‘How to build your own superfiction?’ by Dr Peter Hill. A talk by Artquest on the 12th of April 2011

Going to Peter Hill talk from Artquest I didn’t know what to expect. I recently joined the website which provides artists and crafts people with resource, knowledge and all possible info within the art industry. I was send the invite and thought I’ll see what the fuss is about. No regrets. Dr Hill is a Scottish born citizen of Australia and a successful lecturer. He came out with an idea of superfiction in 1989 and has been promoting it ever since. The basic principle of the initiative is the creation of fictional situations in international contemporary art practice. It builds on the fact of multidisciplinary approach to today’s practices, exploring the gaps between them and filling them up with made up stories/facts. It plays with an idea of Situationist International and Guy Debord’s ‘Society of Spectacle’, Karl Popper’s idea of falsification, Paul Feyerabend’s anarchistic view of science and Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift. The projects are full of fun and irony using pastiche as a medium to recycle mainstream artefacts, mass media and pop culture. Dr Hill presented a slide show of his fellow artisans who dwell on the idea of superfiction like Seymour Likely, Servaas, Cindy Sherman or PigVision to name a few.  As Peter Hill says it is a very human to ‘progress through failure’ and I have to admit it was a truly inspirational proposal to rediscover myself as an artist in a realm of pure fantasy and imagination. Humankind biggest gift – Creation!

Here is one of my favourite polish artist working with the idea of superfictions Zbigniew Libera and some of his famous productions with the Lego set that stirred the art scene around the world in 1996. 

Ken's Aunt, 1994
24 dolls in cardboard boxes, [24x] 32 x 8 x 5 cm

Lego. Concentration Camp, 1996, brick set

You can shave the baby, 1995, 10 dolls in cardboard boxes [10x] 55,9 x 20,3 x 25,4

Delivery Bed. Play Kit for Girls, 1996

Delivery Bed. Play Kit for Girls, 1996

Body Master, 1994-1997
two devices, size 115 x 46 x 71 cm each, two advertising posters

Dr Peter Hill in the Artist Room of Conway Hall, London

 

 

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