Projects
On Point
Curated by Margaret Moore
Moore Contemporary, Dec 6 - Jan 30
Pictured
Apfelschuss
2024 | 17x80x22cm | stained & painted wood, carbon fibre arrow
Apfelschuss is the German word for ‘apple-shot’.
In the Stith Thompson Motif Index, the most comprehensive index of folkloric motifs, this image is indexed as F661.3: ‘skillful marksman shoots apple from man’s head.’ In folklore, the motif always occurs in the form of the marksman being ordered to shoot an apple from his own son’s head.
This set of three works furthers my interest in how language may or may not embody ideas. How words, or in this case an indexical code, can signpost larger ideas through a process of distillation that necessarily denies access the further it is refined. The implication of these ideas cast as mere pieces of information defy the reality of shooting an apple off your own child’s head, a terrifying scenario. Humans love to define the world as data in order to do horrible things!