<- back to writing

Every Day The Possible – artist statement

The exhibition theme of uncertainty and the installation of final works for everyday the possible is the result of discussions with two other installation artists; Anna Hughes and Sonja Porcaro. In order to frame the new work, we discussed the ideas of Brian Massumi: that uncertainty is an active site of being present to the moment with all of its emergent potentials and possibilities.

During the lead up to the exhibition I moved to Melbourne where I knew no-one and had no job. My plan was to house-sit and see what turned up workwise. I thought of it as ‘throwing myself into the arms of fate’. The resulting body of work for everyday the possible is a result of contemplating the ideas of Brian Massumi, Julia Kristeva, Eckhardt Tolle and Rumi in relation to the confronting nature of the negative thoughts and feelings that arose from the uncertainty of my situation and which became a catalyst for creative interpretation.

Massumi views ‘uncertainty’ as a state of movement, or the body as acting and being acted upon: an active space of manoeuvrability with emergent variables, potentials and possibilities, rather than an inert or disempowered place of anxiety and hopelessness. As a starting point for my new work, I reconsidered theories explored during my PhD project. These theories address affect from the psychoanalytical and linguistic perspective of Julia Kristeva. In her book titled, Black Sun, Kristeva (1989) proposes that affect, detected in slippages that occur in language (semiotic) and that disrupt the rules of language (symbolic), is an index to unconscious and unresolved emotional states from the past, such as loss.

What new creative insights in relation to uncertainty would emerge if I considered Massumi’s perspectives on affect together with those of Kristeva? As a result of my PhD project I proposed a creative visual language to show the semiotic and symbolic states and index affect. This visual language draws on repetitive artmaking processes to allow slippages and irregularities disrupt rigid structures, such as a modernist grid, and so reveal and name unconscious ‘affect’.

Could a similar creative strategy be used with Massumi’s ideas about affect to highlight the body as acting and being acted upon: moment to moment? Massumi describes an habitual response from the conscious mind and emotions that limit the range of responses that may be accessed and suggests that a large store of potential responses may be available if we take small, practical and strategic measures to ‘limber up’ our thinking and expand our emotional register. But might some negative responses to uncertainty such as fear, anger or depression be coloured by a past experience that is not fully resolved and of which we may be largely unconscious? If so, the creative framework developed for a Kristevan perspective of affect may be insightful in relation to a new body of work about uncertainty.

For the production of new artworks I used repetitive actions that draw on learned and habitual responses. I hoped that these small creative steps such as Massumi describes, might become an entry point to naming these unconscious emotions. Once these are named, a process of healing can begin. Drawing on Massumi, this process can be thought of as embodied; the body acting and being acted upon. Becoming less fettered by these unconscious drives, habitual responses and thought patterns may alert us more fully to each moment as it unfolds and the emergent possibilities that exist within uncertain situations.

The following is a brief description of the three works exhibited in everyday the possible and that are the consequence of the above reflections.

Small Findings is composed of twenty two fluorescent lights with a sensor that turns on at the approach of a viewer and then off again after a second or two. As the fluoros flicker on they make random patterns of light and dark before settling down to a subtle undulating pulse of white light. The white light from work floods the otherwise dim and meditative exhibition space. From comments overheard, viewers found that the brief immersion in light aroused feelings of discomfort and shock; the intensity of light was jarring, uncomfortable, with some viewers feeling exposed and disoriented. Although the light cast by the work is intermittent, it is also unexpected, and so it heightens an embodied and emotional awareness of time.

While working on small findings I had the early line paintings of Canadian artist Agnes Martin in mind and which I’d analysed during my PhD to discover whether Kristeva’s ‘affect’ could be detected in a work of art. Although her work was inspired by the rhythms of nature, it is not Martin’s intention to depict them in her paintings: rather Martin seeks to ‘…find visual correlatives for the detached emotions that often attend the experience of these rhythms and visual experiences’ (Haskell 1994, p.109). Drawing on Kristeva’s schema for the symbolic order, I read the use of the grid in Martin’s work as evidence of a rigid structure governed by laws. Rhythm, as a correlative for the semiotic, is the consequence of repetition and change in the quality of the line, and which disrupts the symbolic order of the grid and it is this that allows an initiating ‘affect’ to be sensed by the viewer.

