The lost art of conversation

The lost art of conversation was an installation, developed by Stephen Cassidy and visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, on words, meaning, reflection and infinite (or at least, partial) regression. Three tall thin vertical mirrors stand against the wall, covered in bursts of words. Three matching paper shadows flow out from the wall along the floor. They are a ‘reflection’ of words on draughting paper placed on Japanese hand made paper, stretching across the floor in front of each mirror. A horizontal stream of words flows into the mirrors and meets a vertical waterfall of words printed on acetate. This work refers to the illusory nature of words and communication. Words on the mirrors flutter and blur into shadows.

Playing around with words and paper as the idea evolves

Plan of the installation

The words on the paper can only be read reversed and reflected in the mirrors. They look like a series of small hastily hand-lettered signs, possibly advertising or possibly a protest placard. The work is a mosaic of scattered bursts of interconnected and related words distributed across the physical framework of the mirrors, which interact with the words and the viewers.

The installation in place at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery

The piece deals with contemporary landscapes of language, of values and of cultures. If words are misappropriated for the purposes of marketing or politics, it is as if they had been hijacked or stolen, leaving a gap where there is no longer a functioning, trusted word for the missing idea, concept or object. There might suddenly be meanings without words.

Close up of the installation in the Gallery

Words can become like photographs, fading over time as their colour leaches out. Other words and concepts can reappear from the past, like ‘pre-emptive retaliation’, a word from an earlier century. It touches on the issue of authenticity, reality, hyper-reality, virtual reality, truth and lies, copies and originals, digital copying, fake documentation, how we treat strangers.

© Stephen Cassidy 2014

Work from Conversations, group exhibition, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 2004. A collaborative exhibition of writers and visual artists.

See other work from the Conversations group exhibition, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 2004 – a collaborative exhibition of writers and visual artists.

State of origin
Multimedia piece developed with visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, State of origin looked at where we come from, where we go next and where we truly belong. In this work the writer and visual artist combined word, image and computer technology to make visual music. Words and images moved across the computer screen, with no fixed address, State of origin.

balloon
A fictional narrative work in the form of a website, the website as writing. About the adventures of a refugee from the big city who sets up the High Country Thought Balloon Company. A series of brief vignettes about the characters, situations and stories which intersect the path of the balloons as they soar across the skies of the Southern Tablelands and Snowy region. It is about changing perspective, balloon.

Malacoota Inlet
‘Shutdown in a flat, wet land, the line beween sea and sky where grey meets grey, where stricken yachts come in’, Malacoota Inlet.

Sitting on twigs
‘Sitting on twigs in the flat lands, in a piece of country loaded with meaning, like a tightly coiled spring’, Sitting on twigs.

Word wall

An installation, featuring a series of mixed images and text about life in the corners of Australia, Word wall. Word wall included:

I smoke baby cigars
‘Smoking baby cigars in the dark of the backyard. Like some Cuban presidente haranguing the crowd with reminders, I proffer a list of romantic anniversaries, our May 4th movement, our July 12th uprising – our moment when everything became new’, I smoke baby cigars.

Cut back to black
‘Cut back to black, thin chill drizzle mid-winter – infinite regression on petrol’. Also called ‘Revhead heaven’, Cut back to black.

Coming back to these stones
‘Coming back to these stones – in the sandy dry reaches of the Coorong in South Australia’s South East birds flicker across the flat water like beads of run-away mercury’, Coming back to these stones.

Landscapes in a rear vision mirror
‘Heading at a moment's notice into Broken Hill, breaking several traffic laws on the Barrier Highway, in the rear vision mirror the land kept switching colours’, Landscapes in a rear vision mirror.

Stopping by Lake George
‘Lake George is a vast stretching freshwater lake, with no outlet. It is only diminished by evaporation. Many stories are told about Lake George, a still point of the turning earth, with all the quiet of the eye at the centre of a hurricane’, Stopping by Lake George.

See also

Signature of water
A series of artworks as part of the Waterworks exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery responding to the shared task of facing up to life on our dry continent. It ranged from short, minimalist animations, using cartoons, to hyperfiction drawing on the styles of crime novels. It was a mix of poetry, storytelling, images and sounds which were heavily influenced by the styles of popular culture and the urban and rural landscapes around us, Signature of water.