Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The title of this first comprehensive monograph on the respected Dutch conceptual artist comes from the outgoing message on Visser's answering machine. An online program translated the message as, Barbara fisherman are not there. More realistically, it translates, Barbara Visser ain't here. In any case, Visser's sometimes humorous, always vivid works are occupied with the uncertain relationship between registration and dramatization, between notions of the original and the copy, the natural versus the staged, and the tension between documentary and fiction. Spanning a wide variety of media and formats, including video, computer animation, photography and performance, Visser's takes an incisive look at civilized man and the objects he surrounds himself with--whether savaged Eames chairs or lonely, isolated wigs. Separated into two distinct sections, text and image, the book lends itself to multiple interpretations, allowing the reader to access his or her own memories and associations.
Synopsis
Barbara Visser's works explore the uncertain relationship between registration and dramatization, between notions of original and copy, the natural versus the staged, and the tension between what we call the documentary and the fictitious. Using a wide variety of media and formats, her work sheds a new light on our understanding of civilized man, and the objects with which he surrounds himself. By rigorously separating text and image, the book offers multiple interpretations, triggering the reader's own memory and associations. As J rg Heiser writes in his text on myths, 'It can be read as an intricate set of experiments exploring three distinct ways of 'navigating' myths, and a possible notion of truth that we inevitably need in order to do so. These three different ways, correspond to the three different types of empirical knowledge as defined by Donald Davidson: knowledge about what's in my mind, in the world, and in other people's minds.' English text.
Synopsis
Text by Jennifer Allen, Jorg Heiser, Alexis Vaillant.