1997-2003
sheet size
75x56cm
Ink, white-out, printed forms, notes,
color photocopies, mounted on paper
1995–2001 I worked part time in the infrared astronomy department at the California Institute of
Technology, for Gerry Neugebauer, Tom Soifer and Keith Matthews. They were generally accepted
to be at the forefront of infrared astronomy. Gerry was one of the two inventors of infrared
astronomy. I also worked with Susan McCurdy, the secretary for the part of the astronomy
department I worked in, and our colleague Rena.
Like most jobs, there was a lot of downtime, and I used it to make drawings. All the materials were
things found around the office: pens from the pen room, Post-it notes, correction fluid, laboratory
notebooks, which are gridded and numbered, petty cash vouchers, interlibrary loan request forms,
routing request slips, a telex describing the observation of a distant galaxy, and notes from Susan
saying when she or Rena would be back from lunch, coming in late, or going to the doctor. All the
signed notes are signed by Susan, even though the signature looks like it might say Dustin. It
became a kind of doubling, where her signature substitutes for my own.
Most of the drawings were made with coloured pens and rulers, so there are a lot of lines, almost a
hatching pattern. It wasn’t crosshatching in the sense of making shadows or forms. They’re more a
geometric, repetitive, systematic kind of drawing. I am interested in systems that make art, a kind of
systemic production, and the repetition of the lines was part of that. I recognised that time was being
spent in the office, and that time was being marked by each of these parallel lines in different
colours. So the work is geometric, but it is also about using the spare time you have when you also
have a job, and using the materials of that job, in this case office materials. Some of the drawings
are representations of Winslow Homer paintings, of mountains I had visited in Colorado, Wyoming
and California, and of snow.
I also made colour photocopies of the drawings while I was at Caltech. In 2002 and 2003 I took the
drawings and the photocopies and mounted them as collages on full sheets of Saunders Waterford
paper.
I was interested in the idea of making space where there is none, or making things happen in a place
where it seems like something else is happening. It also has to do with systems: systemic production
in the making of the work, as in the repetitive lines, and in finding and using materials from within
other productive spaces, as with the office materials here.
