The exact nature of the reason for games
Editioned artist’s book (handmade paper, indigo- and walnut dye, wax, laserprint transfer, letterpress) and installation featuring five indigo and wax resist charts; video projection; sound.
STATEMENT:
We are accompanied through life by our shadow-selves: our potential, what we believe we should be – and our fate, the people we’re afraid we are. Failure to meet the high standards of our hopes and desires seems to prove we are that which we feared. Hijacked by these phantoms that bear an uncanny resemblance to us, we can lose our ability to move forward, to act, to create and change. Yet the alternative – to let go of the lines of identity – is terrifying. Moving forward depends equally on our capacity for hope and our ability to face our own failures; what we are willing, or unwilling, to confront in our personal lives multiplies and is ultimately echoed in events across the globe.
These issues defined the life of Donald Crowhurst, a sailor in a 1968 solo circumnavigation race. Confronted with unacceptable failure, Crowhurst began a downward spiral of deception, delusion and madness. His story is compelling and fearful because it is not wholly unfamiliar; his struggle has echoes in our own lives. The exact nature of the reason for games uses the rich physicality of the book’s materials to portray the trajectory of Crowhurst’s mental and emotional states; excerpts from Crowhurst’ s writings give only a faint and uncertain outline of the events that surrounded his decline. The reader, confronting the book within the isolating sensory boundaries of the installation, physically inhabits the work and uncovers the narrative from the perspective of his or her own point of resonance with the piece.
STATEMENT:
We are accompanied through life by our shadow-selves: our potential, what we believe we should be – and our fate, the people we’re afraid we are. Failure to meet the high standards of our hopes and desires seems to prove we are that which we feared. Hijacked by these phantoms that bear an uncanny resemblance to us, we can lose our ability to move forward, to act, to create and change. Yet the alternative – to let go of the lines of identity – is terrifying. Moving forward depends equally on our capacity for hope and our ability to face our own failures; what we are willing, or unwilling, to confront in our personal lives multiplies and is ultimately echoed in events across the globe.
These issues defined the life of Donald Crowhurst, a sailor in a 1968 solo circumnavigation race. Confronted with unacceptable failure, Crowhurst began a downward spiral of deception, delusion and madness. His story is compelling and fearful because it is not wholly unfamiliar; his struggle has echoes in our own lives. The exact nature of the reason for games uses the rich physicality of the book’s materials to portray the trajectory of Crowhurst’s mental and emotional states; excerpts from Crowhurst’ s writings give only a faint and uncertain outline of the events that surrounded his decline. The reader, confronting the book within the isolating sensory boundaries of the installation, physically inhabits the work and uncovers the narrative from the perspective of his or her own point of resonance with the piece.
