Thesis

My thesis, titled 'Art in Time and Space', deals with the possibility of the new within contemporary art through the use of fiction, the unreal, and more specifically, science fiction.  What I argue is that in order to make radical art which is engaging, it must utilise a balance of part-real part-fiction to make a new space for the viewer to exist in.  I am still exploring these ideas and have also been writing about time travel as a device for unravelling truths.  

I have so far been looking at Nicolas Bourriaud's theories on radicalist art and what he has deemed the 'Altermodern' period, and how relevant I believe his ideas to be.  I have discussed the work of the artists Tacita Dean, Robert Smithson and Mike Nelson and their connections to the science fiction writer J. G. Ballard.  Since visiting the Turner Prize and reading an article in Frieze on The Otolith Group, my ideas have further developed on the role failure has in understanding alternative futures. Since I have more recently begun to research the necessity of failure in order to produce something original, I aim to next read Hal Foster's essay Who's Afraid of the Neo Avant-Garde in 'Return of the Real'.  I need to begin to restructure my arguments based on my recent research in order to clarify what it is I am describing within my thesis and to make my arguments more coherent.