![]() ![]() 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. 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. ![]() 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. 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. 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. 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. My dissertation provides theoretical and historical links to my studio practice. In the resultant works the monster is presented as an elusive entity embedded within abstracted land forms and in small assemblages of found objects. An accompanying exegesis documents the methodology, experimentation and ideas that drove this practical research. My studio practice addresses the unbounded body of the monster as a metaphor for environmental horror. ![]() My research argues that the monster continues to retain its impact as a metaphor for fear and horror of unforeseen dangers in contemporary secular. 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. Bodily containment is clearly disregarded in the fearsome physical abnormality of the medieval monster. This investigation examines perceptions of the monster as an unbounded body. ![]()
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