Myth-Science and the Fictioning of Reality

Abstract

Abstract In what follows I put forward an idea of contemporary art practice as a form of myth-science, itself defined as a kind of fictioning of reality. The article draws on and develops ideas first put forward in O’Sullivan 2014. The term mythscience is borrowed from Sun Ra and Afrofuturism more generally (see Kodwo Eshun’s discussion, “Synthesizing the Omniverse”, in Eshun 1998, 154-163). The artist Mike Kelley, in an essay on Olaf Fahlstrom (Kelley 1995), links the term more particularly to expanded contemporary art practice. Most of what follows has been developed in relation to the collaborative ‘performance fiction’ Plastique Fantastique (and especially in conversation with David Burrows) and thus, in acknowledgement of this parallel research programme, interspersed throughout the text are images from our practice and, in particular, a performance itself titled ‘Myth-Science’. “Myth-Science” was performed in 2014 at the “Webewoche” exhibition/event, Stroom den Haag, The Hague and at the “Schizo-Culture” exhibition/event, Space Gallery, London (see http://www. plastiquefantastique.org/performance25.html ). Plastique Fantastique, for this performance, involved myself and Burrows alongside Alex Marzeta and Harriet Skully. I hope that this local ‘scene’ might resonate on a more global level, but also that my comments will not be read as being solely tethered to this particular collaboration (indeed, my article intends the mapping of a more general trajectory in art). The article ends with a brief Coda on Felix Guattari’s concept – from Schizoanalytic Cartographies – of ‘fabulous images’ that offers another inflection on my theme. ...theres some thing in us it dont have no name... it aint us but yet its in us... (Russell Hoban, Riddly Walker)

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