Craig-Martin: an Oak Tree, courtesy of Fracture Mechanics
Here is Martin’s Question and Answer regarding the piece:
Question & Answer by Michael Craig-Martin
Q. To begin with, could you describe this work?
A. Yes, of course. What I’ve done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree
without altering the accidents of the glass of water.
Q. The accidents?
A. Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size …
Q. Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?
A. No. It’s not a symbol. I’ve changed the physical substance of the glass of water into
that of an oak tree.
Q. It looks like a glass of water.
A. Of course it does. I didn’t change its appearance. But it’s not a glass of water, it’s an
oak tree.
Q. Can you prove what you’ve claimed to have done?
A. Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water
and, as you can see, I have. However, as one normally looks for evidence of physical
change in terms of altered form, no such proof exists.
Q. Haven’t you simply called this glass of water an oak tree?
A. Absolutely not. It is not a glass of water anymore. I have changed its actual
substance. It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it
anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree.
Q. Isn’t this just a case of the emperor’s new clothes?
A. No. With the emperor’s new clothes people claimed to see something that wasn’t
there because they felt they should. I would be very surprised if anyone told me they
saw an oak tree.
Q. Was it difficult to effect the change?
A. No effort at all. But it took me years of work before I realised I could do it.
Q. When precisely did the glass of water become an oak tree?
A. When I put the water in the glass.
Q. Does this happen every time you fill a glass with water?
A. No, of course not. Only when I intend to change it into an oak tree.
Q. Then intention causes the change?
A. I would say it precipitates the change.
Q. You don’t know how you do it?
A. It contradicts what I feel I know about cause and effect.
Q. It seems to me that you are claiming to have worked a miracle. Isn’t that the case?
A. I’m flattered that you think so.
Q. But aren’t you the only person who can do something like this?
A. How could I know?
Q. Could you teach others to do it?
A. No, it’s not something one can teach.
Q. Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak tree constitutes an art
work?
A. Yes.
Q. What precisely is the art work? The glass of water?
A. There is no glass of water anymore.
Q. The process of change?
A. There is no process involved in the change.
Q. The oak tree?
A. Yes. The oak tree.
Q. But the oak tree only exists in the mind.
A. No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water.
As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also a particular
oak tree. To conceive the category ‘oak tree’ or to picture a particular oak tree is not to
understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it
is imperceivable it also inconceivable.
Q. Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of a glass
of water?
A. No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it
does not and will not ever have any other form than that of a glass of water.
Q. How long will it continue to be an oak tree?
A. Until I change it.
—————–
This is my comment to solarflea:
What an insufferable man, haha. Yet, because of this I am drawn to trying to understand his point. Funny thing really…
What is going on here? How has he made a glass of water on a shelf into an oak tree? I feel like just getting in there and starting from what we know, seeing if he would agree. There is the perception of a glass of water (on the shelf), everyone would agree, and at the same time there is Mr. Martin saying actually no, it is an oak tree. What does a mind do (my mind anyway)? It stops, computes what it’s just received and then formulates a picture of an oak tree. Once it’s done this, it juxtaposes this picture with the picture of the glass in front of it. In this juxtaposition it looks for similarities and differences (homogeneity/heterogeneity). If it finds any of the former, it draws a comparison; any of the latter, it moves away in ignorance and quite possibly annoyance (e.g. fuck off mate, you’re an idiot).
Now what happens when any comparison that is made by the viewer is rejected by the creator (Mr. Martin)? The viewer enters what psychologists call cognitive dissonance and repeats the process over in search for the homogeneity. This is because the viewer is heavily invested in knowing Mr. Martin’s comparison, even if it was absolutely arbitrary and there is no comparison – which is probably the limit of the viewer’s thoughts. This reveals the biggest thing about what a mind does and what it is invested in. A mind knows that absolutely no homogeneity will be drawn between two things unless it is in there somewhere; no label of one thing will be added to another which is different unless there is a similarity somewhere between those things. What is one to think in the presence of this insufferable man who just pushes the viewer further into a solipsistic state, or rather to be a little fairer, into a completely subjective state. It’s as if Mr. Martin wishes to stress the point that language is not communication at all, if anything it is miscommunication. This is a mind’s way of trying to make Martin objective, because it is necessary to the mind that Martin is objective, that Martin is calculable and predictable.
Anyways, I can go on and on… I’ll stop here and hear what you reckon.
