ARTISTIC RESEARCH PROJECT, 2022 -
Writing Visual Relations investigates into possibilities of writing about visual art. Through the literary mode of ekphrastic writing, the research inquires into writing in relation to the non-photographic still image. The research investigates the potentialities of writing the visual, while examining connections, differences and indebtedness between image and text. While there is a tradition within the history of visual art, as well as of literature, to critically engage with image and text, the area is fraught with issues. With the continued focus on writing in the visual art education, with increased possibilities of literary online publishing, and with the growing field of artistic research where writing plays a critical part, these issues are gaining both dimension and ubiquity.
The research is conducted through the transdisciplinary method of performance writing, and draws on new materialist ideas. Considering the area and the actions (such as writing and performing language) performative rather than representational, the research interrogates differences and power relations, while engaging in a non-oppositional venture into the relations between visuality and textuality.
Writing Visual Relations is carried out at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University. The research is financed by The Swedish Research Council.
Below, documentation from a session on the picture of Dorian Gray within The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, carried out together with the MA class of 2022 in Literary Composition at HDK-Valand.
