Output details
36 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
Canterbury Christ Church University
'On reflection'
Artwork Exhibited as part of the International Northern Print Biennale in Newcastle upon Tyne from June - October 2009
Dimensions: Each box, 250x50x45mm, dimensions of the installation are variable
Medium: Perspex boxes, mirrors and objects
‘On reflection’ investigates the ways in which Artaud’s notion of the subjectile can be interrogated and demonstrated through artistic practice. The work comprises 15 translucent boxes mounted on a wall, each slightly open and containing a mirror angled at 45 degrees allowing contents of the box to be viewed. The boxes include objects, prints, drawings and photographs.
‘On reflection’ explores the planographic aspect of printmaking by presenting objects and flat images on the mirror plane. Through the relationship set up between two-dimensional reflections and three-dimensional objects, the boxes create a visual effect that cannot be photographed, but only experienced through the visual perception of an individual subject. The resulting dialogue between subject and object is intended to encourage reflection of an intimate, secretive type. The materiality of the object, and it’s non-material reflection also address the key distinctions between analogue and digital ‘information’.
The research references the role of the mirror, which reflects a reversed image of an object, and the function of print, which produces an inverted copy from a block or plate. The work initiates a dialogue between reflection and reproduction, which seeks to generate associations between an image that is seen, objectively, and an image that is sensed in the mind, subjectively. Following from this is the reference to the function of imagination, which ‘sees’ a simulacrum of a real object in the ‘mind’s eye’.
The research generates new ways of thinking about the picture plane and the act of perception. It also explores and enters into dialogue with Artaud’s concept of the subjectile because distinctions between subject and object are arguably compounded by the work . The work intends to question how the perception of an object operates once it becomes part of subjective sense perception.
