Arboretum, David Byrne

Why Indeed?  What Indeed?  Byrne’s Arboretum

As sensible beings we are constantly doing nonsensical things and making non-sensible connections.  Great strides in science have been made this way. Poetry relies on it. Peace makers and warmongers alike argue with irrational potency. I depend on it to find my keys every morning.

With Arboretum, David Byrne has penned a collection of diagrammed mind maps which tie seemingly random ideas together with other seemingly random outcomes.  Not much of it makes sense.

Byrne clearly recognizes this, so he argues in the introduction that reason is essentially a form of justification for our human urges. And thus, if it can be succesfully argued that our brain is a rationalizing agent that chooses whatever language is at hand to prove the rightness of those immutable feelings or animal impulses, then all is nonsense.  Scientific method is as rational as poetics. Nonsense can move to sense. Nonsense has as much value as a language as science or religion of Urdu or Catalan or French has as a language. 

Byrne, then gives us nonsense, (the drawings), and an arguement that this nonsense (or as he calls it “irrational logic”) has value.  Thus we get this:

What follows is David Byrne’s take on the drawings:

Drawing/diagrams (mostly) in the form of trees, which both elucidate and obsfucate the roots of contemporary phenomena and terminology. Sort of like borrowing the  evolutionary tree format and applying it to other, often incompatible, things. In doing so a kind of humorous disjointed scientism of the mind heaves into view.

McSweeney’s as Arboretum in 2006: Straight from the sketchbook, smudges and all, plus a four-foot foldout guide. It’s an eclectic blend of faux science, automatic writing, satire, and an attempt to find connections where none were thought to exist—a sort of self-therapy, allowing the hand to say what the voice cannot. Irrational logic, it’s sometimes called. The application of logical scientific rigor and form to basically irrational premises. To proceed, carefully and deliberately, from nonsense, with a straight face, often arriving at a new kind of sense. The world keeps opening up, unfolding, and just when we expect it to be closed—to be a sealed, sensible box—it shows us something completely surprising. 

Um … does it?  Does it show us something completley surprising?  What does this nonses show us. 

In the drawing above pets somehow lead to politicians; shrubs and bushes lead to gods and goddesses. Arboretum’s mind maps are obtuse enough that we can’t count on any easy connections; consequently we are forced into that part of our brain that makes connections for us automatically. 

Arboretum, What Connects How?

How do movie stars and bacteria possibly relate?  Well … they are both invasive, most often in a not wanted way. How does space and time relate to chat-rooms and water.  A reader could make up any connection what-so-ever and it would be as valid as any other connection. Any interpretation this writer gives you tells you more about what he has read into what was written, than what has been written.

David Byrne’s mind-maps are showing us squat… its our own history and our prejudices we see when we look at them. And even then, it would be far to generous to credit Arboretum with the honor of being a catalyst. 

Arboretum, What Value?

David Byrne is an artist with a great deal to offer the world.  David Byrne has offered the world a great deal. Arboretum offers those paid to think, something to think about. Arboretum offers those hip enough to know about it something to talk about. Arboretum offers those with a gift to give something to give.  Other than that … ummm ummm …. geeez …

Are we done fawning yet? 

Reviewed / TP

External Links

DavidByrne.com

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