Weird Formalism in practice: A studio-based inquiry into autonomy, excess, process and the art-object

This research project aims to develop an artistic vocabulary that seeks to explore art-objects’ capacities to embody ontological concern. It employs Weird Formalist principles to create studio work processes that aim to fuse a synthesis between art-objects, autonomy, process, excess and ontology. The studio research entails a large-scale installation comprised of numerous art-objects, each with multiple parts. Through this series of art-objects the aim is to investigate ideas related to autonomy and excess, which in turn define an ontological reality underpinning the art-object.

Weird Formalism is a compelling account that offers a broad perspective to consider how art-objects, meaning, discourse, and epistemology operate. As a revision of formalism, it works to reshape and redefine ideas initially outlined by Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried. It embraces autonomy as a guide to reflect on the purpose and value of art-objects. Examining ways to theoretically engage with aesthetics, Weird Formalism offers a paradigm within a studio-based practice to conceptually orientate the work without the art-objects becoming defined by a specific conceptual underpinning. This research project explores the potential of Weird Formalism’s aesthetically orientated, ontological account within a studio-practice and its broader relevance for producing contemporary art.

Graham Harman’s Weird Formalism, derived from his broader ontological position known as Object Orientated Ontology, aids the project in several ways. It offers a compelling ontological position underlying art-objects in consideration of autonomy and excess, which aids in the practical development of the studio-research, and through his engagement with Edmund Husserl’s notion of the intentional object, and Martin Heidegger’s idea of withdrawal. Tristan Garcia and Stephen Melville’s varying theoretical accounts also assist the project regarding autonomy, but simultaneously introduce a process-based logic to consider the development of the work.

Practically, the studio-research draws on Weird Formalism as a basis to consider how art-objects and ontology may co-exist in a mutually informing capacity. Specific ideassuch as the intentional object, the withdrawn object, disruption, and time as a product of object relationscorrelate to inform studio methods and approaches. These methods, defined within the project as the ‘Essentialist Maximalist Approach’, are expressed by four categories: excess/density, growth/accumulation, bedazzlement/disruption and movement/duration. Each category works to form a scaffold that allows the project to develop a vocabulary to address the research project's broader question.

To establish the artistic context, artworks that illustrate how Weird Formalism can be applied to contemporary artworks are discussed; stressing the importance of absorption in art-object/beholder experiences and the ability for art-objects to produce the best condition for engulfing a viewer. These art-objects include Sarah Sze’s Triple Point (2013), Ryoji Ikeda’s Supersymmetry (2012), Jess Johnson’s Ixian Gate (2015), Nick Cave’s Until (2018) and Pipilotti Rist’s Sip My Ocean (2018). The discussion doesn’t seek to define the intentions of the artist as Weird Formalist per se, but is concerned with the art-objects created and how they produce art-object/beholder experiences that relate to a Weird Formalist paradigm.

Speculative Aesthetics and Weird Formalism have proved to be useful theoretical frameworks to explore the way art objects, aesthetics and ontology can coexist as relatable endeavours. The creative outcome of this project is an excessive, object-based installation that works through a complex process of revealing. The art-objects which constitute the resolved studio research emphasise a unique capacity to explore shifting notions of excess, autonomy, time and disruption.