The mirror, central to traditional Western epistemology and representation, has shattered. Yet its metaphors, mechanisms, operations and poetics continue to powerfully shape and evocatively describe, contemporary Western culture. The exhibition, After Reflection, investigates realist representation in a post-mirror paradigm, through paintings, prints and projections that incorporate perceptual plays, virtual imaging and digital modeling. The dissertation charts the history of the mirror metaphor and its reconfiguration through post-modernity. It suggests that while the metaphor may be superceded it remains useful and evocative but only if considered in the form of a mirror-ball rather than as a planar mirror. The dissertation examines the mirror metaphor and its relationship to a wide selection of aspects crucial to the arrangement of contemporary Western culture, art and space. / The thesis is structured as a mirror-ball, in small fragments that both reflect on and illuminate aspects of the topic. The dissertation is thus divided into various ‘Shards’ – broad subject headings derived from the primary mechanisms and poetics of the mirror. Within each shard are a varied number of ‘Rays’ – lines of illumination arising from each shard that impact on particular aspects of Western culture. / The exhibition After Reflection includes further speculations around the theme of the mirror and with the arrangement of contemporary space – both pictorial and actual. It is not intended to illustrate the dissertation but to be an additional supplement that visually elaborates on issues enmeshed and parallel to those addressed in the dissertation. The works have all been completed during the period of the candidature (from March 2000) They include six oil paintings, a set of Lightjet photographs (from the “Echohouse’ series) generated from 3d modelling programs and then face-mounted to Perspex. There is an additional three larger scale Lightjet photographs from another series. Finally there are projected works. One is a self contained DVD projection and the other is Mirror Land - a large scale 3d animation covering two wall and projected in a chiasmatic arrangement. Both works feature an endless looping repetition. / All the works play with metaphoric aspects of the mirror and examine the construction of space in contemporary Western culture. This space has become increasingly rationalized since the Renaissance and mirror a more general abstraction whereby the real is evermore preceded by simulations. The work looks at the mirror land and suggests a mode of realism capable of addressing the situation where the real has increasingly been reconfigured into representation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245052 |
| Creators | Haley, Stephen John |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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