01x02 - The Mind of James Turrell, Inspiration in Light

[bunniefuu]

I like dirt roads.

Yeah.

The desert is a little bit
other-planet-like, huh?

We're on our
way to James Turrell.

The Roden Crater.

His art has been utilizing,
creating immersive environments.

We're always thinking,

"If I could find some huge,
natural thing as my canvas."

Well, he's worked in the
landscapes of architecture

- for...
- Yeah.

- ...decades.
- Mm-hmm.

And working with
the relationships

of the sky and space.

Is that it?

All of a sudden...

Wow, it's almost
kind of like a pyramid.

Wow.

Well, we were
looking for adventure.

And
we're finding some.

We founded Arch Motorcycle
to challenge the perception

of what an American
motorcycle could be.

Our ambition is to create

a beautiful,
aesthetically interesting,

seductive machine
that you can ride.

Curiosity has been our
lifeblood since the beginning.

We're fueled by
far more than just

a passion for
designing motorcycles.

Arch is a mindset,

a lens through which
to see the world.

This is a quest
for inspiration.

To witness visionaries

pushing the bounds
of innovation,

to understand why
inspiration strikes

and where human
creativity comes from.

Nothing visual
exists without light.

And if design is
about perception,

about the way we see colors,
shapes, and textures,

what would that
say about an artist

who has truly mastered the
use of light and perception?

Meet legendary
artist James Turrell.

This is the North Space
that I'm working on,

and I rough all
these things out,

how I draw up the
spaces that I want

for what I want things to do.

Part of my work
is sort of just...

making the emperor's
clothes visible,

making what we don't
normally see all you see.

And so that's actually
a part of what happens

in the different
spaces of the crater,

going from one to another.

And we don't look up
very often.

A lot of this is, "Look up."

My interest actually was always
to be involved with light.

I was very interested in
using light as a material

to work the medium
of perception.

For nearly 60 years,

James Turrell has
created iconic works

that manipulate light the
way a painter uses paints.

His works encourage us
to alter our perspective

and evaluate the very way we
perceive the world around us.

Wow, James, these
are all the spaces.

This is a plan
here of the whole crater

and what we're doing here.

Did you have this
whole vision and idea

when you set out
on this pursuit,

or did some of it grow
from what you learned?

Well, it's like
having a general idea

- and then getting details.
- Yeah. Okay.

It's like wanting
to make a motorcycle

- and then perfecting it.
- Mmm.

All those little pieces that
come together are amazing.

When you started
to look at this properly,

is this, like, 40 years ago you
started looking at this, or...

- It is true. 40 years ago.
- Okay.

But I'm sort of
like those friends of yours

that never finish their thesis.

Yeah.

I still have a ways to go.

The Roden Crater
is a 400,000-year-old

extinct volcano roughly one
mile long from end to end.

Within it, James has spent
more than four decades

crafting his magnum opus,

carving a series of tunnels
and intricate spaces,

each meticulously engineered
to isolate celestial events

and focus our attention.

This is actually
like Stonehenge.

Wow.

I was very interested
in early sites like this.

So megaliths or structures
in connection to astronomy?

Yeah. It's sort of how we
realize our celestial selves,

because I'm interested
in how we've developed

all this thinking about
our relationship here

to the skies and to the heavens.

And, I mean, this is something
I always wanted to do.

You had this idea already.

- Well, I wanted to have it...
- And you went searching for...

I wanted a place raised
up, and I'll show you why.

Should we go see it?

Yeah, let's go see it.

All over the world,

James has completed
skyspaces and installations

for the public to witness.

But his work here at the crater
is shrouded in greater mystery.

You talked earlier
about this phenomenon

where you're at the
highest point...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...but everything around us

looks like we're...

Yes, if you look around,

it looks like everything
goes up from here.

What creates that?

It's our perception again.

Well, in a way,
the Roden Crater is

sort of a naked-eye observatory.

I wanna make this volcano
a piece where you actually

come to view the sky, where
our celestial nature has

kind of become evident to us,
where our involvement with

that beyond what we normally
think about is made very clear.

Each space within the
Roden Crater is intended to

isolate our focus on
a singular concept.

Hello!

Is there a place where
people should start,

or this is just discover
whatever and however you'd like?

It's sort of the latter.

- Okay.
- But this is the analemma.

