Soundings

sounding noun   
1 a: measurement of depth especially with sounding line b. the depth so ascertained
2 : measurement of atmospheric conditions at various heights
3 : a probe, test, or sampling of opinion or intention

I was fifteen. I was called home from my summer job as a camp counselor because my father was ill. When I entered the house, he was sitting at the kitchen table. He was not happy to see me. I don’t believe he recognized me at all. He had a brain tumor. The person who was the rock of my life was already gone, though his body remained. In three months, his body would follow his mind. That loss shaped me, and it’s echo has resounded in my heart for forty years. This exhibition explores and measures the echoes and depth of familial bonds in myself and, perhaps, in all of us.

‘Soundings’ is a collaborative, multimedia project that explores the construction of shared identity within four generations of my own family, through the lens of my father’s legacy. Gifford Morrison Mast (1914-1972) was an early pioneer of American industrial design, an inventor, a physicist, and an optics expert with a particular interest in stereo optics. By launching this experimental show in the living laboratory of a creative family, I am investigating the subtle forces that shape who we become by the stories that we tell and the memories that we keep. The show contains contributions from all four generations including my father and mother. Each third and fourth generation collaborator in this show has considered, through various means, who their grandfather and great grandfather was, never having met him. In my case, the Dialogues Series uses my father’s US patent images generate a visual dialogue I am now able to have with him as an adult, through my own creative work. I use the drawings of his inventions and his own handwriting as a probe of the imaginal (as opposed to imaginary) realm that still connects us.

By uniting art and technology in an interdisciplinary collaboration with members of my biological family, I am attempting to ‘measure the immeasurable,’ which was a passion for my father. In a paper he wrote at the University of Chicago (circa 1932) titled The Meaning of Beauty, he stated: “With the tools furnished by these scientific emotion measurers [electrocardiographs, lie detectors, brain wave recorders, etc.], it would seem likely that we might be able experimentally to outline the physiological aspects of aesthetic response.” A central feature of this show is the use of a biofeedback instrument, in the form of an iPhone app, that measures heart rate variability (HRV), or ‘heart coherence.’ This term was originally coined by Dan Winter, our science advisor on this project. As Ary Goldberger of Harvard University states: “The heartbeat is one of the most complex signals in nature.” What Goldberger and his colleagues have discovered is that the concept of homeostasis—the idea that organisms strive to maintain an ideal steady state—is untrue. Instead, his research indicates that organisms strive to maintain an adaptive variability rather than get locked into one mode of behavior. Viewers may experience a projection of their own HRV in an interactive, collaborative work entitled Mapping Love, allowing the visual sounding of the viewer’s own heart coherence to bring to light his/her own familial stories and memories.

By investigating the influence of my father on three generations, the invisible is made visible, and the connective threads that weave their way through all families are illuminated. Much of what would have remained hidden in one family’s collective unconscious has been brought into view to consider as the origin of each of our own creative lives. What was once a loss becomes a gain, and a wound becomes a gift.

This project would not have been possible without my collaborators. Roderic Mast, my brother, was instrumental in bringing this project to completion and I am truly grateful for his participation in every aspect. Without his two sons, Morrison and Terrill, this exhibition could not exist as you see it. Morrison’s technological savvy and organizational support were indispensable, and Terrill’s non-stop creativity fueled this project from the start. Eric, Jr. and Emily are children of my brother Eric. Eric, Jr.’s weeklong collaboration with me at the Ucross Foundation birthed the project ideas, and he produced the video ‘Progeny,’ which explores how stereo optics allows one to see everyday objects as completely new. Emily’s risograph poster piece is comprised almost entirely of her grandfather’s own words as found in personal letters and documents, as well as from interviews with her father and grandmother. Kassandra, granddaughter of my brother Gifford, Jr., enthusiastically collaborated with her great grandfather through combining her own chemical engineering notes with his US patent images. My brothers Gifford, Jr. and Eric generously lent four of my father’s inventions —the Mast Teaching Machine, the SVE projector, the Tru-Vue stereoscope and the dot counter —from their collections.

This project was funded in part by a grant from Montana State University. Thanks to Sharon Dynak, Ucross Foundation director for her introductory catalog statement and to the Ucross Foundation for their contribution. Thanks to curator, critic and consultant Barbara O’Brien for her catalog essay and to Montana arts writer Michele Corriel for her catalog essay.