Sarah Dyer - See no, Hear no, Speak no...

‘Playing’ in the sketch book is key; I make a point of never having a plan. Sometimes the story comes first, sometimes the images, or sometimes a character is created / developed through the use of the sketch book. Story-boarding also takes place within my sketchbooks, and again helps me investigate alternative possibilities including introducing control in the pace and design of the book and story.

I wanted to continue to develop my sketchbook characters and use the triptych project as an excuse to explore it in a narrative form rather than seeing the project as something I wouldn't normally approach, something alien to my normal way of working. See no, Speak no, Hear no Evil is my result.

ANDREW SELBY: LUSAD; TRIPTYCH

Triptych

Δ Research Proposal – Andrew Selby
Loughborough University

The introductory meeting of the Triptych research group, a collection of artists from Loughborough University, Kingston University and Dublin Institute of Technology in January 2006, represented an opportunity to formalise discussions surrounding the creation and context of collaborative research centred around drawing. In particular, the approach of DIT’s group to take a piece of work from a sister event 3x Abstraction, being held at the Triptych meeting venue, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), produced some targeted outcomes which framed the research interests of those individuals in a significant way.

The Δ research project allows me an opportunity in the coming months to explore an area that, within my own design work, I have neglected for some time. The subject in question is narrative, something that I frequently write about within the context of illustration, and with certain illustration monographs in particular, yet much of my own recent work would be better described as conceptual rather than being situated within the genre of narrative.

The nature of this research project allows for certain key research questions to be posed and research can be undertaken relating to both historical and contemporary contexts, which forms important parallels with my related research projects.

Research Questions

In this project, my interpretation for Δ is simply a triptych. The umbrella title of this collaborative research project, Triptych, clearly and obviously could be said to provide many rich examples of narrative paintings from a religious context. This forms the basis of my research intentions. Historically, triptych paintings lay claim to have a predominantly religious content and in this project I intend to choose one example and recreate it. My outcome will be a trio of narrative illustrations.

In declaring my ambitions for this work, I would want to stress from the outset that it is not my intention to produce an updated version of the selected origin of my study, but instead to answer a number of key research questions that I wish to pursue.

In this project, I wish to examine:

• Do triptych paintings have a coherent narrative structure that is inclusive of culture and socio economical groupings?

• In the genre of triptych paintings, is there a recognisable narrative direction?

• Could a narrative structure be subverted by it’s creator?

• Could a narrative visual dialogue within a triptych painting be understood by an audience?

• Is the vehicle of the triptych image(s) pertinent to today’s social and cultural values?

Context

Whilst not being overtly religious, I do subscribe to the idea that life can have spiritual significance. At the same time and at the opposite end of the spectrum, I am bitterly opposed to the idea of religious fundamentalism, oppression and extremism. In this project, the true focus of my interest is not in the undoubted extraordinary stories and teachings of the religious scriptures, but moreover, the form that these stories were illustrated to their audiences, congregations and gatherings. This interest stems aesthetically from an appreciation of Russian miniature iconography paintings from 13 – 15th centuries, the work of painters like van Eyck and Giotto, the great Renaissance paintings, architecture and stained glass of the foremost European cathedrals, chapels, monasteries and churches that I have had the privilege to see on trips. I am open to the notion that my research and my outcomes may be interpreted by individuals in different ways and that whilst some might view the body of work as flippant and irrelevant, some instead might question it’s significance, reasoning and findings in more detail.

My initial research questioned why triptychs are triptychs at all. Are they merely related to birth, life and death or even life, death and afterlife? Were they just three sided because they needed to conceal something? Or promote something?

Are they viewed from left to right? If so, why? Is this our natural systemic reaction borne out of our reading pattern as westerners? Surely this has no relevance to congregations of the 14th Century who were widely under educated or illiterate and needed painting to educate, inform and, on occasion, preach. Are there components within triptych paintings that immediately engage the viewer? Do these have a cognitive effect and create a sense of connection, or joining, to other sections of the painting?

Is scale important or was this dictated by the physical site of the paintings? Should factors like this have a bearing on my own work. Does this in turn dictate my working method and outcome? Perhaps I want the outcome to be projected rather than simply printed? Does this mean it will have a different cognitive impact and effect on my audience?

Methodology

As stated previously, my first task in this project is to choose a subject for my study. This will involve researching triptych paintings between the period 13th – 16th centuries and refining my search to those where narrative content related to pictorial imagery has been discussed, debated and published in sufficient detail by historians.

