School of Art - Theses
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ItemSupercharged paintings move towards light and space( 2018)This project considers certain connections between the so-called art world and global social mobility. Is the ubiquity of some universal aesthetic frameworks implicitly promoting the ever-expanding cultural class to become even more seduced by the forces of late-capitalism? The thesis, which comprises a dissertation presented in conjunction with a studio-based investigation, is centred around three distinct, but inter-related templates for display: the generic living room TV wall unit; the painted canvas; and the gallery. I consider how each format conditions our reception of cultural information by influencing our sense of individuality, whilst as the same time signalling our inclusion in a unified non-culturally specific world view that is rooted in western modernism. Significantly, these three selected display arenas all convey a sense of universality—not necessarily through specific content, but rather through their inherent structures. I argue that these successful systems of display potentially mask otherwise visible signs of power through implicit democratic ideologies disseminated via inspirational design trends. Considered together, I demonstrate that all three offer insights into the underlying function of international systems of cultural exchange. A substantial part of this research considers the homogenising effect of Internet image-searching, especially in relation to notions of class and sophistication at a time characterised by a global democratisation of desire and appreciation for ‘good’ design principles. The artworks I have produced in conjunction with this dissertation are designed to critically engage and antagonise the already fuzzy intersection of art, architecture and design. Accordingly, I have sought to produce works that are less distinguished by traditional art-making decisions but rather emphasise compositions, materials, and principles associated within modernist and minimalist infused trends in design and architecture. This strategy seeks to recode the sublime grandeur of late-formalist abstract paintings as a kind-of banal realism perhaps more associated with marketing and pop consumerism. The physical creation of individual artworks has taken place in accordance with two predominate modes of production. Firstly, and in reference to painting, wall mounted sculptural relief works incorporating materials such as Formica composite wood panelling, plywood, hardwood, acrylic paint, enamel paint, glass, vinyl flooring, composite stone samples, imitation plants, real-plants, pots, fluorescent lights, and found objects, were produced. The second mode of production is in the digital realm, and includes digital photographic montages (combining online images with my own photography), video (using online content and making interventions within it) and creating audio tracks (to accompany the video works). Considered together, these modes of production are used as tools to psychologically position the viewer in a space in which materials, surfaces and compositions, might trigger considerations of social mobility, our relationships to design, and finally, notions of personal intimacy and memory that are activated through smart-screen technologies.
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ItemInstalling and unsettling imaginaries: rehearsing the social within the self( 2018)The practice-led research outlined here explores ways of bringing attention to the mutual contingency of the self and the social through self-portraiture, culminating in a large multichannel projection and sound installation titled How to Deal with Difference (2018). In this thesis I discuss some of the formative influences on this work from various threads of social theory and contemporary installation practice. What we recognise as ourselves is deeply embedded in the social institutions we exist within. Drawing on Cornelius Castoriadis and others, I will use the term 'imaginary' as an articulation of the social constructions that both form and are formed by the individual. I also refer to the artworks created through this research as 'imaginaries', and through their installation have attempted to unsettle the solidity of various perceptions of the self, and the social. My studio practice is situated through analysis of related works by prominent contemporary artists, noting some of the similarities and differences to the approach I have taken. Works by William Kentridge, Camille Henrot, Pipliotti Rist and Lisa Reihana are discussed in some detail, my purpose here being both to acknowledge their influence and to articulate something of what is distinctive in the work I have created. Partly inspired by Judith Butler's account of performative identity and self-poesis, I filmed myself performing many varying and contradictory 'selves', in an exploration of my own relationality and self-formation. In imagining, performing and arranging these characters, I drew from social imaginaries I am implicitly involved in. By digitally compiling the footage, I composited myself into plural existence to disrupt the sense of singular coherence, although it is obvious that all characters are performed by me. I have positioned the performances as 'rehearsals' – they are not polished or complete, but iterative and partial. By trying on characters I do not think of as me, I seek to explore, through rehearsal, the social within myself. The result is an agonistic portrait of my own socially situated self, which is intended to allow multiple modes of engagement and space for self-reflection.
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ItemFinal room: encountering the body through absence( 2018)When I look at images of pain, my mind enters a nexus of complicated reactions. When met with images depicting bodily injuries, deformities, disease and open lacerations, my eyes wince - as if apprehending the amount of visual information travelling through my eye and into my brain and then into my body is too much. In the absence of implied physical danger to myself as the viewer, my mind plays out a psychological dread enabled by proprioception. Parts of my body that normally lie dormant of pain are suddenly awakened through empathy and metamorphoses, gauging how that pain might feel. These concepts are juxtaposed with an altogether different scenario, that of an emptied gallery space. When a viewer is faced with a bare room their desires are challenged. In place of objects and stimuli, my rooms ask that the viewer’s interaction with the work become the impetus of the work itself, activating the work. In this research project I wanted to bring two of the following two subjects together: I wanted to reconcile the situation of the viewer encountering a bare room inside a gallery. The characters here are the viewer and the empty space. The viewer brings their body in its physical and mental state. The bare room brings the semblance of a void, or a manufactured emptiness by means of a lack of objects or materials. This paper investigates the relationship between interior space and the body, seen through a lens of absence and loss. These installations pose a void that removes the art object as the primary focus, shifting the focus to the viewer. My art process incorporates a reductive approach, focusing on the minimal forces that space can exert upon the body to negotiate absence or loss. This paper documents this development through a series of three installation works primarily concerned with bare rooms, while exploring the deactivation of desire and mechanisms that can trigger proprioception. The final outcome of my research project was an immersive installation in a seemingly bare room. In this instance, the material gesture was contained to the locus of the walls. Hundreds of 23-gauge hypodermic needles were pinned into the walls like spines from a cactus. The needle tips were only visible from the wall when standing close within two metres from the wall.