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Parallel editing, multi-positionality and maximalism: cosmopolitan effects as explored in some art works by Melanie Jackson and Vivienne Dick

This is ongoing research arising from Garfield‘s longstanding interest into the possibilities of video for artists exploring subjectivity and experiences at the intersection of ‘race’, class, gender and sexuality. Garfield‘s initial focus was to explore the possibilities of the use of persona in work to challenge the visual reading of the subject in art through multivalence such as Roberta Breitmore (Hershman Leeson). Garfield‘s focus on maximalism and post colonialism was first posited through the commissioned essay on Keith Piper. This has developed through to recent writings where the focus on multivalence challenges the prevalence of the legacies of Minimalism in the Atlantacist paradigm. This published text emerged from a network grant, forming part of the inaugural edition of the Open Art Journal. Garfield draws from film theory, art history and sociology, thinking through readings on parallel editing (Doane; Harbord) and post colonial theory (Mercer’s on ‘the cut’; Sassen’s on the global city). She suggests that the ‘long shot’ of Bazin is inadequate in its singularity, to address the scope of cosmopolitanism and the diversity of humanity. It examines global humanity through multi-positionality, excess and contingency, thereby articulating a new cosmopolitan relationship with the local – or, rather, with many different localities – in one and the same maximalist sweep of the work. ‘Maximalism’ in Garfield ‘s coinage signifies an excessive overloading (through editing, collage, and the sheer density of the range of material) that enables the viewer to insert themselves into the narrative of the work. The significance of this is that it draws together film and post colonial theories in a way that works against and questions the prevalent orthodoxies in both artist video in biennial culture that priveleges the “long look” in video and thinking about how to read the radical in “identity” video.