Joe Page Work Description and Interpretation

Joe Page's Flow Chart: Torrent is a site-specific installation in the Method gallery space. Page uses colored tape, ceramic, insulation, and movable 'clouds' to create a landscape reminiscent of old video games. He uses scale to create smaller groupings within the overall piece. Ceramic orbs clustered on the wall emulate clouds. Page created each one individually, adding a fake seam to imitate mass-produced ping pong balls. They sit atop blue outlined cut-out clouds. The cut-outs are mounted slightly out from the wall. Silver wires extend from the wall around the ping pong balls, creating a reductive, two-dimensional outline and further cementing the connection between ceramic to clouds. Pink insulation is carved and mounted on the wall for more clouds. Some have sections cut out to hold the ceramic clouds within them. Strips of insulation hang down in teardrop shapes from the insulation clouds. The pink color and the strip form are reminiscent of bubble tape. Colored tape on the walls created vines, leaves, clouds, and implied motion. The rounded forms made by the tape are simple and again a reference to the video game world. Pink tape surrounds negative space, making plain white walls an integral part of the installation. Sections of wall are painted in color blocked sections of pastel yellow and blue. Wide blue tape travels the landscape, moving in curves from wall to floor to wall. It creates a sort of path to follow, referencing maps and creating an awareness of the artificial landscape. Pink dots line the floor in straighter paths. The movable clouds are made of wood boards, painted white and lined with pink tape. A larger cloud bisects a smaller cloud, creating a 90 degree angle atop a base of another cloud shape. The clouds are mounted on wheels, and are intended to be moved throughout the room, perhaps on the paths provided. Scattered along the edges of the room are even more references to clouds. Pink and blue insulation foam are stacked atop each other to create cloud shaped ice-cream sandwiches growing out of the floor. Thin, tall rods are painted in stripes of light blue and their natural gray color. They stand in the sandwiches, skewering ceramic clouds so they hang suspended, up to five feet in the air.  

The overwhelming repetition of cloud imagery makes it easy to dismiss the work as a cloud fetishist's self-indulgence made public. Upon closer examination, the work is increasingly complex. The spacing and positioning of the various cloud types appear to have some reasoning, and create micro-environments within the larger landscape. The blue tape pathway brings all these environments together and creates an awareness of scale. The material choices are also interesting and meaningful. Page used ceramic to imitate cheap, flimsy ping pong balls. The craftsmanship in creating each individual seam is a stark contrast to the mass-production of actual ping pong balls. They're then attached to create a further abstraction in the form of clouds. The pink insulation clouds and strips invoke a sense of playfulness and whimsy. Insulation is a dangerous material that can be toxic if inhaled or installed incorrectly. These absurdities and contradictions within the materials creates a new layer of meaning for the work. There's deception woven into the saccharine, surreal landscape. While it comes across as a simple, playfully immersive experience, Page's underlying motivation is based on logic, skepticism, and spatial reasoning.