Thesis Research Segments.

1.

Consider a position that, whilst the healthy body of a practicing artist is discrete and its functions generally unnoticed, in incidences of serious illness questions arises as to what might be the ultimate impact of the illness on both the physical enacting, and subject matter, of the post-prognosis arts practice, and how both of these elements might manifest within the work.

2.

The fundamental material reality of an arts practice begins with the body. It impresses itself upon both the physical and emotional phenomena of its surroundings through the enacting of creative intention. The body (as a holistic definition of both the corporeal and psychological) is therefore the prime tool. Its interaction with the external, through both its tangible action and its desire for result, is at the centre of the practice. Whether these intentions are to create a palpable physical object, or to facilitate the possibility of new thought processes and/or emotional reactions, it is the action of the body in contest and/or friction with its surrounding phenomena that stimulates the possibility of a desired outcome.

3.

A healthy body, unseen and quiet, functioning surreptitiously, like the unnoticed pulse of blood flow, hardly registering until there is an intervention; the plank breaks, the pain shouts, the outline is filled in with cracks and abrasions, with shadows and shades, the body is seen and heard, it becomes apparent, and in this new condition it can feel both strange and alien. This idea of this newly alienated body and its new strangeness lead me to considering how the shifts and alterations manifest in the conditions of the ill body can be framed in terms of the queering of the body. Here, the ill body might come to be regarded as queer in relation to perceptions around expected functionality or performance, as the body can almost take on a kind of perceived otherness, its condition seen as somewhat different to expectation, so that which might now be seen as queer becomes the apparent, the noticed; the sick/queer body is now see-able.

4.

The actuality of the scenario of functioning within the constraints of the post-prognosis body, in so far as we have the understanding, perhaps, of the permanence of the new bodily narrative, and also some understanding of how we might negotiate the landscape of such is still the reality of what had been before and how the original narrative might always be held in a framework of nostalgia and longing. This nostalgia itself can naturally become part of the process of understanding our relationship to our new narrative, as the old body has been subsumed by the new one; there is a constant learning, and an acceptance. We must understand our relationship to, and our mourning of, the previous self, almost as much as we must understand the new self. A significant part of this is the recognition of the new conditions around our body and our processes.

5.

Ultimately, I believe that as an illness is manifested in an artists’ work or processes, we then may see unveiled the way in which the relationship between the artist and the illness is viewed and/or coped with by the artist, and this is a moment of learning, wherein, once we can extract what seems to be more apparent, or explicit, meaning form the art of an ill artist, we can understand the importance of an illness to an arts practice, and how its’ affects, both positive and detrimental, can be still viewed as important, and ultimately having a position of potential value to the development of that practice.

6.

The onset (or points of diagnosis/prognosis) of an illness that has a physical aspect to it does not necessarily prevent the full continuation of a viable arts practice, but it would be reasonable enough to expect that there is still a reimagining in relation to how the post diagnosis/prognosis relationship with futurity and potential experience can be looked at, especially if the illness is limiting or makes one feel that it is insurmountable, and may lead to the addressing of certain priorities, or indeed reimagining them.

7.

In the context of the creative practice, the experience of illness could be seen as the manifestation of an understanding of the reality of a future finite point at which all possibility of continuation is extinguished. It is as if the new visibility of the ill body is a fore warning of the absolute void, and perhaps, acts as a definitive bracketing of the term of the artists practice.