Deconstructing Narratives in The Song of the Whale

My project, The Song of the Whale, is a product of an interdependent narrative structure, and has been led by my conjectural knowledge and artistic research. My research has led me to my current investigation and exploration of particular events and techniques in relation to methods and methodologies, which could represent historical progress with regard to an impending future catastrophe - Armageddon, which is from a verse in the New Testament, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” (King James Version, Rev. 16.16). The dichotomy between fear - of war or disasters, and goodness in relation to being brought up in the Christian faith, performs the formation of my framing metaphor and my figuration which is my positionality, through embodied knowledge, which is always moving with my ideas into different positions. My artistic process often begins with narrative. Mieke Bal’s Narratology has provided significant insight because her theory of narrative, involving fabula, story, and narrative text, is effectual in breaking down the essential features of narratives in my work. Allegory threads these three layers of narrative together. In this process of decomposing and interpreting my narrative, I explore Manfred Jahn’s theory of focalization - the relationship between the vision, the agent that sees, and that which is seen (Bal 146). In further exploring this connection, I found it useful to consider both my situated and embodied knowledge in relation to Jahn’s Model of Vision. In this context, I began to speculate about narrative perspective in my writings, and I experimented with second person narration and stumbled upon an unpredicted momentum, which made me step into and play again in the relationship among my elements and audience. I developed more of a sense of concern with, and curiosity about, how the audience becomes a participant in connection with my artwork.