The Presence of Absence:
An Analysis of ‘Affectivity’ in Objects and Architectural Space
“Affective” objects, spaces and scenes are those which move us emotionally, by either appearing to express sentiment or by provoking feelings within us through our encounter with them. My research firstly explores the mechanisms which cause this emotional relationship between us and the material world, and how they can be exploited in the creation of art, objects and architectural space. Through a series of works, including treated objects, photography, sound recordings, film, and physical spatial intervention, I aim to evoke the emotions of the viewer in order to shift their perception of existing architectural spaces, often drawing attention to social issues present within them. My work focuses upon notions of presence and absence, stillness and motion, and how the unsettling realms in-between may exploit our innate sensitivity to the distinction between living and non living things.
Affectivity and Memory
Memory can be described as part of the “framework” through which we see the world (Gibbons, 2007). It mediates our perception, our decision making and, through this, our reactions to the objects and spaces which confront us in everyday life. Philosopher Richard Wollheim describes a person’s memories as a set of personal “dispositions” which regulate their temperament. These dispositions mutate with time as we continually add to our repertoire of encounters, seen in the development or overcoming of fears, for example. According to Wollheim, dispositional changes occur through our desires being either satisfied or frustrated by an event; this leads to the development of a responsive relationship with objects associated with it (Wollheim, 1999).
When using objects to stir recollections or represent memory, certain implications immediately arise: Objects become open to reinterpretation, distortion and decay. Michel de Certeau describes this static embodiment as “a sort of anti-museum”, the cause of a memory’s demise (De Certeau, 1984, p.108). This was the first aspect I wished to explore in my studio work; it led me to consider the fragility of memory and how methods of preservation or remembrance often overshadow or distort the accuracy of the original event. I began to ‘preserve’ second hand items of knitted children’s clothing by ‘petrifying’ them using immersion in plaster and wax, a process which I shall discuss further in the coming sections. I also created representations of worn, discarded shoes in the forms of impressions, photographs and plaster castings of the interior. Knowing that in order to complete the casting process the original objects would inevitably be altered irreversibly or even destroyed, I decided to explore a more visually poetic way of removing the casts from the shoes by using exposure to heat. This process became visually evident on the resulting objects, not only leaving indexical impressions of the original shoes’ detailing but also burn marks, ash residue and a yellowish discolouration left by the melted rubber and leather.
Rachel Whiteread has been a leader in her work with castings as representations of objects destroyed by the process. Her sculptures, such as “House” and the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, stand as physical monuments to absent volumes. Her bath casts have a particular affective quality, their slab-like, monumental form drawing attention to the absence of a human inhabitant. The colouration of the rusting metal also transferred in part onto the cast, transferring physical and notional aspects of the bath’s surface and history. This led me to draw parallels with the marks left on my own casts, and their significance as perceived human traces, in adding to the poignancy of the objects.
Natural Expression and Craft
”...it can be argued that the work of art has properties which no physical object could have” (Wollheim, 1968, p10)
In the above statement, Wollheim highlights a paradox aroused by bestowing humane qualities on insentient objects which appear to us to ‘express’ emotion. One way to interpret this perceived expression is to view the work of art as a “natural expression” or pure gesture of its creator – viewing markings of the process not as indexical traces but as a direct and unmediated result of the creator’s emotional state. The viewer is then bestowed with a “preoccupation with what the artist felt” (Wollheim, 1968).
The works of conceptual artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres consistently confront the viewer with issues of personal grief. In his untitled billboard image, he uses photography of indexical indentations in a bed to communicate the absence of his partner, who died of AIDS. Though the marks are not necessarily unmediated, the image encourages interpretation as an expression of loss, and establishes a strong sense of empathy with the mark maker. The medium through which the image is displayed adds to the poignancy, by publically exposing what is perceived as a very private space.
It is perhaps through this engagement with the artist that we often find crafted objects so affective – they are works which retain a strong connection to their creator. Social anthropologist Alfred Gell describes made objects as “extensions” of our ability, as humans, to influence our environment. Therefore upon interaction with crafted forms, a social relationship between the artist and the viewer is forged (Gell, 1998).
