A Very Short Introduction

This book arose out of the need to articulate my tenuous relationship to the “art object” in my Master's year. As an undergraduate, I was interested in the performative aspect of art and how different perspectives or parameters or contexts affect how an object is perceived. I made a book out of the many notes I collected which forms the basis of the text used here.[1]

I have taken text out of “graphic designed” items such as commercial packaging, signage, and even book covers and replaced it with my own text, and also changed the visual elements of these items to suit the text. In some cases these items have been created from "scratch". These works sit in a particular narrative, of a day in the life of a young woman. It is based on the premise that people can see art (also substitute in here, ‘meaning’) in everything.

So, when this young woman wakes up, there is a box of toothpaste reminding her in her groggy, foggy state, of her earliest memories and of stories of beginnings (i.e. Genesis). And so her whole day goes, while she is cooking, shopping, eating, she sees things and words that are not supposed to be there but have been brought on by association to the particular object she's looking at.  A little like schizophrenia.

The protagonist of the narrative.
She (“she” is a female because some of the qualities in the character are more readily identifiable in females, such as compulsive window shopping and a predisposition for exhibiting her attachment to someone or something) is the image I project on to my target audience as their point of relation to, and identification within, the work. She exists only as a character would in fiction, until her story is played out, or experienced by an audience. She functions as the "common man" I want my audience to identify with.

[1] My current practice can be seen here.