User:Lbattich/Project proposal v2

Introduction (Abstract)

My practice-based research in concerned with the related notions of appropriation, influence and identity. Through my practice I seek to embody an act of compulsive appropriation as a manner of relating with art historical canons, particularly seminal works from the avant-garde and conceptual art. The project will present a wide collection of reworked and re-examined cultural and historical artefacts, more specifically texts and artworks that tackle questions relating to the history of art, to imitation and influence and to the practices of citation and quotation. While engaging with these artefacts I will inevitably devour them, change and transform them into something that, speculatively, becomes part of my own personal history: A Partial History of Lucas Battich.

Description of project

This project involves a collection of books, papers, artworks and a variety of ephemera, assembled together and presented into a larger mixed-media installation. The collection is made by adopting existing historical artefacts and texts, and altering all proper names they contain, by replacing them with my own name. Furthermore, the collection contains reworkings and reiterations of key artworks in the narrative of Western art. Thus the collection is presented both as a bizarre reliquary and a speculative partial history of Lucas Battich. Among items in the collection there are:

Among items in the collection there are:

• A small reinterpreted collection of books and texts in which all proper names referring to persons have been replaced with my name. The resulting modified texts are made available in the form of Xeroxed facsimiles. The sources will include influential art historical works from, among others, Ernst Gombrich, Rosalind Krauss, T.J. Clark, Thierry de Duve; and various artists’ writings, critical reviews.
• Reinterpreted manifestoes from different avant-garde movements.
• Video and algorithm-based works: The installation will contain screenings of altered existing films, new video works and computer reworkings in which proper names as well as internal elements from the original films are altered. [This will include appropriations of films by John Baldessari….]

Context

Compulsive reappropriation is here interpreted as a primary strategy to experience and relate with the world. Among the proliferation of information, or rather the urge to constantly consume cultural creations and information, I find that in order to engage meaningfuly with a cultural piece – literature, art, etc – I must somehow reclaim it, copy it, detour it and traverse it. This project is about the act of copying as a way to engage with the world.

One could assert that the drive to reappropriate and pastiche a work is a manner to digest such work, as in a cannibalistic drive. As a manner of relating to the world, this kind of appropriation is not just out to subvert and critique what it devours. For all its violence, it is also a manner of honouring others, by making them part of one's own.

Some themes

My practice-led project is focused on an investigation on our engagement with artistic history and canonical narratives, especially since the advent of modern art. At times this may involve a consideration on how our relation to history is affected by the digital technologies we take for granted today.

For this project I will concentrate on methods of cultural quotation and reappropriation, and particularly on the repurposing of canonical works within the history of modern and including contemporary art, and explore how today reappropriation operates as a symptom of cultural nostalgia.

Relation to larger context

Whereas appropriative methods had a subversive force during periods of the twentieth century (exemplified with the Situationist practice of détournement, but also to some extent present in the works of Picture Generation artists), today this critical element has been lost within the cultural shift to an information and networked culture prompted by new technologies. On the contemporary practices of image-making, from high art to commercial products to social media expressions, the quotation and repurposing of existing material is so pervasive, as facilitated (and prescribed) by digital media, in a manner that is driven more by nostalgic approaches and intentions of homage, than by a critical subversion of original material.

In light of this background. my practice is concerned to address this shift: from critical appropriation to nostalgic reprisal, particularly within historical narratives. My own strategy to tackle this key question is performative, in the sense that my work will attempt to enact the very notions that it aims to critique.

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