Upon encounter with the hand knitted cardigans used in my work, this relationship enables one to empathise with the craftsperson’s care, be enchanted by their skill and as Wollheim’s words may indicate, to consider the motivation behind applying such time and care to them. The structure of the knit enables the viewer to visually trace the hand of the creator. The subtlety of the absorbed wax then accentuates the affectivity of the garments by allowing much of this knitted detail to remain. There are even areas, such as the buttons, where the wax is not absorbed at all and therefore the original surface is completely retained. The stillness and rigidity of the cardigans’ forms become all the more unfamiliar when contrasted with these retained familiar details.
Once the cardigans are coated in wax, becoming rigid, cavernous and unusable, a poignant interplay becomes apparent between the perceived love which motivated their original creation and the absence of the beloved wearer. This idea of the ‘motivation’ of the maker perhaps also explains reactions to the wellington boot cast - the burn marks inducing a somewhat darker perception of intent.
Projection and Correspondence
Immanuel Kant maintains that emotional qualities exist only in the reaction of the viewer and not in the inanimate objects which appear to enliven them (Kant, 2005). The emergence of installation art, as collections of ‘found objects’, exploited this by placing the viewer amongst the work, relying upon their interpretation of relationships between the objects to create meaning (Bishop, 2005). These interpretations can be attributed to the influence of memories, associations and dispositions, which I discussed earlier. Robert Vischer also explains our interpretations of these scenes and objects as ‘projection’, whereby the viewer sees qualities in other people or objects which are actually their own (Vischer, 1994).
According to Wollheim, we seek correlation between our inner inclinations and outer expression, and are therefore drawn to objects in which we see something of ourselves - matter which appears to reiterate the feelings and memories within us. He refers to this as “correspondence”, a theory which portrays the spectator as the cause of affectivity in objects and spaces (Wollheim, 1968). The use of found objects as starting points for my work evokes this mechanism by aiming to enliven associations the viewer has with the familiarity of the forms.
I developed a proposal for Regent’s Place in North London, consisting of a series of the wax immersed children’s cardigans, appearing to float in suspension between the existing modern buildings of 350 and 338 Euston Road. The work intends to reconnect the site with the neighbouring residential estate, focussing on the loss of domesticity at Regent’s Place and its simultaneous presence in memory. The way the objects are arranged in their environment plays a vital role in inviting projection and correspondence as a method for creating narrative at the site.
The image of clothes lines across the street carries definite social nostalgia and working class associations, which allude to the history of Regent’s Place. The configuration also makes reference to traditional street parties, which were characterised by their use of bunting strung between buildings - not only physically connecting their homes but suggesting a community event within the street space beneath. Both the Regent’s Place site and adjacent housing estate have a strong vertical presence, but the context of the buildings’ heights give them very different connotations – the ‘skyscrapers’ of modern materials signifying the presence of professionalism and wealth, the ‘high rise flats’ emanating associations with lower class poverty. The proposed installation invites the eye upwards to evoke comprehension of this formal connection and its social significance. For the residents of the housing estate the proposed scene has further poignancy, as their naturalised and functional interventions are seen resonating through this adjacent, estranged world.
Emotion and Narrative
Some social memories are painful for societies to recall yet they are considered dangerous to forget. In these instances film makers, architects, and artists such as Miroslaw Balka, have responded with a conscious effort to represent events without sterilizing them. Freud explains this tendency towards poignant memorial as an act which liberates us from a subconscious need to return to the time of a trauma (Rowlands, 1999). Balka’s installations, particularly the architectural How It Is (2009), create an ‘emotional narrative’ using sculpted forms which play upon the viewer’s primary responses in order to create the experience.
In his discussion of The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture, John Paul Eberhard defines two levels at which we experience ‘emotive’ space: The “primary” and initial response is an automatic one which produces physical bodily reactions such as an increase in pulse rate or a blush to the skin. This is followed by a “secondary” cognition – of both the space and the initial response – which is guided largely by our existing memories and dispositions (Eberhard, 2009).
Translated into my experience of Balka’s How It Is, on display at the Tate Modern in 2009, I was firstly confronted by the structure’s apparent weight and overbearing power. The metal exterior was cold and industrial, the inner progressively dark. As I encountered the work, I felt small, insignificant and increasingly at the mercy of the structure. On cognition of prior knowledge and associations, the form bore resemblance to a shipping container. Furthermore, after learning that the artist is Polish, the emotional journey I had taken suddenly revealed a new significance as possible references to the holocaust and immigration became apparent. It is this combination of primary and secondary responses which together give the emotional journey a poignant narrative; a means of summoning emotions, then making connections with a broader historical or social context.
