Learning How Not to Die
Current research project aims:
My primary research aim is to examine the role of repetition in a visual art practice. I am interested in how an artist deals with/interacts with physical repetition in the creative process, as well as the implications of repetitive thoughts on an artist’s mental health.
Additionally, repetition’s relation to time and space are an inherent part of the art making process, whether consciously or not. Repetition can be used as an aesthetic choice, a tool for production, or at the heart of a concept itself. Skill is directly affected by repetition, which contributes to a deeper understanding of a multi-disciplinary approach to art making.
Some of the questions I might explore in my research are:
1. What does the labor of repetition do to a concept when an idea is reproduced? And what happens if the concept is reproduced in a different medium?
2. How does my art practice affect my understanding of repetition and how does repetition affect the making of my art?
3. Can repetition and difference be separated? Can one exist without the other?
Project goals:
Through this project, I would like to understand the implications of repetition on my creative process. I want to gain a better understanding of the role of medium/material choice in my studio practice and how that role shifts through repetition. I also plan to use this project to understand how repetition interacts with visual art in process and in completion.
Contextual review:
Repetition has been researched primarily in the education field through pedagogical frameworks and studies on the effects of repetition and student learning; the health field in effects of repetition on the body and repetition in relation to mental health; and the philosophical field as a concept for understanding time, difference and identity.
In the philosophical field, repetition has been explored most notably by Søren Kierkegaard and Gilles Deleuze. While both authors are writing about repetition from a philosophical lens, they do it with very different methods and with different results. In Repetition, Kierkegaard focuses on repetition in regard to time moving forward and backward. His book is written under the pseudonym “Constantin Constantius” and follows his dive into repetition through his experiments and relationship and a patient referred to as the Young Man.
Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze’s doctoral thesis, takes a deeper approach at writing about repetition. Deluze’s argument of the text is that difference and repetition precede identity, and that repetition’s only purpose is to highlight difference.
The arts and the creative process provide additional avenues of looking at repetition. Artists engage with repetition in more than just the philosophical. The ways artists use repetition, including in process, aesthetic decisions, concept, and curatorial choices, inform repetition beyond what the philosophical field has explored. This project will apply the literature produced by the education, health, and philosophical fields to my understanding of repetition in the visual arts, while also expanding the knowledge of repetition as it stands solely with the creative process.
Methods:
The research will be conducted through case studies of multiple bodies of work. Each series produced will explore an idea within repetition. Each body of work will have visual and written documentation of the process to create opportunities for me to analyze what is happening before, during, and after the work is created.
Timeline/structure:
Months 1-30: Research repetition in its various forms.
Months 1-30: Create artworks exploring repetition. The length of each series can be adjusted based on the needs of the idea. However, the process for each series will follow the pattern of: Research and concept generation; Creation of work; Synthesis of findings.
Months 24-36: Write about the findings and understanding of repetition and visual art.
Indicative bibliography:
Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz. Health. London, Whitechapel Gallery; Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 2020.
Condee, William. “The Interdisciplinary Turn in the Arts and Humanities.” Issues in
Interdisciplinary Studies, no. 34, 2016.
Dreher, Peter, et al. Peter Dreher : Just Painting. London, Occasional Papers, 2014.
Eirini Kartsaki. On Repetition. Intellect Books, 1 July 2016.
Frédéric Gros, et al. A Philosophy of Walking. London England, Verso, 2015.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. Vintage, 30 Jan. 2013.
Gilles Deleuze, and Paul Patton. Difference and Repetition. New York, Columbia
University Press, 1994.
Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari. What Is Philosophy? London ; New York, Verso,
2015.
Kentridge, William. Six Drawing Lessons. Harvard University Press, 2014.
Kierkegaard, Soren, Howard Vincent, and Edna Hatlestad Hong. Fear and Trembling ;
Repetition /. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1983.
Lange-Berndt, Petra. Materiality. London, Whitechapel Gallery ; Cambridge (Mass.) ;
London, 2015.
Repeat/Recreate. Clyfford Still Museum/Clyfford Still Museum Research Center, 2015.
Sirmans, Franklin, et al. Toba Khedoori. Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles County
Museum Of Art; Munich, Germany, 2016.
Advisory team support:
The team I am interested in working was chosen based on their versatile and sensitive approaches to art-making. Because I work with such sensitive topics, often drawing upon my own experiences, support along the way is immensely helpful. I’m not looking for therapy through my advisory team, but an understanding and support of the sensitive nature of my themes is important to me. I also value critique and want to push my practice based on honest and transparent feedback from professionals I respect. And lastly, I need guidance on how to hone my practice-based research in the studio in a more formal way.
Additional questions of interest:
Concept:
What is a concept? What is a precept?
Where does a concept live?
What happens to a concept when it is repeated exactly?
What happens to a concept when it is repeated in a different method/medium/process?
Work/practice:
How does repetition correlate to skill?
How does an artist keep up an interdisciplinary approach to artmaking without losing the skills used in the different disciplines?
How does practice inform repetition? How does repetition change when practice increases the skill/consistency in a copy?
How does repetition affect artists’ bodies throughout their careers? What are the health implications of a repetitive art practice?
Mental health:
What role does repetition play in mental health?
How do nostalgia and repeated engagement with media affect mental health as it relates to Kierkegaard’s notion of repetition/recollection?
What is the relationship between repetition and anxiety? Self-medication? Suicidal ideation? OCD?