It is important to the concept of the exposition that its so-termed cameos are reproductions from the project's original format, titled 'Flood’s Tidal-turn on Relevance; 2024 – 2002', rather than their own multilayer cosntructions, albeit in the digital algorithmic domain. The concept has been to archive not so much the content of the project as its format, which bears reference to the content but does not re-work it. Certain elements have of course been introduced to the orginal format itself, namely the simulated orange-brown floodwater stain and the summary texts, the former providing the base in its suppression of what it overlays for the latter, but the screenshots have flattened them towards single-layer reproductions. To the uninformed human agency of and, in a sense, within the process, apart from seeing how the latter looks and being able to carry out certain levels of operation that are discernible at a glance, its alien digital algorithmic domain may be interpreted psychically as the ineffable Real, of the three Lacanian psychic structural registers Imaginary, Symbolic, Real. Add to this the term agency for one's human involvement as but an operation in relation to a range of material processual circumstances between physical and digital.
Whatever conceptual and aesthetic merit the present format of the project associated with archiving may have, not least being the foregrounding of language as at-once text and visuality, it is mainly an informative record of a project that was developed in a not altogether successful sense. Nonetheless, a curtailed project morphed into its continuation as a new open-ended situation due to a natural event having acted coercively with an artist's artwork past and present, and his studio in aspects that disrupted his life circumstances, and presented a challenge to respond to it as a dynamic contingent experience in line with what he had in any case been debating in the curtailed project.
Thirteen screenshots from an iteration of a project titled 'After-the-Flood: an orange-brown stain', which before that was titled 'Flood’s Tidal-turn on Relevance; 2024 – 2002' with the subtitle, telling of the present iteration: An unresolved project, failed and reconsidered by the contingency of a flood. The project was at first submitted unsuccessfully to an artistic research call for proposals for failed or unresolved projects, and then, also unsuccessfully, to a journal that is more likely to have considered the project on the basis of clarity of relationship between practice and theory. The project in its present state, which can be accessed below as a PDF, variously succeeds or fails according to how the viewer/reader can negotiate a narrative that has developed in terms of ratios of evidence of visual practice and a location affected by a natural flood, theoretical reading associated with a project in progress at the time but curtailed by the flood, subsequent reading in relation to responsiveness to this new contingent situation, and more informally written journal entries. The thirteen screenshots are of new textual interventions on semi-transparent orange-brown screens laid over preexisting text and imagery in parts of the project where some simple non-theoretical explanation seems opportune. Such explanation is at-once elucidating and conflationary, depending on the extent to which one approaches the so-temed cameos as reader or viewer. Ideally, both approaches may be held in equilibrium, where their visuality is a form of comment on the manner of their legibility. It may not be difficult to imagine the screens as digital simulation of the effect of the flood water on physical works and, in some instances, works that have text as part of their visuality. At a point of exhaustion––a project that has, as it were, successfully failed––the cameos now at least foreground the language-basis of the project that oscillates with its visuality.
An unresolved exposition, first submitted to a call for failed projects, returned unsuccsesful, then re-worked and submitted somewhere else, returned due to insufficien clarity.
The main criterion of failure of the content of the exposition to the failure call, was due to a project being curtailed by the event of a flood in my house and studio. The location of the flood is not important, since the terms of the exposition are hermetic; about itself and my involvement in it. Part of the involvement concerns theoretical interests of mine imported into my artistic practice, which therefore partially determine the nature of the practice, and theoretical interests adjunct to the practice apparently affecting it. Part of the difficulty the question, itself, of relationship of theory to practice––at least in my terms––is that the medium of painting and drawing, my preferred artistic medium––is quite resistent to conceptualisation in theoretical terms. Better, therefore, to work in a more conducive medium, usually multidisciplinary. In other words, a painting/ drawing-based artist will paint and draw anyway, since the activity begins with a subjective, non-critical compulsion.
What the flood did, apart from bringing an end to the project on which I was working in at the time, was to oblige me to empty my storeroom. In the process, I reflected on paintings that I'd done in the early 2000s', which were much less theoretically motivated. Arguably, what the early work and the present work have in common is my overriding concern with the question of oneself as one's own subject; identity and orientation. This is either implicit––hardly of theoretical interest in an image-based painting activity––or is a topic of deep research interest. I now go for the latter, while only partly pursuing in terms of its practice-based potential, choosing instead to also regard it as an adjunctive theoretical pursuit. Hence, even an exposition presented as resolved will convey lack of resolution, unless the criteria is limited and simplified.