From this original search I will take one example and use this as the basis of my Δ research project. At the present time I am considering a number of possibilities:

• Eyck, J. van, The Ghent Alterpiece, 1432, oil on panel, Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent, Belgium
• Daddi, B., Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1338, oil on panel, Brno Museum, Czech Republic
• Giotto, B. di., The Stefaneschi Triptych, 1330, oil on panel, Pinacoteca, Vatican

The chosen example will be subjected to a number of tests related to the research questions that I have posed. I will examine the chosen painting and associated texts to explore whether triptych paintings have a coherent narrative structure that is inclusive of culture and socio economical groupings. In this process I may have to gain first hand information from an audience engaged with this work. From this audience I would wish to question whether, in the genre of triptych paintings, is there a recognisable narrative direction and if, therefore, a narrative structure could be subverted by it’s creator (myself)?

From this point, I would attempt to create my outcome so that this could form the study for my second set of tests to determine answers to the aforementioned research questions. The audience (possibly Triptych on 9th and 10th November) would be asked whether they could identify a narrative visual dialogue within my outcome and whether the (meaning) be understood by an audience? The audience would also be asked whether the vehicle of the triptych image(s) is/are pertinent to today’s social and cultural values?


Conclusion

My conclusion to the Δ research project will culminate in a ‘drawn’ version of a triptych image using a method of delivery that is appropriate for it’s audience, at a scale that is supported by answers to my research questions. There will also be a piece of accompanying written text to contextualise the piece, but not attempting to explain or rationalise it.

Andrew Selby: LUSAD: Responses to six questions

1. Has working on this subject/theme altered your drawing process in any way?

No, although it has influenced the manner and reasoning about how and why I collect research material. Some of the subjects I have chosen are difficult to get reference for at the detail I would normally expect or require, even if the outcome is simplified.

2. Has the idea of a possible collaborative outcome altered your thinking/ working methods in any way?

Yes. I was inspired by the whole DIT approach in Dublin and particularly about Brian Fay’s approach to unlocking and reconstituting work. This process is natural for an illustrator but it is interesting to see another approach from a different field.

3. How has the experience of your practice reviewed and viewed by your peers in Triptych influenced your work?

Initially I stated that I wanted an audience response to the work I had created and that I might be able to use them in part of the process. I still want to do that but at this stage I am still attempting to decipher the material for myself and the process is longer than I had originally expected. In that sense alone, this is an unusual project for me as I am normally up burning the midnight oil to get work completed before a deadline.

4. Have you discussed this piece of work/ process with anyone else in Triptych whilst carrying out the work?

Briefly with Brian Fay at Kingston in the summer. I have discussed it with members of other research groups relating to animation and storytelling, but not so far with the broad church of Triptych.

5. Has anything you saw at the Triptych IMMA symposium influenced your thinking or process in any way?

I found the approach of artists who had contextualised their work into a research based forum the most interesting and helpful to my own work. As I mentioned, Brian Fay was instrumental but I also appreciated where Jordan McKenzie was coming from too.

6. What collaborative outcome would you suggest as being appropriate for this research group?

If we have reached that stage by the November meeting at Loughborough, I think I would be trying to push the merits of an interactive web site. I think Brian’s idea about the blog was good, I think it has been a process of learning about the benefits and hang ups about this form of exhibiting, but I personally believe there is something to be gained from making these submissions available via pod casting, web or other download platforms.

