simulacra of the unconscious

“I ask the reader of the text to accept the invitation to listen-to in the present, to enter into dialogue with a thought, with a way of speaking, and to give up appropriating only a content of discourse in order to integrate it among knowledge already gained”
L Irigaray, 2002 The Way of Love

" And if your imagination unfolds through analogies based on your single and unique world, where can your dreams spill over? So far into appearacnce that nothing remains to be given contours, and colors, and meaning. A universte now so ethereal that there is no stuff to make a work of art."
L Irigaray, Speaking of Immemorial Waters in Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche 1991 p21


"Why couldn't the "work" of the unconscious be "produced" in the same way as any other symptom in classical medicine? Dreams already are."

J Baudrillard in Simulations, 1983

" And if your imagination unfolds through analogies based on your single and unique world, where can your dreams spill over? So far into appearacnce that nothing remains to be given contours, and colors, and meaning. A universte now so ethereal that there is no stuff to make a work of art."
L Irigaray, Speaking of Immemorial Waters in Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche 1991 p21

janus+diana

~ self assertion & integration ~
~ withdrawal & return ~

"... if an ideal photographer with a perfect camera took a picture of the total universe at any given moment, the picture would be to some extent fuzzy, owing to the indeterminate state of its ultimate constituents. ... physicists' statements about sub-atomic processes can only refer to probabilities, not to certainties; in the micro-world the laws of probability supplant those of causality; 'nature is unpredictable' - to quote Heisenberg ... the Subatomic dance of Shiva ... creative anarchy"

Koestler, p249 1983

The name is generally explained as the masculine form of Diana (Jana), and Janus as originally a god of light and day, protector or shipping. Diana is essentially the goddess of the moon and light generally, and presides over wood, plain and water.

flux + the Oceanic feeling

in the ()boat , (I) am in constant flux with a liminal surface – (I) sit permanently in the impermanent - with/in the threshold. Only the masculine (LI) demands forward movement. If the liminal moves, and (I) move with it, (I) inhabit the threshold –permanently. (I) float, (I) live in the opaque, in the flow, in the indeterminate and (I) ‘see’ not for gain, but to see

navigations in time()light()space

in a light-like interval, the spatial distance between two events is exactly balanced by the time between the two events

as above so below - the mirror holds Liminal time/space - light penetrates the mirror

depths of night - penetrated by moon

the "invisible territory of the soul" Kristeva

(I) in () boat over invisible territory: Seeping Spaces

" I do not wish to be measured ou drop by drop. Drop by drop (I) don not care to live my time. For whole and entire (I) want myself at every instant ... (I) move as a whole. And, for me, ebb and flow have always set the rhythm of time. But (they) come at different hours. At midday or midnight, at dawn or dusk. One moment is worth absolutely no more than the other, for the whole is present in each. At each hour comes fortune, multiple in the unwinding of its becoming.
... And I have no need to turn round and round to come back to the same or enter into eternity.
For same have (I) been from all eternity, and, at the same tiem, ever different. And thus (I) come and go, change and stay, go on and come back, without any circle. Spread out and open in this enless becoming.
... And (I) rise and ebb twice every day. (I) have two middays and two midnights during teh time your sun takes to complete his circuit. Twice (I) get up and go to bed, while he follows his course on the near side and on the far side of your earth ... and isn't your circle made of the will to live this irradiation - there will be no other than me?"
"you fold the membrane between" Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche

Navigations of Time, Light + Space

Title ~ Sublime Fallacies: Navigations of Time, Light + Space – using photographic and time-based visual language to explore Immersive Spaces

The Question ~ The photograph records reality while at the same moment is a fallacy. Re-presentations are always more than mimetic; they embody personal psychologies (aesthetics/archetypes) and as such are perhaps the only ‘places’ where the liminal is embodied. Their language allows artist and viewer to explore ‘other places’. This idea; that visual ‘facts’ reveal (are revealing), has always fascinated me and provides a question to be explored. How do images reconcile contradictions between what is seen, imagined and revealed?

Summary ~ My idea is to record my own navigations of time, light and space using cameras (stlill and video), sometimes mounted to my kayak. Often at night (using underwater lights), both above and below the waterline, the images will employ a poetic visual language with the intention of moving between the real and non-real, embodying binary contradictions. The movement of the kayak is linear, through space; the photograph records light and captures time making it timeless, reconciling "maternal" time with linear time (Kristeva). In this sense, the kayak/boat space becomes an eliptical portal between realities – both an ancient vessel and transportion vehicle for exploration, and an embodied symbol (archetype: portal/doorway/birth canal) (Medvedev-Mead). Peering below the waterline is akin to entering a liminal space, an unknown realm. The liminal is a mysterious space much like the body, with similar associated fascinations and fears. On a metaphoric level Fear of the Deep and Fear of the Body trigger the same visceral reactions, they are places where psychological shadows lurk, an opportunities exist to engage the Other.

The Origins ~ Since photographing a pink tee shirt in a rock pool at sunset in 1980, I’ve had an ongoing fascination with the creation of what I call ‘atmospheric fallacies’ – (imaginary) immersive spaces. The work of Bill Viola was an early influence, conjuring the magic of water-filtered light and sound, engaging the senses while exploring metaphysics and symbol. The haunting work Swell, by Patricia Piccinini also had a powerful impact on my making process, suggesting possible ways to explore notions of the real and the non-real in video works. Paralleling my photographic practice, I have also worked with drawing; internal landscapes of the body. The symbols of bones have appeared through my work over decades and the work of Linde Ivemey contains resounding elements of my personal aesthetic in relation to the body.

A Brief Description ~ Using digital video, manipulated images, sound and layered imagery, I intend to create a body of photographic and time-based pieces, culminating in installation works. The work will investigate notions of reality in flux. Like our bodies, our imagination, our grasp of certainty is represented in layers formed from fragments of information. Individual images and video will be taken apart from their original context, reconstructed in order to probe other possibilities, and situated to provide catalysts for conjecture – a new immersive reality of the ‘in between’ (Irigaray).

Ideas
• to create a body of work in still and time-based images and sound to be viewed as an installation, conjuring an immersive liminal space
• to investigate the contribution of sound to the spatialisation of an environment


inflatable wall http://www.stretchtents.com.au/PartyHireEventD%C3%A9cor/InflatableDecor/tabid/113/Default.aspx 
free standing lightboxes UK: http://www.discountdisplays.co.uk/html/Freestanding%20light_boxes_for_graphics.html

 
(c) Alana Hampton ah