My proposal for Regent’s Place also employs this methodology of layering contexts to guide the experience and discovery of the work. As documented, the hollow rigid forms of the wax cardigans can provoke responses as objects in their own right. When arranged in poignant configuration they also begin to highlight the spatial qualities of the surrounding architecture to formulate further connections, adding layers of response and context to the work.
Through their oversized detailing, the buildings at Regent’s Place emanate strength, weight and power; which makes them appear incomprehensibly large, excluding any relation to human scale. The wax objects in my proposal are suspended at a comprehendible height, with some just above arms reach. They frame human movement through the space at a more domestic scale, contrasting and accentuating the vastness of the towering architecture. The wax which covers them strengthens the objects, but its visual impact is that of fragility – providing another stark contrast to the surrounding visual language.
The scale and materiality of the suspended garments means that they remain a subtle intervention in the space. The subtlety deliberately aims to create a shift in perception of the existing architecture as the viewer looks up and discovers the work. Moving suddenly from a small space to a significantly larger one has the ability to heighten awareness and trigger a primary response, sometimes described as a sense of ‘awe’, arising from the revealing of an unanticipated space (Eberhard, 2009). It is a combination of these initial responses, with cognition of the formal connections in the vertical architecture and the cardigans themselves, which together aim to manifest the intended sense of domestic absence.
By their nature as artworks the Regent’s Place intervention and Balka’s How It Is intentionally instigate an emotive response. Some functional spaces however, such as the London Underground, also have the capacity to provoke strong reactions to the architectural environment and its context, but the naturalisation of our presence there temporarily masks aspects of the spatial aesthetics and our perception of them. I will return to these hidden spatial qualities and my attempts to reveal them later.
Encounters with Morbidity: the Instinct of Self Preservation
Edmund Burke describes feelings of the sublime as reactions to the encounter of vast or dangerous spaces, from a safe standpoint, which enhance our sense of being alive. Although I am not attempting to create ‘sublime’ space, I feel my work is inherently informed by an investigation into what triggers such extreme emotive responses as these. On this subject, Burke writes:
“If the pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person... they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which as it belongs to self-preservation is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime.” (Burke, 1970, p257)
Observing art can already be considered a position of safety in this sense, as the art medium itself is a representation and therefore removed from any noxious reality. The work of Christian Boltanski often instigates disturbing narratives, confronting viewers with morbidity without them being threatened directly by it. Many of his “post-Holocaust” works use arrangements of second hand clothing, which purposely allude to the loss of the life within them: “What is beautiful about working with used clothes is that these really have come from somebody. Someone has actually chosen them, loved them, but the life in them is now dead.” (Boltanski to Garb, 1997, p19) As a species chronically aware of our own mortality, works such as No Man’s Land confront our strongest primal emotions – those involving the quest for self preservation.
Though the history of the used garments I obtained is completely unknown, my work has continually involved confrontation with themes of loss and absence. The first instance occurred when I received unanticipated reactions to the plaster casting of a child’s wellington boot interior. The transference of burn marks onto the plaster, which I discussed earlier, created an apparent connection - not only including the artist, as creator of the object, but between the viewer and a perceived absent wearer who had suffered a fictional fate. Despite cognition of the method used to produce the cast, observers experienced a sense of unease triggered by the smell of the burnt fabric, the transfer of texture, and overwhelmingly the interpretation of its shape – which, as a cast of the interior volume, related directly to the human form. In fact, the way the original boot continued up the leg slightly meant that this particular cast made a more obvious connection to a human foot than the other casts in the series.
Similarly, the wax immersed cardigans enveloped a purposefully formed void in the centre, created by moulding the wire hanger into a three dimensional shape in order to leave empty space inside the garment when it cooled. The resulting shape expresses both an indexical impression of a former physical presence and an indication of a notional absence, that of the perceived owner. Their rigidity and stillness add to the affectivity by contrasting their perceived former existence as objects animated by human contact.
