Outward, Launceston, Tasmania

12 – 26 October 2013

This project takes as its departure point Rosalind E. Krauss’ Notes on the Index first published in 1976. Revisiting post-structuralist ideas around the dissolution of the Saussurean sign it proposes a reading beyond the indexical model of conceptual practice as discussed by Krauss. Instead proposing a critical evaluation of the indexical sign, it touches on Derrida’s ideas around différance, the supplement, the trace and cinders in order to transgress the expectation of the that-has-been inimical to photography and casting. Arguing that the trace as a linguistic figure cannot prove the existence of any prior object or event, the cinder is invoked as the ‘remainder without a remainder’ thereby short circuiting any attempts at locating an origin or source. The subject itself is dismantled in this process via the Lacanian real and objet petit a, and textualised by Barthes’ ruminations on jouissance and the rupturing potential of the Text. The objects and images in this exhibition are understood as visual texts to which a written text cuts through with presuppositions and positions important to the reading of the project; a writing that attempts to articulate the same ideas in its content and method. In this sense the visual texts of this project are but elements as traces of citations and references never really present.

Notes on the index publication     Notes on the Index page       More images