Counter & Clockwise Spiral Munro, Beuys, Earth-art, Social Sculpture, and Inherent Energetics By J. Angus Munro My work is a combination of an engaged social practice, an earth art foundation, and creative/energetic practice. In this article, I will connect the foundation of the Earth Art movement and the principles of Social Sculpture to my current practice. In my exploration, I hope to find the thread of continuity that runs through my work from the earliest works, largely political objects, to the newest, very temporal, earthworks. There is an energetic thread that runs through every phase of my work; what is it? How has it developed and connect to my modern interdisciplinary practice? There are many reasons that I wish to establish this as a foundation. First, to clearly delineate my theories with those of other artists working in the realm of Earth Art, and to draw the connection between my engaged practice with those of the Social Sculpting realm. Secondly, to clearly understand what the “meeting intention” is and how this engages those who are participants. And finally, as a way of delineating the art of my practice so others might get a handle on why the distinction between social activism, social work and social sculpting exists, and how they are permeated by the newest edge of todays engaged practice. Engagement: Serra, Beuys, and Ahearn There is a constant chafing in the professional world as the dichotomy between the fields of social work, activism, and social sculpting has unfolded. Perhaps tri-chotomy is more apt. The real distinction in my theory is that, in social work, there is the word and action of doing: “work”. This, very generalized is, by itself, without the intention of challenging the paradigms of the social field, is social work. Social activism represents the challenge to the system and society. There is a great deal of art found in this aspect but it is for “purpose” only and that generally has a specific target. Social activism, in its many flavors, attracts artists, as a “cause” is sometimes the most challenging thing for any artist to find in their practice. And finally, social sculpting uses the engagement of the psychological, social, and political energy of the audience/participants to create something transformative that can be owned by the community. Social sculpting/engaged practice has the intention of change, and even the activism of purpose, but it takes the stakes higher and uses the choice of the artist/audience to engineer the outcome. In this area, an artist uses the palette of social engagement and interdependence to direct the expression of the outcome and its purpose. In fact, a lot of social sculpting and engagement practice simply sets the parameter of discussion or interaction and allow the participants and audience to evolve seemingly naturally. The art in this is the ideophoric energies focused and released by the artist, and the work is in the long-term outcome. A true “work” of art is generated from the intentional interaction between the elements that are brought together by the artist and how those elements cohere to form something new. Figure 1 Richard Serra standing in front of Tilted Arch There is frustration within a community, when an artist has limited connection with the community and imposes too much inconsequence to their participation. An example of this is the sculpture of Richard Serra, entitled “Tilted Arch,” set in an environment that is used by one group with imposed values outside that group. The Tilted Arch was a simple impedimental form that imposed upon the state and municipal workers difficulty and depression. Richard Serra felt this work was simply a curved division to common pathways, while to the pedestrian, movement being impeded in a busy civil center was an inconvenience. They did not want to have impediment imposed and did not see the art as the need to change common paths. A battle formed and the removal and destruction of Serra’s work ensued. The degree that the conflict was based on a lack of social engagement is the foundation of Serra’s and the site’s conflict and its eventual disassociation. Serra went into the project with the aim to engage the site and challenge the prosaic transition space with the heady need to transport around his object. His belief was that this inconvenience was the core of the statement, and, when removed, it totally deconstructed his work. Those opposed to the work found it oppressive and inconvenient, and the art was lost on them. The conflict extended itself into many aspects of the surrounding politics of art and community. In my own work at the time, I was creating objects for collections and only heard about the conflict peripherally, though I went to see this work being fought over, I was unaware of the conflict over space, practice, and convenience, and its ensuing hysteria. Social sculpture is a field of transformation It is a place of questions. 

Social sculpture is a territory where inner and outer work coincide. 
