SFist: Exploratorium Artist Walter Kitundu Named MacArthur Fellow

MelissaAlexander

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:15:33 -0800

Thanks so much for noting Walter Kitundu here.and also for calling up our old links to Walter's work photographing birds, the experiences he had in Alta Vista Park, and to they way he dealt with it. Those entries about Arthur were some of the first bits of local press I read about him and as I said then in my comments to you, I hoped he would get a MacArthur someday. Many wonderful scientist received the award this year too. And I wanted to say that Arthur is much more than an instrument builder. Everything you experience that he makes changes your perception of what you are encountering, be it the lives of urban birds, the sounds that can come from hybrid instruments, the way he has dealt with stereotypes, how he approaches his craftsmanship and artisanship or the way you think about hip hop as an emerging, influential art form. In his hands all of these things are at a scale where there is a place for you to be invited into them and a respect for what your bring in terms of your own intuitions and experiences. You are left with something to make from the experience of Arthur's work for your own self, in a very unusual way that I find hard to articulate. Walter is a great "noticer" of the world and one part of his "genius" comes from creating things that are affirming of the perceiver's own experience. I dont know if that makes sense but an example might be found in some of those bird photographs. Walter has photographed herons hunting and catching gophers. In some of these you see the creature writhing in the long beak of the heron just after it has dipped its meal in a puddle--rather like you would dip a sandwich in broth ---to make the meat go down. Indeed, I learned this is what these birds do when they eat gophers from Arthur, who spent many hours observing the behavior of herons along the Marina green. Walter observed the birds learning to do this. The first time they catch a gopher they try and gobble it down and its a dry, gagging meal for them. The herons learn to catch , clamp on to their prey and then they search for a puddle, be it from a rainstorm or sprinkler --to make their French dip style meal. It's easy to imaging birds being evolved dinosaurs and very intelligent after looking at what he captures. Arthur taught me a bit about how birds learn. I also get a sense from these very contemporary images something of our our myths of man eating monsters come from. We were once furry prey after all and I can see myself viscerally in the plight of those urban gofers. All in all he provides such interesting insights into the world around me. Thanks Arthur and thanks SFist.

travin

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:51:34 -0800

aj, I'm right there with ya. For every single artist funded to do art for no particular purpose, there are dozens of scientists funded to perform experiments for no particular purpose. Both are in a singular business: discovery. The latest supercollider is but one example. And as it's often said, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Except in this case we're talking about our very state of being, our culture, art that inspires the mind and feeds the soul. And that is something that statistical analysis, clinical trials and rates of cellular mytosis cannot provide. Without art and culture those efforts have no meaning, no purpose, because life would be not worth living.

aj

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:34:05 -0800

I'd do the exact opposite. The guy making sound art is doing something unique and beautiful, and unlike the AIDS researcher, is not getting any big pharma or federal grants.

Joel

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:23:18 -0800

Good for him, I suppose. I always find it a little odd and slightly jarring every year when I see the list of winners and there's people doing important work in the fields of science and medecine and agriculture right getting the same amount as someone who's a music critic or a theatrical lighting designer. I'm not saying their work isn't valid or important either, as it were, or that people in those fields are incapbale of wasting their grants, too, but if I had the money to throw around I'd probably throw more to the AIDS reasearcher than the guy making sound-art contraptions.