Many people don't know
what an analemma is.

If you look it up, it's
called the equation of time.

This ring up here
makes a bright spot

surrounded by a shadow,

and at solar noon,
it will be on this,

and it tells you where we
are in the Earth's orbit.

So right there, it's
gonna be June 21st,

and then here will
be December 21st.

So it will be in here.

What that does, it gives you the
fact where we are in the orbit.

The South Space is an ode
to when we looked to the sky

to take its measure.

Focusing on that that
happens in the sky,

what is really happening there?

We have only known since
about the time of Columbus

our address on the planet Earth.

And then it's only been
a while that we knew

where we are in this
planetary system.

And then it's only
been since 2012

that we've actually known
our address in the galaxy.

This is relatively new.

What equipment did you use to
measure this for the accuracy?

Remember, the Moon's
orbit is changing,

the Earth's orbit is changing,

so what we've made is
that things would be

most accurate 2,000
years from now.

4,000 years from now, it would
be as accurate as it is today.

But then it would come back
and be just as accurate

in 28,400 years.

The big thing here is how to
make things so that the details

don't get away from you
and still have the overall.

That's been always
the problem we have.

So if you line up
those two crosshairs...

...you are now looking exactly

on the axis of
rotation of Earth.

In 24 hours, we do
go 25,000 miles,

so we're going about
1,100 miles an hour.

Is there a seat belt?

- Strap yourself in.
- Strap in!

So this
room is my studio.

This is where I like to work.

All the things here are the
things that have meaning to me

and have been part of
different times in my life.

I was very much involved
with the Naval Observatory

in making this model of all
the stars that were nearby.

This is it right here.

So, this is a prototype
that I made for this.

This shows you all
the nearby stars.

Astronomers decided to
actually make this model.

Well, I think we sold
something like 34.

That's just a good thing
to remember for artists

and astronomers and everybody,

'cause we always think
we have something

that everybody must have,

and then we're brought
up quickly to reality.

This is just a helmet for
altitudes below 45,000.

I became interested in aviation,

so I actually had a business
restoring antique planes,

and that actually
supported my art habit.

My father was very
interested in aviation.

He was an aeronautical engineer.

One time when I was somewhere
around eight or nine,

we were flying at
the end of the day.

The sun had gone down,

and the light in the
sky was diminishing,

and you saw the
lights of Los Angeles,

and it was so beautiful.

Anyway, we were looking
at it for some time,

and my father just said to me,

"A pauper by day, a
princess by night."

And this idea of how we exist

and how we manifest as creatures
of light is very interesting.

Just looking at that
was quite remarkable,

and it was very beautiful too,

and I just thought that was...

how we reveal our existence.

Witnessing the
lights of Los Angeles

from the c*ck of his father's
plane fueled James' work,

and in the 1970s,
ultimately sent him

in search of a natural
canvas to build a monument,

one dedicated to understanding
our place in the universe.

I went looking for sites,

and I flew all the western
states back and forth,

and that was really
a remarkable time.

I would fly for about
four or five days a week,

and then pick a town
to sort of stay in

to sort of think
about everything.

Each of these areas would almost
engender a new idea in my mind,

so this was a very rich time.

Did this for about seven
months until the money ran out.

When I first found the crater,

I was flying just to the north
of the San Francisco Peaks.

Luckily, it's modest
in size.

You know, now I have to really
figure out what I wanna do.

That is, I wanna make this space

that's up in the
air, like flight,

so that you experience
the sky up in it.

I picked this largely because
it was privately owned,

and I thought, "They don't
seem to be using it right now."

Well, it happened to be in the
middle of this man's ranch,

and because it was
in the center of it,

it was not something he
wanted to sell right away.

And it was three years before
he finally said, "Okay."

He drove me out onto the land,

out on this one ledge that
actually faces Roden Crater.

And he said, "Well, this
is gonna be yours now.

"Piss on it."

That moment
more than 40 years ago

altered the course
of a lifetime.

Is the canvas the inspiration?

Or was it something
that he would have

manifested without it?

This is a Royal typewriter
from the turn of the century,

the 20th century, and I think
I had this when I was ten.

So this has sort of been
with me my lifetime.

And this is from the
shop in Pasadena,

which you can see right here.

That's where I grew up.