It emphasizes the role of imagination in transformative social process and the centrality of alternative modes of thought.  Social sculpture is concerned with exploring strategies, methods and principles that enable us to see, understand and act imaginatively to shape a humane and ecologically viable world. It is about:  perceiving interrelationships,
joined up thinking, and practice,
enabling  connective understanding. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3 Part of Beuys 7000 oaks, NYC. NY. Figure 2 Beuys explanation of social sculpture Another comparable example of engagement is the artwork of Joseph Beuys. http://www.social-sculpture.org/the-territory.htm When installing the successful social environmental sculpture “7000 Oaks”, he has planted trees in an urban site in a un-impedimental manner. His work was outside the local demographics but successfully engaged the connection with nature. Beuys's project 7000 Oaks was begun in 1982 at Documenta 7, the large international art exhibition in Kassel, Germany. His plan called for the planting of 7,000 trees, each paired with a columnar basalt stone approximately four feet high above ground, throughout the greater city of Kassel. With major support from Dia Art Foundation, the project was carried forward under the auspices of the Free International University (FIU) and took five years to complete, the last tree having been planted at the opening of Documenta 8 in 1987. Beuys intended the Kassel project to be the first stage in an ongoing scheme of tree planting to be extended throughout the world as part of a global mission to effect environmental and social change; locally, the action was a gesture towards urban renewal. In the above work, he instigated critical dialog with urban communities regarding the lack of the substantial human need of an earth-based consciousness, and trees. He planted trees to stimulate the community to invest itself in action to integrate nature into the urban site. His action changed the consciousness about natural spaces. In this project he had developed the understanding of a need and took action to generate a response. This allowed a need to be met and to continue to be engaged from that point forward. In some way, this is the complete reconstruction of the community as an art form. The trees acted as stimulus; the community response as the created work of art. Bueys established himself, from the earliest objects to his final work, as an artist working with deep concerns for the world around him. He theorized as much as he acted upon the rise of community and democracy. His art became the foundation for social sculpture (a term he himself coined), his community engagement profoundly affecting the way postmodernist art is viewed and how the gallery/museum/object is considered by todays Postmodern artists engaging in community activism. n his values, action in collusion with the community was the route for social and political change. He began working with the fluxus movement in the early sixties, which viewed the response as having as much weight as the object. His later works of focused public discussion (The Honey Pump), and his use of mixing objects in with dialogical process, allowed his gestures to take on metaphorical power. He was instrumental in building the concept of engagement. He removed this from the merely optical to the conceptual, allowing him to engage thought and not just a brushstroke. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 4 Joseph Beuys in Achberg, 1978 Joseph Beuys: “My objects are to be seen as stimulants for the transformation of the idea of sculpture. . . or of art in general. They should provoke thoughts about what sculpture can be and how the concept of sculpting can be extended to the invisible materials THINKING FORMS--how we mold our thoughts or
SPOKEN FORMS--how we shape our thoughts into words or
SOCIAL SCULPTURE--how we mold and shape the world in which we live: 
SCULPTURE AS AN EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS; EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST. used by everyone”. From wikipedia a web based encyclopedia -quoted from Beuy’s himself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beuys-Feldman-Gallery.jpg In Miwon Kwon’s book “One Place After Another,” she reviews the work of Bronx artist John Ahearn, whose work, situated just a few blocks away from his community, created serious conflict ending in its removal. “Yet the attacks against Ahearn and the sculptures that finally led to their removal were exactly on the grounds that neither belonged to the “Community,” that the sculptures were inappropriate for the site”. Kwon, Miwon.
One place after another : site-specific art and locational identity. Pg 89 He, being part of his community, was not part of the site’s community. The curious thing about the work and the selection of the artist was that he was selected because he was dynamically connected to “his” community, but the selection committee did not incorporate the insular effect of “The Bronx’s” cellular nature. He actually created works directly from “his” community but not from the community surrounding the front of the police building, where they were located, a mere three blocks away. His goal was to humanize the representational community members: “In Ahearn’s view, of course, the three sculptures—of Daleesha, a young black teenage girl on roller skates; Corey, a large shirtless black man leaning over a boom box, holding a basketball; and Raymond, a slender Puerto Rican man in a hooded sweatshirt, squatting next to his pit bull—represented a certain truth about the neighborhood. Perhaps not a truth that everyone would want to embrace, but an indigenous truth nonetheless. He found Daleesha, Corey, and Raymond (whom he knew personally, the last two as friends even) appropriate subjects to commemorate as survivors of the mean streets. He wanted to capture their humanity and make its beauty visible to the policemen at the 44th Precinct as well as to the neighbors, in the hope of ameliorating the sense of distrust and hostility between them. As Kramer notes, Ahearn “wanted the police to acknowledge them, and he wanted the neighbors, seeing them cast in bronze and up on pedestals, to stop and think about who they were. . . . John wanted them to stand in something of the same relation to the precinct policemen that they do to him and the neighbors. Kwon, Miwon.
One place after another : site-specific art and locational identity. Pgs 91-92p. “They may be trouble, but they are human, and they are there.” Kwon, Miwon.