I agree with what you have said here. I actually think this is one of the most beautiful forms of conceptual art I have ever come across; I really like the originals. As things progress [art] they never quite reach the force or power of that original moment of creativity [James Joyce done the same for the novel - no one can really return to that derangement of the senses again]. I really dislike conceptual art, but this piece is something different, something new, and all was lost when what Craig-Martin and Duchamp were taken for a movement.
Anyhow, this is not an art review per se, so I will give you some of my ideas about the philosophy behind the work.
I don’t know how familiar you are with Apollonian Linguistics, but there is a theory that goes along with what you have said about trying to make Martin objective. There is the story of the American that goes to Greece and concludes that the ancient Grecians must have been fans of the Apollo space mission because he saw the word Apollo everywhere. What is happening here is that the fellow is trying to make sense of a new situation by appealing to past experience [even though, in this case, the American’s conclusion is absurd]. It’s the same with this piece, one wants to make sense of this new information, one way of doing this, in the case of this particular piece, is to appeal to what we know about philosophy, Descartes, the subject/object relation, solipsism, etc. However, I would suggest that Craig-Martin is actively trying to derange the senses, derange our reason; Craig-Martin doesn’t really give us any answers, not really, just vague pointers that only add to the confusion. Is Martin asking that we simply take him at his word, that is, is the question and answer portion of the text Martin’s way of laughing at those that would try to understand in rational terms? This cannot be the case because like you have said, the fellow that looks at the piece with contempt could easily dismiss it as nonsense and Martin as an idiot. I think that Martin is actually trying to ‘do’ something here, trying to rattle us free from our normal way of thinking – thinking becomes creative here because Martin leaves us with questions disguised as answers. I don’t think that Martin is saying ‘find the tree in this’ for he even says that this is impossible – likewise, I don’t think that he is saying that you could ever understand what he has done [one way to look at it is in the sense that Martin is getting us to imagine an oak tree when looking at the glass of water - but this isn’t right either]. What I actually think Craig-Martin is doing is prompting us to be creative, to try this miracle out for ourselves. We can change the oak tree into a table, a computer – how do we do this [and Martin doesn’t even know how he did this himself]? We do this through belief, faith. We have faith in the artist, but, more importantly, we are encouraged to have faith in ourselves, our own power to do miracles. I read somewhere that this is the basic common unit, that all reason and understanding are stripped from us and we are left naked with only our own belief.
Reality need not be that fixed thing our eyes and our reason tell us that it is.
However, let us look at this a little more analytically and see if we cant come to some better, more coherent, understanding. Martin says that he has changed the essence of the glass of water to that of the essence of an oak tree, and, in which case, the object is no longer a glass of water, it only looks that way. But what is the essence of a glass of water, it cant be function because the glass of water does not function like an oak tree. It cannot be appearance because the oak tree looks like a glass of water. We must conclude that Martin has changed nothing. But he has, he has changed our view of the glass of water, the way in which we view it. Far from the name ‘Oak Tree’ being arbitrary I believe that Martin has changed the essence of the glass of water into an oak tree by virtue of giving it this name [for the viewer at any rate]. A glass of water on a shelf is a glass of water on a shelf, but call it an oak tree and look how interesting it becomes, and, for me at least, how beautiful. Words are stuffed with meaning [not definition meaning but deep emotional spiritual meaning]. The reason Martin says that you can call it what you like but it will remain an oak tree is because he understands the power of words, what they can do to an object, how they change it forever – he said that he can change it back when he decides to, and if he did, if he said ‘no, this is a glass of water now‘, everything really would go back to normal, all would be right with the world if a little duller, an yet things would have changed.
[
I have just been reading some stuff here about when Craig-Martin tried to get the piece through customs; Australian customs wouldn’t let it into the country because it was classed as vegetation - Martin then had to explain that it ‘really’ was a glass of water. The Australian customs new the power of words here, and when he told them that it was a glass of water, it became a glass of water again and could be allowed through customs.]
[These are just some first thoughts on the matter; in many ways these questions are of the philosophical chart so forgive my tentative steps - I reserve the right to change my opinion on these issues at any time.]
Of course you are! I do not see Philosophy as a stern game whereby one has to stick to what he argued once, Philosophy should not really be about an Identity I don’t think – it wouldn’t be healthy. Rather, it should be like a game one plays, like a creative process. Thought should be creative I think, it should play with concepts. I’ll post some more philosophical thoughts on this, when I’ve had the time to ponder some more on it in terms of the notion of the workings of the mind.
OK, here’s where Martin begins to give us something to work with in terms of understanding better these notions of intention, change and belief/faith that you talked about in your reply, Solarflea.