The digitally simulated flood stain comes over the reproduced painting from the edge of which the actual flood started to remove its layers, especially in the region of the imagery applied in acrylic paint to a textured ground of sand and latex glue. This much can still be deduced from under the stain, the digital image of what was there as shown to the right. Insofar as this text is seen to interact with the reproduction of the painting, however, the latter's content has in a sense been reconstituted with reference, albeit textual, to that which had caused its degradation––to mean corosion and other adverse material effects. The references to which the actual paintings allude, this one and several others on this second page of the exposition, are temple frescoes, in style if not directaly in terms of imagery, are themselves mostly degraded by varying degrees of rain seeping through the eaves and humidity over and within their porous supporting walls. This, arguably, is part of the frescoes' present though unintended aesthetic, and is a reason why what the flood wayer has done to my own works is not necessarily unwanted.
The paintings reproduced below, now affected by the digital stain, escaped the flood, and hence remain in pristine condition. This is given that their imagery variously involves degradation, the left-hand image copied distorted by digital pixelation of its initial photographic reference, and the middle image by air bubbles in the dark fabric that had been glued to the canvas ground, then sliced out and filled with sand and latex glue. The right-hand image is the same painting photographed in raking light. In all cases, including the new effects to their surfaces resulting from the flood, the degradation is caused by reactions of materials to one another, and interventions of mine in their preservation, or their copying.
A very minor addition to the exposition's content, arguably unnecessary, but the dead horizontal edge of this digital stain pivots at precisely the point of intersection of the slightly off-horizontal edge of the effect of the flood with the vertical edge formed by a change of medium on the painting that it overlays. Can the complexity of the event being described be assimilated when reading? In a sense, this question alludes to the difficulty of the exposition itself; its conflation of too many interests, both visual-material and theoretical, and the extent to which the theory is necessary or in addition to what's going on in the artistic practice––except insofar as this conflation is, or is strongly part of, the nature of the practice itself.
Can the formatting of artistic research itself be an iteration of the opacity of the practice of which it's reporting––when opacity here means a kind of necessary holding of clarity in abeyance?
To attempt to manipulate an image-based approach to painting and drawing towards an idea of visual mapping and annotation is of course problematic. To begin with, as the viewer of such work, one has to contend with the conflation of apposite directives; to look at and reflect on the work's visuality, while appearing to be encouraged to read it in the literal sense, as if it were conveying a set of instructions.
The very idea of conflation, however, is of interest to me. In scrolling through the following images relating to the drawing developed as an installation, the reader will notice content from the Logical Square––or at least something technical and mathematical looking––and observed images and observable objects, such as are derived from a portrait and a clock. There also materials such as eye-hooks and elastical string, strung taut, a mannequin, index cards, and parts of such cards bearing numbers, attached in places with paper clips. Also, a piece of tree bark attached to the large drawing, the latter of which becomes increasingly like a mixed-media painting.
The installation photos indicate how the set of drawings cross-reference the installation of which they're a part. How such drawings would read if and when seen out of the installation context, I don't know. In a sense, I don't care about this. The main focus was, and still is, albeit at a point of desparation, to format the project as an artistic research exposition through the algorithmic tools available on the present template, the RC (Research Catalogue).
At the moment of writing, I've re-opened an iteration of the exposition that I thought was finished, albeit firstly as an attempt to convey an unresolved project, then, with some reworking, as a project that I hoped would have enough clarity, now in a mode that I'm hoping will oscillate between the RC and another platform for the dissemination of research––more of which, later.
Interesting that what these textual overlays do, apart from largely negating what's underneath them, is call into question one's intentionality for text, the extent to which text is legible for its communicability, or has degrees of opacity due to its tacit materiality. Arguably, creative and fiction writing––which I reference in the underlying text of the exposition––explores this very area, where opacity can mean both pertaining to text's content, and concerning its layout and other material conditions on whatever is the grounding page.
If one uses language either in presenting one's artistic research, or as the latter's own creative medium, wholly or in part, then this question of opacity will be a consideration.
Underneath and in the region of this beginning sentence of a new paragraph I have the term Hysteria. The reference is to the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's Hysteric's Discourse, where part of the exposition has been to consider the relevance of this to Lacan's Logical Square, the latter of which I've been using as a motif in paintings and drawings; to somehow use the potential of the Logical Square as a visual diagram while researching and exploring its theoretical content. What's interesting about hysteria, in Lacan's terms, is that it's the psychical category that typifies the psychodynamics of most people. I've published a paper on the question of efficacy of the Hysteric's Discourse mapped with the Logical Square in elucidating the artistic research process, insofar as the latter is a subjectively experiential process. What the text does on and in the visual work is operate as paratext; in need of, but lacking, clarificatory text to which it relates at a secondary level, and only in many instances only partly legible anyway.
