Download files
Abstract
The central theme of Sampling the Self: A Fragmented Landscape is the notion of the fractured or fragmented self and its repeated reinvention through the context of artistic intervention. The aim of the studio research project has been to develop a body of work which functions as a vehicle for multiple readings of self and explores the notion of the fractured self - body and memory - via metaphoric devices such as fragmentation, repetition and reconfiguration.
In pursuing this theme I conceptualise a new visual vocabulary of self as fragmented, fluid, mutable and ultimately elusive. In my body of work I set out to create a dialogue of self – self in some of its many manifestations – that relies on multiple configurations of memory, body and identity. Repetition is used as a metaphor of both a fragmented memory and a fragmented self. Within the context of my installation works the multiple signifies loss or absence and functions as a memory fragment, a materialisation of how one event has so many differently remembered versions, within the archaeology of memory.
The final outcome of this research project is a coherent body of studio research; tangible artworks which are metaphoric, sometimes personal, at other time collective, explorations of the idea of the self and its many facets, and which were displayed at COFAspace in 2009. The purpose of this accompanying written research document is to provide a critical examination of the studio research produced for this Master of Fine Arts (MFA) project.