Last year, I began a project that culminated in my BFA Thesis Show in June 2012. My thesis proposal begins:
With the advent of the internet, more and more people have come to accept things that previously would have been dismissed as obvious fallacies or ridiculous conceit. With this exhibition, I will explore the concept of what is perceived as reality by presenting the viewer with improbable items in a context that promotes believability. We like to think, in this age of advanced technology, that we are different from the ignorant masses of yesteryear, but it seems that any claim, if it is repeated frequently enough, comes from a trustworthy source or is backed up by sufficient ‚Äúproof,‚Äù is accepted as fact. In the nineteenth century, thousands were deceived by the Feejee Mermaid, photographs of the Cottingley Fairies, and the Cardiff Giant; and in the twentieth, the Piltdown Man, the War of the Worlds radio broadcast, the Philadelphia Experiment. Even more recently millions have been fooled by intentionally altered news photographs. In 2003, the Los Angeles Times printed staff reporter Brian Walski’s doctored photo of British soldiers and Iraqi civilians, while in 2006 Reuters distributed a rather blatantly modified photo by freelancer Adnan Hajj of the aftermath of and IDF attack on Beirut. With the internet and global distribution, these hoaxes affect more people than ever before.
What neither I nor my instructors knew at the time was that I was exploring the worlds of Superfictions.
Peter Hill coined the term Superfiction in 1989 to describe artwork that utilizes deceit or fiction in order to “explore the interaction between the observer’s concepts and the actual “objective” evidence that is presented; this is fundamentally analogous to e.g. arranging lines on a two-dimensional sheet to create a perspective illusion, even though the actual works of superfiction often are perceived to push the boundaries of what is considered to be ‘art’.”
On Thursday, I went to the lecture by Peter Hill on Superfictions. Since I had long been interested in this concept, I was fascinated. Without knowing it, I had stumbled into a genre of art that had been going on for decades, and some might even say for centuries.
While working on my thesis show, I felt at times that some of the instructors just didn’t feel like I was exploring a valid pathway in art. Although my advisor was always supportive, some of the others on the committee seemed to dismiss what I was working on as childish or trite. I learned during that year to accept their criticisms and to weigh the value, apply it or not and continue my work. My show was successful on several levels, so I was ultimately pleased with the outcome.
If I had known of Superfictions at the time, and had I been aware of the number of artists who worked in this genre, I would have had more confidence in what I was trying to achieve. As it is, I was able to stand on my own, with the conceptual support of the works of Beauvais Lyons and the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
With that work finished, I have been trying to get back to the more traditional sculptural work I was doing previously, expanding and going deeper into the concepts and reasons as well as refining my methods. I am enjoying what I am doing now, but perhaps I will travel back to the world of Superfiction next year.
In the meantime, I decided it was time to create a website for my superfiction, The Gammon Collection. Since all the artwork is in storage in the US right now, I used photos from my thesis exhibition. I included as much of the original text as possible in the image descriptions, and other areas.
Please have a look at The Gammon Collection, now open to the public.