Andrew Selby  2006

ADRIANA IONASCU Triptych Response

ADRIANA IONASCU

The Triptych concept enabled me to analyse the viewer vis-à-vis image content and to consider the act of seeing as performative1. In support of this analysis I have set the theoretical frame on Bal’s assertion that meaning is developed in the acts that take part around the work; Bal2 (2000) argues that the meaning of a work does not lie in the work by itself but rather ‘happens’ in the specific performances that take place in the work’s field: “(..) rather than a property that a work has, meaning is an event; it is an action carried out by and in relation to what the work takes as you”.
Meaning production is crucial for understanding viewer-image interaction, as inter-actions and inter-relations are sustained by the interpretative act of the viewer. In this sense, any image is active in establishing reference relations, and these can be seen as actively partaking in interaction3. In analysing a picture’s way of addressing the spectator, Michael Fried4 (1980) distinguishes a ‘theatrical’’ mode – in which the picture directly addresses the viewer, as though fully cognisant of being displayed to the audience; and an ‘absorptive’ mode – where the picture adopts the fiction that none of the depicted figures were aware of being on display, so that the viewer seems not to be addressed at all, but enters the scene as an invisible, undetected observer. In other words, in the first model the picture ‘is looking’ at the audience - the viewer is addressed; whilst in the second case, the roles are exchanged - the audience is looking at the picture. It seems that from a two-dimensional interaction, the rapport of viewing becomes three-dimensional because it incorporates the viewer who ‘gazes’ into the image: a theatrical exchange. It follows that perception is in the space between the image and what the viewer perceives as the end product of the image. In this sense, every viewer plays a role in the space of the image by creating his own scenario. The audience becomes therefore an integrated element at all stages of viewing and so the meaning of an image makes sense not only in itself – as a inter-relation between its elements, but it acquires a fluctuating meaning vis-à-vis of my embodied presence.
By focusing on the seer, I conclude that an image is represented by its reflection onto us in a sort of tangible way; seeing becomes part of being in the perimeter of the image. As Merleau-Ponty (1986) says, “When seeing, I do not hold an object at the terminus of my gaze, rather I am delivered to a field of the sensible (..)”. In Ontology of the Flesh, Merleau-Ponty5 (ibid.) regards seeing as an act of interrogation, an intimate relationship, like the touching of the cloth on the body: a notion of reversibility. As in any narrative where the reader takes part in the story (‘abandoning the flesh of the body for that of language’), the body becomes the receiver, the prototype for the logical relations between things. In this reflection on the touching-touched, Merleau-Ponty shows that my hand, my eye, my voice is both touching, seeing and speaking, and at the same time tangible, visible and audible; and so that seeing is in turn being seen.

The illustration intends to show a series of visual interferences vis-à-vis a drawing. It aims to demonstrate that viewing is a three-dimensional enactment and as such, it incorporates the viewer into the image: in this sense, when I look, I become part of that of which I look at. By adopting this way of seeing, the viewer is not ‘looking at’ an image but – to paraphrase Mieke Bal (2000) ‘looking in’ the image (being inside the image instead of being outside it). I define this process as a participatory, active way of seeing. In this sense, when I look, I become part of that of which I look at, and, as such, the geometry of the image includes the space of the viewer.


Triptych Answers

1. Has working on this subject/theme altered your drawing process in any way?

Working has been in my case an analysis of the process of drawing in relation to the viewer. In reflecting on how the end-product of my drawing is perceived, I realized that my place is taken by the viewer and he or she will be in turn incorporated in a series of ‘acts’ of looking and interpretation.

2. Has the idea of a possible collaborative outcome altered your thinking/working methods in any way?

Yes, as collaboration is a creative process – and in being creative it has to find and/or adapt its own ways of thinking and working.

3. How has the experience of your practice being reviewed and viewed by your peers in Triptych influenced the work?

It has influenced mostly the process of reflection on the practice of drawing itself, on its multiple interpretations and theories; and the awareness of possibly being part of a continuous development of a language that is unanimously understood.

4. Have you discussed this piece of work/process with anyone else in Triptych while carrying out the work?

In being more a reflective, written text, I have only discussed notions on perception vis-à-vis reading Maurice Merleau-Ponty with a few colleagues.

5. Has anything you saw at the Triptych IMMA symposium influenced your thinking or process in any way?

It has made me aware on the whole that no drawing is finished with the achievement of an end-product: that the end-product of any drawing is the response anyone has to it.

6. What collaborative outcome would you suggest as being appropriate for this research group?

It is difficult to envisage a tangible outcome at this stage, but a ‘hands on’, impromptu approach (as in “Tomato” workshops) as a collaborative process would probably generate visible results.

Rendezvous at 'Y'

Drawing has been and continues to be an evolutionary means of conveying information (and dis-information) through its "extreme economy of means" (William Wegman). The graphic device/symbol/icon humbly performs a vital role in the workplace both nationally and internationally: a coded system of communication evidencing the hand yet associated with (digital) industry. The multiplicities of meaning in a multitude of contexts places the letter/sign of 'X' in an interesting position as both defined, contained, and clear (in context) and yet also ambiguous and intriguing. The subtle differences in rendering or realisation may place the reader in a life or death situation: if 'X' were a person his (or her) existential angst would prevent any 'speech' or actuality of expression for fear of the consequences.
'X' is where two paths cross (without meeting, at the same time?): 'Y' is the point at which three paths meet.
Euclid: "things that coincide with one another are equal to one another"
The Triptych or 'Rendezvous at Y' rather than a containing shape is a sign of trialectic: a geometric X, Y and Z axes meeting and exchanging in (a) space through the language of drawing.