I'm aware that by overlaying this at-once elucidation and critique on an already-formatted and unchanged exposition, I'm further compunding with confusion, an exposition that has been returned to me due to its lack of clarity. However, I'm also using this strategy in an editorial mode, suppressing much of the textual content of the exposition while leaving it in place. The semi-opaque white ground is one layer of suppression, while the new text in bold is another.
The controversy that Lacan's Logical Square has caused me is now largely over. I still cannot figure out how to apply an argument to it that, unlike any of Aristotle's propositions for his originary square of opposition, as an early attempt to format logic, proves illgocality at work within contradiction––if that's what Lacan's Logical Square attempts to show as his argument that there's no such thing as sexual rapport within and as relationship. However, I've been working from Lacan's very useful linguistic descriptor terms at the each of the square's corners.
Necessary (top-left) Impossible (top-right) Possible (lower-left) Contingent (lower-right)––with other terms between them on each of the four axes, and relationships to be drawn vertically, horizontally, and diagonally.
My own argument, regarding artistic research as an experiential process, is that one comes in at Possible, courses to Contingent via object/s a, and veers off midway towards Impossible at Undecidable, possibly with a movement towards the volatile diagonal relation/non-relation between Necessary and Contingent. (The nature of this diagonal is, more than anything, at the heart of the gender-difference controversy that has fuelled feminism.)
What I've been trying to do is to map this as a visual and analogic diagram along with a development of observed imagery within my studio, where this process has become an installation within the studio. Increasingly the drawing, which has developed more as what may be termed a painting, incorporates the Logical Square references into itself as both aspects of its structure and syntax, and content that at-once alludes to its object of reference and is itself, in its own terms.
The more that I attempt to clarify the situation, especially in terms of this reference to the Logical Square, the deeper I feel I'm digging a hole of confoundment––yet perhaps this is as it has to be. the exposition, remember, failed in terms of failure and failed in terms of clarity, but can only succeed on whatever are its own terms.
Lacan coined the intriguing term objet a (object a) for the unconscious relevance, registered unconsciously and therefore not under ordinary circumstances noticed, of certain object- and image choices, or compulsions towards particular things. Such things are chosen unconsciously because of their psychic relevance to one, and can arguably, if and when they are noticed, be traced back to early trauma. Noticing in the first place is difficult, however, such traits of things are non-visible. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek (2006, p.17), following Lacan, has referred to the object a characteritsic of an object as its "blind spot." Lacan has said of the gaze that it, itself, is the object a––presumably to mean the psychic affect on one, of those certain things that captivate one's gaze. Knowing this, or at least interpreting the theory in these terms, I notice details of things, such as the tiny tear in the anonymous head of the mannequin, seen below, that can act as metaphor for the idea. The hole left by the knot of the tree bark would be another, and the taut link I make of it with the eyelet screw, also seen below.
Reference
Zizek, s. (2006) The Parallax View. MIT
Tevah (basket) as bridge––that bridges, and, as a basket, offers a mobile passage; what the flood offered in terms of new potential for moving forward.
How this relates to lacan's logical Square , and that whole consideration of the project, is that the flood was/has been a contingent event that has moved forward, permeated. Where its movement as a left-leaning diagonal from lower-right corner, contingent, upwards, a backslash, doesn't quite continue upwards to link with the reciprocally downwards movement of/from necessary at top-left corner––following the format of lacan's Logical Square––where there is a lack of rapport due to which necessary and contingent do not merge in the middle, or run into each other seamlessly, I'm suggesting is placed the tevah (basket) that bobs around, as it were, in this indeterminacy. I adhere to Lacan's term undecidable, that he places midway of the vertical axis between contingent and impossible, for such inderminacy. This is indicated as blue in the sketch below this overlay, and will be blue in a later state of the large work titled 'Logical Square'.
I might just reiterate this:
In addition, a second voice intervenes in the pauses in the first voice to make the point, firstly, that a certain degree of one's involvement always already exists – the second voice uses the term inexists....
This is also what the present overlays do to the tectual content of the exposition; rather than providing clarification, which is my intention of the overlays, the suppression if that which lies underneath them provides additional indication that they're actually there, although frustratingly less or illegible. there's something interesting about this, however, in that the text is peforming in similar ways to speech, in that one habitually disputes and refutes whatever one has said by speaking over oneself. the videos, and this present point, allude to an interest of mine in language-based practice.
Otherwise, these short clips provide a lot of indication of what the visual work's about.
