Introduction
In Critical Theory
I, Stuart Steck’s statement that “the museum is a place where objects go to
die”, conjured up many ideas and possibilities of working with and through
objects for me. In Critical Theory II, we had the opportunity to explore a
range of concepts, centered on the theme of the archive, in greater depth.
These included: the archive resulting from as well as feeding into artwork; the
precarious distinction of the archive from a library, a collection and waste;
the blending of fact and fiction in the interpretation of the archive; the use
of archived colonial objects to create a temporal structure; the role of
technology mediating the archive and the complex manipulation of the archive by
artists, such as Gerard Byrne, IlyaKabakov and Christian Boltanski (among many
others) to challenge and examine our ascriptions of meaning and interpretation.
Two articles,
namely “Working Through Objects” edited by Barbara Einzig and based on
transcriptions of three of Susan Hiller’s informal talks and discussions of her
installation in the Freud Museum, and Carrie Lambert-Beatty’s “Make-Believe:
Parafiction and Plausability” are used in this essay to explore themes that are
of particular interest and relevance to my work.
Susan Hiller
The first idea
that struck me as interesting was Hiller’s observation that her work is
examined more closely by the audience, when it is “condensed and constrained”
(Hiller, p.41). She compares her vitrine display of boxed objects at the Freud
museum, stating that people “will involve themselves in a more careful, slow
and intimate way”, to that of her large installation work where “it is
perfectly possible to stand in the doorway and take a mental snapshot … and not
to get involved with the items placed within it” (Hiller, p.41). She goes on to say:
“We are well
trained to go image by image or item by item through a museum case, and people
seem to keep this habit of careful viewing when they see my collection. “
(Hiller, p. 41)
Based on her
training as an anthropologist and from experiments in earlier works such as
‘Enquiries/Inquiries’ (1973-5), Hiller suggests that “any conscious
configuration of objects tells a story, and it was by setting boundaries that
the story was told.” (Hiller, p.42). According to Hiller, the narrative is
activated by the context in which it is set. She discusses the complexity of showing in London’s Freud
Museum, once a home (housing Freud’s own meticulously archived collection) and
now a museum/shrine, and contrasts its multi-layered implications with the
usually ‘neutral’ spaces of galleries. She elaborates that her post-modern,
fragmented collection of objects is automatically read in relation to (and
juxtaposed with) Freud’s primary, modernist one, that her gender as a female
artist is implicated as Freud is the archetypal father figure and that their
similar ethnic histories also feature in the density of her artwork’s situation
(Hiller, 1994).
When considering
the topic of narrative more specifically, Hiller states that there are at least
two versions: that of the “narrator” and that of the “listener” (Hiller, p.42).
She refers to Freud’s concept of dreams being composites of the hidden and the
manifest, and likens it to the relationship between the story-teller and the
way the story is perceived. Hiller explains that, as the author, she:
“present[s] the viewer with a word
(…title), a thing or object, and an image or text or chart, a representation.
And the three aspects hang together (or not) in some kind of very close
relationship which might be metaphoric or metonymic…” (Hiller, p.42)
Added to that is
also her placement of the box, within which the collected object is contained,
in the series of boxes. She
maintains that her objects are collected first, “things that are very, very
disturbing to me…” (Hiller, p.46) and the images and text (based on
associations the objects inspire) are added later. The gesture somewhat mimics
that of the “real collector” (Hiller, p.48) but serves to open up the
possibilities of interpretation and not limit them.
My fascination
with Hiller’s work is fundamentally the scale, organization and display of it.
Museums, which I frequent as often as I can, always provide me with an
experience that is a dramatic combination of reverence, fantasy and a sense of
loss. The quiet environment, one’s absorption with scrutinizing the objects on
show and the scant information on placards are perfect prompts for the viewer
to enter their private reverie. The objects are removed from their banal
utility and perpetually exotic because of their remote context. Their
historical/geographical/physical displacement provokes compassion and sadness,
after all, how can you not feel horror for a detached, mummified head trapped
under a bell jar and shut up in a glass cabinet? Hiller finds that collected
objects “are constant evocations of mortality and death” (Hiller, p.43). She
implies that by placing his collection in the work space, Freud purposely
created an ‘atmosphere’ by having objects connected to a dead body or a
civilsation (Hiller, 1994).
