Bodies, burdened with narratives and inscribed by laws, function as signifiers of the State propaganda and nationalisms that supercede the Individual. The Image Stammers discredits the seamless fusion of the body-politic of the Singapore state with that of the Individual. This paper looks at the State as its singular source of artistic stimulation and seeks to dislodge the ventriloquised voice of that State acting upon the art object and its producer, so as to liberate the image from the singular meaning the State imposes. To do this, the analysis in this paper intervenes in the State and its organ, the media, in their attempt to imprison the reality of the performance image so as to reverse the silence that has been demanded of the artist. By reinstating this voice into the visual work the author has produced in this text, based on theories of 'internalised' Orientalism discussed by Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, as well as notions of abjections in the work of Elizabeth Grosz anfd Julia Kristeva, this paper attempts to strip the State of its veneer of 'purity' to expose an underside that subjects female bodies to forms of nationalism which are now more codified than ever. This paper foregrounds textual and visual embodiment as a testimony of lived experience which may further entrench, notions of Singapore as an authoritarian state. The Image Stammers bears no pretension of objectivity nor a 'politically safe and correct' one within the context of this paper, but instead, strewns fragments of subjectivity throughout its textual landscape. It seeks to overturn the 'impurity' of the abject (signified by performance art and contemporary artists) as defined, loathed and expelled by the State, into the power of resistance and maintenance of the integrity of the Individual. The Image Stammers retrieves the abject as markers of the limits of State power to become signifiers of resistance for its reconstitution into allies of the artist / Faculty of Performance, Fine Arts and Design
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235166 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Victor, Suzann, University of Western Sydney, Faculty of Performance, Fine Arts and Design, School of Design |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Source | THESIS_FPFAD_SD_Victor_S.xml |
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