All posts in Art & Photography

In the 1990s, I took an MA in Contemporary Art and Theory at Winchester School of Art.
This brought together a host of ideas, including, post-modernism, deconstruction, feminism and social theory.
I chose the ontology of performance art as the theme for my thesis. This allowed me to break down the elements of the art object as a transitory performance with a schema or artistic vision and profiles consisting of the audiences’ multiplicity of interpretations. At same time the digital universe was rapidly expanding and fractal technology enabled developments in my artistic practice….

So I’ve got my shopping list: what I’ve got to do and maybe acquire. It’s a lot of hassle of course.

Then there are the formulae, theoretical constructs, to be applied by the subject ‘I’ to the intangible object.

Interesting perhaps, for the conceptual mind to ponder.

Then beyond these two forms of mental activity, there is a third: beyond all points of reference, mere awareness.

There is no time. Relax.

And what about the viewer?

Art exists externally, in the past this was always a physical object. Latterly, it is more likely to display digitally.
But art objects also exist in the mind of the recipient.

There may be a collective experience, at a concert or the theatre, yet each member of the audience sees and hears the same performance but interprets individually. Also, each performance is unique and the individual creates a unique profile, influenced by their cultural condition.

This may seem determined, as fixed and immutable but that is not the case here. Returning to a book that I haven’t read for a while, there is another profile. The book is the same collection of words yet the perceptual ‘I’ has changed.

Is the profile I create the artwork or me?
So what about the viewer?