It is significant that the most emotive of my casts and treated objects are child sized. Psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva rationalises the possible poignancy of children’s items in this context as an unnerving encroaching of death into subjects which usually represent the preservation of life, hope and the future (Kristeva, 1982). It is worth noting that this idea is conceived within the context of the modern era: with the advance of medical science comes the assumption, in the developed world, that all children are likely to survive to adulthood.
As an inquiry into the notion of still objects and their former animation, I began using film and photography to explore the juxtaposition of the wax cardigans and their shadows. By moving the light source during filming I was able to create an uncanny scene, where the shadow appeared to move gently in the breeze while the suspended wax immersed object remained distorted and still above it. The wax garments I created for the Regent’s Place proposal also explored this notion by using a series of fans to distort them as they set, giving them the appearance of being paused. When observing still objects which are usually animated, it is easy to project the assumption that the object is dead. Alfred Gell writes that in the interests of survival we are “innately sensitive” to the distinction between living and non living things (Gell, 1998), a point which perhaps explains the unsettling nature of the realms between stillness and motion, presence and absence.
Sound artist Bill Fontana explores these realms by injecting sounds of life and movement into existing static architectural environments. In Distant Trains (1984), he transferred a sound recording taken at an active railway station in Köln, West Germany, to the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof – a heavily bombed and abandoned railway station in Berlin, East Germany. His work pursues the notion that the “invisible can alter perceptions of the visible” (Gibbons, 2007, p49) and succeeds in using the ‘affective’ to draw attention to the social issues raised by the building’s history and current ruinous state.
Disembodied Sound
“The acousmatic carries forward the tracings of a voice that leaves behind the material world, to appear as is from the shadows.” (LaBelle, 2010, p15)
With particular reference to the haunting quality of echoes in the urban Underground, artist and writer Brandon LaBelle refers to sound’s capacity for travelling independently of its body. His thinking also applies acutely to audio transmission and recording (LaBelle, 2006). Sonic recording creates the possibility for sound outliving the source which created it, and poignantly drawing attention to that source’s absence. Artist Susan Hiller explores this idea: In her work Monument (1980-81), photographic sections of a memorial in Postman’s Park in London are enlarged to reveal the names of the dead. In the accompanying sound recording, she proceeds to read the inscribed names one by one, stating the length of the deceased’s time alive ‘in the body’, followed by the length of their time alive in the representational form of the monument. During the recording, she states: “We could exist forever, inscribed, portrayed, as inscriptions, portraits, representations. I’m representing myself to myself... and for you, to you. This is my voice.” (Hiller, 1980-81)
I began to exploit the disembodying quality of sound by juxtaposing audio and video recordings taken in the same space but at different times. I experimented with various locations, including the London Underground, the daytime street markets at Ridley Road and Columbia Road in East London, and a variety of domestic settings.
I visited Tufnell Park tube station at night, when the station is least used, and was able to make clear sound recordings of trains passing through the platforms one by one. In a highlighted absence of other sound or movement, the underground recordings reveal air flow reverberating through the unseen acoustic architecture of the tunnel spaces long after the train has passed. At this point, an ‘acousmatic’ sound is present, whereby the sound is heard even though the cause lies beyond visible boundaries. Using film, I sought to foster this resonance, and its effects on the viewer, by layering sound recordings of the passing trains over moving images of the empty platform, recorded only moments before the sound.
The visual footage of the platform, taken from two static viewpoints, at first appears motionless and remains ambiguous in parts. Gradually, subtle movements reveal the filmic nature; a light flickers, a signal changes at the far end of the platform and suspended signs are caught in the increasingly vigorous air flow. The subtle movement in the finished film holds the gaze of the viewer and uses the realm between stillness and motion to build anticipation within the scene. In his film Wavelength (1967), Michael Snow also records from a static viewpoint as the frame gradually zooms into a picture on the wall of the observed room. Following the intermittent presence of figures within the frame, the viewer watches the intensely motionless space with the distinct possibility that former inhabitants may return and disrupt the stillness. The accompanying sound accentuates this anticipation in a similar way to my sound recordings of trains; its progressively higher pitch and volume are indicative of an approaching physical body, which does not materialise.
Not only does my edited film highlight the absence of the expected body of the train, as discussed, but it also seems to create a dislocated perception of the space. LaBelle explains that: “listeners live in two places at once” (LaBelle, 2006, p233), as the sound of a space conjures up an independent visual reality within the ‘viewer’. Therefore when presented with visual and sonic realities which do not coordinate, as in the presence of acousmatic sound, an affective sense of the ‘uncanny’ tends to occur – where both the visual and audio components may be familiar, but their juxtaposition becomes uncomfortably odd.
