Abstract

It is generally understood that certain kinds of art, particularly those associated with the historical and neo-avant-gardes, are experimental. Sadly, very little scholarship addresses this popular assumption in a serious way. Theorisations of 'experimental art' persistently define it in terms of a break with tradition, a cult of the new, a teleological quest, an aesthetic science of progress or an aggressive nihilism. In most cases, however, experimentation is absorbed by more widely embraced concepts such as 'chance' or 'the absurd.' All too frequently it is left to function simply as an adjective. The artwork of John Murchie, Mary Scott and Eric Cameron provides us with an opportunity to consider programmatic and rhetorical experimentation in greater depth. At the same time, it affords us an experimental protocol in which we are invited to participate pragmatically. The advent of poststructrualism in the late '70s coincided with the production of a discrete group of substantial theoretical and philosophic texts that addressed art and literature from a perspective informed by the avant-garde. In many ways this theory is also an invitation to experiment. At the very least it provides us with an opportunity to consider art in terms of a multiplicity of experimental valences.