05/02/2026
This practice-based research in Fine Arts—Sculpture investigates contemporary sculpture as a fictive object through subjectivity and its understanding in Metamodernism, using real and imagined narratives as a catalyst. It consists of created artworks and an exegesis. Questions are asked in two phases, respectively based on practice and theory with the primary objective to understand sculpture as a fictive object and its roles. A reflective practice methodology is adopted with free methods and conceptual activities scrutinising sculptural creation under conditional spatiotemporal circumstances. Other methodologies borrowed from the Creative Arts and Humanities are action research, narrative inquiry, autoethnography, and qualitative research. Post-qualitative research is favoured for validating subjective perceptions and emotional decisions. Applied paradigms encompass Postmodernism, Constructivism, and Constructionism. Literary devices explain theories, listing juxtaposition, analogy, parallelism, metaphors, allusion, imagery, symbolism, allegory, hypothesis and paradox. The exploration is rhizomatic beyond prescribed, linear and systematic practices. Conditional Sculpture is coined noting that conditional has been associated with art and painting but not sculpture. Autobiography, Autotopography, creating-in-the-feminine, creating-in-the-maternal, and creating-in-the-conditional are determined as key terms. Four practical case studies are analysed individually and collectively. The central concepts of The Narrative and the Fictive, Imagination and Perception, and Objects are elaborated in the theoretical discourse to support argumentation. Discovered rhizomes about Sculpture end with green asterisks. A comprehensive contextual compilation of artists and ultra-contemporary practitioners is built. Two aspects of sculpture are distinguished: Restrictive Conditional Sculpture and Liberating Conditional Sculpture. The inquiry construes conditional fictive sculpture as a unique artificial bodily extension of the mind, a conductible matter transporting overwhelm outgrowing the limited capacity of the physical body. A sub-category dedicated to Conditional Sculpture is proposed, separate from the aesthetic-focused Fine Arts speciality of Sculpture. Investing in it and integrating it within branches of science could significantly contribute to consciousness expansion and human evolution.
Esta investigação prática em Artes Plásticas na área da Escultura investiga a escultura contemporânea como um objeto fictício através da subjetividade e da sua compreensão na era do Metamodernismo, utilizando como catalisadores narrativas reais e imaginadas. O Metamodernismo é considerado ...
