This is Me my House: (Negotiating meaning amidst the betwixt and between of an absurd existence)

Abstract

This is Me, my House explores the narratives we construct in our everyday lives to make sense of and bring coherence to an absurd existence - as defined by Albert Camus in his 1942 text The Myth of Sisyphus. In this work Camus argues the human longing for meaning amidst meaninglessness gives rise to absurdity and an ongoing conflict that plays out in our relationship with the world. In This is Me, my House I explore representations of meaning amidst meaninglessness in my research paper and practice, a multi-channel video installation that sits on the boundary between art and film – approached through the prism of crisis, the betwixt and between of liminality and the uncertainty of the unheimlich, of not being at home in the world. In the course of my research I have examined the practice of David Lynch, Charlie Kaufman, Gregor Schneider and Anja-Liisa Ahtila whose films and artworks invoke crisis in a liminal and unheimlich space. In doing so I argue they get at meaning by making absurdity visible, inviting the viewer to question meaning within the work and to question the stories they tell to make sense of their own existence. To do this I have utilised documentary recountings of the lived experience of uncertainty alongside imagery of abandoned, banal and every-day spaces, configured together as a video and audio installation. Amidst these fragmented images and narratives the viewer is similarly asked to seek out significance for them selves with the work and perhaps in their own lives.