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我的简介 - Fionnuala Doran
The prisoner in Plato’s Cave sees the shadows pass on the wall before him: toy snakes, alphabet blocks, black holes. Disembodied hands lovingly craft a gelatinous ball of purple foodstuffs. An artist meditates in his chapel of tin-foil hats. A black hole emerges from the mouth of a frog, displaying the secrets of the universe.
The imagery and text of my work cover a wide cultural spectrum. Concepts as diverse as quantum physics and extra terrestrial mind protection are brought together within a narrative framework that suggests their potential relationships. The multi-disciplinary practise attempts to embody a theory of everything, a grid of connectivity, linking the entire work. These over-arching connections and the small relationships of word and image all form the core critical issues of my work: ‘How are these images and texts connected to one another, and what is the dialogue between them?’
Drawing
Drawing is the core process through which these critical questions are tackled. Drawing- both with images and words. The appeal of drawing is that it offers infinite flexibility as a medium. Any subject can be tackled. The bold outlines; flat, bright washes of colour and rounded shapes of my images are instantly recognisable as the stylistic modes of the comic book. The medium of ink on paper offers an immediacy and fluidity of touch. The colours are bright and solid. A wide variety of line and mark making can be explored.
The images float in space, or sit on plain surfaces deliberately shorn of outside contexts. Human figures are absent, or their faces remain unseen. The objects are shown on a blank slate- an interpretation of their significance relies on the viewer’s previous knowledge of the concepts and the associations they bring to it. They possess an unreal quality. The objects exist in a state of tension- neither falling nor stationary, as if held in place by a tractor beam. Elements of the absurd are apparent in the literal treatment of phrases and concepts- Plato’s Cave is a fissure in rock; a small worm pokes itself out of an open hole in space-time.
Tension & Juxtaposition/Image & Text
Tensions and binary oppositions keep the work suspended, in tension, between the subjects and imagery. Juxtaposing philosophical concerns with simply drawn accruements of alien enthusiast maintains the sense of the absurd, and destroys reverence about any terms. The notion of Rothko’s Chapel or Jean-Luc Godard’s explorations of the future imperfect in Alphaville are open to mockery. Everything possesses an inherent sense of the ridiculous. It adds complexity to the dialogue between the images.
One of the main devices that I use for creating and maintaining tensions is the use of text and image combined. Image and text impose meanings and connections onto each other; the differing modes of attention fight for dominance. This opposition fuels the narrative drive of the comic book. Jean Luc Godard used it to complicate and add texture to his films- mistranslating subtitles, obliterating the screen with captions etc.
Text allows me to explicitly reference concepts; to open a door into the drawings’ conversation, but also acts as a device for complicating that translation. Captions and subtitles are switched to the ‘wrong’ image: a grid covers a quote from Godard’s science-fiction noir Alphaville. This is a playful interference, designed not to confuse but to stimulate.
The ‘Marvel Method’ of writing comic-books proved to be a useful semeiotic device for adoption. Writers provided the artists with the brief plot outline for 28 pages, which would then be filled with specific dialogue and detail when the art was completed. The meanings shifted throughout their creation.
The texts create a mute dialogue which reverberates around the room. As the position of the images change, so does the conversation taking place. There exists an infinite number of variations and discourses.
The Niche/Cult
I am attracted to the niche and cult elements of popular culture and these provide the visual fuel for my work. Things that exist at the bottom or at the sides of popular culture, that are appropriated by small, self-selected groups of people associated with obsessive or ‘outsider’ social behaviour. Comic books, ‘Zines, alien abduction websites, the films of Roger Corman, Buster Keaton and Jean-Luc Godard, theoretical physics, science-fiction are all utilised.
It is the genuine belief and enthusiasm that fuels these interests that I find fascinating. Things are repeated, remembered by heart and guarded jealously. They are full of signifiers, opening up multiple connections and avenues towards other subjects. It is the baggage they come with that makes them such rich resources.
Science and Science-Fiction
The hypothetical ‘theory of everything’ is a critical question of theoretical physics. There is an inherent absurdity in attempting to condense the great complexity of life within the universe into mathematical formulae. In this, I saw an analogy for my own attempt to create an overarching set of references that connects the disparate subjects throughout the work. Any attempt at connecting frogs and tin-foil hats in bound to pass through the ridiculous.
