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1981
Into/Across the Sea
  • ISSN: 1477-965X
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9533

Abstract

The article proposes a re-interpretation of the shoreless seascape through a concept the author terms ‘aimlessness’. This concept can function as a hybrid metaphor suitable for investigating the failures of human transcendence. Essentially, every multidisciplinary practice in contemporary artistic, technological and scientific culture is a series of failed geopolitical setbacks. Related actions may well be reversed, interrupted or even recalled at any time with new acquisitions, discoveries or experiments. The understanding of the sea as a theatrical stage can offer spatial observatory mechanisms for decentred perspectives in order to decipher and invent contemporary notions and symbols that are floating into this hydro forest. The article develops a critical reflection based on a series of sea-oriented artworks. Drawing on the ubiquity of the water, these artworks – through representational and performative actions of drifting and floating – examine the concept of aimless floatation. Through an analysis of artistic methodologies interacting with water, the text offers a series of reflections on how such actions become performative, playful and open to unexpected circumstances that lie on the surface or the depths of the water world.

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2025-01-28
2025-03-15
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