Myth-Science and the Fictioning of Reality

In what follows I put forward an idea of contemporary art practice as a form of myth-science, itself defined as a kind of fictioning of reality.1 Most of what follows has been developed in relation to the collaborative ‘performance fiction’ Plastique Fantastique (and especially in conversation with David Burrows) and thus, in acknowledgement of this parallel research programme, interspersed throughout the text are images from our practice and, in particular, a performance itself titled ‘Myth-Science’.2 I hope that this local ‘scene’ might resonate on a more global level, but also that my comments will not be read as being solely tethered to this particular collaboration (indeed, my article intends the mapping of a more general trajectory in art). The article ends with a brief Coda on Felix Guattari’s concept – from Schizoanalytic Cartographies – of ‘fabulous images’ that offers another inflection on my theme. ...theres some thing in us it dont have no name... it aint us but yet its in us... (Russell Hoban, Riddly Walker