—–
Q. But the oak tree only exists in the mind.
A. No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water.
As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also a particular
oak tree. To conceive the category ‘oak tree’ or to picture a particular oak tree is not to
understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it is imperceivable it also inconceivable.
Q. Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of a glass of water?
A. No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it does not and will not ever have any other form than that of a glass of water.
—-
I find myself drawn into Wittgensteinian territory and just saying: Martin has just established a language-game whereby oak tree is this perception in-front of him, which just happens to be a glass of water, and with this question and answer he is forcing us to play along in his game and accept the rules that this perception houses two different names at different times – according to his fancy. The names having different perceptual information at other times.
What if we had no idea what an oak tree (never heard of tree or oak) was, but we knew what a glass of water was, and Martin came along and said this to us? Wouldn’t our reaction be, “ah, just another way of calling a glass of water a glass of water, by calling it an oak tree.” In this then, we lose that feeling of beauty that you talked about. Now let’s wind forward a bit in our life to a point where we come across an oak tree, we ask, what is that? Someone replies to us: it’s an oak tree. What happens to us then? We get confused; all of a sudden we begin to assume that this thing infront of us that’s completely different to the glass of water, is supposed to be a glass of water. We come across conflicting perceptual information all because of the same use in words. We would never be able to get that sense of conflict that leaves room for beauty unless we fixed words in some way to perceptual information when encounter it. Martin however, I believe, shows us that this fixity is easily broken, and not only that, he shows that it is by all means contingent on the viewer – thus, breaking Kripke’s necessary a posteriority of words (names) with a most appealing and creative move. Martin tells us, forget what you know about this word, I will break what you know, by showing you that what you know about this word is not knowledge at all, but a belief that masquerades as knowledge because of the fixity of language. Hence we can say, as I believe Martin will accept, language itself is a creativity, a creative process – a game (Mr. Wittgenstein coming out again, he’s becoming somewhat annoying lol).
Yet, there is an issue here. What happens in that moment when perceptual information A with word A*, meets perceptual information B with word A*? What do we do? What does the mind do, apart from be somewhat pissed off about this case, this occurence; about this heterogeneity and ‘lack of fixity’? Why doesn’t the mind just say, “fuck it, an oak tree is both of these perceptual information”? This is where the biggest part of the mind comes out… it is utterly invested in homogeneity, in fixity. Words demand such a function, that given a certain situation, words must stay adhesive to the perceptual information. So that when the situation alters, the words can alter too – like Wittgenstein. However, do we go with Wittgenstein and say, words only stay adhesive to the perceptual information in the particular situation with its rules as opposed to becoming universal to that perceptual information in all situations, of necessity? For example, a bishop in a chesspiece is different perceptual information to a bishop in the museum, and a bishop in a fairytale. Yet, the annoying philosopher, whose motivation (raison d’etre) is homogeneity, comes along and says: granted, that they are all different, yet something stays the same in each and every one, there is an essence to bishop – a something that is shared by each perceptual information. A universality to bishop… this is Russell coming out with his set theory (and the paradoxes of course)… but also Plato. Is it true though? That is the question that will haunt us. Is there anything that makes words fixed to perceptual information, is there something in the word bishop that stays the same in each and every language-game, in each and every situation of its use? This is the appeal, the philosophical thorn so to speak, our addiction to philosophy. I don’t envisage any philosopher needing to do philosophy if he did not have this burning desire in him… this need for homogeneity of some sort.
I am exhausted at this point, I have not much more to say on the topic. I shall pass it on to you and see what you reckon.
isn’t his piece just a clever metaphor for what people do every day, and have been doing for ages? Just last week, the media said there was a boy trapped in a balloon… everyone went nuts. Oh wait, there was no boy in the balloon. Fluoride protects your teeth… why? Because we say so. Iraq has WMDs….smoking guns, mushroom clouds. Acid rain (an oldie but a goodie), global warming, drowning polar bears, innocent Kuwait babies pulled from incubators………
How many fingers am I holding up Winston?
You may be absolutely right. But your approach to the matter is from a socio-political perspective. We, as philosophers, wanted to see just what he was doing from a linguistic perspective. Indeed the two domains coalesce, after-all it does concern meaning, and what does Iraq’s WMDs mean? What about global warming? This latter form of meaning however is as you rightly brought out a meaning with a value of sorts, a meaning that brings with it an emotion or a belief of sorts, be it fear, excitement etc. A meaning with a direction, a subjective twist to the matter. Whereas what we were doing above is trying to look at the matter of meaning objectively, philosophically, maybe even metaphysically; maybe meaning can’t be seperated from value and everything is a socio-political endeavour. I haven’t made up my mind just yet.
