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C104
Article
Word
and Image
Word
and image form a recurrent juxtaposition in contemporary
art. Here Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes sets the scene for
the main theme of this issue of CIRCA.
Word/image
encounters are as inevitable in contemporary art as they
are in our lives. They tend to be suffused with value
judgements, hierarchies, and meanings of all kinds. (Neo)
conceptual art operates mostly by means of language; art
utilising scientific strategies or other research-based
work requires a medium. Often, artists choose words. But
just as our understanding of art has expanded into visual
culture, words can be understood to include codes of all
kinds, including computer programmes, chemical formulae,
etc. Then there is the old-fashioned artistic response
to literature, particularly Irish literature, which has
long graduated from notions of illustrating or serving
literature and is often not so old-fashioned at all. Among
the possible gains of an investigation into word/image
encounters is the insight that while the traditional borders
between the genres continues to serve as locus of innovation,
in artistic practice any boundaries have long been traversed
in all directions.
David Scott
presents the historic background to these matters, with
particular emphasis on contemporary practice as seen at
Documenta11. I subsequently look at Joseph Beuys' long-lasting
inspiration by James Joyce. Brian O'Doherty/Patrick Ireland
is a doubly gifted artist, who nevertheless separates
the genres by working in each under a different name.
His legendary issue of Aspen 5+6 is Mary Ruth Walsh's
topic. While an encounter of reciprocal inspiration between
the works of Beckett and Nauman serves to outline the
necessity of interdisciplinary practice when addressing
the futility of artistic creation, Paul O'Brien scrutinises
word/image works by Willie Doherty from the perspective
of committed art practice. James Elkins completes this
feature by drawing attention to Joe Davis' research-based
attempts to convert into code and then implant into the
DNA of mice an image of our galaxy.
Two artists'
projects are integral parts of the presentation on this
topic: Karin Sander completed her Wordsearch project with
a publication in the New York Times on 4 October, 2002.
Sander, like Davis, came to prominence using computer-based
technology, scanning people and exhibiting the re-constituted
3-D scans as small-scale sculptures. For Wordsearch, Sander
carried out research into how many languages there are
spoken in New York. She mapped their occurrences and reflected
on how some of them could be noted down, given the absence
of computer fonts for some. Finally, Sander asked 250
New Yorkers to write down a typical word or one of personal
significance in their language. The newspaper publication
subsequently turned the found words into a visual, almost
sculptural whole, which resembled the layout of the stock-market
listings a few pages later. Wordsearch reflects on multi-cultural
issues, on how identities are bound up with language,
on New York post 9/11 and on culture (art and language)
as capital.
Ecke Bonk,
co-founder of Typosophes Sans Frontières, situates his
practice between visual art, typography, philosophy and
(book/logo) design. His interest in the historicity and
visuality of language informed not only his non-logo for
Documenta11, but also his yellowed title pages of the
Brothers Grimm's dictionary displayed in the same exhibition.
Here, he contributes synthetic photograms or scanograms,
scans of test tubes, and other glass objects directly
placed onto the scanner. He links this experimental work
with science (Schroedinger's research in Dublin), as well
as investigations into the etymology of the word scan.
The findings point towards rhythm and jumping (Sanskrit
skandati - movement, steps, and jump; Middle Irish sceinnid
- he or she jumps). Bonk's procedure, in good conceptual
fashion, relates to Marcel Duchamp's ombres portées, the
shadows of ready-mades e.g. in tu m'. The artist has also
worked on Duchamp's contemporary Joyce and set (with students)
a page from Finnegans Wake in lead type, shown at documenta
X, 1997. That book's cyclical structure can here serve
to complete the circle of contributions to this feature
on word and image interactions.
Dr. Christa-Maria
Lerm Hayes is Government of Ireland Post-doctoral
Fellow in History of Art at University College, Dublin,
and author/curator of a forthcoming book/exhibition on
'Joyce in Art' at the RHA, Dublin.
Article reproduced from CIRCA
104, Summer 2003, pp. 30.
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