| Rationale
The gentle and understated
elements of lapping transform the historical art emphasis on looking
to an emphasis on sensation. The reflection of rippling water on the ceiling
evokes the sensation of being immersed in water. The audience's clothes
and body stay dry and yet the water continues rippling placidly above
their heads.
The experience of being submerged
in water is an experience outside the corporeal heightened by the lack
of material elements presented in lapping. By taking an element from everyday,
such as water, the audience is immediately able to build a familiarity
with the work. If people don't swim in water, they bath or shower in it.
We are all aware of water's property of wetness and the stimulation of
it on our skin.
By taking away the wetness
and limiting the experience of being wet to sound and moving image, lapping
pushes the experience to an acute point, allowing the viewer to experience
the thrill of wetness whilst remaining dry. This in turn highlights the
sensual response by making that response purely intellectual.
As the audience instinctively
follows the sound of the lapping around the gallery, the bodiless swimmer
takes form through them, linking them directly with the work. The audience
is no longer a passive observer, but has been inadvertently seduced into
an active participant.
In lapping the physical
elements of being immersed in water are reduced from many to barely two,
and yet the unconscious association with immersion in water is rendered
without question. The projected ripples moving continuously in one direction
and the constant sound of lapping around the gallery are particular and
unhindered.
The endless and methodical
sound of someone swimming laps becomes soothing in its monotony. Over
time the sustained repetition of sound and moving image becomes relentless,
imposing a sense of acceptance, perhaps resignation. This sense of acceptance
or resignation acts as a metaphor to our response to the underlying cultural
and social boundaries of our everyday.
However, it aims to illustrate
the ease in which individuals are able to conform to social and cultural
restrictions by providing an example of individuals having an experiencing
through their own set of memories and associations. It is these individual
memories and associations that allow diverse individual values and habits
to be formed within a shared experience of the everyday.
Whilst the relentlessness
of the underlying currents in lapping could be read as oppressive,
ultimately the individual memories and associations of the viewer allow
that relentlessness to become a comforting familiarity, an environment
within which to meditate and extend, and most importantly to savour.
"and so it goes,
NOT to repeat itself,
but to move, a little."
|
