My investigation in my own handwriting has led me to a further understanding of my identity as an artist. At the beginning of the semester, I was at a loss of what to research, daunted by the idea of committing my entire semester to an investigation and collection of one topic. As a person who did not use research as a direct resource in my work, I began to consider what would be a sustainable topic that I would truly care about. My consideration brought me back again and again to myself. As immodest as this sounds, it reflects my opinion that artwork is most powerful when it reveals something personal. Considering this, I began to realize that my own artwork, while deeply personal to me, allows little room for the viewer to connect with me as an individual. The investigation into my handwriting was a way to delve into something personal that had substantial longevity and measurability.
Given that my topic of research could not be found or observed in public institutions (libraries, archives, collections), but in the home, I began to wonder how exactly my discoveries fit in with traditional methods of historical research, which was the basis of the class. In an essay by Michael Foucault, I learned about the author’s opinion on the differences between history and genealogy. In “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, he speaks about genealogy as being a more accepting form of understanding the past, usually starting with the present and working backwards, embracing mistakes and contradictions, as opposed to history which progresses in a linear fashion, with a definite start and finish. He states, “Genealogy, as an analysis of descent, is thus situated within the articulation of the body and history. Its task is to expose a body totally imprinted by history and process of history’s destruction of the body.” He elaborates, “The body manifests the stigmata of past experience and gives rise to desires, failings, and errors. These elements may join in a body where they achieve a sudden expression, but as often, their encounter is an engagement in which they efface each other, where the body becomes the pretext of their insurmountable conflict. The body is the inscribed surface of events (traced by language and dissolved by ideas)…” [Note: Foucault’s reference to the body is to one’s physical human body]. I found this interpretation to be relevant to the way I was researching, since I was starting with my writing now, and working my way into the marks I wrote with my body (my hands) in the past.
For my final installation, An Elaboration on the Top Left Corner, I cut out the letters of my name in tracing paper, and arranged them in clusters alphabetically. I also showed the animation of me tracing my childhood drawing. In the wall piece, I wanted to represent both my presence in creation and concentrate on a specific section of my research. My name is the most recorded word I possess, and so I considered it appropriate to reflect on this word. One’s name is also the most personal thing he or she has in society. In a way, names reveal one person’s identity to another. My title refers to the location of one’s name on a document. I chose to use tracing paper because of its function as a tool, as with my “Making Meaning” project. It is used for the purpose of transferring information. I considered the piece to be a transfer of my abstract mark making onto the components of my most distinguishably personal mark- my name. I also painted letters on the wall to more directly reflect of my body’s presence in the piece. They are intended to carry out similar qualities to those of the shadows on the wall. They refer to something unseen, made with a tracing gesture of my created letters- a way to continue the process I began at the beginning of this semester.
SOURCES:
Foucault, Michael. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, 1971.
Miller, James H. Bibliography of Handwriting Analysis: A Graphological Index. N.Y.: Whitston Pub. Co, 1982
Tags: Student Exhibition
