The Issue of Impressions
By Caterina Verde
An impression presses. It presses against paper, against wood, against the elemental, and other organic matter — sometimes leaving the initial mark and fading over time. Erasure takes place but the impression lasts.
Enter the impression of the invisible. The idea you get when you are observing the impression. The interpretation, the interpolation — the impression of a sound, the impression of someone’s look. The way they look at you, the way they speak to you, and the impression you receive. Both your brain and your solar plexus receive subtle electric currents. Some good, some less so. The impression they put on you and you put back on them with a twist because, after all, perhaps a twist is all you’ve got.
You look at your hand, your palm, the impressions for someone to interpret. Tells how long you’ve got. Apparently, the marks on your hand change over time. Candlelit impressions — dim, perhaps dimwitted.
This is the concoction, the fabrication, it would seem, upon which we’ve built our constructed societies. Layers upon layers of impressions. The analog 3D machine. Layers of foil, fouled, fooled, and spoiled.
Is it imp-ressions? In which case, we can call in the tricksters: Loki; Wisakedjak; Monkey King; Eris; and, Heyoka — all making impressions, to provoke, to conjure, backward centrifugal force, obliging us to look, see what sticks to the wall.
The spaghetti sticks to the wall
A kettle is doing its thing.
Action! You shout.
I drop to my knees
The spaghetti stiffens
drawing a line.
Pasta is heard
meeting the wooden floor.
If you listen carefully from the other room.
Finally, the trickster. The trickster turns over the rock to see what’s going on. The opener of Pandora’s Box forces us to see what’s the matter. The revulsions of his villainy leave an impression, hypnotized, we sleep.
If we could perhaps see ourselves more mythically, we might have a more objective grasp: the Greek chorus, the mourners, the warriors, the valiant ones, the virgin minds, the ones betraying even themselves, the Pans inhabiting the outer realms. All of it played out on the news.
I have the habit of scanning people’s faces looking very hard to read their secret expressions — the micro-expressions. It’s a survival technique to assess where one stands so that when things change, and they will, in an instant, one must be prepared for action, the movement at all times. Ready for the next inadvertent repetition of the surprise. The next upheaval. Isn’t that what makes us supple? Plastic? Malleable? Surviving a shot in the dark? A fleeting pressure.
Finally, the repetitive act concretizes thoughts — makes them matter — makes the collective belief in the certainty of structures. Thoughts into matter.
Meanwhile, we are all in a constant state of observing one another, making an impression, leaving an impression, and imposing impressions. The invisible hands of Lascaux pressed against the rock of our frail construction that only a dark and isolated cave can protect from the stomping of humankind and maintain its impression. I know it’s confusing but I had to riff out there.
While exploring a certain creek in New York City I found myself under the highway, an encampment before me. I always understood why people camped under the bridges and highways; the obvious protection from the elements — though it always seemed like such a harsh place. But at this moment: sudden realization — silence. It's quiet under there. The sounds of cars go up and out, left and right carried to the nearest ear but not under. Underneath it is quiet.
The resident was not there at the time, but they had started a garden and had adopted a stray cat or two —a touching and fragile landscape. A city rips apart neighborhoods to put in highways. It’s a kind of necessary violence as we are led to believe, and further under the impression that we have to get somewhere independently. But of course, independence cannot include our reliance upon fossil fuels - and so the notion of autonomy is a farce. In the end we are still living with Robert Mose’s ego.
There are those who need to leave a mark. An impression. A mausoleum. The stone stands, and the body fades, now you must do research to know who was amongst the lineup – and who has time for that? The stones face the city, and the city faces the stones. Mirroring. Like therapy.
To my mind, some of the best views in New York City are had by the dead. I find it interesting that we pave over everything for the living but keep trees and lawns for the dead. Don’t tell a developer though. Let’s thank the dead for impressing a little patch of living on our future.
Perhaps it’s good for us to remember when we are driving on the highway at 70 mph on our way to “somewhere” there might be a person below the highway, tending to their garden in the quiet of the impression made by our car tires slowly building a groove. Eventually, the road will become wobbly and the pavement will crack.
Caterina Verde is an artist and curator living and working in New York. Some of her work can be seen on the Peat and Repeat site.
All photographs © and courtesy of Caterina Verde
Clown © Bruce Nauman (detail from Bruce Nauman’s, Clown Torture, 1987)