I do wonder why bother to do this. The flood occurred due to an unusual rise in the Ping River that runs through the city of Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I live. The effects of this, which were devastating at the time, have mostly disappeared, the remaining visible evidence only as the floodline and orange-brown stain on walls, the apparent different heights of which testify to the variations in height of the land in relation to the river. In positive terms, the flood enabled me to sort out a lot of my old work, disposing of that which was too adversely affected, including a folio of large drawings dating spanning some twenty years. In relation to an impetus to record the event, to capture it as positive, how does one make a research issue out of it? Much of the work, especially the earlier work, is image-based, in terms that key into painting. Arguably, painting is in general not a research-based activity. the work involved in the project that was curtailed by the flood, however, was drawing-based, which lends itself more easily to research criteria. add to which, I had brought into the drawing, of which the iterations in and physically attached to the studio turned it into an installation, a very theoretical reference; that of Lacan's Logical Square. If there had been a research question, it would have been something along the lines of the extent to which the Logical Square could be adapted to the question of elucidation of the artistic research process, of which the manner of exploring the question was an example in practice.In a sense, however, such a question concerns the living criteria that propels my work. Reading and research, regardless of whether or the extent of which the latter is evident, reflects back, in the practical work, is less relevant than the fact that I,as it were, live both strands.
The digital overlay comes in over the large work to simulate what it would look like if the work were glazed to physically emulate a flood-stained surface to around the present indicated height. This has been an idea of mine for some time. This type of simulation is an extension of what happens in any case, when one formats work in terms of reliant on digital algorithmic processes mostly unknown to one––all one knows is that, in negotiation with the effiency of one's learning curve, certain things can be done that straddle the analogue/digital divide. The present text otherwise comes in as an overlay as another in a series of informally written summary interventions, in the process doubling the opacity of its own underlying layer.
I find the concept of the big Other as it occurs in Lacanian theory very useful. The assumed, and in many instances confirmed, presence of an all-pervasive abstract sense of authority to which one is forever subject––until or unless this is addressed in psychoanalysis. The Other will surely be an issue in any consideration of oneself as one's own subject; the influence of parents, teachers, authors, one's super- or alter-ego towards oneself, etc, and institutions and organisations, and anyone or thing to which one is answerable. That the Other is either not there in the first place, or is false, or at least to be challenged, seems to be the premise of its consideration by Lacan; what terms the subject-supposed-know, to be challenged in a psychoanalysis to the point that one knows where the assumption comes from, to oneself, and can therefore be negated, or replaced by someone/something less oppressive.
Underneath this text, in the exposition in its definitive format, I introduce and discuss the question of the Other, due to its relevance to my artistic practice, and include mention of some non-psychoanalytical examples, not least being a novel by the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick, and an example of it inferred within his writing.
Having scrolled with this digital stain further down the page, it reiterates the effect of the flood on rolled canvas, now unrolled, and an external wall. the coordinates of the digital stain, and its opacity, does fairly accurately convey the impression and strength of the flood stain.
Video animation:
Trigger (synced word as fulcrum)
Part 1 intro (06: 00m)
This is part 1 of a video animation in four parts where a first monologue, semi-read, response to a summary text entry to an artistic research exposition titled Flood's Tidal-turn on Relevance; 2024 – 2002, is superposed with a second monologue that reiterates aspects of the first monologue.
The layers are synced at the utterance of the word trigger.
Images are interspersed, supporting aspects of each of the monologues, sustained by an image of a flood-water's tidal line.
Part 2 intro (05: 16m)
This part 2 of the video animation presupposes one’s having viewed the first part, the entire four parts of which comprise two superposed monologic and semi-read responses to a summary text entry to an artistic research exposition titled Flood's Tidal-turn on Relevance; 2024 - 2002.
These sections of monologues concern visual-material evidence of the height of the flood, and the question of the gaze.
Part 3 intro (07: 52m)
This part 3 of the video animation presupposes that one has viewed parts one and two, the entire four parts of which comprise two superposed monologic and semi-read responses to a summary transcript of a text entry to an artistic research exposition titled Flood's Tidal-turn on Relevance; 2024 - 2002.
There is here mention of bridge in the context of neural synapses, tevah (Hebrew for basket), and the backslash diagonal, as well as reference to mathemes of Lacan’s Logical Square, and the role of language in the exposition.
Part 4 intro (08: 25m)
Part 4, presupposing one’s viewing of the previous three parts of video animation:
The neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky (2023, pp.45-84) explains the influence of hormones, genes, the origin of many of these in maternal connectivity with the foetus – proportionately also affected by paternal inheritance – and the environment in the context of refutation of the notion of free will.
Sapolsky (2023, p.65) explains that early life experiences, studied under the term epigenetics, '...cause long-lasting changes in gene expression in particular brain regions', and (Sapolsky, 2023, p.80) '...molecular biology of childhood epigenetics helps explain adult personality and temperament'.