Dave Ball, currently pursuing a practice-based PhD at Winchester School of Art, presented ‘Absurdity, Absurdity, and Absurdity‘ as part of Conversas series at Schillerpalais, Berlin, 29 Nov 2017. The following are his reflections on the event.
Conversas is a regular series of thematically diverse talks held with the aim of creating discussion and dialogue, where audience members are encouraged to interrupt and ask questions, and presenters are warned against preparing âtoo tightlyâ. I decided, therefore, not to give a conventionally coherent presentation of my work or my PhD research, but instead treat the event as a public testing-ground for some of the more speculative elements emerging out of my research into absurdity.
The plan was to present a series of examples of what Iâd identified as eight variants of absurdity observable in works of contemporary art. Since those categorisations were, to a degree, based on my own intuitive assertions about what would or wouldnât constitute âabsurdityâ, I was very keen to test them out publicly.
The talk began with a short screening of one of my own video works, which was greeted appreciatively, followed by a brief introduction to my research. As soon as the presentation turned to the work of other artists, however, the atmosphere in the room became unexpectedly heated. In fact, the very first slide shown (a photo by Thomas Ruff of a man inelegantly attempting a handstand on a leather chair, legs flailing in the air) received an immediate rebuttal that âWhy shouldnât we do handstands on chairs? Why is that absurd? Thatâs so conservative!â
In fact, almost every slide I showed initiated some tirade or other on what various audience members seemed to consider an affront to their intelligence, their outlook on life, or at least their conception of art. My gentle conceptual enquiry into whether or not the works could be considered absurd was frequently met with an impassioned and resounding âno!â Whist some of these protestations could easily be dealt with through reasoned argumentation or clarification of concepts, others unearthed genuinely fertile grounds for further investigation. But what took me completely by surprise was the level of passion, conviction, and emotion with which the audience responded to the topic. Absurdity, as was repeatedly made clear, really matters â and not just to this particular PhD researcherâŠ
Jason Kass recenlty completed his PhD at Winchester School of Art. The title of his thesis is ‘Cognitive Aspects of Pictorial Address and Seriality in Art: A Practice-led Investigation’. In this post he offers an overview of the nature and scope of his research.
My doctoral research explored the perceptual and cognitive processes that underlie spectatorship of pictorial artworks and incorporated insights into the production of new works of art. The fundamental premise of my research was that artworks exist as part of the visual world and are subject to the same visual processes as ordinary scenes and objects. Applying existing empirical findings from cognitive psychology to spectatorship of works of art allows for a more complete understanding of pictorial address.
Using theories and methods from psychology to understand the experience of artworks is not in itself novel. The field of empirical aesthetics boasts a wide literature comprising experiments around aesthetic preference and art appreciation. My research differs based on my position as a visual artist rather than a scientist and my emphasis on relating psychological findings to existing art theory and art historical narratives. The incorporation of practice-based research in the form of producing new works of art (Fig. 2) also brings a different perspective to an established yet often divisive discipline.
Figure 1. Installation shot from PhD exhibition.
Within the thesis, I focused on seriality as an aesthetic strategy and the mode of address offered by serial works of art. Serial artworks have previously been theorised, in particular by Coplans (1968), who established a distinction between serial artworks that comprise multiple discrete but related instances and pictures produced along the masterpiece model. Fer (2004) has said about seriality, âIt brings with it a whole set of assumptions about the nature of aesthetic experience as direct and spontaneousâ (p.4).
My research sought to reveal the direct impact of seriality on the experience of the viewer by way of cognitive and perceptual processes. In the first instance I considered Monetâs painted series of the Rouen Cathedral. A proto-serial artwork, Monet understood the importance of exhibiting the nearly thirty paintings depicting different light and weather conditions being exhibited together.
I consulted theories of concept formation and face recognition that speak to the ability to form a stable mental concept from a set of varied instances: a feature essential to navigating a complex visual world. Findings within the study of face recognition indicate that the process may involve retaining invariant information across instances while eliminating extraneous superficial details; a process akin to averaging (Young & Bruce, 2011).
Figure 2. A subset of nearly thirty paintings by Monet of the façade of the Rouen Cathedral (left) and an averaged composite of a subset of the paintings created in Photoshop (right).
Applying this same premise to Monetâs cathedrals it is possible to infer that the variation in colour and luminosity across the paintings prompts the viewer to form a stable mental concept that lasts long after the in situ viewing (Fig. 2). With regard to art historical narratives, this implies that Monetâs series are as much conceptual as they are perceptual in nature, which runs counter to Duchampâs well-known exclamation of Impressionist artworks as purely retinal in nature (Krauss, 1990; de Duve, 1996). I explored these findings through photography, drawing and found images (Fig. 3).
