Title:
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Thought dwellings : time and space in painting, photography and video
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The practical and theoretical research of this PhD examines the complexities
of time-space relations in painting, photography and video. The aim of this
study has been to develop a body of work that generates an increased
awareness of how the juxtaposition of diverse fine art media can contribute
to a differentiated appreciation of the time-space relation. Further objectives
were to explore how the dichotomy of absence (of figuration) and presence
(of figurative elements) can inform reflections on place relating to Martin
Heidegger's 'Dasein' as being-in-the-world and Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari's 'nomadic' perception within 'smooth' and 'striated' space. Drawing
from Henri Bergson's concept of 'duration as multiplicity' as an oscillation
between presence (actual) and absence (virtual), this study, whilst
acknowledging Bergson's critique of spatializing time, considers
opportunities within contemporary fine-art practice to develop a spatial
configuration involving multiple coexisting durations.
Thought Dwellings, initially the title for a body of paintings and photographs
(1998) concerned with place, later (since 2003) also began to incorporate
video, thus enabling a triangulation of painting, photography and video to
consider movement and stillness across all these categories.
I propose a new terrain where the either/or/and of photography/painting,
photography/video or painting/video becomes this as well as that of
painting/photography/video allowing - whilst upholding medium-specificity
- the physicality of painting to inform the technologies of lens-based media
to arrive at a differentiated time-space relation.
These practical concerns are supported by theoretical explorations involving
place and dwelling, medium-specificity in a 'post-medium' age, minimalism,
phenomenology and time-space relations. Within Deleuzian 'becoming', as
coexistence of difference rather than dialectics of either/or; Jacques
Derrida's differance and Bracha L. Ettinger's 'Matrix' as coming together of 'I
and non-I' to reflect the feminine - Thought Dwellings involves movement
between images, an oscillation between presence and absence proposing
an audio/visual spatialization of 'duration as multiplicity'.
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