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.