Site-Specific Art as an Exploration of Spatial and Temporal Limitations

This practice-based thesis examines the relationship between space, time and the human presence. It is concerned with the dialectic exchanges between my work and the places in which its meaning is defined. Oppositions between space/place, place/non-place, and immobility/movement, articulate the spatial and temporal limitations that delineate my site-specific practice and its experience.

The exploration of the relationship between the notion of time and my practice has profoundly affected my research, which has itself endured for an extended period of time. This is described in chronological sequence: 1)initial site-specific installations, 2) site-writing: the thesis and photographic documentation of the installations, 3) installation of the documentation of the initial site-specific installations on the occasion of my viva.

My thesis emphasises the role of the viewer’s presence, including the moment in time and the presence of other people in experiencing the site-specific work. The question posed is whether the ‘literality’ of site-specific art can encompass antithetical notions of site as they appear in contemporary life.The hypothesis advanced is that by adjusting the limits between the double experience of the fluidities and continuities of space and time, on the one hand,and their ruptures and disconnections, on the other, site-specific art may allow viewers to think and experience apparent contradictions as sustaining relations.

My thesis looks at three works: 'Central Corridor' (2003), 'Seven Windows Divided by Two' (2004) and 'In Site Compression' (2007). Their documentations emphasise the paradox of representing site-specific work on the page. Another set of documentation will be exhibited at the viva, comprising the material of anew situation with its own spatio-temporal relationships (other than those of the initial installations), and will require anew the physical participation of the viewer to be perceived.