Edvine Larssen´s Doctorate Fellowship project (2018):
Theatrical, but not theatre. Architectonic, but not architecture.
Sculptural, but not sculpture.
What 間[Ma] does, or what 間[Ma] could do.
(As a traveling concept journeying through a series of site bound artworks made for disparate spaces in Norway 2013 – 16.)
ABSTRACT:
The concept of [Ma] is the framework for this Artistic Research Project.
In relation to the project, it brings an enmeshed understanding of time and space – as well as timing and spacing – in multiple layers. It considers the importance of the interstice, the unfilled or empty, as well as different states of being in-between or in tension. [Ma] describes something that reaches beyond language, even as sensory experience in, and through, time and space, felt in both mind and body. [Ma] is a concept shaped by language – that tries to avoid, language.
It has been investigated here as a traveling concept through qualitative methods in search of what it does, and whether it could be relevant as a concept in the making and experience of contemporary art(s). Through these qualitative methods, a series of 16 categories functioning as sub-concepts has arisen that open-up the surrounding fields of [Ma], illuminating what this concept does or could do. These categories have informed, as well as fuelled, the process of making five artworks that are bound to disparate spaces, and are of variable duration. Time as well as space can be read as material components in the shaping of these five artworks, all of which can be described as passage works. What this artistic research project shows is how Art and [Ma] are concepts, and practices, that share qualities, and how [Ma] can be understood as particularly relevant for installation art and other art forms that are bound to space and time and demand the physical presence of the participant.
This artistic research project contains six Artworks, five of which are documented in the catalogue Theatrical, but not theatre. Architectonic, but not architecture. Sculptural but not sculpture published in 2017 (available on request).
The reflection thesis belonging to this project can be downloaded here: edvinelarssenthesis2018highres