In a discussion entitled Sonic Approaches to Place (2010), Savage, Cusack and Voegelin consider the connection between the visual and sonic areas of the brain. The speakers expand on LaBelle’s notion of a dual reality to suggest that sound alone can produce an abstract visual image in the mind, a theory which augments the importance of the imagination during the experience of acousmatic sound in spatial contexts. Film makers consistently exploit the power of the imaginary space by purposely omitting detail more poignantly created in the mind. Similarly, as the recorded acoustics of the underground exhibit, echoed or reverberated sound can reveal, or evoke the imagination of, a space or body beyond one’s vision - in essence the presence of the visually absent.
The Presence of Absence: Traces of Inhabitation and Activity
Upon realisation of the submerged spaces which construct the London Underground, we comprehend that we are underneath tonnes of earth, at the mercy of physical structural elements and the perseverance of an electricity supply. But our use of these spaces is naturalised by routine, purpose, and the inevitable presence of other people. When these reassuring elements are removed from our experience, our perception of the space vastly changes, and the nature of the architectural environment reveals itself. Indexical traces of human presence are everywhere in the underground; dirt marks adorn the walls, abandoned items and ripped posters map the passage of people and the passing of time. But it is only when the spaces are vacated that these traces become ‘uncanny’, highlighting an eerie absence.
Mike Nelson’s The Coral Reef (2000) is a maze of disconcerting spaces which represent different cultural and belief systems but which all appear to be a front or ‘reception’ space, hiding some underlying activity. As is common in Nelson’s installations, the presence of the perceived former inhabitants resonates through the space in visual clues left behind: Half empty coffee mugs rest by flickering monitors - left on but no longer receiving a transmission, indexical marks indicate where hands once reached for the light switches or moved through the dust. Hats, sleeping bags, even guns, lay casually discarded throughout the rooms. These traces lead the viewer to wonder why the spaces have been deserted and, crucially, whether anyone will return. The atmosphere is still and lifeless, which already feels unsettling when evidence of life is so prominent, but every now and again the air of anticipation and uncertainty is fuelled by encounters with subtle but unexpected movements: glimpses of the viewer reflected in carefully positioned mirrors, a fan turns, monitors flicker in the dark, and an old games machine emits sporadic bursts of sound. It is the viewer’s encounter with these elements which seem to heighten awareness and create an unsettling ambiguity about the absence of the inhabitants.
The marketplace on Ridley Road, where I continued experimentation with recording sound and video, reveals similar sinister qualities upon desertion at night. During the day the area bustles with people, vibrant fabrics and food, loud music and conversation. After closing, only the skeletal stall structures remain, littered with the deserted remnants of activity. Long exposure photographs of the site reveal the subtle movement of plastic sheeting, dangling ropes and loose items, which move in the breeze blowing through the exposed frames. The emptiness also creates great ambiguity about the nature of the structures and their components, and encourages a projected narrative which intensifies the tenebrous ambience. During the day, merchants’ wares hang suspended on ropes in several of the stall spaces. At night these ropes explicitly evoke the visual language of empty nooses and, to the unknowing viewer, encourage horrific speculation as to the intent behind their presence. The subtlety of the ropes’ visual intervention within the dark spaces creates unexpected encounters as they gently move, or brush against you as you navigate the space. As the markings on the child’s boot cast were interpreted as indications of intent, so these indexical traces of the market’s function unintentionally play upon recognisable forms to encourage the formation of narrative and an assumption of ‘intent’.
My initial documentation of Ridley Road employed a similar approach to that of the Underground; I edited sound, recorded whilst walking through the open market, with moving visual footage of a journey through the space at night. What became more apparent as I spent time there however, were the poignant spatial qualities already in existence. Revealed by emptiness, the aesthetics of the makeshift structures divulge the poverty which envelops the site, and evoke the danger of consequent social issues, which generally become masked by activity during the day. It is these qualities which I proceeded to reveal through a filmic exploration of the space.
