Output details

Susan Hiller, The Provisional Texture of Reality: Selected Texts and Interviews, 1977-2007

No elements of my editorial contribution to this output have ever been published independently of it, although some of Susan Hiller's texts anthologised in the collection have been previously published: details of such previous publications are supplied in the output itself, at the beginning of each text.

My contribution as editor consisted of the following elements: a) selecting the texts for inclusion, in collaboration with Susan Hiller; b) dividing the texts into thematic sections, in collaboration with Susan Hiller; c) copy-editing and suggesting changes to previously unpublished texts; d) annotating all selected texts, ranging from cross-referencing between texts to highlight points of convergence (e.g. p.124, n.1.; p.151, n.1), to additions, updates or corrections to citations (p.210, n.8; p.250, n.3), and critical contextualisation in art (p.231, n.3; p.238, n.1; p.244, n.1), scholarship (p.30, n.1; p.70, n.2), and current affairs (p.171, n.1); e) writing the introductory chapter, which aims to contextualise the material presented in the volume, reflect on editorial choices and approach (e.g. the decision not to erase traces of orality in some texts), consider the relationship between Hiller's artistic and textual output and more broadly interrogate the function of artist's texts, drawing on Walter Benjamin’s thoughts on translation and translatability. In my introduction and through the structure and choices of the book as a whole, I argue that writing by artists highlights the blind spots of disparate discourses while simultaneously creating a platform for productive dialogue between them, in active acknowledgement that both art and language constitute valid ways of knowing. In Hiller’s case, this conversation often takes place between art and anthropology but also notably between art, philosophy and psychoanalysis.