Max Lester

Underlying Principal

Drilled into a wall is Underlying Principal, a skeletal form that resembles scaffolding made out of corner beads (metal brackets that protect the corners of drywall). Scaffolding problematizes the idea of buildings as autonomous structures that do not rely on the support of others.Buildings under construction are illuminating because without their surfaces they reveal the transient nature of the city space: a landscape that can change and continues to. This object I have made is what a structure turned inside out might look like. Unlike a finished building whose formal properties would “hide and obscure it exactly by offering a front, a skin, a first degree depth of comprehension,” this object discloses its inner structure in a backwards and convoluted way with the mistreated material. What is exposed is a system that does not quite add up. The corner beads are flimsy when misused and behave nothing like scaffolding but the silhouette of the form suggests otherwise. The conflation of these two building apparatuses dissolves the barrier between internal and external space.

“There is a stickiness and liveliness to affect as it flows around, adhering itself to bodies and objects. The language used to describe it often shares a similar quality: as I read about affect, it clings and lingers in my thoughts, slowly unraveling meaning and affect itself. Images I have collected and altered are printed onto Inkjet t-shirt transfers and isolated becoming a delicate, heat-sensitive material. On screen in Bad Circuit, these textures are lively and viscous but here they drape over the scaffolding like dead remains. ”