A catalogue of shapes: a composite object portrait of an oral-formulaic Homer

Abstract

The thesis identifies an equivalence between two seemingly disparate art-forms - Homeric poetry (the Iliad and the Odyssey) and sculptural assemblage. The synthesis of form and content achieved by the re-organization, manipulation, and transformation of pre-existing components in the theory of an oral-formulaic Homer is explored by means of a practical application of sculptural assemblage. The thesis proposes that Homeric poetics and sculptural assemblage are sufficiently similar in terms of structure, methodology, and interpretive processes, to enable a sculptural evocation of the participatory interpretive aspects of Homeric composition in performance that is comprehensible to a contemporary audience. The development of an iconography of an oral-formulaic Homer is expressed in a series of twelve sculptural assemblages entitled A Catalogue of Shapes 2010-13. These sculptures are composite object portraits of twelve Homeric characters. The creation of this catalogue of characters was informed by core structural, compositional, and conceptual aspects of the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships as a reflexive site of artistic self-awareness. A Catalogue of Shapes therefore represents a composite object portrait of an oral-formulaic Homer. The representational system underlying A Catalogue of Shapes incorporates complex connotative allusions achieved by the manipulation of symbolically-invested materials, objects, and forms to reflect the compositional strategy underlying Homeric poetics. As an 'aesthetic translation' this series of sculptural assemblages comprises the creative and contextual re-interpretation of attributes characteristic of the form and content of an existing text/artwork, by means of creating another. It is both an autonomous artwork and an extension of an existing creative tradition.