I came from a Quaker family.

We didn't have television,
didn't have radio,

because the Quakers have a
different take on modern life.

So I'd walk down
the street at night,

and I could pretty
much tell what channel

people were watching
by the light

that was in the living room,

which I found quite interesting.

It didn't have to be the image.

It just could be the light.

But all this interest in light,

I saw this whole sort
of order of business

that dealt with light.

So that's what directed
me in light toward art.

It was not until I
was at Pomona College,

that's where I could find
this history that's littered

with interest in light.

You look at Vermeer,
very intellectual light.

Goya, very emotional
light. Caravaggio.

And then Turner,
who is unbelievable.

But I feel that
my interest is in

the revelation that
light is itself.

Light is a material.
Its photon has mass.

So I like to actually
depict it so you feel that.

You feel the substance of light.

James likes to say that
light is something material,

and therefore, I
guess, physical.

I first started by
projecting light onto a wall.

If I made the space properly,

the light would seem
to be in the space

rather than on the wall.

And I thought that was
really a big moment.

When I was in my
studio in Santa Monica,

I began to realize that
there were things out there

that I should pay attention to.

I was beginning to
actually understand

how light worked in space

so that actually it
seemed to occupy it

rather than just
be passing through.

As we go through the crater,

we're going through
these different areas

where I orient to
different events in light

and different colors of light.

You know, art is often something

that wants to show
you something beyond,

beyond how you
think at the moment.

That's why I enjoy being
part of the art world,

because we bring these
things into the...

we physically manifest
this other world.

It's cool, it's like
they've created an island.

I mean, obviously the
influence of nature.

Yeah, right.

For me, it was
very important that

when you come to the crater
and you go through this,

this is your discovery.

I don't like to
actually be there

when other people are
looking, because...

somehow I confuse that.

And it's not even something
that I'm especially giving you.

It's something that I have
also felt and realized,

and then I have it there
so that you can come to it.

So it's not mine.

It's actually yours.

Nice place with,
like, perceptions.

Yeah.

You notice when you walk in
and you feel a little bit

sort of like your
equilibrium's a little...

- messed up, you know?
- Mmm.

This is almost
like a sundial too.

- Yeah. And a moondial.
- In a way.

And a moondial.

When the sun passes over
the rim of the Roden Crater

in the Arizona desert,

its light streams into a
chamber James Turrell created,

down an 850-foot tunnel,

refracting through
a six-foot lens

to project an image onto a
disk of white marble below.

The Sun and Moon Space,

that's the one
place in the crater

where you'll see from the dawn
and you'll see from the sunset

on opposite sides
of the same stone.

A lot of people forget
that the moon is up

half the time of the day,
half the time of the night.

We just think about it
being there in the night.

So we'll be able to see very
clear moonrises and moonsets

in that one space there.

"How's it going, Gard?"

"Uh, I'm doing okay."

"I don't know, do you
want something to eat?

"Mmm, jellybean."

I mean, I like the
interrelationships

of everything, the
connectiveness.

The scale and proportion
of the dome to the floor

to the projection wall.

The craft is bringing such an
intimacy experience, you know?

These objects that
are so far away,

the construction, the mechanic
brings it in so that you can...

I know it's obvious,
it's like a telescope.

It's what a telescope does.
Or a microscope. But...

It's impressive.

So much of
this construction

is thinking about
events in the future.

I mean, these are like
the ancient, simple form.

The rectangle, the circle.

I mean, these are all of
the kind of concepts that

you deal with in terms of
design for an effect, for...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...a riding experience,

a human experience, a
cosmological connection.

And then you have...

The inside
of the caterpillar.

The journey of
the light from the sun.

It's... Like, this
is a birthing canal.

- You know?
- Yeah, it is. "Mommy!"

It's, like,
walk to the light.

It's like going to heaven.

An interesting feeling of
sort of being below the opening,

and as we're actually ascending,

I feel like we are
moving up into the...

- you know, the tube.
- Yeah.

When you walk up that tunnel,
you're walking up 141 feet.

So that's a 14-story walk-up.

But because it's a
ramp, you don't feel it.

I wanted people to feel
we are really this dream

of souls going up and down
between earth and heaven,

and this idea of resurrection
and death and rebirth.

All of that.

Now look what we got here.

It's turning into an oval.
An elliptical shape, huh?

