across to Europe some-
where, just to work in that different cultural/intellectual
context. When I look back on it, working with those ideas
in a completely foreign context has really sharpened my
understanding of my own approach. A lot of the work
I’ve done has come out of ideas I’ve had when I’ve been
travelling. This I think is part of a subjective-objective
interplay that’s happening all the time when you’re
working. A counterpart to this rigorous paradigmatic
referencing system is the state of emptiness called by
Vera Frankel in Artscanada ‘benign ignorance.” In her
words: “By this I mean not ignorance at all of course
but a way of knowing which is essential to the state of
being necessary for an artist to work.” And this is where
what Harry was mentioning before about an awareness of
the political implications of your style of working is very
important. That’s part of the rigorous objective scrutiny,

which I think an artist must apply to his/her own work.

Sometimes that oscillation between the two can be very
rapid and you don’t really know which state you’re in.
It’s the paradox or contradiction which is important in so
much art: there always seems to be on the one hand
what’s concealed and on the other what’s revealed, and
there’s a play between the two. I have this little sign with

“Almost immediately, reality yielded on more than one
account. The truth is that it longed to yield. Ten years ago
any symmetry with a semblance of order — dialectical
materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism — was sufficient to
entrance the minds of men. How could one do other than
submit to Tl&h, to the minute and vast evidence of an
orderly planet? It is useless to answer that reality is also
orderly. Perhaps it is, but in accordance with divine laws
— I translate: inhuman laws — which we never quite
grasp. Tl®n is surely a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth
devised by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered
by men.”

— Jorge Luis Borges, Tl8n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1964)

a word crossed out, a word like ‘‘similar’’ which is
crossed out, and you start getting all sorts of levels of
meaning and signs and symbols in just the one word. It
contains itself and its opposite contradiction of itself,
contradiction of its opposite, and this unification of
contradictory multidimensionality is something else I deal
with in my art in a rarefied and concentrated form. I deal
with many levels in language, and I want the possibilities
to go beyond where people are likely to reach, so it’s not
apparently complete in itself, and people are unable to
complete it themselves.

MOORE: Do you see this as creating your own visual
language? If so, how do you think about that?
BERECRY: There are some difficulties here. On the one
hand, I’m dealing with text a lot, almost all my work has a
text of some sort in it, so of course I’m dealing with
language and sign and symbol — but I’m not a structuralist
in the making of my work. On the other hand, in terms of
creating language, yes, at the moment I’m stuck with the
need to create another form of visual language to deal
with the information I’ve got. I can’t find one that’s ap-
propriate. I’ve got a form of information that requires a
specific way of handling it. I don’t want to deal with it in
a literate form, or a form of criticism, or scholarly text. I
don’t want to deal with it as poetry, and I don’t know
how to handle it. . . .it’s the current piece I’m working on,
and that has a lot to do with the sort of theories I’m deal-
ing with — and I’ll get to that in a minute.

Most of my work has a lot to do with presence and
the placing of the viewer in relation to form. People are
dealing with a language they are very familiar with — that
is, a sort of phenomenological understanding, an aware-
ness of how they’re standing, the direction they’re looking,
whether they’re inside it or outside it; so I’m very con-
cerned with moving the people in a specific way in rela-
tion to the work. I’m not interested in them being able to
just look at it from any direction. ...

McINTYRE: Isn’t that like, say, putting a laboratory
mouse through a maze?
BERECRY: Uh, no. Because the mouse who’s going

through the maze is probably not enjoying himself. I

WHAT DESIGN RESEARCH?

Design Research, by the description printed on its own posters, is
a program “concerned with the improvement of the structure and
quality of the urban environment, through understanding the
problems of individuals within the context of community priori-
ties.” This is typical of the obscurity involved in trying to decipher
exactly what Design Research does.

As far as the public and students are concerned, it doesn’t
mean anything. If you were to ask someone on the street, they
might reply that it has something to do with the best possible
design for a situation, be it a chair, a tool, a sign, whatever. Or
maybe you would think that “Design Research’ involves the
history of design. Not so. My experience with this department
situated at 190 Smithe Street in the basement is nothing but an
empty room. This would not be so bad if the school were not
paying the wages of a full-time instructor, Steve Harrison, and at
a time when the space could be better used. This goes also for the
expensive equipment housed there. For instance, the desks in the
classroom must be worth about a thousand dollars each — there
are sixteen (16) of them.

