Dasart: A Philosophy of Reconstruction
by Michael Matthews
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Dasart: A Philosophy of Reconstruction
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In the DASART COLONIAL MUTATIONS installation, the Dasartists explore two ways in which concepts of creation can be employed: creation is treated primarily as a process of OPERATION, and secondly as a LOCATION.
DASART has re-annexed an aspect of South African history and political turmoil, in an attempt to harness present intellectual and emotional social dynamics, in a search for meaning. The Dasartists are in search of sentiments that can create a clear path, and attempt to locate a South African vision that reflects meaningful aspects of experience. They have found that conventional visual forms of communication are not enough to convey these sentiments. Hence, the DASART artworks emphasise none of the pictorial elements traditionally and conventionally associated with art making processes, and tend to be made up of modular units, they use a personal mark with surfaces that are visually full, creating interconnected intersections of interfacing. This is the result of subtle and dramatic changes in surfaces, and the physical relationships between the objects. This interplay is defined by the materials and the relationships that make up the gestalt of the co-operative of endeavours.
In the DASART COLONIAL MUTATIONS installation, a dialectical process is established - through the juxtaposition of a contemporary situation with a specific recent past, that captures essential aspects of contemporary South African culture. The Dasartists use handmade forms that are re-contextualised through a process of juxtaposition; by being placed in an ordinary visual zone, by establishing new social rituals and by having replaced an emphasis on seeing with experiencing.
They are concerned with forms and processes that involve a variety of materials and techniques, that occupy an annexed place of variegated spatial interplay and their works read as situations actualised rather than as in a state of process.
This attitude encourages the creation of works that realise ambitious technical experimentation. This is conveyed through juxtaposing the DASART works with the Victorian works, the signs and signifiers of a South African recent past are re-contextualised in the dynamics and interconnectedness of the present. The Dasartists have replaced the sense of hierarchy, prevalent in critical theoretical debate, with the power of interconnecting spectrums.
Common associations of concepts are rejected and replaced by metaphor and irony. The individual forms within the installation are reduced to relatively simple designs where materials 'materialise' pictorial elements. Elements such as colour, texture and shape create a quagmire of sensual experience, the reduction of colour complimented by the use of corrosive materials supports this view. Now the spectators are required to shift their attentiveness between what is seen and what is experienced. An understanding of the installation depends on a change of perception to one that osculates between image, intention and concept.
The installation transcends continuity, becoming the collective association of cognitive connections placed in responsive situations, where isolated experiences are re-contextualised by systematic organisational principles. The Dasartists have formed structures which create ceaseless oscillations of contradictions. These oscillations relate present experiences to human events through ambiguity. This is not in a process of historical demystification but rather of mystification in a forming process of contemporary taboos. Materials and references are transformed, creating cultural content in a ritual process, with patterns of images and thought processes being brought together to transform perception - as an event having occurred and as occurring.
Colonial events are treated by the Dasartists as subjective experiences. History is rationalised, raising questions about white South Africa's recent past. Opportunities of reconciliation are implied, as historical events, both local and international, are incorporated into present paradigms of thought. Historical signs are rejected, while an emphasis on maintaining the archetypal presence of images is conveyed through the materials. These materials tend to transcend their physical identity and are used for the exploration of their physical implications. Thematic materials ranges from past colonial forces, such as the British and Dutch, to contemporary events. For that matter, the past colonial art is used for its realistic references, is seen as a metaphysical space where the Dasartists can attempt to understand the complex ideas and themes of present thinking and to integrate them into their physical surroundings. The colonial works, which have made up part of the installation, are juxtaposed with the reality of modern materials to create a conflict between the viewer's expectations and the context provided by the juxtaposition. These materials are often re-constructed in a process that connotes mastery. This is an attempt to accept History into the present in an aesthetic of heterogeneity. Many of the materials and processes that are used have been juxtaposed together as if no single form of expression or medium is powerful enough to communicate the weight of the content. In this way emphasis is placed on the physical and tactile characteristics of these materials which enhances their suggestive power to evoke a wider mental horizon. Hence, time and space are simultaneously explored in a physical manner, thus removing the idea of past and present as chronology.
The Dasartists working procedure has moved away from established modes of visual communication. They believe that the materials and processes that they use are vital to the progressive forms of expression, with the materials containing the central idea of the work. The gem of the idea is carried by the physical object, and more specifically by the physicality of the work. Although the works also have associations with the man-made world, particularly to the world of industry and machinery, and the Dasartists use industrial materials and approaches, the relation of the context to industry is removed. The works are more the result of, rather than made by, industrial processes. Hence the scale and practical applicability of forms is based on industry, without having the direct implications of industrialisation. The bland, meaningless repetition of industrial production is replaced by shifts in focus, to materials, procedure and context. Industry has become a metaphor rather than the realisation of a process. In this way, the Dasartists work with materials and processes which are unifying agents that connect metaphors.
Some materials used by the Dasartists have an ability to change and deteriorate. Others, that appear to be transient are made stable. The materials range from bitumen to cardboard; from enamel to acrylics; from flat and corrugated metals to grasses, papers and fibre glass; and from sounds and movements to electrical lights. Decisions are often based on the developing state of the materials, the developing state of co-operative forms and the developing state of the installation site, always through a process of reassessing the progress. The Dasartists' believe that it is only by living and thinking through the materials they use, that a new consciousness may develop. They have transformed the craft of painting into an organic-mechanical procedure with an emphasis on experiencing the event.
Allegory may be built into the DASART installations by the nature of juxtaposition, but this is one distorted by the associations and the subjective interconnections that the viewer establishes. Allegory is used to escape the familiarity of objects and forms. Forms, such as those found in Black Gambit Only, and Dust Devil, are used in their entirety and juxtaposed with other whole forms, creating a message that has an ordering similar to the way that the mind receives and gathers information. It is not the isolated forms that carry the weight of the content but rather the interconnections that are important, because the content needs to be deciphered. The content is enforced by signs which are presented in a physical manner, through the associative meaning of materials and images. This is reasserted by the installation form which is used as a whole system of experience, making no single form in the installation more important than the other. The installation thus occupies a personal reference to place, time and selection, and also relies on the information that the viewer brings to the work. This is as important as the context within which the objects are placed. Hence, the installation's meaning is mystified as all clarity of interpretation is removed and the viewer is forced to adopt a shifting view, where definitions become relative. The end result is that the process of creation is affected by situation and placement.
The DASART COLONIAL MUTATIONS installation retains clear evidence of its origins. The components that make up the installation become embedded in the material substance of space and time. This installation has moved in conjunction with the perceptible world, to that of giving data and information in a process of juxtaposition. Old and new cultural values, as well as art and non-art values, are juxtaposed. The Dasartists' have expressed formal, emotional and conceptual ideas of the contemporary sensibility by operating on the viewer's location - much of this experience having become ‘dysfunctional’.
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