a ghost, an animal, or a dead body -
"the eye goes looking for ways to touch what it cannot see" - proof 1/450
‘a ghost, an animal, or a dead body’ – the title draws on a quotation by Francesca Woodman – the full quotation: “Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner …” – Francesca Woodman . Over the last three years, I have been repeating myself. I return again and again to the same space (in a place I love with my whole entire heart) and there, I have taken photos of myself – ‘self(ies)’ in reflection. I am fascinated by these moments in time, & they have inspired my work for this commission. More than anything, they offer up a starting point, for a much larger, more ambition project that has been going round and round in my mind, for years.
Continuing a line of inquiry from my second collection, I have made poems that stand as (mathematical) proofs. I like how things have added up. To this inquiry, I have started to draw in the natural world – and in particular, the poems engage with energy, and more precisely, the 3 laws of thermodynamics, namely:
As I wrote, and researched, I discovered there was a 4th (zeroth) law – “the law states that if two bodies are each in thermal equilibrium with a third body, they must also be in equilibrium with each other. This means that if two objects are at the same temperature and they are in thermal equilibrium with another object, then this third object is also at the same temperature as the other two objects. This property makes it meaningful to use thermometers as the “third body” and to define a temperature scale. Because the other three laws were already numbered and the additional law is the foundation for the other three, it was dubbed the zeroth law of thermodynamics”. I think the proofs (poems as closed systems, changing form, increasing disorder as they go, and moving towards an absolute zero, and all at the same temperature, follow the law(s) – both as a body of work, and as individual poems.
‘a ghost, an animal, or a dead body’ – the title draws on a quotation by Francesca Woodman – the full quotation: “Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner …” – Francesca Woodman . Over the last three years, I have been repeating myself. I return again and again to the same space (in a place I love with my whole entire heart) and there, I have taken photos of myself – ‘self(ies)’ in reflection. I am fascinated by these moments in time, & they have inspired my work for this commission. More than anything, they offer up a starting point, for a much larger, more ambition project that has been going round and round in my mind, for years.
Continuing a line of inquiry from my second collection, I have made poems that stand as (mathematical) proofs. I like how things have added up. To this inquiry, I have started to draw in the natural world – and in particular, the poems engage with energy, and more precisely, the 3 laws of thermodynamics, namely:
- 1st Law of Thermodynamics - Energy cannot be created or destroyed (insert by me: it just changes form).
- 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - For a spontaneous process, the entropy of the universe increases (insert by me: all part of the natural order).
- 3rd Law of Thermodynamics - A perfect crystal at zero Kelvin has zero entropy (insert by me: a closed system, approaching absolute zero – as a good way to look at a poem).
As I wrote, and researched, I discovered there was a 4th (zeroth) law – “the law states that if two bodies are each in thermal equilibrium with a third body, they must also be in equilibrium with each other. This means that if two objects are at the same temperature and they are in thermal equilibrium with another object, then this third object is also at the same temperature as the other two objects. This property makes it meaningful to use thermometers as the “third body” and to define a temperature scale. Because the other three laws were already numbered and the additional law is the foundation for the other three, it was dubbed the zeroth law of thermodynamics”. I think the proofs (poems as closed systems, changing form, increasing disorder as they go, and moving towards an absolute zero, and all at the same temperature, follow the law(s) – both as a body of work, and as individual poems.
Returning the repetition of the last three years, the photographic outputs have triggered interesting discussions and my friend sent me a paper by Rosalind Krauss on ‘grids’. I was particularly drawn into this passage, and it became a central concern across this work: “The grid appears in symbolist art in the form of windows, the material presence of their panes expressed by the geometrical intervention of the window's mullions. The symbolist interest in windows clearly reaches back into the early nineteenth century and romanticism. But in the hands of the symbolist painter and poets, this image is turned in an explicitly modernist direction. For the window is experienced as simultaneously transparent and opaque. As a transparent vehicle, the window is that which admits light-or spirit (insert by me: a ghost?)- into the initial darkness of the room. But if glass transmits, it also reflects. And so the window is experienced by the symbolist as a mirror as well as something that freezes and locks the self into the space of its own reduplicated being. Flowing and freezing: glace in French means glass, mirror, and ice; transparency, opacity, and water. In the associative system of symbolic thought this liquidity points in two directions. First, towards the flow of birth – the amniotic fluid, the ‘source’ – but then, towards the freezing into stasis or death – the unfecund immobility of the mirror”.
