Otherlands

Jacqueline Taylor

‘Otherlands’ is an interdisciplinary and collaborative project traversing visual art, linguistics, psychoanalysis and philosophy. It interrogates Julia Kristeva’s concepts of abjection and the semiotic as pre-linguistic markers and their potential to articulate ‘otherness’ in visual art. Whilst Kristeva’s thinking is revolutionary in conceptualising dimensions of experience ‘beyond’ language and representation as vital to the signifying process, its application in aesthetic practice is limited. Those art practices that have engaged with abjection and the semiotic rely on representational strategies and thus undermine their very definition. Otherlands demonstrates that it is only where representational structures are disrupted towards the place where meaning collapses that abjection can function as ‘abjection’ in art practice, in turn articulating modalities of ‘othering’ as part of an alternative signifying process. Understood via a new theory of ‘intermateriality’ developed by the researcher, Otherlands offers for the first time vital new ways of understanding meaning-making in art practice that shifts from representational and visual economies of signification to the material, performative, affective and intersubjective dimensions of art. Informed by an eight-year corpus of practice-led research, Otherlands was developed collaboratively through 12 months of rigorously testing ideas. This included textual analysis, an on-site curatorial residency (University of Memphis), field visits to examine ‘othering’ in selected cultural sites, interviews with key practitioners and scholars, and feedback gathered at the Otherlands exhibition and live event at the Kristeva Circle annual conference, Memphis (prestigious interdisciplinary platform for world-leading Kristeva scholars). The work was blind peer-reviewed by the Kristeva Circle directors and Art Museum University of Memphis curatorial committee. The research includes a two-person exhibition with award-winning artist Georgia MacGuire, curatorial essay by Kristeva expert Professor Estelle Barrett and major live performative event. The research is simultaneously all these outputs, understood via the interrelations between its different parts as an ‘other’ form of signification.

OTHERLANDS

The research for Otherlands was undertaken collaboratively between the researchers over a 12-month period. Initially, ideas were developed to identify the scope of the research and the research aims through a number of Research and Development sessions at the University of Melbourne (2014). The research then involved synthesising, experimenting and testing ideas through a robust, rigorous and iterative process to develop the work conceptually, theoretically and practically. This included:

Skype meetings to develop theoretical and conceptual frameworks;
Review and critique of selected texts^[1] and the artist's work in relation to key themes drawn from Kristeva's work surrounding abjection, othering, the semiotic and poetic language;
An on-site residency to devise exhibition curatorial strategies at the University of Memphis in collaboration with The Kristeva Circle;
Field visits interrogating abjection in different artistic and cultural contexts at Chucalissa Archaeological Site, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and Graceland, Memphis;
Interviews with key practitioners and scholars via Skype and at the University of Memphis;
Scrutiny and feedback gathered and analysed from participants at the live event and exhibition.

The research was underpinned by a practice-led approach whereby the artwork informed and was informed by the theoretical and conceptual ideas explored collaboratively, putting into practice alternative modalities of meaning-making and signification beyond symbolic structures that typically marginalise the 'other'. Theory and practice were both thus approached as interrelated and operating on the same epistemological level.^[2] The artwork also operated methodologically as a form of 'material thinking' ^[3] and with the capacity to generate praxical knowledge embodied in the art practice.^[4] Crucial to the research was testing out its significatory capacity as it was disseminated, performed and articulated live in the Otherlands event.

Taylor's contribution developed from an eight-year period of research involving analysis of Kristeva’s texts synthesised with literature in semiotics, philosophy, psychoanalysis and visual art to formulate theoretical ideas. This happened in dialogue with the interrogation of painting, language and materiality via my own art practice, including the use of field diaries, self-interviews, performance-texts to experiment, and gather and analyse data. The event application and exhibition proposal were blind peer reviewed by The Kristeva Circle directors and University of Memphis curatorial committee.

^[1]Estelle Barrett. Kristeva Reframed, London: I.B Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2011; Kristeva Julia. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992; Kristeva Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979, p89-136; Kristeva Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection; New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

^[2]Jacqueline Taylor. From ‘or’ to ‘and’: L’écriture féminine as a methodological approach in Fine Art research, in: Arts and Humanities in Higher Education: an International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 13 3, July, SAGE Publishers; 2014, p304.

^[3]Barb Bolt. The Magic is in Handling, in: Estelle Barrett and Barb Bolt. (Eds) Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd; 2007, p29.

^[4]Graeme Sullivan. Art Practice as Research: Enquiry in the Visual Arts, London: Sage Publications; 2005, p87.

Methodology

EVENT > ABJECTION, AFFECT AND OTHERING THROUGH ART

> QUEEN OF THE OTHERLANDS

> BODIES-IN-PROCESS: INTERSUBJECTIVE (INTER)MATERIALITIES

Text by Jacqueline Taylor

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