You are right however, that it is what people do everyday and what they’ve been doing for ages. One philosopher, Wittgenstein, thinks exactly this, it is what language is and what people have been doing with words for ages. The meaning of words is precisely this.
All this of course in a philosophical perspective. I won’t go into your perspective because it seems to draw me into wanting to say that there’s a truth and a lie, and further that there is a liar (media, government, other people etc.), and that liar is an enemy, because the truth is my friend. I won’t delve into such territories so I prefer to philosophize instead. I would much rather, as a philosopher and person, prefer for there to be only lies and no truth whatsoever, than a truth covered up by lies and no way to it. With things like media, government and other people, there is no way to distinguish between a truth and a lie, especially at face value. One plays the game set out by them, or not.
I found this interview with Craig-Martin… I thought maybe it would be of interest (this is only an extract that deals specifically with ‘the oak tree’):
Craig-Martin:
I’ve, I’m a person who likes making things, I’ve always liked making things, and it’s interesting when I look back that it seemed to me that almost every time I tried to do something I was interfering with something which was already satisfactory before I did it, and in a way the Oak Tree is the, is the culmination of that period of work, where in essence I don’t do anything at all, and that’s, so somehow that is to me the point at which I’ve brought to fulfilment a certain kind of train of thought.
Interviewer:
Let’s, let’s stick with the, the, the Oak Tree of course, as it’s such an important piece, and I’ll just repeat it’s a normal glass with normal water in it on a glass bathroom shelf and it is always in exhibitions positioned fairly high and then there is this text about why this is an oak tree where you, you play games with yourself and every question that you throw at yourself you deflect immensely ingeniously. I’ve read that a number of times, I thought there must be an answer to this and I haven’t found them somehow. Now what’s the element of provocation or of humour in this?
Craig-Martin:
For artists of my generation, I mean I see myself as an artist of a generation of the sixties, late sixties, early seventies, that’s essentially where my thinking is, is based and my, the experience that’s the root of what I do. We were very interested in the question of what essentially is a work of art, how does one define it, what is, what is the baseline, do you need to do something or don’t you need to do something, what is it, and that was going back to the question about is it the paint that makes a painting a painting, or is it something else? So these were questions that interested us a great deal, so in the, the Oak Tree it’s really my, an exercise in trying to think about what is the absolute essence of a work of art. So I came to this idea that it had really to do with, with belief, both the belief on the part of the artist in the genuineness of the activity that they were engaged in, but also the belief, the suspension of disbelief which is called upon with a viewer, and everybody understands that in the theatre but of course people have to do that in an art gallery too, so what I tried to do with the Oak Tree was to play on the relationship between the artist, the object and the viewer, and all three of them are engaged then. In the text, the text is in, is in the form of an auto interview and the, there’s the half of me that’s the artist and there’s the other half that’s the audience, and there’s the part of me that believes it and there’s a part of me that’s sceptical, and so all of these things are played out in the one, and so the work has been surprisingly successful and long lasting, and I think it’s because people recognise in it something about what it is that happens in all works of art.
Interviewer:
You said at one stage that it would continue to be an Oak Tree until such time as you changed it. So then I thought well maybe you’ve decided to change it in the meantime but you haven’t told us?
Craig-Martin:
No I’ve never decided against it. I may, I might have let it, I might have done so if I thought it was, had lost its capacity to engage people, but it doesn’t seem to have done that.
Interviewer:
Would it be less interesting now if given what you said about the Oak Tree only being an oak tree because you say it is, and we have to believe in it, that if you change it back and said I’ve now decided to change it either into a glass or into another object, would you think that would make it less interesting as a work of art?
Craig-Martine:
I, I don’t think so because I think the essence of the, the, of the Oak Tree is the fact that the proof that it is what it claims to be is exactly the same as the proof that it isn’t. It, it remains that it looks exactly like a glass of water no matter what anybody, what I say or what anybody says, and nobody can prove that I haven’t done it just as I can’t actually prove that I have done it, so therefore even if I was to disclaim it I might actually be wrong mightn’t I?
Interviewer:
Anyway you can assure me that you haven’t changed it without telling us?
Craig-Martin:
I haven’t changed it, no, no.
Fascinating. He stutters and loses his trail of thought quite a bit it would seem. Sounds about right for an artist. What do you make of this, Sam? I love this little piece of art, this little thing that he did with the objects and a few words on top of it like the cherry on the cake that fall like stones on the table of conversation and won’t move, it’s so bloody rich and interesting!