It looked like it was perfectly
round back there, huh?

Yeah.

Oh, my God, it's,
like, such a huge oval!

When did it grow?

That's just crazy.

Your
perspective can change.

Yeah.

Things don't always
appear how they seem.

And now these
stairs make sense.

Stairway to heaven.

And that's why you
have the golden stairs,

which are bronze,

into the light.

That sounds really simplistic,

but, you know, we
are simple people.

And artists in
particular are simple people.

Oh, no. Now it's gone
from vertical to horizontal.

I mean, it's almost
just a little slit now.

It's a slit in the wall.

What's going on in
this crazy fun house?

Where are the clowns?

I feel like this is a fun house.

It's kind of a dance
of a fun house.

It's just revealing the
fun house of... of nature.

It's nature's big kid fun house.

It's a big... Look at this.

Now it's the keyhole.
You can't see down.

That's not
round anymore, either.

That's not round anymore.

So many mechanical
aspects of perspective

which turn into metaphor,

which then with the questioning
and the metaphor of the story,

enriches our lives.

Mmm.

I wanted people
to treasure light,

to treasure that experience.

So I wanna have you come to it
very freely and on your own.

We actually tap into things

that are part of the
spiritual aspect of life.

Oh, my God,
I gotta sit down.

I mean, the room's
not round either.

The room's not...
Of course it's not.

But if it looks
round, is it round?

- Sure.
- It is until you...

- Until it's not.
- Until it's not.

Yeah.

So we're
on the site plans?

We're on the site plans.

So, we wanna talk to you about
a couple of things on this.

One, the contouring
near the amphitheater

has been smoothened
out for your sketches.

Just wanted to see if that's
looking better to you.

Take this one, draw that
one across, two of the reds.

When the Roden
Crater's transformation began

more than 40 years ago,

James Turrell saw
it all in his mind.

And today, about half of that
vision has been realized.

Architects Udit and David now
work with James year-round

to continue its construction.

James, we kind of
bring his designs to life

a little bit more and
then work with his teams.

We're working on
the Amphitheater Space.

It's kind of one
space tied together.

But it'll be for live
performances, theater, music,

and then that's on one side,

and then on the other
side is a live Ori.

An Ori is a scaled
reproduction of the orbits,

but because we
have, as James says,

all the room in the desert, we
can show all of the planets.

And those orbits
track across the crater.

And the whole intent is that
there's a celestial awareness

of your place in the grand
scheme, not just on Earth.

So the big thing for us
is to figure out how...

we can realize the actual dream.

And that has to do with how
things are physically made,

because even though we have
to make this in the physical,

I'm still wanting to
have this really work out

in terms of light, and...

how we come into it
with the experience.

And that's what we're trying
to work out in all this.

So beyond the design fun,

how is the practical
construction aspect?

Uh, it is a...

it's pushing... it's
definitely pushing construction

far beyond its
typical tolerances.

I didn't know it
would take many years

to finish a project like this.

You have to remember that
there's this strange hubris

that both architects
and artists have.

I can make a drawing here.

There's a 900-foot tunnel,
14 feet in diameter,

and that is easily drawn.

And...

And I'm able to do
this and did this,

but then you have
to, when you make it,

line it with concrete and
then put baffles in it

to make it be accurate.

You know, we have in the mental,
or we can say in the spiritual,

and then you have to realize
this in the physical.

I'd like to have them
just a little bit wider

than he's drawn them.

Mmm. This way?

Yeah.

He's made his
plans a long time ago.

What he's been working
on since I met him

is refining and expanding on it.

Sometimes I feel like
he's adding a lot more...

to the original plan.

We are working to
actually finish the full plans,

which is what I'm doing with
Udit and David, to get...

So at least I've
planned that out.

But I made a career
out of being OCD.

Um...

We're getting there.

This is the
Amphitheater Space,

and then you would go up to
here, that's the other route.

So this is the crown. Do you
guys call this the crown?

- The Eye.
- The Crater's Eye.

Crater's Eye.

So it's in the
bowl of the crater.

So the brain of the head.

Right.

We've seen the pivotal kind of

main axis of the
Earth's rotation.

Yep.

And now we're seeing the
center of the galaxy.

- Why don't we go inside?
- Yes!

So this is actually a
prime example of the scale.

