Iris in, Iris out: Reflections on the production, exhibition and viewing of a bisected-eyeball hand-puppet

Schwarz, Clair

Abstract

This article reflects upon my short visual recording Eyedrops: A Monoculogue (2021). It describes the thinking process of creative avoidance (both making something new, but recycling ideas and materials which already exist, both in the mind and close to hand); pleasure in making (the haptic joy of production); considerations of performance; being audience to one's own work when exhibited alongside other work responding to the same initial call; re-presenting the work in a workshop context. While it draws upon interdisciplinary theoretical writing to provide phenomenological and ekphrastic considerations of the work, moving between the three-point dynamic which links and divides viewing positions: the image (screen), subject (eye) and the object (puppet), it employs an immediacy of writing, which resists the usual considerations of academic scholarship in a move to free up thinking and to expose the emotional and experiential, questioning what it is to 'see'.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 7, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Sep 1, 2022
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 30, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 3, 2022
• Journal: Journal of Writing in Creative Practice
• Print ISSN: 1753-5190
• Electronic ISSN: 1753-5204
• Publisher: Intellect
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 276-294
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcp_00042_1
• Keywords: wellness, sight, puppetry, COVID-19, lockdown, performance
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10015643
• Publisher URL: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/jwcp_00042_1
• Related Public URLs: The short film Eyedrops: A Monoculogue (2021) can be viewed here: https://uweacuk-my.sharepoint.com/personal/clair2_schwarz_uwe_ac_uk/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?ct=1653345350378&or=OWA-NT&cid=2d9da