Particles of Love comprises a number of buttery yellow wax flower forms that climb up a central pillar in the SASA Gallery. Made from thin sheets of beeswax, cooled in the refrigerator and then warmed in the hand and crumpled, the repeated flower-like forms are very fragile, and when placed onto the pillar in the gallery space look as if they were growing onto and disrupting the clean lines of the architecture. The work is a creative response to Sufi poet Rumi (2005): all the particles of the world are in love and searching for lovers. The work celebrates the peace, happiness and sense of safety that is revealed when we observe each moment of life as it unfolds. It is the concept that within an ongoing process of change and uncertainty there is a constant, and that constant is Love.

The work addresses uncertainty arising from loss and change; in particular ambivalence arising from a desire to hold onto something and reluctance to let go. To install the work in the gallery, I melted part of each flower and stuck them directly onto a pillar. The cold grey concrete of the pillar contrasted with the warm yellow of the individual forms that appeared to be climbing towards the ceiling. During the exhibition opening the wax forms warmed under the gallery lights and some of the flowers popped off the wall and fell to the ground. This was a totally unexpected aspect of the work. It would have been good to have left them where they fell, however in consideration of viewer’s comfort, the gallery staff and I decided that the fallen flowers would be collected each day and placed into a pile at the base of the pillar. As I reflected on this new aspect of the work I thought of Rumi’s challenge to annihilate the ego, to let go of expectation and hope and the will to control the outcome of a situation. An unintentional consequence of using beeswax to make particles of love is that as the beeswax flowers warmed and fell, a process of ‘letting go’ is literally enacted.

Untitled 2011 explores ideas of uncertainty through the process of making and its materiality. I’d originally used sticky-tape for my PhD artworks and was drawn to it once again. As I was house-sitting at the time it was a practical material to use as it was easy to transport from house to house. The sticky tape also lends itself to repetitive making processes. I folded and cut 1000m of sticky tape into small strips of about 10-15cm. While making and installing the work I practiced mindfulness as a process to transform negative feelings arising from uncertainty and as a methodology for art making. I’d been reading about ways to transform negative feeling arising from uncertainty – anger anxiety and fear. One way I learned to transform those feelings is to be present to the moment and observe life happening/unfolding.

I tried to be present and respond to each moment as I installed the work on the floor of the gallery space with the resulting arrangement of sticky tape pieces, although orderly, forming an organic flow pattern over which light moved. The sticky tape was not stuck to the floor and it was this aspect of the work in particular that unsettled and disturbed viewers. Overwhelmingly viewers were shocked by the vulnerability of the work.

A story by Marguerite Duras (1998) of a fly dying resonated strongly for me at the time. The story emphasises the importance of observing life happening around us, even such small and insignificant things like the death of a fly. I associated the quality of sticky tape, its transparency and lightness, with the little fly wings. I pictured them collecting on the floor.

Also on a visit to Fairfield Boathouse I watched the patterns of light flickering across the surface of the Yarra and reflected in overhanging gum leaves. The movement of light echoed the rhythms of the wind and the waves. I was struck by its beauty and felt in that moment that it is possible to see life unfolding around us when we are not distracted by mental processes. In the installation, light is reflected across the surface of sticky tape, and changes in relation to the position of the viewer, mapping the body onto the work in that moment of looking.

Duras, M 1998, Writing, trans. M Polizzotti, Lumen Editions a Division of Brookline Books, Cambridge

Kristeva, J 1989, Black Sun, Depression and Melancholia, trans. LS Roudiez, Columbia University Press, New York.
Rumi, 2005, The Book of Love, Harper Collins, New York.