{"id":13721,"date":"2011-05-10T21:28:16","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T21:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=13721"},"modified":"2011-05-10T21:28:52","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T21:28:52","slug":"recasting-the-real-reconstructivism-a-response-to-hybridity-in-contemporary-art-methodologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=13721","title":{"rendered":"Recasting the Real: Reconstructivism: A Response to Hybridity in Contemporary Art Methodologies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recasting the Real: Reconstructivism: A Response to Hybridity in Contemporary Art Methodologies<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The University of Alabama McNair Journal
\nThe McNair Scholars Program
\nVolume 7<\/a> (Spring 2007)
\npages 65-84<\/p>\n

Suzanah Moorer<\/strong><\/p>\n

While many artists are taking an interdisciplinary approach to art making, currently there is not a critical consensus on the direction and significance of hybrid artwork in American culture. Responding to Nikos Papastergiadis\u02bcs<\/a> summary of this situation, \u201cScholars and writers have not proposed a new philosophical framework that can assist people to make sense of their experience [with hybrid artwork],\u201d I have borrowed the philosophical framework \u201cReconstructivism<\/a>\u201d from cultural criticism in an effort to further the understanding of hybridity in art today. In this project, I have first explored the parameters of Reconstructivism as it relates to the practical methodology of a sample of contemporary artists\u02bc practice. Second, using a Reconstructivist methodology, I have created a body of work that is hybrid in both form and content, which culminated in an installation which includes a work of short fiction, a cycle of prints, an assemblage of objects, sound, and video. The content of the work addresses the construction of identity for biracial persons of African-American and Caucasian descent as influenced by social forces in the American South.<\/strong> Finally, I offer a Reconstructivist analysis of the work to elucidate the ways in which Reconstructivism can function as a \u201cphilosophical framework\u201d to help people better understand hybrid artwork.<\/p>\n

…My Reconstructivist Body of Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than \u201cwho are you?\u201d I have been asked the question \u201cwhat are you?\u201d As a child, questions like this confused me. My reaction prompted the curious to give me options: \u201cblack or white.\u201d I first tried responding with \u201cor\u201d; it was the most logical option between the two, syntactically. The answer is not simple. Before the day of the \u201cmulti-racial\u201d race box on census documents, miscegenated people disrupted the binary system of racial classification. Because of my experience as a miscegenated person in the South, hybridity is not simply a model of interpretation for me but rather a mode of existence. The reality and significance that I perceive from the hybrid perspective compel me to create artwork that addresses the social conflict that surrounds the hybrid entity. I seek to communicate the reality of this split situation to the viewer.<\/p>\n

Using a Reconstructivist methodology, I have created a body of work called \u201cHalve\u201d that is hybrid in both form and content. This body of work culminated in an installation which includes a work of short fiction, a cycle of prints, an assemblage of objects, and looped video projection. The environment that I have sought to reconstruct through an art installation is that of racial tension in the American South. Specifically, the installation addresses the perception of identity in the biracial subject (of both African-American and Caucasian descent) as influenced by social forces. The foundation of this work has come from my own personal mythology which I have constructed in the form of a short fiction, \u201cRibbons for Magnolia.\u201d…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recasting the Real: Reconstructivism: A Response to Hybridity in Contemporary Art Methodologies The University of Alabama McNair Journal The McNair Scholars Program Volume 7 (Spring 2007) pages 65-84 Suzanah Moorer While many artists are taking an interdisciplinary approach to art making, currently there is not a critical consensus on the direction and significance of hybrid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,1196,8,20],"tags":[6250,6249],"class_list":["post-13721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-suzanah-moorer","tag-the-university-of-alabama-mcnair-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}