Observation, distillation, aggregation : Framing aesthetic encounters in the atmospheric millieu through expanded art practice

摘要

Drawing from a range of light-based and atmospheric phenomena observedudin everyday situations, this research project explores the threshold acrossudwhich the ordinary and the extraordinary intersect. It examines art’s roleudin framing these alignments and its potential to help us understand whatudconstitutes aesthetic experience. Acknowledging the highly specific,udephemeral and often ineffable character of such encounters, the researchudhas been conducted as experimental fieldwork.udThe setting for this fieldwork is defined by that which is familiar, provisionaludand durational by nature – the immediate everyday environment. Theseudqualities also define the subject matter (which include the rainbow, dust,udand birds in flight) and methodological tools (such as the chair, the window,udand the camera obscura). The practical research is centred on familiarudmanifestations of the light and air. Diverse media have been employed,udincluding series of paintings and drawings, voice recordings and videouddocumentation of chance atmospheric encounters, gallery-based sitespecificudinstallation and performance.udThe project draws together a field of artists and theoreticians who rejectudrepresentational models in favour of directly framing experience. Centraludto the research has been the philosophical thought of Gilles Deleuze andudFélix Guattari, and its interpretation as an approach to art practice by SimonudO’Sullivan. Other writers informing the project include Alva Nöe, BrianudMassumi, Richard Holmes, Jörg Heiser, and Anna Dezeuze. The contextualudfield is further defined with visual examples that apprehend the light and/orudair, discussed through selected works by John Ruskin, Gabriel Orozco,udSpencer Finch, Ariane Epars, Francis Alÿs, Robert Barry and OlafurudEliasson, as well as the methods of Romantic scientist Humphry Davy.udThe research has implemented open-ended working systems that allow anudaccumulation of responses over time. With an intention to communicateudpersonal aesthetic encounters, parameters were established through whichudI could respond, intervene, and often push against. Expanding the researchudto consider how others’ experiences might be included, frameworks forudparticipation were introduced. These methodological systems or ‘armatures’ were themselves investigated for their potential to both contain andudstimulate aesthetic awareness.udThe research unfolded as a series of related encounters. As such, the projectudseeks to extend the creative ‘moment of meeting’ into the presentation ofudthese processes. The submission does not bring together a series of resoluteudworks but instead assembles multiple responses to phenomena at differentudstages of inquiry, with the intention of setting in motion complex reencounters,udwhere viewers engage in the here-and-now collectively.udExpanding on existing models of art practice that resist definition andudpermanence, the project contributes a new experiential body of work.udThe research does not arrive at objective knowledge but instead a placeudof subjective awareness, proposing this place of un-knowing might beudconclusive in itself.