ESCAPE THEORY: SUBLIME
With foundations rooted in a search for a contemporary sublime based on traditional aesthetics and the psychological theory of Escape, this body of work takes a deeply personal approach to the role of the female artist existing within, yet desiring to escape from, the domestic space. Taking an experimental approach and focusing on the materiality of the photographic medium as methodology, the resulting narrative follows the ebbs and flows of such a reality. A craving to escape domesticity, with an ever-increasing inclination to summit the mountain; this is metaphor in practice. Experience in the landscape provides an endless sum of configurations and potential endings to the chronologies produced by our minds; where the infinitude of the sublime authentically exists.
So what is my conclusion regarding the contemporary sublime? It’s not too far removed from the historical, traditional theories. The Sublime must instil fear in the experiencer. In reality, the scale of The Sublime is vast; it gives the experiencer a sense of being small. This experiencer will not only feel this fear, they will also be aware of their diminutive stature in comparison with that of the grandeur of their environment. This negative lack of stature is balanced with a positive sense of wonderment as the experiencer ponders their surroundings. The Sublime is not loud; it quietly appears to the experiencer on the other side of a blind summit. The experiencer does not know what to expect as the summit approaches, but, when the crest is breached, the music stops and a silence awakens as The Sublime is found. Imagine a soundscape, a symphony, a musical crescendo as the summit is reached – this is what ceases to exist; what follows are the thoughts of the experiencer alone. This is The Sublime; a human experience of nothing suspected or pre-planned. No forethought is given to what The Sublime could be, nothing in comparison with what The Sublime actually is. The Sublime is entirely subjective; it cannot be prescribed as a categorised aesthetic in the contemporary. I cannot tell you what The Sublime is, only what it could be; an approximation of what you could experience, when you could experience, where you might be when you experience it, but will never comprehend until you actually experience it. Even then, you may not fully understand it.
So what is my conclusion regarding the contemporary sublime? It’s not too far removed from the historical, traditional theories. The Sublime must instil fear in the experiencer. In reality, the scale of The Sublime is vast; it gives the experiencer a sense of being small. This experiencer will not only feel this fear, they will also be aware of their diminutive stature in comparison with that of the grandeur of their environment. This negative lack of stature is balanced with a positive sense of wonderment as the experiencer ponders their surroundings. The Sublime is not loud; it quietly appears to the experiencer on the other side of a blind summit. The experiencer does not know what to expect as the summit approaches, but, when the crest is breached, the music stops and a silence awakens as The Sublime is found. Imagine a soundscape, a symphony, a musical crescendo as the summit is reached – this is what ceases to exist; what follows are the thoughts of the experiencer alone. This is The Sublime; a human experience of nothing suspected or pre-planned. No forethought is given to what The Sublime could be, nothing in comparison with what The Sublime actually is. The Sublime is entirely subjective; it cannot be prescribed as a categorised aesthetic in the contemporary. I cannot tell you what The Sublime is, only what it could be; an approximation of what you could experience, when you could experience, where you might be when you experience it, but will never comprehend until you actually experience it. Even then, you may not fully understand it.
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