Background - theory, imagery, ideas

The historical, pictorial, mythological and literary influences which have informed the work.

Primarily the concept of 'metafiction' - "fiction about fiction" - one which "self-consciously and systematically calls attention to itself as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality." Starting off with Borge's Forking Paths...

Claude Levi-Strauss – The Structural Study of Myth – summary, review and analysis 

Borge's magnificent list of animals from the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. Foucault was tickled by it, and it's easy to see how - Borge's near-whimsical 'ordering' suggests a system pre-dating modern scientific taxonomies, whether via Aristotle or Linnaeus. This indistinct taxonomy is inherent in the ambiguity of Old English language - where as I point out in my recent essay on the wælcyrigean, "wyrmas wriggled between fish-bait and corpse-nibblers, to adders and serpents, to Beowulf’s fifty-foot foe – where similarity disregarded degrees of magnitude, and ambiguity thrived". 




 Above are a few examples of medieval stone carvings which I filmed at Restenneth Priory, near Forfar, in May. The simplistic but evocative 'stick man' designs convinced me that working with stone was a feasible option for the visual component of this project.

 


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