My MA Show has been and gone, the work installed and then disassembled, my thesis written and handed over. The project moved on from its place in the previous post, moving from an exploration of reality and illusion into a consideration of the role of the other in the formation of the I and sense of self. The role of encounters became a central and reoccurring theme in the work and eventually became the impetus for the creation of the installation.
Below are some stills from footage of the installation at the MMU MA Show 2013, and the artists statement that I wrote for the show. I also had to write a learning record which is a discussion of the process of writing the thesis and creating the installation. It discusses the theories that stimulated the work and the personal experiences that combined created the impetus for the project. I have included this piece of writing towards the end of this post to shed more light on the process of combining theory and practice.
I – An Encounter
“Je est un autre” (“I is another”) Artur Rimbaud
This space is a designated site for Encounter. The work
investigates the body as the link between the mind and the world. Space, sound
and image are utilised to create an encounter that externalises the internal
cognitive understanding of the significance of Other in the singularity of the
I.
It attempts to dispense with language and
simplify the critical and psychological theories present in the written work of
the thesis to create a visual, haptic experience.
This experience is enriched and altered by the
presence of the viewer who brings his or her own experience to the understanding
of this space. Although clearly a gendered
body- like space, it does not seek to preclude the male viewer, but to
highlight the reciprocal nature of the sexes and the binary thinking that both
separates and creates the other, for he
is only possible in presence of she.
Artists statement used for the show.
http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/mashow/2013/profile/grania-mclaughlin/
Learning Record
“Je est un autre”
Throughout the last two years my research has centred on identity and being. At first the reading was wide and I sought out such knowledge that considered this concept with regards to its ephemeral or philosophical nature. However necessary it was to explore it in this way, considering Heidegger and Kant and their search for the understanding of being, it became an unattainable position to argue in a 10,00 word thesis. Indeed I am not sure that any part of the search for understanding of the human subject can be achieved in such a small paper. With this in mind it was necessary to focus on a very small, very specific element of this search. I came across a quote I had noted down from Baudrillards writing on Photography where he questions how one can bring someone into focus photographically, when he is so unable to bring them into focus psychologically. This prompted me to question the validity of an investigation that encompassed the human condition without first considering myself. During my wider research I had begun to research Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s search for the soul through his painting. Rossetti is an artist close to my heart and has played a major role in my life in a rather peripheral, obscure way, and it was in the process of this research that I began to uncover the form that my writing should take. Rossetti was a man of an obsessive nature, he felt a particular connection with Dante Alighieri and felt that his life was bound to this historical figure, and so his presence is felt strongly in Rossetti’s painting and poetry. Rossetti’s paintings, along with many other Pre-Raphaelites, were a part of my early childhood and formed the walls of my universe. They mirrored my mother, encapsulated her being and so became significant to me as an extension of my mother; these images have summarily become an extension of me, a reflection of my internalized world. This personal reflection became part of my research process. But this slightly ephemeral approach was not enough to hold the investigation. During my initial research I had read Simulations by Jean Baudrillard along with others of his essays, I have also read Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes at least three times in the last two years, and both these authors employ the use of psychoanalytical language as a device to explore and present ideas, indeed Barthes was friends with Jacques Lacan and was gifted with the Four Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis by Lacan before the writing of Camera Lucida, and the influence of his notes in the margins of this Lacanian text can be seen in the use of language in his own book. Psychoanalysis is also a language that I identify with, my father was a psychologist and his work surrounded me as a very small child. These elements, Rossetti’s paintings and the trapping of psychoanalytical thought began to coalesce, a way of exploring the notion of myself presented itself and paved the way for the research that became the final stage of my MA.
I felt it necessary to approach the research itself as an experimental process, and the decision to split the work into a practical and a written exploration seemed a natural progression of my thinking up to this point.
I felt that the notions of internal unconscious understanding were central to a position that regarded the inanimate objects that existed in my mothers room and the psychoanalytical understanding held by my father as integral and fundamental parts of my being, my Others. It was this desire to access the unconscious that compelled me to produce a practical elements to my work, it became a way of working through the research and the problem in a palpable way, that not only created new opportunities in the research but produced an alternative form for the research findings to be assimilated by an audience/reader/viewer. This work however required the traditional written research and synthesis to be fully understood in regards to my intention or dialogue.
The results of the research both haptic and written presented the paradoxical nature of self in Lacanian psychoanalysis (so chosen from the alternative strains of psychoanalysis because of the specific use of Lacainian concepts in Barthes and Baudrillard’s writings).
Considering that our I is the multitude, that we are the amalgamation of the Others encountered through our experiences, and if all of these Others are naught but the coalescence of other Others, individuality becomes not a thing in itself, but a unique combination of others…. And the existence of a separate and fundamental self becomes impossible...
From this thought the position of the body became a significant notion, the mind self is a continuum, but the body is a singularity, a separate entity, where we are alone with our multitudes. This body, the site of encounter, the vessel that holds the mind and proclaims its singularity loudly, became the focus of my practical work.
I had become aware that my mothers room and the inanimate others that were housed in there had become a surrogate body for my mother, a non I that in fact protected me as a child (an idea from Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space) and formed an integral part of my own I. With this in mind I began to work with my body photographically to create a video piece that explored this notion of the multitude, unstable and shifting nature of the self. I began creating a series of still photographic images, fractured and distorted, reflecting the re-animation of the self in the presence of any other. This was followed by video work, presenting a new danger to my self, but at the same time holding the potential to explore the work in more depth. The significance of the space became a central problem to me at this point and I made the decision to construct a space for the work to be viewed. The final element was the sound, at this point I felt naked, I had given away many parts of my singular self, held it up for a moment of scrutiny that both terrified and fascinated me.
The video installation became a body without organs, a site of encounter that encompassed the notions of the continuum of the multitudal mind in the singular vessel of the body. I provide the viewer with a temporary body in which to meet the Other, an encounter with I the maker, that, if we follow the Lacanian reasoning, becomes a part of their multitude of I’s.
My research and understanding was helped enormously by the guidance of working Lacanian Psychoanalyst and Jacques Lacan specialist Dr Ian Parker. His deep and working knowledge of these concepts and conventions allowed me to explore a area that otherwise would have been significantly more difficult to come to terms with.
The end of the Thesis and the building of the installation see me with as many questions as answers, the question of human subjectivity is too massive, to controversial, too contested to ever find a comfortable and closed conclusion. The form the research took in its haptic and linguistic consideration felt like a success, the installation itself had the desired effect on the viewer allowing them to exist in the surrogate body and within the multitude.
The undertaking of this MA provided me with the framework and support to pursue this research, and has been genuinely life changing. I have been exposed to various new ideas; dispossessed of misunderstood notions and encouraged to explore ideas from oblique angles. The expertise of the staff and their willingness to support me in an ambitious project has made it possible for me to meet my intention. This environment of mutual interest and support is most conducive to study and exploration, and as such I feel that to continue with formal research within an academic institution would be beneficial to further growth.
It is my desire to continue to research and write/make work that is formed out of the human experience, that which is so fundamentally related to the human condition/subject. Experiences shape the self both consciously and unconsciously and it is this space between where art is made, the visual utterance extracted from the soup of the symbolic world of experience, this is where I wish to work; to explore its potential for lateral thought, for viewing the self askance. It is my intention to spend the next year writing a PHD proposal to determine whether there is in fact the potential for further study/research, and if there is a structure and result that may be of interest to a wider audience.
