ASSEMBLAGE-BASED INSTALLATION: AFFECTS AND INTERPRETATIONS Marian Tubbs AN EXEGESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS, IN THE SCHOOL OF ART, COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, AUGUST 2010 An M t ABSTRACT This exegesis aims to assess the communicative power of assemblage-based installation art. The body of research underlying this assessment provides tools for understanding experimental assemblage-based installation practices and their affective1 nature. The exegesis tracks discourses between contemporary assemblage- based practices and recent philosophy on aesthetics. It reviews mechanisms used by contemporary artists to engage the spectator that resist existing aesthetic structures and assert new communicative visual forms. Definitions of ‘the contemporary’ are employed to help situate the dialectic of forms. By way of applying some key concepts of philosopher Gilles Deleuze to methods of production, the assessment proposes a symbiotic relationship between Deleuzian philosophy and assemblage-based practices. Deleuze’s ‘affect’, ‘de- stratification’, ‘repetition’ and ‘assemblage’ are the main theories applied to this a posteriori relationship. This exegesis investigates artists’ methods of sign manipulation such as compositions of repetitions, rhythms and durations. The experience of the spectator is investigated from the key positions of three disciplines of thought. How the brain processes information when viewing art is examined by way of readings from commentator Jacques Ranciere, philosopher David Hume and neurologist Vilayanaur Ramachandran. This establishes a speculative foundation for the relationship between the spectator and ‘the sign’. In terms of linguistics and visual forms, a critical analysis is applied to ‘signs’ to analyse the practices of artists who challenge established form and narrative structures. Readings of Foucault’s ‘dispositif’ and Giorgio Agamben’s analogous ‘apparatus’ are used to articulate systems of communication and their compositions of elements. It is put forward that an artist’s assemblage of signs is the dispositif of their practice. This analysis posits that, asserting new and non-linear forms rather than following pre- existing models can be a powerful means for affective and lucid communication. Chapter IV of this exegesis presents a discussion of examples of my work completed as part of the research. This chapter is a more reflective expression of my motivations for creating assemblage-based installation focused on form and meaning. 1 For this exegesis, ‘affect’ will be used in the Deleuzian sense. Affects according to Deleuze, are not simple affections, they are independent from their subjects. Artists create affects and percepts. This is related to creativity to a greater degree than the definition belonging to psychology: ‘Affect is a key part of the process of an organism’s interaction with stimuli’ (Dictionary of Psychology, Washington, APA, 2010), p 26 ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors Paula Dawson, Sylvia Ross and Bonita Ely. Their supervision provided invaluable support for the duration of this project. Bonita Ely in particular for her guidance in the conclusion of the project and encouragement of my professional development. I was fortunate to receive the support of an Australian Postgraduate Award and a residency at the College of Fine Arts’ Cite Internationale des Arts studio in Paris to complete this project. I would like to share my heartfelt thanks with Helen Hanford for a treasured friendship and for undertaking the unenviable task of proofreading this exegesis. Above all the loving support of my parents Julie and Tom Tubbs and sister Claire Tubbs. iii Table of Contents ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................iii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I: ESTABLISHING THE FRAMEWORK: ASSEMBLAGE AND RECENT CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY.................................................................................................. 3 I.1 Coming to terms with the term 'contemporary' .........................................................................3 I.2 A definition of assemblage in the context of installation art ................................................3 I.3 Culture assembled: the power of installation art.......................................................................6 I.4 Repetition...............................................................................................................................................8 I.6 Stratification, or bodies without organs ....................................................................................10 I.5 Case study and summary of Chapter I - the art practice of Bianca Hester....................12 CHAPTER II: THE BRAIN LOOKING AT ART .....................................................................15 II.1 The sign and the spectator............................................................................................................15 II.2 Second case study: interpreting the assemblage of signs in the practices of Rachel Harrison and Haegue Yang..................................................................................................................17 II.3 Third case study: The human mind understanding art, theories from Vilayanur Ramachandran and David Hume applied to contemporary practices....................................20 II.4 Defining Deleuzian affect for installation art........................................................................23 II.5 The political and the affected: fourth case study Jacques Ranciere and Urban Encampment .............................................................................................................................................25 II.6 Poïesis as a summary to chapter II............................................................................................27 CHAPTER III: THE LITERAL AND THE MATERIAL – ARTISTS’ EMPLOYMENT OF LANGUAGE-BASED SIGNS AND THE DISPOSITIF............................................................31 III.1 Introduction to Chapter III .........................................................................................................31 III.2 Linguistics and language as utilities to analyse contemporary assemblage ..............31 III.3 Foucault’s ‘dispositif’ and the material of art......................................................................33 III.4 Being literal to challenge form, the last case studies: Marcel Duchamp, Jason Rhoades, Paul McCarthy and Samuel Beckett..............................................................................35 CHAPTER IV: ASSERTED FORMS AND FIGURATIONS IN TIME 2008-2010……...... 42 ARTIST PLATES……………………………………………………………………………………………...…. 43 IV.1 Lucid communications................................................................................................................46 IV.2 Preamble to the work...................................................................................................................46 IV.3 The work..........................................................................................................................................47 CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................52 BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................................................53 iv INTRODUCTION This Master of Fine Arts research project aims to develop and record observations about significant if not systemic connections between concepts manifest in recent continental philosophy2 and assemblage-based installation practices. These observations are not concerned with art practices that are ancillary to philosophical concepts or that are, ‘philosofugal’3. Instead this project seeks to generate ideas about connections between recent philosophy and contemporary visual art practice that exist and that are available to come into existence. This research posits that the generation of such ideas is integral to the assemblage and the proliferation of new meaningful artistic forms. The exegesis element of this project is a multifarious study of ‘meaning’ in assemblage based installation art and the viewing experience. It posits that the affective power of assemblage depends on artists’ assertion of signs. The analysis discusses signs by examining the employment of materials, media and methodologies. As is the nature of an exegesis, the written output is brief in length but vast in scope; running parallel, as well as informing and intersecting with the studio practice component of the research project. The philosophical question of finding ‘meaning’ in art comes encumbered with a plethora of problematic bywords and clichés. By exploring this question as part of the project, I have set out to build relationships through writing, between selected readings from history, philosophy and science. I draw from these three different specialisations as they propose to inform us by the means of historical fact, philosophical theory and scientific laws. The exegesis develops case studies throughout by applying