One place after another : site-specific art and locational identity. Her footnote #79 Ahearn’s work clearly established the disconnection of the artwork and the community. Within just a few days of its being set up and opened for the public, he removed the sculpture. His realization, that the work was out of sync with the site, allowed him to feel its removal was important and he acted quickly. The real conflict here was not the removal or the statues themselves. The conflict was the intention, and in this he failed to understand that the immediate community surrounding the police station did not want to have this humanity pressed upon them; they wanted “nice nice” work, the illusion of a harmonious community. What began as a dialogue between the local authority and the community devolved to the clash of intention. These artists engaged their community with works that remained separate from the public, but injected elements into a community with intention of engagement while attempting to connect with the site’s community. Some did so negatively like Serra, who attempted to interrupt the flow; some positively like Bueys, with developing a connection to nature; and some directly involving the participants, like Ahern, whose mistake was ignorance of actual site dynamics. This connection in truth is where an engaged practice starts. It is in establishing the connection with the site community and allowing the ownership to transfer to the participants that true engagement occurs. It is metaphorically adding oil to an engine that keeps it from seizing up that establishes social sculpture. Provide a space, add compost and freedom and watch what grows. Then make small adjustments, set the direction with intention, and direct where it grows. This is art. In my practice working with meeting dynamics and environmental issues, as well as developing community connections, I have been acting in a guerilla manner to create energetic fluidity both within these meetings, and without, in the natural world. While In meetings, I am establishing the dynamics of communication, creating clear discourse, and establishing, then separating, from the core process and watching to see where it leads. In a child’s playground or on a public beach, I install an earth form that has similar character in that it is a visible form, but has underlying energetic properties that allow this inherent energy to flow more easily. In both cases there is structure and underlying fluidity. In both cases there is imposed structure with a temporal form that leads to something residual. In meetings, efficiency and inclusion, creating effectiveness, while in the natural world, spiritual and intentional form that leaves an energetic footprint. The aim of both of these is to create a greater sense of health, acceptance, and well being, internally; and safety sustainability and sound ecology, externally. The work is in energetic flowing form; the art is the residual systems of fluidity. The energetic properties have flowed throughout my work from my earliest political glass sculpture to my recent earthwork spirals. I have intuitive connections to the energy around me, and control this with visualization and intention. In meetings, this takes the form of process; in earthwork and water it takes the shape of spirals and flow forms. When I was working with carving and sculpting glass in my youth, I would carry a lump of “the molten medium” (the work cooled from casting, not actually molten) around for a few days before ever starting to carve and grind it into its finished form. Similarly as I became more adept at casting and polishing I would perfect an idea while allowing this to have room for intuitive transition. I often would not know what a form would look like until it came out of an annealer and I had time to sit with it. As I have progressed, and largely in the past ten years, I have come to realize that I could control energetic flow with my intention. I did not have to merely be swept along or go with the flow. I could choose with intention where I wanted to end up. In this realization I have become empowered to change the systems of flow around me and like Schauberger’s Salmon Alexandersson, O. (1990). Living water: Viktor schauberger and the secrets of natural energy . Wellow: Gateway., I could allow the flow to pass me without being swept away. I could, in fact, empower my choices more profoundly. Figure 5 Robert Smithson, Wandering Canal with Mounds, 1971, pencil, 19 x 24" Robert Smithson died in 1973 at the top of his life and the top of his game. He explored the earth and interacted with it, like a gallery, and was the force behind the gallery-less artist movement, yet his work went viral for its time. He wrote and theorized about the confined space and its neutralizing effect on art. “Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits.” -Robert Smithson Brainy Quote.com http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertsmit259005.html He also wrote: “The function of the warden-curator is to separate art from the rest of society. Next comes integration. Once the work of art is totally neutralized, ineffective, abstracted, safe and politically lobotomized it is ready to be consumed by society.” Holt, Nancy, “The Writings of Robert Smithson.” Pg. 132 Smithson was well known for what he called his “Non-Site Sights,” his use of objects to declare that the art is only as important as the intention. He wishes to incorporate the artist in the whole of the effort or work. In his way, he was critiquing the same issues that the Fluxus movement was founded upon, yet he is not considered within the same school of thought, though a early member of its group. In an interview with Anthony Robbin he said: Smithson: “People who defend the labels of painting and sculpture say what they