That would not be so bad if there were not just four senior
students. During the week of Feb. 12 to 16th | checked three
times a day in the classroom and the following are my findings:

Monday — morning, nobody there; note on board saying
“Steve sick,” and unfinished construction of chair and table,

RANESS
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SUB

hope they are enjoying themselves when looking at my
work, I think most of my work is funny.

McINTYRE: I think it’s funny too.

BERECRY: I think there’s humour involved in it. Perhaps
because the way I work has a lot to do with the way I
understand humour to work. That is, by setting up an
interface where one matrix meets another. There’s a dis-
location — spontaneity, unexpected, working in parallel.
I believe a lot of art works the same way as humour,
there’s a connection with the previously unconnected. I
am very conscious of what the person is going to bring
when they come to meet my work, that they are going to
read in quite a lot, they always do. Like a Rorshauch ink
blot.

MOORE: Even if you say in a piece that the viewer should
not personalize what is being seen, to have a certain de-
tachment, they do it anyway.

BERECRY: I had a similar experience at the art school
with a piece I did. It wasn’t a good piece, it wasn’t com-
pletely resolved. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing
at the time, and only now know in retrospect fully what
it was. It was a scroll which documented everything that
I’d gone through in terms of graduating. It was another
one that upset people. And I realized that it was the piece
I liked the most that I did at the school; I don’t think I’ve
read it since. There are things about the way it’s written
that I really enjoyed: playing with fact and fiction in a
form which is purely factual. And clearly to me it’s fiction
by the way I’ve taken so much out of context.
McINTYRE: The walls of Jericho come tumbling down.
BERECRY: I find it’s an interesting problem because it
seems to relate to what a lot of people are doing who
work with text. By a sleight of hand I can connect it to
philosophical shifts going on that I think have come out
of the absorption through osmosis of some ideas that have

aa eae eee eee eee ee eee eee ee ee ee @ 2 @ @ 2 ee ee ee 2 eee es * ~*~ se

shown at last year’s catalogue, at back of darkroom; afternoon,
ditto; evening, ditto.

Tuesday — morning 10:30, Steve Harrison in office, students
in next room, quiet and staring at a blank film screen; afternoon,
room empty and dark; evening, ditto.

Wednesday — morning, room dark and dusty; afternoon,
three students, no lights on, Steve Harrison arrived at 2:00 p.m.;
evening and remainder of week, nobody.

Also included in the program of self-promotion is the promise
that “students will learn the traditional industrial design skills of
presentation, drawings, anthropometrics and manufacturing
technology?” Well, to my recollection there were no works by
Design Research in last year’s Grad Show. All the work must be
done at home and stored from public eyes, judging by appearances.

During the week of March 12 to 16th, only twice during the
week have | seen Design Research students in their area down-
stairs. | have heard rumours of work done by them, and hints of
field trips, but the fruits of their work have not been seen by my
eyes. The point that should be made is that the space occupied
by Design Research would make an excellent studio. In other
words, in a school starved for space this is a crime, and further-
more the animation students only 15 feet from this empty room
have been struggling with inadequate space and facilities for
years. As well the Graphic Design people could certainly use a
decent studio.

If | have missed my mark on these statements, please correct
me. It seems a shame in this school’s situation that equipment,
space, and an instructor’s wages can be wasted on an empty room.
— Colin Fenby

(71S por

sound Hs fy tess
rl tre os

Somewhere in the Night

Dusk begins,

the honey brown sweetness Pours
upon the city...

streets. ..

and lights. . .

The woman old and worn wishes for

her place in the quiet of

her
soul...
SAVAGELY, the city attacks

her temple,
she is drained, with no defences,

and no youth...

she wishes for her place

in the quiet of her soul...

she’s no good, she’s been screwed,
the city has stolen her youth...

once more the city took ',

Vengeance upon a woman,

now it’s time for her to find her
place in the quiet of her

SOUL...

in her work...

she continues. .. Rickki
165. the movement
behind his back
portrays a shadow
distracting the corner
of my eye
to think a door
is slowly open.

173. a message is received.
muscles tighten brain
scream

question rises up
a swift hand
knock topple
over the chessmen.

177. bright nails flashing
swiftly scarring
ripping tearing
a bloodied mess
is all that’s left.

