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TAUBA AUERBACH: I want to
learn new things constantly.

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And I'm always trying to
find the pattern behind things.

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I've educated myself about
a number of scientific or

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mathematical
principles through crafts

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like weaving and paper marbling.

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♪ethereal ambient music♪

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To marble paper, it's all
about relationships and ratios.

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You have to mix your paints so
that they float on the water and

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so that they spread out –

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not too much, not too little.

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♪undulating ethereal music♪

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There's a limit to how
controlled it can be.

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♪♪♪

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I like that idea quite a lot of
cultivating your sensitivity in

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this really
practiced, purposeful way.

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And I've used paper marbling as
the source material for a lot of

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my public works.

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♪♪♪

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It seems appropriate to me
to work in a lot of different

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materials and
media and processes...

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because I'm focusing
on connectivity and the

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relationship between
lots of different things.

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Every time people
come to my studio,

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I like to show
them these shelves,

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because there are just so many
treasures on them and things

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that I like to live
with and think with.

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Some ashes of artwork
that burned in a fire.

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This is a sea sponge.

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The water pressure where this
creature lives is very extreme.

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The architecture of this
skeleton has been studied for

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its strength.

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It's a powerfully
strong lattice shape.

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I would say I had a really
profound experience with this

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puzzle, actually.

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It takes over a thousand moves
to disentangle this bar from

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these rings.

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I got to where there
was just one ring left.

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It turned out that having
one ring left was sort of the

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equivalent of having
gone as far as possible

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into a maze in the
wrong direction.

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[laughs]

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And I had to
completely backtrack,

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put all the rings back on, and
then take them off a slightly

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different way.

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And so I felt like this
puzzle taught me a lot about the

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assumptions that you make
about progress along the way.

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♪ethereal synth music♪

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I am quite compelled
by things that just barely work.

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The near-impossibility is key.

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I stumbled upon this beading
technique

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via a chemist from Taiwan.

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He's been using this
technique to model molecules,

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and in his models, the beads are
the bonds between the atoms.

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Now I'm trying to do something
of my own with the technique.

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I'm interested in the edges of
where a system coheres and

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where it starts to
fray and come apart,

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and also where the edges of our
understanding and comprehension

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fray and start to come apart...

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like my own limitations and
then some more collective limitations,

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either because we
haven't gotten there yet

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or it's just really out of
bounds for the human mind.

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[mouse clicking]

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♪choral singing
playing from computer♪

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The kind of learning I'm really
interested in is not just to

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learn a fact but to change how
I digest and think about all

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[chuckling] future facts.

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For example, my friend Cameron
sent me this Bulgarian state

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television choir record.

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♪singing in Bulgarian♪

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-[Tauba VO] I felt like there
were sounds in there that had

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that effect on me or that I
could never come back from,

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in the best possible way.

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The first time I was told about
the idea of different sizes of

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infinity, that was an
idea I never came back from.

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♪Bulgarian
singing continues♪

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Encountering the idea of
four-dimensional space and the

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shapes that inhabit it has been
a tool for retuning my gaze,

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retuning my imagination.

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Ideally, it would be nice to
make something that isn't just

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an image that a
person might remember,

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but an image that has a tiny
effect on all images after that.

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I love painting so much,

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and there's so many different
ways to approach it as

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a technology.

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♪energetic
oscillating synths♪

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During college, I was just
looking for a summer job,

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and I thought, "I'm
gonna try the sign shop!"

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I worked at New Bohemia Signs in
San Francisco as an apprentice

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and assistant for
about three years,

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and they were just
beautiful hand-painted signs.

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♪♪♪

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In sign painting,
if you go too fast,

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you're gonna be sloppy.

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But then if you go too
slowly to try to be perfect,

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it really doesn't
look very graceful.

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I really learned a lot about
finding a kind of sweet spot,

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which is something I think about
a lot in lots of different ways.

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♪♪♪

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I love painting and I
think I'll always do it,

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but I think I just select the
medium that's gonna serve the

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idea best, so
sometimes that's painting,

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but a painting can't do the same
thing that a piece of glass can,

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for example.

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So when I felt like a certain
set of ideas called for working

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in glass, I went and
learned how to flame-work glass.

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That's my approach to
materials and media.

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[rumbling and churning]

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The Wave Organ is one
of my favorite places

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in San Francisco.

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It's pretty close
to where I grew up.

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[rumbling and churning]

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Essentially, it's, like, a
whole bunch of pipes that are

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half-submerged in the water, and
at different levels of the tide,

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you get different
sounds out of them.

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I think I'm so attached to it
because it exists across a

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boundary of air
and water and sand.

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[rumbling and churning]

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The whole instrument is played
by the sort of instability of

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this boundary, and it's
different every time I go.

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When I talk about trying to
cultivate the right state of

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mind, that's one of the
things I'm trying to get to --

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to be somewhere that
isn't a hard edge.

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♪wonky single
notes playing♪

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♪wonky organ music playing♪

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-[Tauba] I think
that sounds good too.

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What do you think of how
long I hold that note there?

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-[Cameron]I think that was good.

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But I did think that the
timing was a little...

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-iffy.
-[Tauba] Wonky?

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-[Cameron] On that one.

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-[Tauba] Mm-hm.

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-[Tauba VO] The Auerglass is a
two-person interdependent pump

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organ that I made with my
friend Cameron Mesirow,

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who performs under
the name Glasser,

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and so it's A-U-E-R, glass.

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♪Auerglass playing♪

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The Auerglass started when
Cameron and I decided we wanted

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to make an instrument that
required cooperation between two

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people to play.

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♪♪♪

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Each player only
has half a keyboard,

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so there's a four-octave
keyboard that's been divided up

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between the two sides
in alternating notes --

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one has C, the next
one C sharp, et cetera.

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♪♪♪

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Each player pumps air for
the other player's notes.

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Cameron's way of putting it is
that we have to breathe for one another.

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[cheers and applause]

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♪Auerglass playing♪

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Playing the Auerglass feels
just barely not impossible.

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The instrument has this quality
of near-symmetry but just off by

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a click that feels like a
really activating relationship.

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-It's hard!

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-Yeah, it's hard.

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[cheers and applause]

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-[Tauba VO] It's great when
we achieve that synchronicity,

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but I feel like the times when
we fumble in our performances,

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I end up being
really fond of them.

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♪Auerglass playing♪

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I do a lot of drawings that
involve this knit structure,

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and I often figuratively lose
the thread when I'm drawing,

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I lose the rhythm.

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They're really
fast, spontaneous work.

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And then sometimes, I get kind
of fixated on completing one

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long connected form that has a
set of changing rules to it.

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It's almost impossible not to
go into a kind of trance state.

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♪Auerglass playing♪

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Often, when I'm
drawing, I ask myself,

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"Can I move from the wrist?

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Can I move from the
fingers, from the elbow,

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from the shoulder, from
the center of my chest?"

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♪♪♪

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I feel like a better
thinker when I draw.

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There's so much wisdom embedded
in techniques and procedures for

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crafts passed from
person to person.

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I think that if you're a person
who marbles end papers for books

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for decades, you
know just as much

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about viscosity and
flow as a scientist.

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But you know it through your
fingertips and your senses,

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and in a different way.

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♪♪♪

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The body is a
valuable thinking tool.

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In the past, I was really moving
through the world from my head

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primarily.

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But now, the enterprise
is more about trust,

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and a change for me in the last
decade is to draw on my own body

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for knowledge.

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♪♪♪

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[cheers and applause]

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♪ ethereal ambient music ♪