The Absent Agent
The sound of moving machinery, such as the tube trains, is indicative of the presence or intent of an agent assumed to be operating it. John Wynne explores the ghostly reanimation of mechanical and electrical objects in the absence of human operation, through his untitled (2009) work comprising of 300 speakers, pianola, vacuum cleaner, audio amplifiers, hard disc recorder, speaker wire, suction hose and piano roll. The installation projects a combination of sounds into the gallery space, including synthetic noise generated and controlled by a computer system, and a musical score modified and performed by the mechanism of the pianola. An encounter with the work produces instant ambiguity about the source of the sound. Upon exploration, the viewer discovers the obscured pianola with its moving components and accompanying empty chair. An eerie absence of agency then unfolds, compounded by other strangely unaided movements; the suction hose, connected to the vacuum cleaner which drives the pianola, twitches sporadically as it snakes across the floor.
At night, Ridley Road is subtly animated by the surreptitious movements of loose materials, litter and shadows. Lawrence Pollard compares these apparently anonymous movements to the affective nature of acousmatic sound: “The shadow implies a space you cannot see but which might, alarmingly, be the same space you are in... you are linked to something you cannot see. This is the way that sound operates with space.” (Pollard, 2007, p195)
Consequently, I came to wonder how the theory of the ‘acousmatic’ could apply to elements in the visual realm – exploring visual effects caused by an absent or unseen source, which therefore create an uncomfortable ambiguity about presence and intent. With this in mind, I returned to the Underground and installed vessels of liquid on the platform in order to reveal a visual response to the resonating sound. During my filming at Ridley Road I also focussed upon these elements, capturing vehicle headlights animating the space with shadows and the subtle movement of loose structural materials. Translucent plastic sheeting is widely used on site. It reveals movement and shadows, suggestive of a space beyond, but obscures the sources themselves. I also began recording the sound of these night-specific subtleties. During editing, I chose to use sections of audio which did not quite correspond with the accompanying visual element: a car can be heard passing with a clear view of the empty road, the rustling of a loose carrier bag is heard but remains ambiguous and out of view. The unseen object, in this sense, “infuses listening with a haunting uncertainty.” (LaBelle, 2010, p24).
Structures built by Anselm Kiefer at his remote studio location in Southern France, portray a strange tension between the suggestion of intent and order, and apocalyptic abandonment. Many of his sculptural forms there allude to regulated piles of materials, the ordered configuration of the pile indicative of human intervention and agency. Film maker Sophie Fiennes documents Kiefer’s work and process in Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2011). She employs film techniques which draw inspiration from the work itself, beginning the film by moving through empty structures and panning across the still, possibly abandoned, landscape for several minutes. Then suddenly, whilst the frame focuses upon a pile of broken glass, more glass lands – someone is still there, working. A similar method is used at the end of the film: it has been made apparent that Kiefer has left the site and no longer works there, but his structures remain. She pans across the stillness again until, at the far left of the shot, smoke is seen blowing into the frame. The viewer never sees the source of this smoke, but it suggests, again, that somebody is present. Or at least their intervention lives on, in the otherwise motionless, abandoned scene.
The Role of Resonance
It is apparent that through our interaction with the material world, our agency and intent hold the ability to resonate long after our physical disappearance. Remaining fragments and traces become eerie, even uncanny, as we, as viewers, interpret a “lost whole” (Scott, 2008, p119). As a species aware of our mortality, the juxtaposition of presence and absence which surrounds this notion, affects us via our most primary emotive responses. Alfred Gell’s theory suggests that in the interest of self preservation, we are innately sensitive to the presence of others, their movements, and their intent (Gell, 1998). It is due to this, perhaps, that we find the uncomfortable realms between stillness and motion, presence and absence, so ‘affective’. When manifested in objects and architectural space, these realms of poignant ambiguity resonate with projected narratives and interpretations - often bringing valuable social or historical issues to the forefront of our attention in ways which, without this poignancy, would not communicate so effectively or move us to respond so deeply.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bibliography
In addition to sources referenced directly in the text, I also include some literature, exhibitions and live events which have inherently informed my thinking during the writing of this paper.
Books
Beil, R. (2006) Christian Boltanski, Time. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag
Bishop, C. (2005) Installation Art: A Critical History. London: Tate Publishing
Bloomer, K., Moore, C (1977) Body, Memory and Architecture. London: Yale University Press.