Sandra Wiley
1979

been developed around the theories of relativity. They’ve
seeped in. Mind you I think the artists were dealing with
them before the scientists were. Duchamp was certainly
dealing with the ideas of relativity.

MOORE: Yes, it has seeped in, but it’s really become a
matter of how since it’s most prominent identification
has been as a scientific theory.

BERECRY: Duchamp’s-rubber ruler. That’s exactly the
answer the scientists have come up with for resolving
whether it’s an expanding universe or a steady state uni-
verse. His rubber ruler was the most concise and elegant
way of explaining that relation.

MOORE: What has not received sufficient attention are
matters having to do with the uncertainty principle, where
the observer affects what is being observed. There are
implications having to do with how we see everything,
from our biological evolution, to the development of
consciousness and how we feel the energy in our own
bodies.

BERECRY: But I think the other is also happening, with
cosmologists and people who are working with unified
theories of gravitation, they’re dealing with imaginary
entities constantly. It becomes aesthetics, and curiously
enough they start dealing with symbols which are very
similar to what we think of as primitive symbols. They
start working with shapes ‘that look exactly like the
shapes you find on old stones, pictographs, labyrinthian
shapes, you find things like snakes and serpents. The
curious thing is that all those are common around the
world, the associations are common, snakes associated
with directions, with coming from the north, with certain
numbers; you find exactly the same thing happening with
scientists when they start drawing diagrams explaining the

— continued on page 4

a »~ 2

WANTED!

For the opening night of the Foundation Show, we
= exhibition planning group) would like to arrange for
“performance—event.” The “performance event” will
be a synthesis of ideas and concepts presented by indivi-
duals or groups willing to give ‘inputs’? toward the crea-
tion of this event for the opening.

Please give your ideas in the form of a written
statement, images, slides, or whatever, so that the pro-
gramme can be put together.

The Foundation Show will be opened on the evening
of April 17th from 7:00 to 10:00 P.M. in addition to the
exhibition space we have the use of two open spaces with,
two projection booths that will be used for the “per-
formance—event.”

Please give your ideas to Marcia Kredentser, and
Andrea Landry before Friday, March 16th. Leave material
in Sam Carter’s office.

‘Make your ideas clear, but don’t worry about fin-
ished art work at this point.

Special thanks to the women at MAKARA Publishing and Design
and Press Gang Publishers for their work with this issue.

was at the art school I had a full time job, so I could
Afford to do that, and I've found the travel rally important.
T would go back to England, travel across to Europe some.
where, just to work in that different cultural/intllectual
context. When I look back on it, working with those ideas
in a completely foreign context has really sharpened my
understanding of my own approach. A lot of the work
I've done has come out of ideas I've had when I've been
travelling. This I think is part of a subjective-objective

interplay that’s happening all the time when you're
working. A counterpart to this rigorous paradigmatic
the state of emptiness called by

referencing system
Vera. Frankel in Artec
words: “By this T meas

's part of the rigorous objective serutiny,
which T think an artist must apply to his/her own work,
Sometimes that oscillation between the two can be very
rapid and you don't really know which state you're in.
It’s the paradox or contradiction which is important in so
much art: there always seems to be on the one hand
what’s concealed and on the other what's revealed, and
there's a play between the two. I have this litle sign with

“Almost immediately, reality yielded on more than one
‘account. The truth is that it longed to yield. Ten years ago
‘any symmetry with a semblance of order — dialectical
materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism — was sufficient to
entrance the minds of men. How could one do other than
submit to TWh, to the minute and vast evidence of an
orderly planet? It is useless to answer that reality is also
orderly. Perhaps itis, but in accordance with divine laws
= I translate: inhuman laws — which we never quite
grasp. TWh is surely a labyrinth, but it i a labyrinth
devised by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered
by men.”

