by Helen Horgan
non-linear narratives, aesthetics, lewis carroll, edgar allan poe, pre-raphaelites, william burroughs, foucault, roland barthes
Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, William Burroughs, Edward Burne-Jones, Pre-Raphaelites, Max Ernst, Fred Tomaselli,... more
Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, William Burroughs, Edward Burne-Jones, Pre-Raphaelites, Max Ernst, Fred Tomaselli, Deleuze, Foucault, Roland Barthes.
In Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic, Budd Hopkins describes the Collage Aesthetic not
as something confined to any medium but more as “a philosophical attitude” that reflects our
Modernist perception. Contrasting materials, formal strategies and dialogues, the collage
aesthetic represents a sort of non-linear “elliptical narrative”1 that metaphorically recreate(s)
the complex reality in which we actually live. I will argue that apart from the effects of
Modernism, the Collage Aesthetic reflects the core aspects of perception itself as a visualverbal,
intellectual-perceptual process, a tool by which we construct our own personal
models of the world, with information gathered from many sources across time and place.
Unlike Hopkins’ view of the artist “not as storyteller... but rather filmmaker” 2 I will
investigate the perceptual aspects of both writers and visual artists combined. Stemming
from the intertextual, cut-up methods of William Burroughs, which can be seen as a form of
hermeneutic enquiry, I will consider the effects of language on perception, positing the artist
as myth maker, who utilises the mind/body effects of text and image to occupy a third space,
where the true expanse of the individual subjective experience can be explored.
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