Replicators - Packet 1

My work begins with old medical journals, MRI scans and maps. Old, redundant and anatomically dubious illustrations are redrawn in pencil and combined with representations of man-made and natural systems, such as maps and diagrams. I am motivated by affinity between imaginative representations of the body and images of man-made and natural systems. This affinity leads to a single mode of representation in which the body and man-made and natural worlds can be seen as a single but multilayered system of imaginative representation. Since all representations are both the presence and the absence of what is represented, my single, multi-layered system of imaginative representation is also a single system of presence and absence.

The presence of an imaginative body is combined with the presence of a system. What is absent from the body is fulfilled by the presence of the system and likewise what is absent from the system is fulfilled by the presence of the body. The system of representation in presence and absence shows that locales, places and territories are imaginatively bound to bodies and the extension of bodies into the world is fundamental to the imaginative process of inhabitation. Bodies and territories are thereby layered in what philosophers call “becoming.” 

I use the images of body parts, maps and other systematic representations as formal compositional elements, actual maps of city transport systems are drawn and interwoven with the imagined and realistic images of body organs, creating an imaginary system of networks and relationships. The result is a tangle of arteries and veins that reveal hybrid systems of movement and the body in the world.

Replicators Series

My interest in the representation of bodies, body organs and maps was further explored in this series which included large scale pencil drawings and laser acrylic sculptural mobiles. In this instance, the use of replicated images from old medical journals and textbooks is combined with various kinds of old and new street maps. Harry Beck’s London Underground maps, designed as abstract diagrammatic information to describe territory in terms of links and stations, are used to create tension with images that describe formal features of body organs. Likewise, pre-modern maps of walled towns replicate these same features and when brought together with modern representations of body organs make dissonant images, both in form and in time. My purpose in making these images is to imply the existence of a continuous body-world relationship made of organs and space, which I call the “absent body.” When brought together, shapes in and old map can be compared to the shapes of a body organ such as a liver as artistic effects that can then be used for new meanings. Using the images of body parts, maps and other systematic representations as formal compositional elements, actual maps of city transport systems are drawn and interwoven with the imagined and realistic images of body organs,creating an imaginary system of networks and relationships. The result is a tangled mess of arteries and veins that reveal hybrid systems of movement and place and the body in the world.

Lisa Jones 2014

Glossary

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