Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 Ekphrastic Spaces : the Tug, Pull, Collision and Merging of the In-between
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Although James A.W. Heffernan influentially defines contemporary ekphrasis as ‘the verbal representation of visual representation’ (1993, 3), we argue for a more dynamic and fluid understanding of ekphrasis. In particular, we focus on the multiple and indeterminate perspectives created by ekphrastic poetry, emphasising the way ekphrastic poetry develops complex and interart relationships that cause a fracturing and/or stretching in the perspectives of both the poem and the artwork(s) it invokes. A powerful in-between or liminal ekphrastic space is created in which meanings tug, pull, swirl and merge. As new meanings are created ‘betwixt and between’ (Turner, Victor W. 1979. “Betwixt and between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage.” In Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, edited by W. A. Lessa and E. Z. Vogt, 234–243. New York: Harper and Row, 234), an ekphrastic point of view emerges, problematising and questioning both-artworks-at-once and highlighting the provisional as it probes what can possibly be said in language about modes of artistic representation in artworks. Additionally, because poetic ekphrasis cannot fully represent, and always reinterprets, another artwork, it is engaged in processes of substitution through which poetic tropes stand in for some of the content of the original artwork. In applying these ideas to the relationships of ekphrastic prose poems to works of visual art, we explicate works by David Grubbs and Lorette C. Luzajic, as well as our own ekphrastic prose poetry.' (Publication abstract)  

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon New Writing vol. 20 no. 1 2023 25976799 2023 periodical issue 'The problem with early-nineteenth-century automobiles was that they were large, heavy and difficult to stop. So, in Britain, by the 1860s, Locomotive Acts or Red Flag Acts were introduced to deal with the danger they posed. Because of these Acts, self-propelled vehicles on British public roads were only allowed to travel if preceded by a man waving a redflag and blowing a horn. The result of these Acts, in addition to any saved lives, was that many British inventors turned their attention away from automobiles and worked instead on the development of railroads and trains. These Red Flag Laws were not repealed until 1896' (Publication summary)  2023 pg. 83-96

Works about this Work

Not Paying Attention : Fast and Loose Ekphrasis Oz Hardwick , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Axon : Creative Explorations , November vol. 13 no. 2 2023;

'This hybrid critical/creative paper addresses ekphrasis in an age characterised by short attention spans. It suggests that while ekphrasis is generally considered as arising from a poet’s close attention to an artwork -- the product of what psychologist Daniel Kahneman terms System 2 perceptions that require time -- and can in turn prompt the reader to return to an artwork with heightened attention, it can also represent the fleeting glimpse that characterises much of our sensory experience of the world around us and, indeed, art. Considering Owen Bullock’s idea of ‘radical ekphrasis’ in relation to Kahneman’s category of System 1 perceptions – that is, immediate response to stimuli -- this paper explores the possibilities of an ekphrasis of the transitory and concludes with an example thereof.' (Publication abstract)

Not Paying Attention : Fast and Loose Ekphrasis Oz Hardwick , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Axon : Creative Explorations , November vol. 13 no. 2 2023;

'This hybrid critical/creative paper addresses ekphrasis in an age characterised by short attention spans. It suggests that while ekphrasis is generally considered as arising from a poet’s close attention to an artwork -- the product of what psychologist Daniel Kahneman terms System 2 perceptions that require time -- and can in turn prompt the reader to return to an artwork with heightened attention, it can also represent the fleeting glimpse that characterises much of our sensory experience of the world around us and, indeed, art. Considering Owen Bullock’s idea of ‘radical ekphrasis’ in relation to Kahneman’s category of System 1 perceptions – that is, immediate response to stimuli -- this paper explores the possibilities of an ekphrasis of the transitory and concludes with an example thereof.' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 29 Mar 2023 08:12:06
83-96 Ekphrastic Spaces : the Tug, Pull, Collision and Merging of the In-betweensmall AustLit logo New Writing
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