When you look at this, it
looks simple enough, right?

Kind of, but not really.

Well, you're looking at
this right behind you,

so the scale of it is
just completely different

to what you see on drawings.

So that actually goes
all the way up to

pretty much, like, four inches
down from the dome above.

How high is this
dome? I can't even tell.

It looks flat.

Yeah, I think
it's... Is it 28?

Yeah, 28 to 32
or something like that.

And this is cut
out of the volcano?

- Yes.
- The idea is that

in its end state, all of
these spaces feel like they've

always been here, not that we've
created surgery on a crater.

And then what's the big deal
about the super chair here?

- That's not a chair.
- Yes. Yes.

There's
going to be a chair.

The chair's not in yet.

This is that chair
that where you sit,

you'll be centered
on axis looking up.

What are
you gonna look at?

The center of the galaxy.

That's where you'll
be pointed at.

But nothing will be focally
intensified or anything?

- No.
- You'll just be facing...

- Yeah. This way.
- Correct.

But not projected on anything,
just projected on your retina.

Your eye, yes. Yeah.

Okay.

The center of the galaxy
is right back there.

It's interesting
asking that question about

where they think
creativity might come from.

There is something
about experience.

I don't know that
that's the spark of it.

James, he didn't
talk about it a lot.

I mean, there's his upbringing

as, you know, his exposure
to the Quaker faith.

- Yeah.
- But, you know,

I did a little bit of
digging on the Quakers,

and there is this focus, very
much this focus on light,

and everyone has an inner light,

and I wonder if that's part
of his fascination and belief

in the power of light
comes from that, you know?

I mean, obviously it's
significant to him, but...

- Yeah, it's the heavens, right?
- Mm-hmm.

He also drew in from
the natural world, right?

The color of the sky.

And seeing the full glory of
what is around you all the time.

You know, he was kind
of speaking about, like,

"Well, we had all this
energy to go to the moon,

"but we're really on
a spaceship here."

- "Look." You know?
- Yeah, right.

"Watch. Experience."

"Hello, dum-dum."

"You're in space now."

Mm-hmm.

Where are we going?

We're going
to the Crater's Eye.

Crater's Eye.

Are we in the central...

Yes, it's the
very center of the crater.

The very center, yeah.

So you'll
be looking at the sky

through the aperture
of the Crater's Eye.

So... it gathers the light.

In other words, it makes
the light much more intense.

Mmm.

I have sat in that
Crater's Eye a few times,

and it's amazing how
different it is each time.

Wow.

It's an Yves Klein
blue polka dot on the ceiling.

There's
a circular aperture,

and it's a rounded space.

And as the sun goes down,
the sky color changes.

And I'm looking through
the space and seeing,

thinking something
that's beyond this world.

Wow, that's a
wild color blue now.

So that sky, if
I walked outside,

would not be that color.

It would be much more bleached.

And what changes the
color of the sky?

Because of this light
interacting with the sky.

And by changing the
color of these lights,

the color of the sky
would change too.

Pretty relative, yeah.

Hello!

Am I... Is it just
me hearing this?

- Wow!
- Yes, it's just you.

That's kooky.

You gotta try that.

Hi.

It's not... There's a
little bit of reverberation,

but not as much.

Oh, it got really
magnified when I was...

Ha!

Maybe you need to stand
right in the center.

I'm not in center?

Ahh.

Ahh!

But you sound the same to me.

Right.

It's vibration, man.
It's the... you know,

the reverberating off
of the walls here.

Mmm.

Your singular breath

connecting to the
breath of nature.

Keanu and Gard,
looking at the aperture,

I think they were
quite moved by it.

So this kind of... to me,

kind of enforces
this idea of portals,

walking through and
you would be in...

somewhere else.

My brain is, like, mad.

It... it's interpreting
in, like...

...very
weird feeling.

It talks about
what it means to be,

to exist,

to be in this universe.

Ahh. How's that?

That's spaceship.

From this perspective, you
really start to feel like

you're looking into the
iris of an eyeball...

that's looking at you.

Looking at
it, looking at you,

looking at it.

We always
use light to reveal.

We use light to reveal
something about things.

What is the purpose of life?

You know, that's what
we're sort of asking here.

Is it our career?

Is it our family?

