Negation of Complicated Mirrors: An Examination of Differential Structures within the “Production of Subject” Realised through Creative Practice

This research explores new methods for practice-based research in fine art (video and multi-media installation) and in curatorial practices, residing in specific readings of Deleuze.

The thesis looks into the potential presented by the mirror. Mirrors are symbolic references. Video has the capacity to be a mirror to the world; the exhibition also. Yet the mirror here is not examined as a reflection of the true ‘self’ nor is it invested in concepts of a ‘true’ mirror image of the ‘real’. Instead, the suggestion is made that a mirror pertains to an oxymoron, in which contradictory terms are combined as mirroring is recognised in terms of both “identity” and “difference”.

Along these lines, reflection on negation becomes the mode of operation and the mirror maintains the reflective experience, more specifically visual thought, in place. This is why the works made and discussed pursue how the “production of the subject” unfolds representational boundaries. It is suggested that the act of being reflected must engage new ways of thinking about multiplicity of subject-positions; what it means to ‘be’ or ‘become’ and how past experiences are manifest in the present. The analysis has been formed through an examination of the transformative potential in representations for speaking about political realities today.

To consider these issues, the thesis brings together a number of inter-related fields of creative practice and situates critical inquiry in methodologies that structure how the ‘subject’ manifests itself on screen. A “philosophy of practice”, linking curatorial activities and artistic works is developed through a series of philosophical reflections; artworks; curatorial activities and dialogues with different artists and theorists. The thesis seen as a whole examines these ‘encounters’ that facilitates a mirror reflection of a world “yet-to-come” through varied means for engagement which are tested in art production and theoretical and curatorial positions.