Jacob Sussman

New Commandments - Prologue

This thesis is structured as a story. As with any good story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what lies on the other side? What happens in between scenes? If one deviates from the prescribed story, what will one become? There is a lot left unsaid in stories, the subtext can be vague and the meaning can be reinterpreted. 

I explore these questions through three Acts: Cultural Formation and Obligation, Breakdown: Rebellion and Lamentation, and Aftermath: Reconciliation and Reconstruction. These Acts weave a path forward allowing me to experience, understand, and interpret my lineage. From the beginning to the end, and back again, we can walk through our stories together to edit, reconnect, and reconstruct them.

As an artist and researcher, I juxtapose cultural, religious, and scientific motifs to probe the transitory “middle space” of metamorphosis and create something divergent from the originals. My forms take on an entropic cadence that is like a dam about to break. In its language, pressure builds up in anticipation of the release.

Act I - Cultural Formation and Obligation

-I Am a Rock-

You are chosen to be something 

before you are born. 

The choice does not lie with you. 

You are formed from mud and earth 

and expected to be a rock. 

I am not satisfied with being a rock. 

I am hard

rough

and cannot breathe.

I want to be smooth

and soft

I want to be able to feel warmth on my skin. 

I want to be able to taste water as it touches my lips.

 I want to be something more.

Something that can move freely. 

I do not want to be a rock anymore. 

I want to be something more.

 Maybe I would have chosen to be a rock.

 But you took that choice away from me.

Looking back on my formation, and through its obligation, is the first Act that we will walk through as a way to get to the root of what has happened. By producing 3D prints of historical, symbolic objects that were scanned from the originals, one can revisit the past, connect references, and build language through associations and meanings. Where is our default programming? What are the quirks, meanings, and divisions that were instilled in our formations? I need to know how the program runs. Then, maybe, I can let go and truly have autonomy.

Act 3 Aftermath: Reconciliation and Reconstruction

What happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force? The space where things meet. Does it explode into nothingness or create new fantasy? In this final Act, we examine the meeting place where new meanings are formed by symbols twisting and merging into a new language. I take the symbolic 3d prints that have been abstracted into divergent versions of themselves and assemble them with handbuilt clay. New power structures are built in this union and diverge from the original. The forms grow and become symbolic objects in themselves that represent transformation.
My formation is part of me; Judaism, Christianity, history, culture, symbols, icons, associations, trauma, my incomplete body, my queerness, my divergency, my persecution, my masculinity, my femininity, my non-binary, my kinks, my strengths, my weaknesses, the stress, the struggle, the beauty, the love, the awe, my life. But, I can reinterpret and find my meanings. It is my culture. It is my right. I can take back my autonomy and build my bridge.