~ Jorge Luis Borges, T18n, Ughar, Orbis Tertius (1964)

word crossed out, a word like “similar” which is
crossed out, and you start getting all sorts of levels of
‘meaning and signs and symbols in just the one word. It
contains itself and its opposite contradiction of itself,
contradiction of its opposite, and this unification of
contradictory multidimensionality is something else I deal
‘with in my art in a rarefied and concentrated form. I deal
‘with many levels in language, and I want the possibilities
to go beyond where people are likely to reach, so it's not
apparently complete in itself, and people are unable to
‘complete it themselves,

MOORE: Do you see this as creating your own visual
language? If so, how do you think about that?
BERECRY: There are some difficulties here. On the one
hand, I'm dealing with text a lot, almost all my work has a
text of some sort in it, so of course I'm dealing with
Janguage and sign and symbol — but I'm not a structuralist
in the making of my work. On the other hand, in terms of
creating language, yes, at the moment I'm stuck with the
reed 0 create another form of visual language to deal
with the information I've got. I can’t find one that’s ap-
propriate. I've got a form of information that requires a
specific way of handling it. I don’t want to deal with i in
a'literate form, or a form of criticism, or scholarly text. I
don’t want to deal with it as poetry, and I don’t know
hhow to handle it.

land that has a lotto do
ing with — and I'l get to that in a minute,

Most of my work has a lot to do with presence and
the placing of the viewer in relation to form. People are
dealing with a language they are very familiar with — that
is, a sort of phenomenological understanding, an aware-
ness of how they're standing, the direction they're looking,
Whether they're inside it oF outside it; o I'm very con:
cerned with moving the people in a specific way in rela:
tion to the work. I'm not interested in them being able to
Just look at it from any direction. ...

MeINTYRE: Isn't that like, say, putting a laboratory
mouse through a maze?
BERECRY: Uh, no. Because the mouse who's going

through the maze is probably not enjoying himself, 1

WHAT DESIGN RESEARCH?

Design Research, by the description printed on is own posters, is
2 program "concerned withthe improvement of the structure and
Seay ofthe urban enone, Guth understand te

lems of individuals within the context of community p
fie” Theis typeof the obscurity involved in trying to cepher
‘exactly what Design Research does,

[As far as the publle and students are concerned, it doesn't
‘mean anything. If you were to ask someone on the sret, they
‘might reply that it has something to do with the best posible
Gesign for a situation, be Ita chat, a tool a sgn, whatever, OF
‘maybe you would think that “Design Research” Involves the
history of design. Not so. My experience with this department
situated at 190 Siithe Street in the basement Is nothing but an
empty room. This would not be so bad If the school were not
paving the wages of a fulltime instructor, Steve Harrison, and at
2 time when the space could be better used. Ths goes also forthe
txpensive equipment housed there. For instance, the desks inthe
flassroom must be worth about a thousand dollars each ~ there
are sxten (16) of them

That would not be so bad if there were not just four senior
students. During the week of Feb. 12 to 16th | checked three
times a day i the classroom and the following are my findings

Monday — morning, nobody there, nate on board saying

‘Steve sick," and unfinished construction of chair and table,

Z tree
—colunn

naéure tree

tree rever

transpor'

walter
© shaman

, Uiree

par Tio Lion.

BERECRY: 1
because the way I work has a lot to do with the way I
understand humour to work. That is, by setting up an
interface where one matrix meets another. There's a dis
location — spontaneity, unexpected, working in parallel.
U believe a lot of art works the same way as humour,
there's a connection with the previously unconnected. I
am very conscious of what the person is going to bring
when they come to meet iny work, that they are going to
read in quite a lot, they always do, Like a Rorshauch ink
blot.
MOORE: Even if you say ina piece that the viewer should
not personalize what is being seen, to have a certain de-
tachment, they do it anyway.
BERECRY: I had a similar experience at the art school
‘with a piece I did, It wasn’t a good piece, it wasn’t com-
pletely resolved. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing
At the time, and only now know in retrospect fully what
it was, It was a seroll which documented everything that
Vd gone through in terms of graduating, It was another
‘one that upset people, And I realized that it was the piece
1 liked the most that I did at the school; I don't think I've
read it since. There are things about the way
‘that I really enjoyed: playing with fact and
form which is purely factual. And clearly to m
by the way I've taken so much out of context.
MeINTYRE: The walls of Jericho come tumbling down.
BERECRY: I find it’s an interesting problem because it
seems to relate to what a lot of people are doing who
‘work with text. By a sleight of hand I can connect it to
philosophical shifts going on that I think have come out
Of the absorption through osmosis of some ideas that have

shown at last year's catalogue, at back of darkroom: afternoon,
‘ito; evening, dito.

“Tuesday — morning 10:30, Steve Harrison in office students
In next room, quit and staring at a blank. film screen; afternoon,
‘oom empty and dark; evening dito.

