The auto-narrative subject in video art

This PhD project explores the use of video as a tool for both documenting and articulating narratives of subjectivity. My principal departure point was the claim that video art emerged at a moment when the notion of a constructed and multipartite subject had become increasingly accepted or at least widespread. It is my contention that screen-based technologies have played a key role in effecting, reflecting or expressing contemporary understandings of a performed and contextual subjectivity. Video art has provided a critical space in which artists can articulate, critique or otherwise work through the notion of constructed and/or split subjectivity. <br><br>This idea is explored through a range of perspectives influenced by the work of other practitioners and ideas from psycho-analysis, post-structuralism, narrative theory from the social sciences, and geography. Across the fourteen artworks that form the substance of the project, I work through progressive iterations that both shifted and articulated my understanding of the topic. Over the course of the project, my video work went from being floating and disembodied in the media landscape to becoming increasingly ‘located’ in the physical environment. This occurred in a natural and incremental manner as my making and reading shifted my understanding of both contemporary subjectivity and the role video could effectively play in the narration of selfhood.<br>