Extension/Enhancement: Artistic process and the prosthesis in image-making

 

ABSTRACT: FEBRUARY 2012
“This paper examines bodily presence and absence, points of connectivity, and negotiates the terrain of the body through two distinct projects. Engaging in a drawing-centered practice I consider embodiment through two projects (Under the Skin and Beyond the Skin), forming a dyad through which to negotiate and illuminate various bodily expressions and representations.

Throughout a lived existence, the body undergoes various transformations and adaptations; its ongoing mutation requires a continuous realignment and re-examination. A phenomenological approach acknowledges that an embodied experience is one which is physically aware. Trauma, in varying degrees, forces the body to transform and adapt, potentially resulting in a different embodied perspective. Under the Skin takes up a study of embodiment through trauma and the body in pain.”

Beyond the Skin engages the prosthesis from an artistic perspective, exploring the capacity for altering the figuration of the body, which in turn informs my artistic praxis.  Engaging works by artists Rebecca Horn, Matthew Barney and Stelarc, my intention is to develop a context for my own practice and an expansive understanding of prosthetic terminology and the presence of a prosthetic metaphor in artistic practices.  The refiguration of prosthetic terminology as a creative endeavour has the potential to enhance the cultural experience of loss, trauma and adversity, reworking a prospective understanding of the body as adaptable and expandable.
February 2012.

ABSTRACT: DECEMBER 2011
“The artists and the works introduced in this paper examine bodily presence and absence, points of connectivity, and negotiating the terrain of the body enhanced by technology. By exposing various interpretations of “prosthesis” in the work of artists Rebecca Horn, Matthew Barney and Stelarc, it is my intention to develop a context for my own practice and an expansive understanding of prosthetic terminology and the presence of a prosthetic metaphor in artistic practices.  In examining the medical prosthesis from an artistic perspective, I intend to investigate its capacity for altering the figuration of the body, to be both extension of, and integral to the body, and for this discourse to inform my artistic praxis.

My approach to prosthetics acknowledges the terms’ primary contextualization within medical research, materials research for the advancements of prosthetic development and its literal function for amputees. The recognition of medical prosthesis terminology is imperative to informing my praxis in order to illuminate other potential contexts. The refiguration of prosthetic terminology as a creative endeavour has the potential to penetrate the cultural experience of loss, trauma and adversity, reworking a prospective understanding of the body as adaptable and expandable.”