The weight of things

Date
2012
Authors
Forbes, Ross Mathew
Supervisor
Bradock, Christopher
Cullen, Paul
Item type
Thesis
Degree name
Master of Art and Design
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Auckland University of Technology
Abstract

The weight of things is a sculptural project that utilizes materials such as stone, metal foil, paint, steel and mirror in relation to a specific site. In the process key binaries— substance/surface, weightlessness/ weight, transparency/reflection, geometric/organic, sight/embodiment, autonomy/site and finally referent/materiality—are activated in a manner that contests the significance traditionally attached to the primary term. Here Jacques Derrida’s theory of deconstruction provides a framework for thinking through the ways in which the sign’s relationship to the thing can be questioned by the material ecologies proposed.

Contextualizing my own practise and providing further insight into this question of signification are the practices of the artists Robert Smithson, Gego and Jessica Stockholder. The research does not seek a new meaning—a new grammar—embedded, fixed in the overarching paradigm of representation, but specifically sets out to avoid its grasp, even as it acknowledges signification’s ultimate reach. In parallel with deconstructive theory the objective is to suspend judgement, to invoke a situation where ‘sense’ is immanent—in flux—a promise and not its committal.

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Keywords
Derrida , Installation
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