do is timeless, created outside of time; therefore the object transcends the artist himself. But I think that the artist is important too, and what he does, the way he thinks, is valuable, whether or not there is any tangible result.” Holt, Nancy “The Writings of Robert Smithson.” pg. 157 It is with this attitude in mind that I bring him into the discussion on an engaged practice. Smithson engaged his audience through strong investigation within the site he was commissioned to work with. One of his final projects before his death was the Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas. He began consulting work on this in 1966 and could not reach accord due largely to his engagement with the site and community. He was not well known for his audience participation. Rather he was somewhat acerbic when approached, but he investigated a theory and applied it to a site with a rigor we all should envy. His engagement was locational and set the stage for investigation into the development of community engagement. His trespass in the environmental area as an artist, being more of a point of ecological unawareness than disengagement, led many to formulate some degrees of inclusion. But many of the early earth artists would be viewed today as thrashers. Look at Michael Heiser and his land crushing and transporting as an example: Figure 6 Michael Heiser double negative Double Negative was among the first "earthworks," artworks created as part of a movement known as "land art" or "earth art." Earthworks are contemporary artworks that use as their canvas or medium the earth itself. In keeping with the mission of modern art, Double Negative blurs the distinction between sculpture ("art") and normal objects such as rocks ("not art"), and encourages viewers to consider how the earth relates to art. The sheer size of Double Negative also invites contemplation of the scale of art, and the relation of the viewer the earth and to art itself. How does art change when it can't fit in a museum? How does one observe an artwork that's a quarter-mile long? double negative | a website about Michael Heizer | tarasen.net Earthwork was not as socially engaged in its early years as it is now. The modern engaged practice included artists like lucy lippard, who worked from the early times of the current earthwork movement to now as an artist, engaged artist, and critic, and Maya Lin, whose architectural works include installation pieces and feminist pieces like the “Womans Table” at Yale University (where she got her architecture degree in 1986). Womans table, http://www.yale.edu/womenatyale/WomensTable.html The “Earthart Movement” has been influencing works from that early period to present day works of greater engagement. Suzanne Lacy’s work, in my opinion, is the ultimate in social engagement with purpose; it is attempting to bring social transition through the development of connections, with her work as the connection between mindsets and groups of individuals. However, Suzanne’s work has little to do with the earth art movement; rather her work is a social sculpting practice, focusing on the development of connections. Figure 7 Reservoir sand spit clockwise and counterclockwise spiral In my own life and practice, I am focused upon these connections and what specifically is the connective tissue, or in my view, energy. In my energetic practice, I am reflecting upon those who have established these connections with other means, and looking underneath to what elemental, spiritual, and psychic forces are at work. In my meeting work, I set up systems of communication, but also shamanicly engage the energy of the individuals involved to attempt to create the necessary harmony to achieve the set goals of the group. Sometimes the vision has to be clearly reestablished; sometimes, energetic imbalance needs addressing and this becomes quite clear. Sometimes there are personalities that just clash and that is much harder to work with. This is where systems of communication and developing a stable form of incorporation begin to work. In my environmental practice and my shamanic practice, I can establish intention and focus the vector of this energy into the healing energies I hope to tap while creating a fascinating physical form. In other areas, I have to be much more subtle. I am allowing my efforts and “work” to manifest and disappear. In my spirals, I act as a guerilla artist/shaman, creating long-lasting energetic forms coupled with very transitive earth forms. When Bueys created The Honey Pump http://www.steidlville.com/books/254-Honey-is-flowing-in-all-directions.html he invested an inanimate object with energy but he did not call it what it was. Rather he opened the floodgates of dialogue with a chosen collaborative audience/participants. His work was very much aligned with what happens at a meeting, but he allows the range of conversation free rein. He intentionally invested this “honey pump,” (the actual physical object) with certain energetic and metaphorical direction and set it free. He then authorized the group to engage their own dialog and discussion. In this arena his work and mine align, yet he takes the initiative and fully invests it in the participants while I extend the intention of the group to focus on the choices, to efficiently guide the group to a chosen outcome. Smithson did not engage the surrounding community when he set his spiral in motion. Perhaps the workers were engaged in the plan and enjoyed the employment but he created a symbol without social or spiritual connection to the community or the earth. When he wandered the Swamp http://www.robertsmithson.com/films/txt/swamp.ht with his wife (Nancy Holt) filming his wanderings, he explored his environment and mapped it, yet his engagement with the surrounding energy was limited. I should be