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Challenging Socially Accepted Narratives

What is my Chosen Subject Area?

While exploring different potential subject areas and topics that interest me, I derived three main ideas: exploring where the boundaries of a piece of art begins and ends. Secondly, challenging how words communicate- not through their definitions, but through their culturally defined connotations. Finally, exploring how science functions as a religion and how the more we discover, the less the know. I noticed a running theme through all of these ideas, which is my interest in challenging the socially accepted narratives around constructs of art, language and science. 

In terms of challenging perceptions of art, I have been influenced by William Tuckers assertion the ‘sculpture is subject to gravity and revealed by light’. This statement, was made in 1970s and is clearly dated now, but it triggered questions such as: where does a sculpture begin and end? Does it begin at the point of conception in the artists mind, or before the artist is even aware of the information in their head which would then bring them to the point of having the sculptural idea? Does the sculpture end with how it physically exists in its installation, or, even when the sculpture is taken down, does it still live on in the minds of those who saw them? Exploring the work of Clara Ursitti, who uses smell as the subject of her art has been interesting to think about how the seemingly ephemeral nature of smell does actually exist as physical particles in space, much like any traditional sculpture. The work Self Portrait in Scent Sketch No. 2 explores ways in which to distil a complex person in one entity and experience. This work reminded me of Cloned DNA Self Portrait 26.09.01 (2nd perspective) by Marc Quinn which involves a having his cloned DNA on an agar plate which became a series with his whole family. While Ursitti crafted her scent, Quinn uses genuine human matter, which crosses the boundary of representation into using the actual object to represent itself. Quinn’s DNA exists all over his body and the things he touches, but it is only until his DNA is given and art context and is ordained as art does it exist as so. It is the fine line of something existing as an object as supposed to a piece of art which I would be interested I exploring.

I am also interested in exploring the way language communicates outside of its literal meaning, and how context defines literatures meaning. I have engrossed myself in the literature of Toni Morrison which I find incredibly effective due to her poetic language that can say many things at once. With literature and a reader’s imagination, images can be created which cannot physically exist in the real world, such as oozing chalk or thick thoughts. Using these qualities of literature as a material itself would be interesting to explore. Creating work that would give light to the unspoken and subconscious information that we intake when we read would fascinate me. After reading several translated texts such as Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk And The Employees by Olga Ravn, I have been fascinated with translation. Rather than translation creating an exact equivalent, it reveals both the perspectives of the author and translator. Adding dimensions of perspectives to a work by including ambiguous text would be interesting to experiment with.

The relationship between science and the spiritual world has always interested me, and seems to continually come up as a tension in my work. With science being, to me, the dominant influencer of world views, I am interested in how it functions more as a faith. Scientists put faith in a hypothesis and dedicate themselves to it, much like a religion. Humanity seems to put their faith in the theories too. The Milky Flesh parasite is the only living creature on earth that does not breath or have any mitochondria DNA. Scientists are unsure how this creature functions and survives. Therefore, it seems that the more that science discovers, the more the world breaks the rules that previous scientists had determined. This tension, when explored in art, would question the socially accepted authority of science in our culture. 

How will I Conduct my Research?

When conducting my research, I will explore art, language, and science through various means, such as essays, novels, videos, and artist websites. To explore my art research, I will research Cerith Wyn Evans whose work explores subverting the materiality of sculpture. Due to my interest in William Tucker’s definition of sculpture in his essay The Condition of Sculpture, I will also read his book ‘The Language of Sculpture’ to engage with more specific ideas which I can challenge. I would also like to research his more recent ideas and investigate whether his opinions have changed and if so, what cultural movements might have encouraged this change.

Through my investigation of artists that push material boundaries and the confinements of sculpture, I will also aim to research materials that subvert and question what can scientifically occur in art. I will further research the work of Olafur Eliasson due to his awe-factor sculptures that make me question how his work can exist. After the artist visit with Holly Hutchinson, I will research in much greater detail the ways in which she questions and explores science.

My research into science, I hope, will also extend into my conceptual practise. I will read What We Cannot Know by Marcus du Sautoy which is about human impossibilities in scientific knowledge. It will be interesting to identify the ways in which humanity acknowledges its own limitations. Questions and definitions of knowledge and existence should also help me better understand the role of religious faith and hope in science. The journal Why does God Exist? by C. A. McIntosh might also give insight into the psychological disposition of humankind and why we do all have a form of God in our lives, whether it is science or a more traditional theistic figure. The use of scientific journals, however, does create a complicated relationship with my subject matter. This is because I am using the godly authority of science while critiquing that very authority. Therefore, my own complicity in these ideas will be an added dimension to explore.