Figure 3. Series arrived at by dropping a portrait of my mother into Googleâs âsearch by imageâ function. The work responded to ideas of concept formation and Barthesâ writings in Camera Lucida (1981).
The second case study examined Warholâs use of serial repetition in works from his Death and Disaster series that repeat a gruesome image multiple times across a single canvas. Warhol said, âwhen you see a gruesome picture over and over again it doesnât really have any effectâ (quoted in Goldsmith, 2004, p.19). He presumed that repeated exposure to an distressing image results in a âdeactivatingâ of the negative affect.
Employing existing psychological findings regarding repeated exposure (Zajonc, 1968) it is possible to infer that viewing artworks from the series ultimately leads to an increase in negative affect for the viewer, despite an initial increase in positive affect as a result of repetition. This is due to increased access to the negative semantic content, also a result of repeated exposure (Reber et al., 2004). Related ideas were explored through practice-based research responding to Hunterâs (1973) âaesthetics of boredom” (Fig. 4).
Figure 4. Installation shot of interim PhD exhibition.
Through future research I hope to build on my dissertation as a model for the exchange of ideas between experimental psychology, art theory and art practice. Although within the dissertation I did not conduct original empirical research I believe there is scope to expand on the theoretical frameworks that I developed through experimentation. I am also keen to further disseminate my findings through practice-based research resulting in creative outcomes that can be publically exhibited.
List of References
Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Coplans, J. (1968). Serial imagery. Pasadena: Pasadena Art Museum.
De Duve, T. (1996). Resonances of Duchamps Visit to Munich. In R. Kuenzli & F.M. Naumann, Marcel Duchamp: Artist of the Century. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.
Fer, B. (2004). The infinite line: Re-making art after Modernism. Hartford: Yale University Press.
Goldsmith, K. (2004). Iâll be your mirror: The selected Andy Warhol interviews 1962-1987. New York: Caroll & Graf Publishers.
Hunter, S. (1973). The Aesthetics of Boredom. In S. Hunter and J. Jacobus eds. American Art of the 20th Century: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Krauss, R.E. (1990). The story of the eye. New Literary History, 21(2), 283-298.
Reber, R., Schwarz, N. & Winkielman, P. (2004) Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: is beauty in the perceiverâs processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 364â82.
Sagner-Duchting, K. (2002). Monet and Modernism. Munich and London: Prestel.
Young, A. W., & Bruce, V. (2011). Understanding person perception. British Journal of Psychology, 102, 959â74.
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2), 1â27.
PhD Researcher Abelardo Gil-Fournier has contributed work to an exhibition, Cartographic Operations, at the University’s L4 Gallery space. His work appears alongside that of WSA Staff, Ian Dawson, Sunil Manghani and Jane Birkin.Â
Cartographic Operations L4 Gallery, February – March 2017
In Bernhard Siegertâs âThe map is the territoryâ, he refers to the idea of âcartographic operationsâ. The suggestion is that our way of seeing the world is not simply represented in maps, but that map-making is itself a play of competing signs and discourses producing our subjecthood. These are the coordinates we come to live by, which in turn influence the marks and signs at our disposal when we seek to make and share representations of the world. This exhibition brings together three alternative cartographic operations with the work of Jane Birkin, Abelardo Gil-Fournier and Sunil Manghani and Ian Dawson (see ‘Exhibited Works’ below). The exhibition was devised to complement Beyond Cartography: Safeguarding Historic Maps and Plans, an exhibition in the Special Collections Gallery that showcases maps from the University of Southampton Libraryâs Special Collections, illustrating the challenges that these objects bring to conservators before conservation or long-term preservation takes place.
Cartographic Operations runs from 20 February to 20 March and sits alongside the exhibition in the Special Collections Gallery, Beyond Cartography: Safeguarding Historic Maps and Plans. Private View:  Tuesday 28 February, 5pm to 8pm. [Sign up via Facebook]
Exhibited Works
Jane Birkin, 1:1 (2017)
Jane Birkin, 1:1 (2017) [detail]Jane Birkin, 1:1 (2017) [detail]Jane Birkinâs1:1Â is a direct mapping of infrastructure behind the white space of display. It is Âa piece produced by performative procedure: a regulated operation where authorial control is established at the outset and rules are strictly followed. Electric current and metal are plotted using a DIY store metal/voltage detector and the information transferred simply to print.
There are literary precedents for mapping at this scale. In Jorge Luis Borgesâs short story On Exactitude in Science cartography became exactingly precise, producing a map that has the same scale as its territory. And, in Lewis Carrollâs Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, a German professor tells how map-makers experimented with the use of ever larger maps, until they finally produced a map of the scale of 1:1. âIt has never been spread out, yetâ, said the professor. âThe farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight!â In this case, the gallery wall is covered, shut off from light and eyes. Although 1:1 is an impassive engagement with the rule-based activity of cartography, it simultaneously performs an affective act of display.
Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Marching Ants (2017)Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Marching Ants (2017)Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Marching Ants (2017)
Abelardo Gil-FournierâsMarching Ants draws upon historical photographic sources of landscape transformations driven by the building of large water irrigation infrastructures as part of 20th century Spanish land reforms. The work is a reminder of the use of forced labor to transform the lines of maps and diagrams into tunnels and channels in the earth. An economic exploitation of political repression that took place during more that 20 years within Penal Colonies that have been since then removed and forgotten.
The marching ants effect, also known as marquee selection, is the animated border of dashed lines often used in computer graphics programs where the dashes seem to move slowly sideways and up and down, as ants marching in line. It is the visible sign of a potentially immediate transformation within the surface of the screened image. Considered from the point of view of an aerial landscape, operations such as gridding, ordering or leveling land, the marching ants are a form of cultural technique, the tracing of an interaction between imaging technologies, environment, geography and governmental knowledge
Sunil Manghani and Ian Dawson, Not on the Map (2017)Sunil Manghani and Ian Dawson, Not on the Map (2017)Sunil Manghani and Ian Dawson, Not on the Map (2017)
Sunil Manghani and Ian DawsonâsNot on the Map is an image-text installation built into the gallery space. It draws upon maps held in the Universityâs Special Collections, picking out details from a volume of Spanish maps from the Ward Collection and military maps of Portugal taken from the Bremner Collection. These details are placed in dialogue with tracings from early and recent figurative works by Jenny Saville â the noted contemporary British artist associated with the Young British Artists of the 1990s and well-known for her large-scale female nudes. The rendering of her work here offers a play on the distinctions between perception/sensations and geography/landscape, which combined with details from real maps only blurs and disorientates our ways of reading lines, sites and points of view. In recent work, Saville shows bodies together, such as an infant wrestling in a motherâs arms, couples embracing, a fight, and children playing in the sand. Such scenes take us into uncharted territories, which we might liken to the enigmatic inks of long forgotten maps. Unlike the spectacle of the body in Savilleâs early work, the configuration of images staged here pose as private, idiosyncratic landscapes made up of no single definite lines.
Archaeologies of Media and Technology (AMT) research group has started organizing a reading group on media theory. The reading group had its first meeting in October with the aim of initiating a lively forum for discussion amongst students and faculty whose interests overlap with AMT. The research group itselfâan office for theoretical and practice-based work in media, design and art, in relation to both contemporary culture and cultural heritageâhad its inaugural conference, Future Past Tense, earlier the same month.
We meet at the PhD room in Winchester campus fortnightly to discuss selected texts that relate to themes and topics, concepts and issues in contemporary media theory. The work range from German media theory to new materialism, from issues of power and politics to the role technologies play informing what is produced as material reality.
Some of the first sessions had a particular emphasis on the theorisation of âcultural techniques,â with a couple meetings dedicated to explore the writings of some of the key theorists of the area: Bernhard Siegert, Cornelia Vismann and Geoffrey Winthrop-Young. The discussions revolved around the limits of such conceptualisation in analysing the emergence of objects and processes in contemporary media culture.
We also convened a seminar in collaboration with the PhD studio week to address âcritical technical practiceâ and discuss current approaches to media and art research from a practice-based perspective. It involved issues around making and unmaking and the questions of media technologies as epistemological and aesthetic frameworks. A range of relevant art practices and projects (such as art group YoHa and Critical Engineers) were discussed, as well as the work of the participants. Michael Dieterâs âThe Virtues of Critical Technical Practiceâ was the key text for this workshop.
Recently, we have been increasingly occupied with the problems surrounding life and politics in the present: thinking, writing and making about/with media and technology in the midst of ecological catastrophe. The first port of call in this journey was Donna J. Haraway’s recent book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, which will inform coming meetings.
AMT directors Jussi Parikka and Ryan Bishop have been collaborating closely with Berlin based digital media arts festival transmediale. A product of this dialogue is the reader, across & beyond, which has been published to mark the 30th anniversary of the festival. The books is edited by the directors of AMT with transmedialeâs Kristoffer Gansing and Elvia Wilk. We will engage with the articles, as well as artworks, that reside in this book in the coming sessions.
If you are interested in the reading group, please contact us:
![Jane Birkin, 1:1 (2017) [detail]](http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsapgr/files/2017/02/jane21.jpg)
![Jane Birkin, 1:1 (2017) [detail]](http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsapgr/files/2017/02/jane31.jpg)