Is it our spirituality

and how we actually regard
our life on this Earth?

That's an interesting question

that each of us has
to answer on our own.

I did have a
business in aviation

by restoring antique planes.

Here's one.

This is the Spartan Executive.

This was really nice.
This was made in '36.

1936!

Wow!

Sit in there and you'll
see how it is to take off.

I'm just gonna say, since
Keanu's flying, bon voyage!

Bon voyage!

- Goodbye, cruel world!
- Oh, my God!

There's not a whole lot of
runway that you see on takeoff.

You don't see anything.

So you look out the side and
have to keep it straight.

This looks like a lot of fun.

It is.

Have you flown it?

Yep, yeah. That's
how I got here.

Is that right?

Can you speak about
how flying and aviation

informed you in terms of light,

and did that inform you
or inspire you in any way?

Well, it does, because
there are quite a few things

that happen in the atmosphere,
just like when you see a sunset.

You see even more
things when you fly.

The combination of
atmosphere and weather

with the sunlight
is extraordinary.

The big thing is about
flying in the atmosphere,

that's in the ocean of air.

The Earth is covered 70%
in water in an ocean,

but it's covered 100%
in the ocean of air.

And it's in the ocean air that
light really reveals itself.

I was watching
one of your interviews,

and this idea of being observed

and light having a
property of its refraction

changing through observation.

Light behaves a certain way.

It's different, the
behavior is different

when we are looking at it.

- Human looks at it.
- Right.

There's no doubt about it.

Light knows when we're looking.

That is, it exhibits the
behavior when we're looking

that's different from
when we're not looking.

This is bizarre.

They had a good
experimental model

so they could actually
determine this,

but it's the behavior of light
through a diffraction grating.

And when we're looking at
it, it exhibits one behavior,

and when we're not looking,

it's another.

Okay, but can we just go
back to why does light change

from a human observance, and
what's the implication of that?

The implication of
that is profound.

There is this
spirit of creation.

So maybe this is a gift
from a higher power,

the whatever we think
a "creator" is, or...

- Totally.
- Yeah, okay.

It's just cashing
in to another state.

Light knows when we're looking.

Light knows
when we're looking.

But that goes into, like...

Anyway. Okay.

- That's...
- It's...

And what do you think about
that? What does that mean?

When you sit in a
chair that's looking at

- the center of the galaxy.
- That's escape.

You're like...

- Yeah.
- And you're becoming

moment in that
thing where, like,

light watches you watch it.

That's coming one-to-one.

And then
you're one-to-one,

and then that's
where you can be,

because you cannot exist
until you are seen.

There we go.

That's like if a tree falls in
the woods and no one sees it,

- did the tree fall?
- The tree fell, man.

We need to be seen.

And how you are in
that moment to do that,

I think, is revelatory.

And we have to have
humility and grace.

- Yes.
- And joy.

- Absolutely.
- As well as a good...

You need some of that too.

Yes.

Anyway, that's my Reed's
Riff for the morning.

I think that's very important.

But I have to say that art
is about good questions

rather than good answers.

So curiosity too, then, maybe.

And imagination.

Yeah, yeah.

I am not the same as I
was before I met you, sir.

And this is a really
good way, so thank you.

Thank you. Thank
you for saying that.

Human
creativity can manifest

in small ways and
monumental ones,

and our adventure in
the Painted Desert

shined a light on that scale,

separating us from
what we thought we knew

and allowing a new perspective.

Meeting James Turrell was...

for me, inspiring.

Absolutely.

The breadth of his
knowledge was extraordinary.

Talking about ambition
and creativity and art,

it's like a true renaissance.

It's the scale of it.

Yeah.

The... I mean, I just
remember thinking,

feeling the idea that designing
and creating a motorcycle

is kind of small all
of a sudden, you know?

I mean, I think that's
part of it, isn't it?

To feel that kind of
humility, to feel that awe,

this connection to something
far greater than you.

Artists have
always been involved

in things that are beyond.

That feeling and the
color, the vastness,

the no particular anywhere to
look, but everywhere to look.

And for me, you're
sort of looking at

how you look and
how you perceive.

That sort of overall
thinking about it.

I love this life. I do love
the living of this life.

Where it's the ride,

it's the flight, the sail,

and that's how we manifest.

And that's where
creativity comes from.

It's the ride.