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Potency of the invisible : an exploration into urban symbiotics through installation practice

thesis
posted on 2023-05-27, 18:16 authored by Robinson, Denise Ava
This research project explores the 'invisible' beyond the visible; elements that inform and affect personal experience within the urban site. Psychological, physiological and philosophical aspects of the human experience form the theoretical premise of the project. The human desire to order and find meaning informs the artistic exploration and processes resulting in a series of installations as a visual representation of the symbiotic relationships evident within urban space. Interest in the complex and intricate interchanges between external (environmental) and internal (personal) elements underpin this investigation. The personal experience of relocation and dislocation provided impetus to explore the innate desire to connect or find meaning in a place. The project examines conscious and unconscious behaviours, and cognitive processes central to the individual's quest to mark territory or define 'place' in order to embed within them a sense of belonging. Reference is made to artists who work in reductive abstraction, biographical interplay between life and art, and divergent material processes - Robert Hunter, Robert Irwin, Agnes Martin, Kasmir Malevich and Piet Mondrian are discussed for their reductive use of mark or colour as visual exploration of the inexplicable; Joseph Beuys, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Rauschenberg and Dieter Roth whose works reflect personal investigations into the intersection between life and art; and Eva Hesse's work is examined for her exploration and use of disparate materials and processes. The philosophical focus for the research includes Henri Lefebvre's writings on 'rhythm-analysis', Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (2008), and Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space (1994); providing critical dialogue for the investigation into body-environment experience. Anne Buttimer and David Seamon's The Human Experience of Space and Place (1980), together with Irwin Altman and Setha Low' s Place Attachment, Human Behaviour and Environment (1992), provided in-depth analysis into the inter-relatedness between person and place. My intent is to decode the personal experience of the urban environment, and through integrated processes of transforming every day banal activity and objects, reflect the collective experience. The systematic, repetitive ordering and diarising processes contain a personal narrative of every day activities that lay at the core of our subjective experience. Personal discarded matter and urban detritus are amalgamated and fused into various absorbent surfaces reflecting the continual interchanges and transformations that underpin human experience. The visual outcome of this research project seeks to reflect, expose, and ultimately reconnect us with, the often 'invisible' woven into our lives .

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Copyright 2010 the author - The University is continuing to endeavour to trace the copyright owner(s) and in the meantime this item has been reproduced here in good faith. We would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner(s). Accompanying DVD contains additional material.. Thesis (MFA)--University of Tasmania, 2010. Includes bibliographical references

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