Parafiction
In his article,
Carrie Lambert-Beatty describes the term Parafiction:
“…in parafiction
real and/or imaginary personages and stories intersect with the world as it is
being lived. Post-simulacral, parafictional strategies are oriented less toward
the disappearance of the real than the pragmatics of trust … parafiction is a
deception” (Lamber-Beatty, p.54, 56)
He goes on to explore
the strategies of Parafiction employed by artists such as Michael Blum, 01.ORG
in collaboration with Public Netbase, the Yes Men, Aliza Shvarts and The Atlas
Group, in detail.
Blum, trained as a
historian at the Sorbonne, created an elaborate art installation entitled ‘A
tribute to Safiye Behar’. Under the guise of a campaign to save the home of
this historically eminent Turkish “teacher, translator, communist, and
feminist” (Lambert-Beatty, p.51) from demolition, he displayed an archive of
her letters to Attatürk (the founder of the Turkish Republic), photographs of
her addressing audiences, books featuring her as translator and videos of her
descendants’ interviews. Subtle clues of her fictitiousness (such as
imperfectly pasted book covers and overacting in video) may have been planted,
however, the multi-dimensional facets of Safiye’s character such as her ethnic
minority profile, progressive political beliefs and her romantic link with
Attatürk took full advantage of the social/political/historical context in
which the exhibition was set. The bilingual audience at the Turkish Biennial of
2005 was targeted by the information being both in English and Turkish. Turkey,
stereotyped as a ‘backward’ country, was on the verge of joining the EU, a
hotly debated topic at the time, and for Turkish nationals, Safiye defied these
notions. Her mixed heritage as an Armenian Jew not only referenced the
suppressed Turkish history of perpetrated genocide as well, but was relevant to
the discourse of identity and hybridity (Lambert-Beatty, 2009).
Lambert-Beatty
comments on Blum’s various tactics of deception affecting the audience in ways
that made it question the claims of truth made in the exhibition. Implicitly,
parallels are drawn with all of us being part of an audience that may be fed an
amalgamation of truths, part-truths and lies by politics, the media,
institutions and so on. Lambert-Beatty goes on to say that between 1998 and
2008, a wide array of artists explored modes of ‘parafiction’ predominantly to
facilitate the deconstruction of the notion of truth as an ultimate and
universal certainty (Lambert-Beatty, 2009).
Conclusion
Personally, I am
drawn to using a version of ‘Parafiction’ in my work by perhaps experimenting
with the installation of a fictional archive of a fictional character. I am
currently working on a much smaller scale than I am used to, in order to create
a collection of objects, which may have some ambiguous references to artifacts
one finds in a museum. The idea is, by having historical connotations, to
visually evoke a sense of the collection’s integrity, as a starting point from
which the viewer is hopefully inspired to create a narrative. I have always
been interested in authors like Erich Von Däniken and Graham Hancock, who
challenge the conventional account of the historical evolution of humankind. With
the recent discovery of a new humanoid species in a Chinese cave dating between
14,500 and 11,500 years ago (Cohen, 2011) it is interesting to witness
firsthand, something seemingly fictitious defy something one learns to accept
as ‘scientific’ fact. Working on a small-scale collection, which would ideally
be presented in a way where it is remote and inaccessible (like in a museum),
creates a sense of mystery, opening up the possibilities of interpreting its
narrative.
Susan Hiller
commented on choosing between being an anthropologist and an artist:
“I decided I would
become … an artist: I would relinquish factuality for fantasy.” (Hiller, ‘The
Myth of Primitivism: Perspectives on Art’, New York 1991, p.2)
I am very
interested in fantasy but do not feel that one has to choose between it and
reality. The two are inextricably linked and it is within that complex bond
that their individual potency is enhanced.
Bibliography
Einzig B.,
‘Working Through Objects”, The Archive (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary
Art), MIT Press, 2006, pp.41 - 48
Gallagher A.,
‘Susan Hiller’, Tate Publishing, 2011
Lambert-Beatty C.,
‘Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility’, October Summer 2009, No. 129, pp.
51 – 84
Websites
‘Did a New Human
Species Thrive in Stone Age China?’ 2012, Jennie Cohen, online article, accessed 28 August 2012,
http://www.history.com/news/did-a-new-human-species-thrive-in-stone-age-china
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