Abstract:
After endless contemplation on the idea of ‘word and image’, the following expression
of J.W.T Mitchell in Word and Image (1996: 56) brought insight:
‘[W]ord and image’… a pair of terms whose relations open a space of
intellectual struggle, historical investigation, and artistic/critical practice. Our
only choice is to explore this space (own emphasis).
I shifted my position from the forlorn act of peeling to one of creative exploration. Not
necessarily exploring the specific space between word and image, but rummaging ‘the
space between’; always hovering amid opposites. This space provides an opportunity to
confront and debate the many issues that stem from the relations formed in its fluidity.
It is a space that informs my thinking. It is a space of conversation. I see not only my
writing, but also the art that I scrutinize as conversation. My conversation is captured in
the linear structure of this thesis, but the conversation of art is dynamic. It is informal
and flexible – following not one path, offering no answer, giving the potential at each
moment for surprises and transformation. The idea is to ponder contemporary art’s
dialogue, the manipulators thereof and the indispensable factors constituting this
notion: space, grammar, medium, criticism.
The notion of dialogue assumes a listener, a participant, an audience. But who is this
audience with whom ideas are conversed, and what language do you (presumably) use
to communicate the necessary? I have chosen to investigate these questions, the
purpose and plan of art, with relation to a selected group of artists: an individual, Terry
Kurgan and a collective – Stephen Hobbs, Marcus Neustetter and Kathryn Smith,
known as The Trinity Session.
