This thesis is written from the viewpoint of a working British artist. Providing a new context within which to assess the representation of time in Tacita Dean's films, the thesis groups together works located in the rural landscapes of Britain, which are evaluated for their ability to convey rural Britain with a dynamic and complex present-time temporality as living and working entities containing actual places. Influence from the culturally constructed, countryside ideal, is revealed, including Romanticism's historical agency in the countryside ideal's formation, as well as Romanticism's current, somewhat hidden influence. The selected works are observed to lack a dominant present-time frame of reference. Linking temporal representation to place, Dean's written statements regarding place are then compared to place representation in her films. Extending Jorg Heiser 's discussion on Dean as Romantic Conceptualist, the selected works are demonstrated to be largely situated within Romantic Conceptualism, shown to make a contribution to the affirmation that actual rural places exist, by attempting to convey each place's unique temporality. Unlike her writing on place, Dean's film work is demonstrated to not only contain the more rebellious forms of Romanticism associated with Romantic Conceptualism, but also more conservative forms. Instead of offering new insight, her filmic approach is found to sometimes confirm nostalgic Romantic misconceptions of a somewhat generic, primarily past-time experience in the rural British landscape. For some films this is shown to situate her somewhat outside the bounds of Romantic Conceptualism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:600999 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Skivington, Flora |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds