During last semester’s investigations I started to explore traditional linear
narrative devices and a spectrum between hyper linear structures and trans
linear narrative representations. My original narrative construction was based
on speculative literature involving the basic tropes of classic science fiction
and psychological horror of midcentury America, specifically Phillip K Dick,
Frank Herbert, Rod Sterling and Gene Roddenberry. The story was titled Uncanny Valley after the psychological
phenomenon of the same name. The uncanny valley, according to Oxford dictionary,
originated in the 1970s from a
translation of Japanese bukimi no tani, coined by the roboticist
Masahiro Moti, who created a graph that plotted the emotional response of a
human being to a robot against the increase in the perceived realism of a
robot. Oxford states that the graph showed a significant dip at the point where
the robot's resemblance to a human is perceived to be almost exact. I chose this line of development mainly
because of the work I was already producing. After categorizing the specific
elements that I repeatedly drew I came to recognize two major themes in my
work: 1. The Other (including masks, costuming, as well as anamorphic shapes and
distortions) 2. Time and space as an attempt at organizing reality in a
durational capacity. The second subject matter
involving time and space manifested in the form of journaling, juxtaposed with
visual renderings often tangentially related. In approaching the concept of
narrative directly, I realized that narrative could have dimensions I had been
aware of but had not actually put into practice. Parsing narrative in terms of
rational progression and mathematical models led me to visualize two working structures
as a starting point for this semester’s investigations. Specifically, the geometric language of
points, lines, and rays has given me valuable tools for organizing my thoughts regarding
narrative. I realized traditional notions
of narrative may be represented by two points and a line, one point
representing a beginning and one point representing an end and a line between
them representing the temporal progression of narrative. The model of narrative
I found most useful closely resembled the ontological theories of Bergson’s Duration
and Deleuze’s ideas of the moment of apprehension. A mathematical representation of the hyper
linear model would look more like an explosion than a clothesline, where the
point origin is replaced by a juncture of overlapping rays with no point of
origin or expression of an end. I want to keep working with the idea of
narrative in my work but I feel it must evolve indirectly. I found that
limiting the imagery of my drawings to a specific story or traditional linear narrative
structure had a double-sided effect. The traditional linear structure actually
fed the flow of ideas but the execution of those ideas was daunting, partially
due to their finite (The End) characteristics. I found that sharing the
narrative (ephemeral, non linear, telling never ending, or never even actually
beginning) of what I intended to do was more exhilarating than the feedback of
the actual work. This performance in sharing of the story felt more “real” than
explicitly trying to represent them as objects.
At this point, my conclusions have given way to the new question: has
modern/post modern/pseudo modern ontology come down to the compromises of Cartesian
vs Quantum Wizards of OZ? Maybe it has something to do with actual objects
versus objects as pure thought form ,at which point the thoughts begin to
transcend the limits of the person experiencing them. Is the experience greater
than the sum of its parts?
Research Avenues
I
will research the cargo cult and carnival tropes as the narrative meta
structures to my aesthetic investigations. Utilizing my own resources of a
woodshop studio, I will explore elements of a carnival language and theatrical
presentation. Specifically the carnival as a cultural form used to represent
objectification, reification and address the breakdown of contemporary social and
personal stratification. I will ask the
questions of how the notion of the cargo cult has evolved to represent modern
parities between global cultures as well as technological hegemony. I will also
address how the device of the carnival is expressed in contemporary cultural
practices. I hope to create a carnival theatre as an interactive narrative
machine of actual experiences.
Goal
My goal is to build a four foot
by eight foot shooting gallery complete with targets and “guns”. I will break
it down roughly into 6 parts to correspond with the 6 works requirement. I will
use two by fours and plywood, maybe canvas, painted with exterior house paint
and water based one shot paint. The targets will represent “The Other” and will
be made of insulation board and plywood with motion powered by an electric can
opener and bicycle parts.
Further notes-Mark making through arbitrary means-
Surrealist automatismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_automatism
Automatism has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and drawing initially (and still to this day) practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar, or perhaps parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation.