Due to my interest in using language as a material itself, I would like to read some creative writing that challenge form and translation. Rather than just academic research, I would like to use myself as a guinea pig and test which literary styles are most provocative for me, as a reader. A posthumous Toni Morrison novel has recently been released called Recatif, which has a very long introduction written by Zadie Smith. Through comparing Zadie Smith’s own literary style to discuss another literary style, ideas of interpretation and translation can be explored. I also will read And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos by John Berger which is a meditative book which subverts literary forms. The fine art descriptions in the novel may aid and inspire my own combining of literature and art. Further research on the art of Paul Thek and Gala Porras-Kim (who we saw at Gasworks) will also provide me with inspiration on how to incorporate text in art in a way which enhances visual imagery and narrative to create a strong message and viewer experience.

Through both primary and secondary research, I hope to ascertain a specific and clear theme through which I can homogenise these varied discussions surrounding art, science, and literature. For example, the journal Pheromones and Animal Behaviour: Communication by Smell and Taste by Tristram D. Wyatt will be interesting to combine ideas of communication through language as well as the ephemeral material quality of smell which can be used in sculpture. Through testing various untraditional and traditional art materials, such as both smell and latex, I will get the opinions of my peers to ascertain which are effective at encouraging them to question their perceptions.

How Does This Subject Matter Relate to my Art as a Whole?

In my work so far in foundation, I have previously explored incorporating text in my art, for example, in my piece Sculpture of the Mind, I screen printed a tortilla with a piece of literature which I wrote. In response to William Tuckers ideas about the materiality of sculpture, I encouraged the viewer to create the sculpture in their minds through the inspiration of the literature. This work I found to be successful, so adopting the same literary style would be a good starting off point. I also used text in my piece Amistics which involved instructions for a smell piece. I researched how separate Western cultures are from using smell to learn information, so I explored this through a scent which deposits UV ink and leaves a mark around the nose. Through creating an investigation booth, I called upon scientific visual culture, which I would also like to do in my FMP. Currently, I am working on a sculpture which explores the boundaries of living and non-living matter through my research on the milky flesh parasite. My research called upon Catholic relics because they also exist in a space of living and non-living due to the bodily matter once belonging to a living person but is now animated through their alleged spiritual significance. How science and spiritual ideas interplay is something I also hope to bring further into my FMP.

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This work ‘Maat’, created intrigue and investigation in the audience in order to explore 21st C. views on spiritual existence.

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‘Beauty’ by Olafur Eliasson. Installation work consists of vapour which creates a unique and different experience for each viewer. Interesting use of air material

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Magnetic works use magnetic fields which cannot be seen- a very unusual visual art material. This inspired my magnetic piece in WIP show.

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The symbolic materiality to Noguchi’s work is very moving and dignifying. At the Barbican, his work being on the floor gave it an elemental and early quality which informed my installation of later works. 

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My work ‘Magnetic Fields’, exposes that which is around us which we cannot see.

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Cell Division- visually stunning and abstract. Particularly inspired by ‘H’, which is just before the cells split.

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My work ‘Macro Metamorphosis’, after being inspired by Noguchi’s cell division piece has a more scientific visual language. 

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This essay has inspired my ideas around how we communicate and connect, particularly through non-language forms, such as through ceremonial meals. It also explores how language exists in a visual or oral space, not in  smell or taste. This distinction also interests me. 

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This scientific journal explores how in Western cultures, we cleanse ourselves of our bodily scents and add artificial ones, we do not encourage scent detection in early development, and we don't use scent to detect if food is in date. Smell is all around us, but we don't detect it always.  

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The first 2 works by Clara Ursitti explore the scent as a way to distil a place or person. Marc Quinn’s ‘Cloned DNA Self Portrait 26.09.01 (2nd perspective)’ piece does the same, but with his own DNA as the subject. At what point is Quinn the material and the subject or just the subject?

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Katie Patterson’s work explores how we use scent to be placed in a space and time and also uses lovely and interesting methods to record performance pieces.

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This performance talk lead me to think about how can the experience of a performance piece be the art material itself. 

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