Populating Sparseness: On Writing “Gonda”

Maria Fusco

Populating Sparseness: On Writing “Gonda”

Maria Fusco

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Abstract

In this essay, I reflect on the process of writing the screenplay for Gonda (2013), an artist’s film directed by Ursula Mayer. The screenplay operates as a critical re-writing of Ayn Rand’s 1934 play Ideal, mobilising shifts in pronoun, voice, and authorship to destabilise Rand’s objectivist ethics and its gendered archetypes. I retrace the three methods implemented in the writing process and show how they lead to the construction of a polyphonic textual space in which identity, temporality, and agency remain in flux. Writing thus becomes a site of embodied critique and ongoing selfconstruction.

Original language	English
Number of pages	9
Volume	9
Specialist publication	INSERT - Artistic Practices as Cultural Inquiries
Publisher	Zurich University of the Arts
Publication status	Published - 2026

Keywords

Polyvocality
Polyphony
Re-writing
Resistance
Subjectivity
Uncertainty
Writing

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https://insert.art/ausgaben/writing-in-between-shifts/populating-sparseness/Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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AB - In this essay, I reflect on the process of writing the screenplay for Gonda (2013), an artist’s film directed by Ursula Mayer. The screenplay operates as a critical re-writing of Ayn Rand’s 1934 play Ideal, mobilising shifts in pronoun, voice, and authorship to destabilise Rand’s objectivist ethics and its gendered archetypes. I retrace the three methods implemented in the writing process and show how they lead to the construction of a polyphonic textual space in which identity, temporality, and agency remain in flux. Writing thus becomes a site of embodied critique and ongoing selfconstruction.

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KW - Polyphony

KW - Re-writing

KW - Resistance

KW - Subjectivity

KW - Uncertainty

KW - Writing

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JO - INSERT - Artistic Practices as Cultural Inquiries

JF - INSERT - Artistic Practices as Cultural Inquiries

PB - Zurich University of the Arts

ER -

Populating Sparseness: On Writing “Gonda”

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Keywords

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