The Art and Science of Saucy Tales: Thinking Through Myth, Metaphor, Measuring and Back Again

I started my PhD with initial interests in electromagnetism, water and the philosophy of the sublime, to investigate how this could be combined to produce environments that were experientially immersive yet domestically inclined. As a practitioner, I encountered many problems in the understanding of methodology. To me, my methodologies were partly intuitive and were represented in the installations and objects that I produced. The need to understand this process and what knowledge production is within art, has therefore become a meta-narrative of my study, encouraging me to integrate methods from other disciplines into my main research project Saucy Tales.

Reasons and Purpose

This practice-based PhD will investigate experiences of underwater phenomena. My intention is to reveal how perceptions of submerged objects and their surroundings are affected by factors that we are not necessarily aware of. Previous research focused on the Sublime, and how visual indicators such as scale, could be altered inducing a change in emotional state. These investigations have moved onto unseen presences that affect our bodies like electromagnetism and infrasound, both of which can be recorded scientifically.

By transposing methods from science and literature onto artistic practice, my thesis meta-narrative will explore the relationship between site, knowledge and its subconscious triggers. It will seek a new understanding by applying the rules of reduction and observational measurement to art processes in a bid to uncover invisible realities, which in turn induce myth through metaphor.

Research Project

HMS Saucy is a war-grave in the Forth Estuary, around which divers have experienced strange presences. The vessel is a WW2 tug that exploded scattering copper wire around the hull. Saucy Tales will parallel the context of Haunt (Haque 2005) and will enquire what effect the unique location, history and material substance of the artefact has on perception below the water. Given the apparent observation that saline water may hold a ‘memory’ for frequency, Saucy Tales will ask:

Is HMS Saucy acting as an amplified sub-aqua radio?

In comparison to other dive-sites, how does the alleged haunting effect the experiential evidence gathered from this site?

Do the scientific recordings alone account for it?

Methods and Critical Approach

By diving, I will explore the underwater environment of HMS Saucy with audio/ infrasound recordings, video footage, infrared photography and electromagnetic measurements. Interviews, the crafting of measuring devices, scrying and a diary charting my own relationship to water are further research tools. Referencing Systema Metropolis (Dion 2007) and ‘how a dominant cultural group constructs and demonstrates its truth about nature,’ I will assume the role of specialist in various guises. Therefore research will combine artistic practice (visual thinking and production) with Grounded-theory and Reduction methodologies. The thesis will take the form of a Frame-Tale, integrating creative writing and factual reports with sections containing measurements, graphs and interviews. Research is underpinned by critiques of the literature on sea-faring legend and culture, electromagnetism, the philosophies of science and perception, paying particular attention to the Kantian and ‘Feminine’ sublimes (Battersby, Zylinska, Freeman).