Tuesday 2 April 2013

Inter-text and Objets-textes

Recent reading on intertextuality in terms of my project on writing on 3-dimensional surfaces, (and I have to add, the arrangement of text that is not on paper – as some of the objects, for example driftwood, are 2-dimensional – flat), has me thinking of how the intentional intersection of textual surfaces has a ‘double voice’. In multidimensional space, one adds to the existing multitudinous possibilities for combination and thus meaning. Thus the additional intersection of textual surfaces, adds to the polyphonic potential of the text. In the first instance, many of the texts cannot be easily ‘read’ or deciphered as the writing is not clear or ordered. The invitation is for ‘active’ readers, readers who are invited to interact physically by the work, as they move around it, in order to read. In short I consider words as no longer ‘a two sided act’, they become multidimensional, as the reciprocal relationship suggested by Barthes (‘each word expresses ‘one’ in relation to the ‘other’…a word is a bridge thrown between myself and another’ (Allen, G., 2000, Intertextuality, p. 20. ), is at once given (in the case of objects which are used to bring to mind a symbolic or analgous connection) then removed by changing subject positions (revealed in poetic narratives in which the personal pronouns vary), and also possibly linked to word play (that also scatters meaning) and to déjà ecrit – ideas stolen from other textual and theoretical sources. This intentional textual weaving hopes to create a transposition: a passage from one sign system to another, to form new positions (Worton & Still quoted in Allen, G., 2000, Intertextuality, p. 47). I am working with the idea to dislodge universal positions, scattering subject positions, hoping to stumble upon the creation of a double consciousness, as I appropriate ‘things’ as media for a female identity, whilst the assemblage style, as reflected upon many times, is problematic, in its connection to time, place and 20th century art histories. May be that is why I have started to write differently on single objects -or collections of the same e.g. old saws speak (truth). There is still ambivalence, and potential for dialogue but it is of a different kind. So I experiement with WRITING ON THINGS and wonder if it is the same project or another. Still, playing with unleashing the disruptive playful forces of writing DIALOGUE, PARTICIPATION AND EXCHANGE.

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