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VIVA WRITING  BY ALEXANDRIA CLARK

 

Throughout my life as an art student, I have struggled with finding an appropriate medium that manages to convey my observations and experiences of the world; that can sufficiently interact with the audience to form emotional connections.

 

After presenting my confusion between being an artist or a writer and my worries of validity in being an artist, I came to realise that I have no need to try and persuade people that it is art that I make, because no one was questioning it anyway.  My conclusions from the feedback I received were that I needed to rid myself of the preoccupations of these worries and concentrate on why I am making it, and the passions that drive me to produce artwork.

 

I believe that language is the fullest way of recreating a memory in the most well rounded way. Nothing else can recreate this kind of memory the same way that language can, which is why it is so important for me to advocate its relevance as an artform and how I use it in my visual practice. No image can perfectly represent that exact moment without more information being passed on through the use of words or verbal communication.

Through the positioning of the text; and the rhythm and rhyme created, it is almost as if the reader is being taken through the story. The pulse of the words almost grabs hold of the reader, and they are captured and compelled to read on. Alliteration and the placing of words next to each other coupled with the way the words flow or fall across the page can be used to imitate the subject matter and create a parallel with the actual story. The pauses, full stops and the deliberate gaps manage to transport the eyes across the page, and paint the perfect picture of how the text should be read. The themes of the texts are usually romanticised and exaggerated to aid the development of it almost into another world, and these are also echoed in the alignment of the text and the page.

 

I am mainly interested and involved with exploring the act of recording memory and bringing the past into the present world. I have a problem with my memory, and find the need to write experiences down, otherwise I forget, very quickly.  I also have a sense of needing to be recorded, and to record others, so that there is proof of our existence. These preoccupations are the predominant fuel of my study. I find myself with similar thoughts to the writer Margaret Atwood:

 

“Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves?  Even while we are still alive.  We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs...we carve our names into trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It’s all the same impulse.  What do we hope from it? Applause, envy; respect? ...

At the very least we want a witness. We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.” (ATWOOD, M., P188) [1]

 

When I first read this, it struck me completely. I feel I have the same aforementioned desire to be recorded.  Through Atwood’s writing she conveys her feelings on this through her characters, and ironically through them, she is recording herself.

 

The artist Fiona Banner also recognises this need in the human nature:

 

“FB: I think secretly we all make art because we are absolutely devastated that life is so brief. It is an impossible attempt to hang onto time and to do something that will not necessarily be there after we’ve gone, but that isn’t completely transient either.

 

JP: …Leaving your mark.

 

 FB: ...Even if it’s just momentary.”

(From Arsewoman to Explosives:A Chat with Fiona Banner by J.Pocock.)[2]

 

Fiona Banner has used language in her work through descriptions of films. Our work is tremendously different in the subject, yet I find similarities in the text pulling the reader into another world and almost engulfing them, so that they feel like they are present. This is one of the aims in my writing.  She has also inspired me to explore ideas of making the text more imposing thus making the audience feel more uncomfortable.

 

My main medium of work was in book form. I was intrigued in exploring the intimacy obtained through writing and reading books and the act of storytelling within art.

“ that's why books are never going to die. It's impossible. It's the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this. So the book doesn't only belong to the writer, it belongs to the reader as well, and then together you make it what it is.” (AUSTER, P.) [3]

 

When reading a book, it is the one-to-one experience that is unique.  It is the physical interpretation of the writing that is completely unique to each reader, it is their voice, and their backgrounds and beliefs that are applied to the words. This relationship created between the artist and the recipient truly excites me, and this is one aim that I long to achieve.

 

 “You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one.”(AUSTER, P.) [4]

 

Several people can look at a piece of art stuck to a wall, but a book is meant only for one viewer at a time. It’s a physical and mental experience to flick to the next page, and the initiation of this is found within the writing that captures the reader.

Although I find passion in the actual books that I make, I feel that there is a dilemma with text in books and text on a wall space in a gallery. Many art viewers do not have the patience or the interest to stand and read through it. And therefore I have felt the need to look into other ways of presenting the work that is more eye-catching or mesmerising makes the viewer want to take the time to be part of it.

 

From the books, I have moved into a more performative aspect of using language. Through live performances of typing, I have explored the act of writing, where time is overlapped, where the dimensions of memories in the past, and the record of people in the present are merged. Through being personal and writing about private experiences but opening them to the public creates a sense of being uncomfortable. 

“A word after a word after a word is power.” (ATWOOD, M.) [5]

 

This control that I have over the audience, through my writing is indirect, yet causes a direct reaction. The audience, through no choice of their own, become part of the story, and are thus somehow linked to my past, my memories and my feelings. They are forced into relating to my past and to myself, intimately. The live piece may result in creating books from it, but the main subject is the actual act of writing itself.

 

Language is vital within art, and I find myself with a passion for it to be involved within the Live art context. Control over the viewer and the physical act of creating text that seizes the reader and keeps hold of them through the experience is the main focus in my visual practice.