Stellae Erraticae
I am delighted to share this new artwork recently commissioned by the City of Szombathely, Hungary and managed by Project Arts Centre, Dublin as part of the Szombathely’s Bloomsday Festival.
A response to Chapter 10 of Joyce’s Ulysses, Wandering Rocks, the mural renders all the punctuation in the chapter at their exact position on each page in the first edition of Ulysses from 1922: all question marks, commas, full stops, colons and exclamation marks are depicted. The asterisms unique to the 1922 edition are also included.
Superimposing the 34 pages causes the punctuation to collide and interweave and to generate new forms, clusters and confusions. But they have not become dissonant, like the displaced and interpolated text they are detached from they form a richer picture: through this overlapping the punctuation transforms into evocative constellations of pauses.
In Wandering Rocks these pauses are the spaces within which breaths are taken, thoughts get distracted, alliteration happens, time gets fused or stretched, and inner monologues turn into conversations. In this mural the pauses create an equally unpredictable syntax. Simultaneity and transformation occur here too, new connections are conceived and fresh meaning suggested.
These Stellae Erraticae present Joyce’s punctuation far removed from their original context: collaged and abstracted they are out of place, absurd, and the mural’s wordless chaos coaxes onlookers to indulge their own inner monologue. It also echoes other modernist devices such asymmetry and chance, as well as appropriating the anachronistic nature of displaced symbols.
While developing this artwork I was reminded of other wandering rocks,
Erratics, glacial boulders uprooted from their original location and deposited in unrelated places. Although fixed in place they also remain firmly out of place, like Bloom, and are equally bound to the earth where the only available option is to contemplate the stars.
With an additional layer of retroreflective glass beds the work is also made visible at night.
My thanks to Project Arts Centre team Artistic Director Sophie Motley and former Curator of Visual Arts Sara Greavu, and the Szombathely Bloomsday festival team and Szombathely City Council for selecting and supporting this work.
This project is made possible through the generous support of the mural project partners in Hungary and Dublin, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Ireland, Hungary.
Limited Edition screenprint now available
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