Month: April 2013

Title thesis:

Supernormality


Subject:
Supernormality is that state where something normal is so normal that it becomes strange again.

In my thesis I look at that odd, exaggerated normality – which I dub ‘supernormality’. I look at how it works and how it can be used – in art specifically – as a strategy to look at and showcase normality, to reflect on the constant navigation between needing to be normal on the one hand, and wanting to be special on the other.


Link to thesis (PDF)

I look at expectations. At norms, group behaviour, being inside versus outside. The expectations of shared beliefs, a desire to be uniform. And together with those desires, simultaneous attraction and disgust, a tiring unease.

I take a normal artefact or scene, one that most of us will know or recognise: a meeting, a walk, a house, a dinner. Then, I highlight it, set it apart, make it strange, make it fail, make it absurd.

The exact object of the scene is not so important. It is once removed from what is shown, the content at a meta level. It is the ‘how’, not the ‘what’, that counts. In the assembly and presentation there are humors of melancholia, artificiality, childlike guises, being together and apart in a group, a want for an experience.

The viewer – having become an unwilling participant, because this is also about them – is reminded of the strangeness of our behaviours, of what we do to belong or not belong. With it I can hopefully create, or show the possibility of creating, liberty, a free space.

Title thesis:

Supernormality


Subject:
Supernormality is that state where something normal is so normal that it becomes strange again.

In my thesis I look at that odd, exaggerated normality – which I dub ‘supernormality’. I look at how it works and how it can be used – in art specifically – as a strategy to look at and showcase normality, to reflect on the constant navigation between needing to be normal on the one hand, and wanting to be special on the other.


Link to thesis (PDF)

I look at expectations. At norms, group behaviour, being inside versus outside. The expectations of shared beliefs, a desire to be uniform. And together with those desires, simultaneous attraction and disgust, a tiring unease.

I take a normal artefact or scene, one that most of us will know or recognise: a meeting, a walk, a house, a dinner. Then, I highlight it, set it apart, make it strange, make it fail, make it absurd.

The exact object of the scene is not so important. It is once removed from what is shown, the content at a meta level. It is the ‘how’, not the ‘what’, that counts. In the assembly and presentation there are humors of melancholia, artificiality, childlike guises, being together and apart in a group, a want for an experience.

The viewer – having become an unwilling participant, because this is also about them – is reminded of the strangeness of our behaviours, of what we do to belong or not belong. With it I can hopefully create, or show the possibility of creating, liberty, a free space.