The Utah Monolith, What It Means, Why It Matters, and Whether It's Aliens

2020-12-01 · letter vlog · John · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Pop culture · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook

Using the Utah monolith, a metal sculpture found by wildlife biologists in a remote desert and soon removed, John argues that what thrills him in art is not mastery but mystery: the monolith waited unnoticed for years and vanished once noticed, and the unanswered maybes are what make art feel visceral.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The monolith's discovery by biologists, alien speculation, pilgrimages and its disappearance

★★★ John reports that two weeks ago Utah Department of Natural Resources biologists surveying bighorn sheep by helicopter spotted a three-sided, ten-foot sculpture in remote desert, there for years but never reported. — 00:00:05
★★ John says social media's overarching response was aliens, which would be interesting, very 2020 and good for sales of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, which basically predicted the affair. (playful) — 00:00:25 · social media, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
★ John says the story sounds like a parable: scientists literally counting sheep are roused into a new kind of consciousness by an otherworldly artwork. (playful) — 00:00:35
★★ John reports that despite attempts at secrecy people found the site and made pilgrimages, leaving detritus from tire tracks to toilet paper, and the sculpture disappeared. — 00:00:47
★★ John quotes Utah officials saying on Saturday that the metal structure had been removed and that they had not taken it down; he notes that clause does a lot of work. — 00:01:02

00:01:11 — Desert land art (Spiral Jetty, Prada Marfa, Sun Tunnels); mysterium tremendum; masterful art versus thrilling art

★ John says it wasn't aliens, probably. (playful, hedged) — 00:01:14
★★ John says American deserts hold many artworks responding to stark landscapes: Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake, the fake Prada store near Marfa, Texas, and Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels near Wendover, Utah. — 00:01:16
★★ John says that when he visited Sun Tunnels, its framing of landscape and sunlight made him feel something of Rudolf Otto's mysterium tremendum: awe, fear and fascination before an overwhelming mystery. — 00:01:40
★★ Citing Gertrude Stein, John says merely masterful, impressively realistic art excites people a little but does not really thrill them. — 00:01:55

00:02:09 — Who made it: the John McCracken theory, the 2016 installation, an intentional foundation

★★★ John says what he is after in art is thrill: transitory, enchanted moments when humans meet something commensurate to their capacity for wonder, a phrase borrowed from The Great Gatsby. — 00:02:09
★★ John reports that early speculation pointed to John McCracken, who made very similar sculptures, and whose famous New York gallerist said it was definitely his work. — 00:02:20
★★ John says satellite photographs show the obelisk was installed sometime in 2016, a problem for the McCracken theory. — 00:02:32
★★ John says McCracken died in 2011. — 00:02:38
★★ John says whoever installed the work cleared brush and cut into the stone with a concrete saw for a foundation, so it was profoundly intentional. — 00:02:40
★★ John says the big question for him is why he and others find it interesting; the obelisk's machineness contrasts human straight lines and right angles with the landscape's curves and jagged edges. — 00:02:55

00:03:07 — Things there until you notice them; why it disappeared; revel in the mystery; sign-off

★★★ John doesn't find the monolith itself extraordinary; what gets him is that it waited unnoticed for years and vanished once noticed: some things aren't there until noticed, others are there until noticed. — 00:03:09

“There are things in life that aren't there until you notice them”
★★ John speculates on why it disappeared: maybe the makers feared the legal and ethical ramifications of art made without permission on public land, maybe they made it for themselves, maybe aliens. (speculative) — 00:03:28
★★★ John says the maybes are essential to what makes art visceral and thrilling to him; it's human nature to seek answers and he hopes they're found, but meanwhile we should revel in the mystery. — 00:03:40

In the description and comments

★★ In a comment, John says the Romanian monolith seems likely a copycat: its steel was not buffed to a mirror finish and it had not been hidden for years, though he'd love to be wrong. (speculative) — creator comment
★★ Asked why the brothers address each other, John comments that the channel began thirteen years ago as their conversation; he still addresses videos to Hank and sees him as his first audience. — creator comment · Hank Green, Vlogbrothers
★ In a comment, John says there is no secret livestream today; he will try to have one later this week (week of 30 November 2020), though overseeing e-learning while working is hard. — creator comment

Threads in this video

restate · What is art for? — John says the maybes are essential to what makes art visceral and thrilling to him; it's human nature to seek answers and he hopes they're found, but meanwhile we should revel in the mystery. (00:03:40)

Mentioned

Central: Utah monolith

Also: People: Gertrude Stein · John McCracken · Rudolf Otto

Works: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · Prada Marfa · Spiral Jetty · Sun Tunnels · The Great Gatsby

Organizations: Utah Department of Natural Resources

Concepts: extraterrestrial life · human nature · land art · mysterium tremendum · public land · social media · Toilet paper · wonder (emotion)

Places: Great Salt Lake · Marfa, Texas · Utah · Wendover, Utah

Only in the description or credits: Bureau of Land Management · contemporary art · Elmgreen and Dragset · Nancy Holt · Robert Smithson · Romania · Salt Lake Tribune · The Art Assignment · The New York Times · What Are Masterpieces and Why Are There So Few of Them

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