The making of monsters : has the medieval monster been reassembled as the unbounded body of medical science and environmental horror?
Creators: name: Bruen, Beverley Anne
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2011

description: This investigation examines perceptions of the monster as an unbounded body. Bodily containment is clearly disregarded in the fearsome physical abnormality of the medieval monster. Their hybrid physiologies and the emphasis on bodily orifices are reminiscent of those horrors described in Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. My research argues that the monster continues to retain its impact as a metaphor for fear and horror of unforeseen dangers in contemporary secular circumstances. My studio practice addresses the unbounded body of the monster as a metaphor for environmental horror. An accompanying exegesis documents the methodology, experimentation and ideas that drove this practical research. In the resultant works the monster is presented as an elusive entity embedded within abstracted land forms and in small assemblages of found objects. My dissertation provides theoretical and historical links to my studio practice. It clarifies the significance of the tradition of medieval mapmaking in addressing the fears and horrors of the unknown by ordering connections between nature, theology and the workings of the cosmos. More specifically, the dissertation contrasts the shift from the monsters of medieval religion to their reconfiguration as an increasingly scientific/medical phenomenon culminating in the genetically altered bodies of today's biotechnologies. Recollecting the body/earth metaphor of the medieval Hereford mappa mundi, ten digital images record my journey through drought-stricken landscapes where the earth is conceptualised as a fragile body, vulnerable to environmental disaster. The medieval need to confine the monster to its rightful place in the mapped schema of God's 'plan of creation' is also reflected in the series of assemblages of found objects - bones, feathers, fur, mummified frogs, small lizards, cicadas, pig, goat, kangaroo and wombat skulls, metal objects and silk constructions - that are skewered on ancient medical, optical and mathematical instruments. The making or transforming of monsters and the containment of these unbounded bodies is alluded to by safely confining each little assemblage within a miniature glass tower. Grouped together, they recall the eclectic wonderment of the 'cabinet of curiosities' or Kunstkammer and Wunderkammer that encapsulated the emerging ethos of medical and scientific enquiry of Enlightenment Europe. Technically, I contribute to new knowledge in art practice by layering elements of my drawings and scanned found objects in Photoshop to create a painterly abstraction and in the employment of the new technologies of direct digital print to transfer these images onto silk fabric and archival papers. By further embellishing the silk prints with beads and stitching, I demonstrate the interaction of handmaking with digital processes: a multilayered method akin to collage and assemblage. This process of assemblage links the landscape pieces to the small glass towers. My investigations found that, although its appearance may differ from that of the medieval grotesque, the monster is undiminished as a metaphor for the unbounded body of medical science and environmental horror. The resulting body of work is to be exhibited at the ANU School of Art Gallery from 16 March to 1 April, 2011.