About the postcard
Making a distinction between the image and the real is a key aspect of Iris Murdoch’s twentieth century philosophy. Against the contemporary backdrop of Web 2.0, the depiction (and definition) of happiness and reality is ambiguous in ways more than metaphysical. ‘I think I’m happy, she thought, but am I real?’ is a quote from one of Murdoch’s fictional women characters; feasibly it applies as much to social media profile construction as it does to metaphysical thinking in novels written by a woman philosopher. In May 2017 I set up an Instagram account, @cartography_for_girls, to explore this curious resonance and dislocation.
About the artist
Within the aesthetic context of conceptual writing Carol Sommer’s practice includes performance readings in the UK and abroad, as well as film and installation that respond to the representation of women in fiction. In 2016 she took part in Reading as Art at Bury Art Museum, and is the author of Cartography for Girls, an A - Z of Orientations identified in the Novels of Iris Murdoch. She teaches Fine Art and Critical & Contextual Studies in Art & Design at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Darlington. For further information please visit www.carolsommer.net
Somerville College Oxford
