Debbie Stenzel
Outside The Zone
Wednesday the 7th November till Saturday the 24th November, 2012
Debbie Stenzel’s work demonstrates an ongoing attempt to understand the pain of another through the use of chronotopic processes, multiples and repetitious mark making. The resulting artifacts archive a time/value equation of temporal distortion amidst which the voice of the heart in its universal language seeks to reclaim the value of empathy and kindness in a posthuman society.
Universal laws hold constant, providing a grid structure of support for today's human/posthuman hybrid whose roots have been replaced by aerials. This woven mesh of interconnectedness strengthens when stretched and distorted by extraordinary events that occur within the ordinariness of everyday life. The mesh of life that ties us to the earth, which grounds us in our humanness, resists the pull of the cyborg as it nips and frays the edges of life where our strength in unity is at its weakest.
Post-modern philosopher Richard Rorty speaks of “works of brilliant bricolage” that serve to sew unfamiliar groups together “with a thousand little stitches” thus invoking “a thousand little commonalities between their members” (Dooley 221). Rorty describes an artist’s attempt to identify with individuals that are not known to, or perceived as different from them, in an effort to force others to notice their pain and suffering (Dooley 220). This describes Stenzel’s process of using chronotopic time to make multiple repetitious marks or objects as a way to record specific events and affirm our interconnectedness. Processes such as handstitching which cannot be hurried by chronoscopic time document the value of time and the archive, which in turn become embodied within the work.
Amidst the desolate wasteland of the posthuman where values of kindness and empathy have become the shadows of phantom limbs, the call of another’s pain drives Stenzel to seek opportunities to engage in conversation with individuals to understand and share the stories that hide in the secret heart of the everyday person. The resulting artworks give form to empathy in an attempt to convey an understanding of our posthuman interconnectedness as “understanding is not measured in a private space before the eye of the mind, but it is measured in the public space of discourse” (Wachterhauser 11)
Dooley, Mark. In Praise of Prophesy: Caputo on Rorty. A Passion for the Impossible. Dooley, Mark. ed, University of New York Press, New York. 2003.
Wachterhauser, Brice. R. Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy. State University of New York Press, Albany. 1986.