M HKA Ensembles

Book, 17,6 x 10,8 cm, 200 p, language: English, publisher: Book Works, ISBN: 978 1 906012 51 9.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2027/53).

Literary synopsis

Here, in a new work by the author of The Dark Object, a series of tense and violent short stories are intertwined to form a narrative whole – a collection, with a twisted narrative structure, that parodies the form of a novel. When the protagonist, the dysfunctional Reality Flickers, meets the psychotic Heart Beast (aka the fucker), death sex and sculpture collide in the stories that form The Fabricator’s Tale. Palmer’s misanthropic characters are embedded within their own obsession with objects, with exposure, voyeurism, and the sexualised abuse of power, and appear to exist in a highly dysfunctional world, that parodies, and replicates both the conditions of art, and its place in contemporary society. This meta-narrative is punctuation by short, abstract, and often disturbingly violent stories, featuring nameless characters that expose the repressed tension between the animate and inanimate, the sick malaise of contemporary life, and the cracking points of human subjectivity.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Dr. Sinclair’s Drawer is an exhibition produced by Book Works and Flat Time House with artist Katrina Palmer. The exhibition comprises writing, sound recordings, video, sculpture and printed matter. The use of language as material extends to the performative relation between writer and reader, where the reader is inculcated into the process through either private reading and listening or in live, public performance.

Novel's website

Novel's website2