careful here, as with his intellect and universal perspective he probably engaged every aspect of his site, but was writing in an era where spiritual connection was largely ignored by the society he ascribed to. He seemingly exposed the flow of the growth without engaging the why behind its growth. It was a visual experience with political overtones. It was a map of a moment. This documentary short film was about the difficulty of filming in a swamp, not the engagement of community or energy. I enjoy the video mapping I have done and mixed that in with the photographic work that comes from it and yet it is a study of the energetics of the river and where the flow has been impeded by the installation of man’s footprint. In my practice, I look at the dams and bridges from the understanding that there is something that remains unseen by most. I explore this hidden resource as an intuitive listener: I engage it through my intention and value its disturbance from the perspective of its continuity, growth and healing. This is where my engagement differs from many who have an earth-art, social-sculpting, and visual art practice. The flow of most modern art is rooted in politics not spiritual enlightenment or healing arts. This is where the ancient shaman set his foundation of performative work, and why modern religion co-opted the arts and artists for centuries. The energetics of the flows of life creates the foundation for all my work. Figure 8 The Waits River Mouth looking back at the golf course In exploring the historic movements of the various artists who’ve had an effect upon my work, I cannot help but try to contextualize what I am doing in comparison to what has gone before. In my work I am exploring the motion of an esoteric energy that is situated in intuition and imagination. This is a source unaccepted by most of the rational world and set in the foundation of spiritual practices aligned with shamanism, Native American and Wiccan spiritual practices, and paganism/Gaiaism. With this in mind I have to look at what these artists above have formulated as the connections they tap into, and what they use to generate their work. Figure 8. From the breakfast series In the early earth-art from the sixties and seventies (dismissing for now the movers and shakers of the druid world 3400 years ago) the work was filled with an awareness of the grand scale and visual practice. The spiral jetty may have been about many things, but the greatest impression initially is its scale and its coloring and visual impact. Smithson was tapping into the art of his creation on a visual monumental basis. As the work progressed through grander and grander schemes, it retained the shadow of its social function as an object within the palette of the planet, with its removal from the gallery and museum into the world at large mostly symbolic as the festivities surrounding its “reception” still carried the elitism of the artist in the gallery. In the latest iterations of this movement, there began a shift from the merely visual art to the ecological arts, with some of the newest artists within this realm working with the program I am active in at present (Ruth Wallen MFAIA Goddard College). These artists are still focusing on the object as the work but with the caveat of social engagement and community education/development. Where my work deviates from this norm is the energetic properties. My work, while creating series of formulaic works of a very temporal nature (the breakfast series, and the spiral series), also works with changing and challenging energetic form that run deep into the permanent flows of engagement. I don’t work with cultivating my “situation” (Suzanne Lacy), nor do I impose my will upon my audience (Serra), but rather I seek to influence the structure of the elemental form surrounding each of us. In meetings, I do this by introducing process that breed understanding and inclusion. In earthwork, I do this by shamanicly inducing energetic whorls within areas that I deem this a need (particularly where children play, as they have not yet lost their ability to perceive this energetic flow.) In my practices with water, I have moved rocks and created forms that energize the water and allow the exposure of manmade impediments to community scrutiny. In all of this, I have worked to trim, adjust, and flow more fluidly, to achieve the goals of healing and exposure, inclusion and efficiency. My work, in short, combines many aspects of new and ancient disciplines to create a harmony and healing within the site/community I have engaged. An element of differentiation from the current milieu of activist artists and earth artists today, is the energetic properties I work with, and the idea that elements themselves have energetic properties. These kinesiology’s are themselves a powerful palette that is not easily recognized. In meetings and in earth forms, they can be seen to have a reaction and a purpose. They exist in intuitive and spiritual realms, but are invisible to the eye. Does one see electricity? Or air? Yet we know they exist. Yet the Kirlian effect, though photographed, is still dismissed. In my work, the deeper elements are unseen, yet affects changes that the surface work only highlights. In historical perspective, the work I am doing today is an extension from the work of Smithson’s spirals, from Ahearn and Serra’s misunderstandings and from Suzanne Lacy’s orchestrations, all mixed in with Beuys’s work with dialogue. My creation is hidden, transformative (to me as well as a site or a group), and yet apparent to those who can witness the effect. Children in a playground spiral with the work and people at a meeting sense accomplishment and efficiency. And the energetic properties of water are engaged and more powerful within the rivers and streams I address.