Moving between Images: The Orchestration of Diverse Time-space Constructs in Fine Art Practice

Abstract

This paper discusses how the image can be thought in the context of contemporary fine art practice. Drawing from the author’s practical and theoretical engagement with image making, it explores how the juxtaposition of diverse fine art media contributes to a differentiated appreciation of the time-space relation and how the dialectic of absence and presence of figuration relates to movement and assists the experience of nomadic dwelling. Emphasis will be put on the temporal qualities of the image and its material presentations in space; this applies to the physicality of painting, but also to the screen presence of video or the spatial organization of photographic images. The orchestration of diverse time-space constructs will be considered in relation to Bergson’s notion of duration as multiplicity, Deleuze’s metaphor of the crystal image, Husserl’s concept of simultaneous time flows and Birnbaum’s appraisal of the phenomenology of multi-screen video installations.