Im here. Not there.

25 FEB

This really stuck to me after the meeting. And this brought me back to the almost eerily similar concept to Cindy Shermans Art. She dresses up as these ‘characters’ so she appears to not be herself in her pieces.. but She is the Art..

I think I am playing along a similar route yet in a totally different way. Not even putting myself in the image yet the whole scene of the aquarium. The ambience is undoubtedly me peering inside myself. Alone with the tank yet, not lonely.

Betty mentioned something along the lines of postmodernism and meta-modernism. So I went on a internet rabbit hole to research into these movements/ ways of thinking.

This was what Google threw at me:

Postmodern art drew on philosophy of the mid to late twentieth century, and advocated that individual experience and interpretation of our experience was more concrete than abstract principles.

And the more I read of different articles and scholarly websites, I realised, that Post modernism has many faces.

I learnt that Postmodernism challenged the ‘accepted’ universal beliefs of truths/certainties. And highlights individual experiences/interpretations are more concrete than principles where it celebrates complex layers of meaning.

(meaning highlighted there because it was something I looked into deeply when researching Derridas Deconstruction)

I loved the idea of postmodernism once I read that it was a way of thinking were there isnt a single style or definition of what art should be like. No matter the style, technique, or use of materials – where was no singular definition or catergory that a piece must be in order to be called ‘Art’. Interesting. It is interesting how the freedom of it challenges ones way of thinking in terms of artistic value of a piece, and but having no boundaries of what Art can be, it reflect a self-awareness of style itself – and is often confrontaltion and controversal.

I dont think my work would fall under the realm of being confrontational or controversial, but one can argue the feeling of loneliness is self-inflicted etc. Who am I to dictate if my work is or not?

Then, came along the term metapostmodernism. Which, in all honesty, started to make my head hurt.

With the few articles I’ve read, this is what I have understood:

It is that space between modernism (a movement of art that rejected historical and traditional concepts like realism and an empasis of new techniques and materials; cubism, impressionism, expressionism and fauvism), and postmodernism

And that space, is where there was developements in philosophy, aesthetics and culture – emerging and reacting to postmodernism.

A quote that defines that whole idea which helped me understand was that metamodernism is a “structure of feeling” that oscillates between modernism and postmodernism like “a pendulum swinging between… innumerable poles” (Vermeulen and van den Akker)

And there were 11 metamodernism methods that I came across:

1) Hyper-Self-Reflexivity (“Life as Movie”)
2) The Narrative Double Frame (Eshelman’s Performatism)
3) Oscillation Between Opposites
4) Quirky
5) The Tiny (metamodern minimalism)
6) The Epic (metamodern maximalism)
7) Constructive Pastiche
8) Ironesty
9) Normcore
10) Overprojection (Anthropomorphizing)
11) Meta-Cute

Source

And the method mentioned; Hyper-Self-Reflexivity / Life-As-Movie struck a cord with me. I feel like that is exactly what I am doing?

Edit: Deeper reflection on learning

This ‘new’ found concept would give the ‘layers’ in my work. Where it gives my work more meaning, allowing me to take into account this idea of Hyper- Self – reflexivity whilst I experiment with new and different techniques. And this would in turn influence the way that I experiment, giving focus on the ‘experience’ my art can provide viewers. To try to give the viewers an opportunity to experience the aquarium the way that I do, the slice of life that is personal to me.

I think this will encourage larger changes in experimentation as my work progresses.