Angela Davies

Exploring Layers of Meaning through Book Structures

 

“...[L]earning mainly comes from our interaction with material things” (Renfrew: 2003; 12).

 

‘Lines of Perception’ (2013), was implemented to deconstruct meaning from Stuart Hall’s ‘Representation’ and used as a process to investigate how I would begin to consider a method of presenting ‘Exploring Layers of Meaning through Book Structures’ at the Writing in Creative Practice symposium. 

 

To reaffirm learning and pathways to learning, I have devised a synergy between making and theory by deconstructing theoretical information and constructing sculptural books.  I reflect upon the Dadaist approach of ‘mix-up’, where a new reality and representation of the conscious and unconscious mind comes into being (Richter, 1996).  “...[T]he use of language, of signs and images” (Hall: 1997; 15) within the text were decoded and represented through constructed lines and arrows and paper manipulation. I worked with fragments of text and fragments of paper which became the scaffolding to physically construct the threads of information. The book became the spatial drawing that could be explored and navigated, to look through at different perspectives, to make connections and to interconnect information, as a form of ‘representation’ from the research paper. I see this as linking and expanding thought patterns, to physically expand knowledge in an analytic and critical way, as a three-dimensional spatial mapping to understand the world. 

 

 

References:

 

Hall, S (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, pg. 15

Renfrew (2003) Figuring it Out, Thames and Hudson, pg. 21,

Richer, Hans (1966) Dada: 1916 - 1966, Goethe-Institut