In parallel to making this work, I have also spent some time layering the repeated experiences of photographing myself (over the last three years) creating transparencies and layering them on top of each other. In so doing, something wonderful has happened – it breaks the grid3 and also, expresses something for me about the various dimensions of time, and space; however, I want to go a step further – and so, I am printing them all out, and creating physical transparencies (in the real world – something I can touch) – and to bring the transparencies and proofs (poems) together – a sum, of sorts.
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The proofs (and resulting poems) have gone through multiple form changes – and I like the poetic form, but also, I like them as more ‘square’ prosaic visuals – and so, I am also going to make transparencies of the text – to create an additional 5 proofs – I imagine these to behave in much the same way that Francesca Woodman blurred her image to create movement.
The space offered up by the idea of STRANGELETS has been so generous. I spent a lot of time thinking – to the point of almost making nothing, until…I found myself returning to something I have been doing, over and over again, for the last few years, and in returning to this, I found myself exploded from the idea of what I could and would do. My thanks to all at Abridged Publications for the invitation to participate in creating work for this project - alongside Tara Bergin, Aoife Mannix, Jessica Traynor, and Dylan Brennan. To visit and explore the work of all the poets: https://www.abridged.zone/strangelets/
A note, a methodology, or a reflection (& not just some body, in a photograph)
To begin: here, reflection means – the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it; also means – a thing that is a consequence of or arises from something else; also means – an idea about something, especially one that is written down or expressed. Over the last three years, I have been repeating myself. I return again & again to the same space (in time, at different time(s)) & there, I have taken & take photos of myself – ‘self(ies)’ in/of reflection. Over time, I have/the eye has become fascinated, meaning – I have/the eye has entered (into) a state of feeling an intense interest in something. That some-thing is me in these moments in time – reflection(s) of myself, this body , thrown back. This throwing back has inspired my (body of) work for this commission.
Before writing anything very much at all, I began from this point: I selected (– comes from seligere, Latin for ‘select by separating off’) a small group of photographs I have taken of myself, this body, in that/this space with & in time; I ‘separated off’ photographs I had taken with my iPhone, photographs I then distorted (by playing with, among other things, aspects of light, various levels of exposure, volume of highlight, degrees of contrast, & counter-acts of balance). Sometimes (after I had done all this) I posted these photographs online. The photographs were interesting to me for reasons I make clear in the work itself, so I won’t go into any(more) detail here. That said, once I realized they were central to this (body of) work, I returned (again) & looked (again) with fresh(?) eyes on this small selection of photographs, & then, I did this: I ran them through (& through) another act of distortion – playing with various frames & expressions of transparency (meaning, on the one hand, the quality of being easily seen through (like, for example, a window(!)), & also, on the other (hand) – the quality of allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen). In sum: I brought the two hands together (& here, there is more to say, but I will hold my tongue; in any case, it’s all there, for all to see) & I layered transparent photographs one on top of the other, & I did this, all of it, in digital ‘space’. What arose from these experiments excited me (even more). But – very soon, I realized a new transformation (meaning – a marked change in form, nature, or appearance; but also, & more to the point – a process by which one figure, expression, or function is converted into another one of similar [insert by me: similar, but not exact] value) was necessary (meaning, among other things – happening by natural laws [insert by me: & therefore, inevitable]). I went with the flow & brought the digital transparencies into the ‘real world’. For an entire afternoon, some (not to far back) time ago, I layered them (again) one on top of the other (all these different combinations of time (of myself, reflected, in time – coming together & apart, in time) – from one grid, onto another (in time), & then, again, I/my eye took another set of photographs (catching all sorts of lines of light, across an entire afternoon) with my iPhone/eye-to-phone, drawing everything back & into the digital world (again).
The result, in sum, is here. Here are photographs/images as representation(s) of reflection & distortion (meaning – a change in the form of an electrical signal or sound wave during processing; also meaning – a distorted form or part; also meaning – the action of giving a misleading account or impression ) & transformation – of temporal and spatial planes; with /in the digital / analogue divide; until the line between the two dissolves (a spontaneous process (!)) towards absolute zero(!) .