Burke, E. (1970) Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Menston: The Scolar Press Ltd.
Crowther, P. (1995) The Contemporary Sublime: Sensibilities of Transcendence and Shock. London: Academy Group
De Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. P.108
Eberhard, J. (2009) Brain Landscape: The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Forty, A. (1999) Introduction in: Forty & Kuchler. Materializing Culture: The Art of Forgetting. Oxford: Berg.
Gell, A. (1998) Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gibbons, J. (2007) Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.
Gibbs, T. (2007) The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Sound Design. Switzerland: AVA Publishing.
Kahn, D. (1999) Noise Water Meat. Massachusetts/London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
Kant, I. (2005) Critique of Judgment. New York: Dover.
Kellein, T. (1994) Rachel Whiteread. Basel: Schwabe &Co.
Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York/Oxford: Columbia University Press.
Kuchler, S. (1999) The Place of Memory in: Forty & Kuchler. Materializing Culture: The Art of Forgetting. Oxford: Berg.
LaBelle, B. (2006) Background Noise, Perspectives on Sound Art. New York/London: Continuum.
LaBelle, B. (2010) Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life. New York/London: Continuum.
Pollard, L. (2007) Random Thoughts on Background Noise in: Littlefield & Lewis. Architectural Voices, Listening to Old Buildings. Chichester: Wiley-Academy.
Psarra, S. (2009) Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning. Abingdon: Routledge.
Rowlands, M. (1999) Remembering to Forget in: Forty & Kuchler. Materializing Culture: The Art of Forgetting. Oxford: Berg.
Scott, F. (2008) On Altering Architecture. Oxon: Routledge.
Semin, D., Garb,T., Kuspit, D. (1997) Christian Boltanski. Hong Kong: Phaidon.
Vischer, R. (1994) On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics in: Bloomfield, J., Forster, K. & Reese, T. Empathy, Form and Space. Santa Monica: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.
Wollheim, R. (1968) Art and its Objects: An Introduction to Aesthetics. New York: Harper & Row.
Wollheim, R. (1999) On the Emotions. Glasgow: Bell & Bain.
Journal Articles and Exhibition Catalogues
Misztal, B (2003) Durkheim on Collective Memory. Journal of Classical Sociology. Vol. 3, pt. 2, pp. 123-143
Storr, R (1991) Dislocations. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Exhibition Catalogue.
Tate Publishing (2010) Mike Nelson, The Coral Reef.
Exhibitions and Art Works
Balka, M (2009) How It Is. Mixed media. London: Tate Modern. 13th October 2009 – 5th April 2010
Hiller, S (1980-81) Monument. Photographs, audio track tape and park bench. London: Tate Britain.
Hirst, D. (1990-91) Let’s Eat Outdoors Today. Glass, steel, cow’s head, flies, maggots, sugar, water, insect-o-cutor, resin, table and chairs, tableware, condiments and food. London: Royal Academy of Arts.
Nelson, M. (2000) The Coral Reef. Mixed media. London: Tate Britain.
Neususs, F. (1984) Be Right Back. Gelatin silver print photogram and wooden chair, London: V&A
Whiteread, R (2010) Rachel Whiteread Drawings. London: Tate Britain. 8th September 2010 – 16th January 2011
Wynne, J (2009) Untitled. 300 speakers, pianola, vacuum cleaner, audio amplifiers, hard disc recorder, speaker wire, suction hose and piano roll. London: Saatchi Gallery.
Performance
A Quiet Reverie (2011) Swiss Church: London. 9th June, with Mark Peter Wright.
Lectures
Affective Objects (2011) London: Chelsea College of Art and Design. 31st January 2011, with Glen Adamson
Audio Visual
La Jetee (1962) Directed by Chris Marker. Nouveaux Pictures: UK. [Video: DVD]
Listening to Noise and Silence: Sonic Approaches to Place (2010) Online podcast, available at:
http://www.crisap.org/index.php?id=36,385,0,0,1,0 [Accessed 24th May 2011]
Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2011) Directed by Sophie Fiennes. Artificial Eye: UK [Video: DVD]
The Pianist (2002) Directed by Roman Polanski. Optimum: UK. [Video: DVD]
Wavelength (1967) Directed by Michael Snow. [Online source]. Available at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3009876496807585942# [Accessed 29th June 2011]
