Murphy, Jenks

(this is my pre-class post of the week, since there is no reading for thursday)

One of the first ideas that Jenks puts across to the reader is,"The only escape from rule-governed art is to suppress from consciousness the cannon behind one's creativity - hardly a comforting liberation." (281) If this is true, I find it ironic that immediately after telling the reader to ignore these cannons, he defines them in a detailed list. Only after doing a second reading of the article did it occur to me that we cannot ignore something, or at least try to think outside of it, if we cannot identify what it is we are trying to get around. By making us aware of these eleven canons (and there are more that aren't mentioned), Jenks is giving us the knowledge we need to rise above them and "think outside of the box."

The first cannon that I immediately could think of an example for was #5 anamnesis. The idea that when we see something, right away we subconsciously relate it to something we've seen before. I'm from Indianapolis, and I often visit Chicago. In Millennium Park there is a fantastic sculpture called Cloud Gate. Almost everyone I have ever come across that has seen this sculpture calls it "the bean".

Another great thing about this example, is that it can fit into more than one category of cannons, as can most examples of architecture. I would also classify it as falling into #2 radical eclecticism. In the picture above, there is a beautiful juxtaposition between this rounded, shiny, mirrored sculpture and the tall block structures in the background. I would also argue that this would fit into the category #11 absent center. To really appreciate this cannon, one must visit Cloud Gate. It has an arch like shape, and people can walk under it and look up. It will be interesting when I go back to Chicago, because I know the first thing I think of when I see "the bean" will be Charles Jenks.