Wednesday — morning, room dark and dusty; afternoon,
‘three students, no lights on, Steve Harrison arrived at 2:00 p.m.
‘evening and remainder of week, nobody.

‘Aso included in the program of self-promotion isthe promise
that “students wil learn the traditional industrial design skills of
Dretentation, drawings, anthropometrics and manufacturing
technology!” Well, to my recollection there were no works by
Design Research in last years Grad Show. All the work must be
done at home and stored from public eyes, judging by appearances.

‘uring the week of March 12 to T6th, only twice during the
week have | seen Design Research students In thelr area down:
Stars Ihave heard rumours of work done by them, and hints of
field 'trps, but the fale of ther work have not been sen By my
tyes. The point that should be made is thatthe space occupled
by Design Research would make an excelent studio. In oth
‘words, in'a school starved for space this is a crime, and further-
‘more the animation students only 15 fet from this empty room
hve been strugling with Inadequate space and facilites for
Years. As well the Graphic Design people could certainly use a
Uecent studio.

have missed my mark on these statements, please correct
seems a shame inthis schools situation that equipment,
and an instructors wages canbe wasted on an empty room.

Nest mearnus
sleep

‘Somewhere in the Night

Dusk besin,

the honey brown swostnets pours
pon the ety.

and ight

“The woman old and worn wishes for

her place in the quiet of
hee

to.

SAVAGELY, the ety attacks

her tempi

‘the is rained, with no defences,

and no youth.

‘the wishes for her place

inthe quiet of her soul.

he's no good, she's been sewed,

the city has stolen her youth.

‘once more the ity took’,

‘engeance upon a woman,
‘ow it’s tie for he to find her
place in the quiet of her

Inher work,

she continues Riekki

165. the movernent
behing his bck
portrays ashedow
lstacting the coraer
‘of my eve

173, a message is received
muscles tighten bein
question rises up
‘eve hand
knock tope!
‘over the chessmen,

177. bright nals Hashing
siti searing
‘bloodied mos

Teall that lot
Sandra wiley
1979

been developed around the theories of relativity. They
seeped in, Mind you I think the artists were dealing
them before the scientists were. Duchamp was certainly
dealing with the ideas of relativity.

MOORE: Yes, it has seeped in, but it’s really become a
matter of how since it’s most prominent identification
has been asa scientific theory.

BERECRY: Duchamp's rubber ruler. That’s exactly the
answer the scientists have come up with for resolving
Whether i’s an expanding universe or a steady state uni-
verse. His rubber ruler was the most concise and elegant
way of explaining that relation,

MOORE: What has not received sufficient attention are
matters having to do with the uncertainty principle, where
the observer affects what is being observed. There are
implications having to do with how we see everything,
from our biological evolution, to the development of
consciousness and how we feel the energy in our own
bodies

BERECRY: But I think the other is also happening, with
‘cosmologists and people who are working with unified
theories of gravitation, they're dealing with imaginary
‘entities constantly. It becomes aesthetics, and curiously
‘enough they start dealing with symbols which are very
Similar to what we think of as primitive symbols. They
Start working with shapes ‘that look exactly like the
shapes you find on old stones, pictographs, labyrint
shapes, you find things like snakes and serpents. The
curious thing is that all those are common around the
Wworld, the associations are common, snakes associated
with directions, with coming from the north, with certain
‘numbers; you find exactly the same thing happening with
Scientists when they start drawing diagrams explaining the

= continued on pare 4

WANTED!

For the opening night of the Foundation Show, we
(the exhibition planning group) would like to arrange for
a “performance-event.” The “performance event” will
be a synthesis of ideas and concepts presented by indi
uals or groups willing to give “inputs” toward the crea-
tion of this event for the opening.

Please give your ideas in the form of a written
statement, images, slides, or whatever, so that the pro-
gramme can be put together.

‘The Foundation Show will be opened on the evening
of April 17th from 7:00 to 10:00 P.M. in addition to the
exhibition space we have the use of two open spaces with
two projection booths that will be used for the “per-
formance—event.”

Please give your ideas to Marcia Kredentser, and
‘Andrea Landry before Friday, March 16th, Leave material
in Sam Carter's office.

Make your ideas clear, but don’t worry about fin
ished art work at this pe

b8.9.8.8.8

Special thanks to the women at MAKARA Publishing and Design
tnd Press Gang Publishers for their work with this sue,