“Traces of …experiences-of-the-flesh can be detected, imbedded in the fabric of modern ceremonies and their accoutrements. A cadence of beats and strokes, of threads and cuts and stitches is evident. A pulse that can be read as a text, as a trace from the underbelly of our ritualised customs.”1

Over the past seventeen years Lyn Plummer’s work has investigated the relationship between public ritual and private instincts; between the references to historical cultural mores and contemporary personal desires and experience. This has been manifest in an interest in the nature of space and especially in the secular, ritualized space of the gallery and its relationship to the religious, charged, ceremonial space of the spiritual. There has been a concentrated focus on changing and charging the gallery space into one which demands that we reflect upon our private responses to ceremony and ritual and their multiple readings and meanings.

Since 1981, (the last of her 6 years lived in Papua New Guinea), one of the central concerns in the works has been with referencing the materiality of the skin. The skin/flesh here is taken as the site of memory. Its power to arouse not only a sense of the self, but also a subliminal memory of the scars of the culture's past initiatory ceremonies and punishments is brought to the surface. The skin inscribed as memory! Its traced surface connects the individual’s inside, the private sphere, with the outside, the public sphere. It connects the private response with the public custom.

“The second skin is the costume, the vestments that can proclaim office, authority and rank, as well as show evidence of acts that subordinate the sense of self. It can also echo marks which have traditionally traced the dissident nature of the individual. From these ‘second skins’, and the marked skin, associations can be drawn between the ceremonies denoting the will-to-power of the church and the state and the whispers of the un-empowered. Such etched and stitched surfaces in both the skin and the ‘second skin’ bear witness to the acknowledgement of the power and also to past ritualized acts of violence; (mutilations inscribed into the skin/the self).”2

Modulations: Cantata Re Configured is a series of installations which will travel throughout New Zealand. The series presently incorporates two dimensional and three dimensional elements of mixed media, (including fabrics, plastics, threads, paints and mediums and glass beads) and sound. It has been visualised as a series of installations which constantly re-form, create new forms and re-configure, to take into consideration the atmosphere, colour, lighting and configuration of each new gallery space. They not only interact with the space, but also with the viewer on a personal level.

The series functions as a form of pilgrimage. The works move from one ceremonial space to another, changing and re-configuring according to the architectural space. As they do, they build a complex set of meanings and diverse readings which can be communicated to the individual viewer at a number of different levels. Those viewers who move through a number of the geographical/architectural spaces over a period of time, can then experience the subtle changes in ambience and reading from one space and time to the next and so build up a store of interpretations, images and meanings, which can enrich and challenge any individual impression or concept.

The installations will include new works developed for the individual spaces and also employ works selected from Cantata: A Play of the Trace II. The re-configuration of elements here, expands the articulation of the theoretical concerns discussed in the major catalogue for the latter installation (and commented on briefly above), and also extends impressions from and references to, the contemporary Semana Santa rituals of the Spanish Confraternities.

Modulations, infers changes in pitch and tone and consequently in the connotations possible in utterances and the traces of marks of all types. Different and re-configured modulations suggest the possibility of shifts in readings and meaning that indicate the complexities of communication and understanding. As the titles suggest, all of the installations have involved sound as one of the integral ways of marking/recording the existence of an experience. Each of the sound tracks forms an important element in the concept of a language developing and in that, it can be employed to analyse and advance meaning and perception for each individual and for the group.

Two sound tracks have been produced so far for the Cantata series. They have been developed as collaborative efforts. These scores were arranged and digitally engineered from my concepts by artist Rodney Browne. The track for the female voices was interpreted and sung by performance artist Jane Venis. A further sound track to be integrated into these installations is being created by Australian composer and musician Mark Finsterer. In response to the concept, later installations will also feature video projections that are also being created by Rodney Browne.

The tour has been hosted by the Ashburton Art Gallery and will begin there on the 14th July, 2007. The Otago Polytechnic and the School of Art has provided wide-ranging funding and support for the research and the development of the extended project. It is envisaged that the new works that will be produced during this extended New Zealand tour will be exhibited in a new Installation at the conclusion of the project. The Installations are also scheduled for exhibition at a number of venues in Australia in 2009 and 2010.

Lyn Plummer,
8 March, 2007

1.Quote from Gallery Handout, Lyn Plummer, Cantata: a Play of the trace II, Dunedin, 2005.
2.ibid