Image | Mirage
University of Oxford
Oxford, England
September 2017
“I’m extracting this sonnet from a prolonged study on The Word: it is inverted, by which I mean that
its meaning is evoked by an internal mirage created by the words themselves.”
—Stéphane Mallarmé, in a letter to a friend (1886)
its meaning is evoked by an internal mirage created by the words themselves.”
—Stéphane Mallarmé, in a letter to a friend (1886)
A magazine was placed on each of the ten benches surrounding the Oxford University Pond to accompany this “writing on water” installation. Inside a zip lock bag and held in place by a small stone, this magazine was seen by those walking in the park who stopped and looked inside it. Printed on its pages were color photographs of other people who, in the past, had earlier walked by that pond or sat upon those benches.
Found on Google Street View in 2017, the photographs of those in the park were taken in July 2015.
The faces of those photographed had been blurred, creating a kind of floating mirage inside of the image, an obscuring of identifiable detail. At one point, the cast shadow of the man carrying the camera was captured, having inadvertently photographed a reflection of himself photographing
the scene around him.
Upon each photograph, the same words seen floating on the pond were printed onto each picture,
the words IMAGE | MIRAGE inverted from page to page. Recently checking the online Street View of the site, nothing had changed of the photographs at the Oxford Pond in over a decade; those on the benches were still on the benches; those on the trail still on the trail—motionless within their own imprinted absence.
Found on Google Street View in 2017, the photographs of those in the park were taken in July 2015.
The faces of those photographed had been blurred, creating a kind of floating mirage inside of the image, an obscuring of identifiable detail. At one point, the cast shadow of the man carrying the camera was captured, having inadvertently photographed a reflection of himself photographing
the scene around him.
Upon each photograph, the same words seen floating on the pond were printed onto each picture,
the words IMAGE | MIRAGE inverted from page to page. Recently checking the online Street View of the site, nothing had changed of the photographs at the Oxford Pond in over a decade; those on the benches were still on the benches; those on the trail still on the trail—motionless within their own imprinted absence.
"Image | Mirage" was a "writing on water" installation created in conjunction with the 2017 Oxford University
conference "Power of the Word," at which a variation of the essay below was presented:
“'An Aquatic Reverie' | Stéphane Mallarmé’s Writing on Water and the Naming of Waves"
Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures (Jan. 2020). Vol. 3, No. 2: 55-63.
conference "Power of the Word," at which a variation of the essay below was presented:
“'An Aquatic Reverie' | Stéphane Mallarmé’s Writing on Water and the Naming of Waves"
Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures (Jan. 2020). Vol. 3, No. 2: 55-63.
Writing on Water Installation (and De-Installation)
"The pure work implies the disappearance of the poet as speaker, yielding his initiative to words, which are mobilized by
the shock of their difference; they light up with reciprocal reflections like a virtual stream of fireworks over jewels,
restoring perceptible breath to the former lyric impulse, or the enthusiastic personal directing of the sentence."
— from Stéphane Mallarmé's "Crisis in Poetry"
the shock of their difference; they light up with reciprocal reflections like a virtual stream of fireworks over jewels,
restoring perceptible breath to the former lyric impulse, or the enthusiastic personal directing of the sentence."
— from Stéphane Mallarmé's "Crisis in Poetry"
The theme of the Oxford University conference was “The Power of the Word | The Prophetic Word.”* And for this “writing on water” installation, something of a word’s prophetic power was to be manifested alongside the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s own “aquatic reveries” of sailing on the Seine, his “prolonged study” of the “inverted” words.
On a pond surrounded by Oxford’s Lazenbee’s Ground Walk, two words, MIRAGE and IMAGE, were written, positioned to mirror one another out on the water. Each word floated on the pond’s reflecting surface as a kind of mirage inside of an image, an image inside of a mirage, appearing and disappearing in the vanishing act of language, the spelling out of its own evanescence.
These two large words remained on the water for several days while visitors to the park walked alongside them, reading in motion, seeing in time, moving like
a mirage in the light of their own momentary presence. While others, alone or
in pairs, sat on benches next to the pond, looking out onto the surface, perhaps reflecting upon (and reflected onto) the two words floating before them.
Now, years later, what remains of the Oxford installation are the fluid memories of those moments and the many mirage-like photographs of the project—images of a time now past, a site far away—a “magnificent supplement” of sorts, as Mallarmé spoke of language itself. And in the photographs, light and language shine still upon the page, as if upon an absence, what Mallarmé described of the language of poetry as an “exquisite vacancy,” like “Words, [that] all by themselves, light each other up...the center of vibratory suspense.”
On a pond surrounded by Oxford’s Lazenbee’s Ground Walk, two words, MIRAGE and IMAGE, were written, positioned to mirror one another out on the water. Each word floated on the pond’s reflecting surface as a kind of mirage inside of an image, an image inside of a mirage, appearing and disappearing in the vanishing act of language, the spelling out of its own evanescence.
These two large words remained on the water for several days while visitors to the park walked alongside them, reading in motion, seeing in time, moving like
a mirage in the light of their own momentary presence. While others, alone or
in pairs, sat on benches next to the pond, looking out onto the surface, perhaps reflecting upon (and reflected onto) the two words floating before them.
Now, years later, what remains of the Oxford installation are the fluid memories of those moments and the many mirage-like photographs of the project—images of a time now past, a site far away—a “magnificent supplement” of sorts, as Mallarmé spoke of language itself. And in the photographs, light and language shine still upon the page, as if upon an absence, what Mallarmé described of the language of poetry as an “exquisite vacancy,” like “Words, [that] all by themselves, light each other up...the center of vibratory suspense.”
BBC Radio Oxford Interview, on the Oxford Installation "Image | Mirage," on "The Cat Orman Show," September 15, 2017
Many thanks to Carolyn Brass & Jefree Shalev for their invaluable assistance with this installation,
and to Nick Baldwin of the Oxford University Parks Department.
and to Nick Baldwin of the Oxford University Parks Department.
Copyright © 2020 Clark Lunberry. All rights reserved.