The final mode of display adopts some of these principles. The drawings are laid out in a linear grid which slowly unravels itself, drawings moving out of place, the final spaces remaining unfilled, as it reaches the end of the wall.
The opposition between the academic notions of science and those that are popularised in popular culture as science-fiction is also of interest to me. It is a complex antagonism, like the conflict between image and text, high and low culture and fiction and reportage. Current notions of quantum physics contain hypotheses that resemble science-fiction, such as worm holes as a method of travel to different areas within our or parallel universes. Comic-books in particular fuel their storylines with interpretations of science, or pseudo-science.
Those notions of extra-terrestrials as dangerous visitors to earth also make an interesting contrast to accepted science. Its proponents co-opt notions of outer-space, but in a way that is irrational and quasi-religious as opposed to rational and logical.
Performance/Installation
The freezing of, or interruption of ephemeral moments, such as those in a performance offers a new methodology for exploring the tensions between reality and unreality, or fiction and reportage. There is an inadequacy bordering on the ridiculous to a time and space specific artwork being detailed in any adequate way in the written form.
Deliberate misreading of these accounts complicates the irony- such as mistaking a metaphorical object for a literal one, or taking Plato’s Cave as a literal space. The drawn misinterpretations of a written detail of a performance I have never seen are the shadows on the wall of the cave. The referenced performance ceases to matter so much as the issues I have chosen to read in and take out of it.
The number of images produced poses questions about modes of developing the practise beyond a wall display. A display as if a series of paintings or photographs would not reflect the playfulness with form and tone that characterises the drawings.
The work of Paul McCarthy offered a method for moving these notions of playfulness with popular culture into a physical space. I re-enacted an imaginary scene occurring between two of the images in The Purple Glob series of drawings. The image moved off the wall and into a new existence in time and space as a performance, which was then left as a record on video. This experiment in the project space was a useful method of testing and making links and new directions.
Mike Kelley’s multi-disciplinary approach, in conjunction with a practise deeply rooted in popular culture again suggested new methods of considering the drawn work. Both Kelley and McCarthy have practises that cover a wide range of disciplines- performance, sculpture, installation, drawings. A practise composed of everything better reflects the imagery’s attempt to cover everything- to connect them all in a unifying theory.
An installation based practise appealed to the sense of the provisional in the drawings. They do not exist as Fine-Art objects- they are made quickly, have torn edges, drips, footprints. Several attempts at display were tried, utilising different spaces within the university: the white space, the grey space and provisional, occupied spaces. These sites suggested a sense of presence, or aura, around the images. They became like a Rothko’s Chapel, a site of meditating among images- albeit an absurd and degraded one.
The adoption of an installation approach opens new avenues but also poses critical questions. What value will be placed upon the drawings? Will drawing as a process be continued into the physical space? How far can it progress before it becomes theatrical?
Ilya Kabakov’s 1984 installation, The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment, represents to me the furthest limits of theatricality- a space that is cordoned off from the viewer. The departed presence is clearly identified and defined.
As the objects in the drawings are without backgrounds, floating away from definitive anchors, it would be inappropriate to name or characterise too sure an identity, or create too defined a space for them. Susan MacWilliams’ Kuda Bux is a relevant example of a non site-specific installation. The individual elements maintain their relationship to one another no matter the setting.
A neutral background of plain white walls and dark floor, like a blank sheet of paper, allows all the elements- drawing, video, and found objects- to remain flexible. It does not place any new contexts upon them, or prejudice the viewer’s interpretation, as a space with pre-existing characteristics would. The narrative floats free; connections are ready to be made.
Conclusion
The installation opens a door into a cacophonous discourse, where a line of connectivity jumps from the tip of Lincoln’s nose to a toy tethered to a railway track. Cartoon animals recite lines from New-Wave films.
The space can be read left-to-right, like a book. Or from image to image, like a comic. One can also jump, as if into a worm hole, across images and locations, defining one’s own connections.
In my attempt to create a practise that encompasses everything, a discourse has been created within its individual strands. The viewer must ask critical questions as to which conversations to latch onto; what links they choose to pursue. They are the shadows on the wall, ready to be translated; to be made real.
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