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The following paper is a dedicated to the extraordinary value of misinterpretation, misunderstanding and a desperate need for meaning amidst divergent texts.
“ In fact, ever inverted, the fable is useless. Perhaps only the allegory of the Empire remains.. . . For it is the difference which forms the poetry of the map and the charm of the territory, the magic of the concept and the charm of the real.”
Jean Baudrillard
“Let's kick their ass and get out of here.”
General George Armstrong Custer
Miguel bent over and picked up a third stone from the loamy soil and headed back to the rock wall he and his grandfather were building. He was instructed to find stones that were flat and pie-wedged; the wall they constructed was making an abrupt right angle in order to enclose the field's edge. As he considered this, he remembered a stash of odd shaped rocks he left the previous day in an adjacent field that might be of use. Tired, he cradled the three in his arm and headed back up the embankment to cross the road. Half way up, Miguel stumbled and attempted to catch the stones as they tumbled from his arm. When the truck fender cut into his leg he had the distinct recollection of licking a battery as a young boy.
In Painting, the order of the father is pervasive, without odor and predatory. The language that surrounds it gives it breadth, breath and a wall on which to hang. Consecutive contingent masturbatory utopias from which to draw - manifest destiny: Ingre, Malevich, Greenberg, Bois. Richter offered hope, as he made contradiction and uncertainty a subject worthy of the medium in which he worked.
If one finds oneself an educator (or artist) fervently trying to preserve a pictorial language that has become inadequate to communicate to those we most desperately want to speak, one is indoctrinating, not educating. Yet, the value of painting is inherent in its number of practitioners, their dilemmas and realizations. When painting, one must confront the fact that one is working on a very thin sculpture; an object-hood that confers a secondary image . This tangible form is antithetical to its final application as signification. This conundrum is a portal; it is through one's inability that the real enters one's work. As paint's material quality may potentially displace the sign and increases the distance to the signified, one may find oneself representing a single event within a broader chain of representation. One may note that this marginal position to the construction of one's own meaning may be painting's greatest asset and bi-product. Poor painters sometimes make great paintings, their intention foiled, a secondary theme revealed. The process of loss with regard to one's intention may become endemic in the aesthetic of the work. This is a great achievement, worthy of preservation in any media one explores.
Dear Marie,
When you confirmed my assertion that there is great joy and meaning in our misinterpretations, I knew I had a lot to learn from you, and a way to approach my process paper. You said it with certainty-I think. I left noble hall after your lecture and wondered about representation (when was that?). I wondered if the sheer verb-ness of it all had a half-life like plutonium, slowly distancing itself from that which was originally signified: Glass breaking without the sound. I thought about how advertisers knew this on some genetic level and that we were all doomed. I considered the space and time events within a single atom that Physicists seem to keep talking about and my head began to swim. More than once, I'd return from my internal dialogue a bit lost as to where the conversation had gone in my absence. I remembered your joy of negotiation through all this and I knew I was in the right place and there was a way to put the art before the course.
Yours, Tony. March 03/05. Semesters 3 & 4
When I determined that each of my paintings sought a critical context simply for the desire to be understood, I knew I would soon leave my practice. As I lovingly sought Breughel after Breughel for images to appropriate, Fred Astaire danced on my TV with a vacuum cleaner that was digitally inserted; his appropriation was effortless, mine . . .. I had been struck years earlier and hadn't known it: dormant affliction. The work I brought to the first residency took digital video stills as their subject. I had videoed my subjects extensively, exported single images that spoke of a certain distillation and painted them loosely in encaustic. I'd hoped that the wax (an ancient medium) might prove an interesting subversion to the degree of technology incurred in my new process. I wanted people to see that the materiality of paint might trump all the ephemera of the digital media. I thought it might cauterize the wounds incurred in exploration. I was wrong, “ Whatever lays claim to permanence in the spectacle is founded on change, and must change as the foundation changes.”
“Tony, this painting is nice… I could see it in a small library somewhere in the mid-west.” Bogdan Achimescu (Visiting Artist Vermont College, Feb 03. Semester 1)
On his release from the infirmary, Miguel began to hitchhike at the end of the gravel drive next to a bank of mailboxes and artificially stressed Doric columns. As he extended his thumb he began to realize that he couldn't stop thinking about: how he was walking (limping), what he was wearing, the expression on his face and what it all might mean to those he was trying to entice to pull over.
Roland Barthes' assertion that each photograph has both studium and punctum, might serve well as a model. While studium is considered an, “ application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general enthusiastic commitment . . .” it is generally linked to the term punctum, “. . . this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces. . ..” I've come to suspect that one's practice may have parallel dynamics. I hoped to somehow contain my foray into time-based media with that which I had known, but it was too late. I had been struck: punctum. I was reminded that every experiment has its inherent risks. The dominant risk for me is/was not failure within the endeavor -- it is finding some means that suggests - no, insists-- a new way of working, a new awkwardness for me to mine or tragedy to exploit.
On Identity:
Another unnamed machine was wheeled in and then plugged in; first it went into the wall and then into her arm. As the IV dripped, the heart monitor beeped and I managed to alter my film frame by frame in an odd syncopation on my laptop, as my mother slept in the bed next to me. When I was sure she wouldn't awake, I snuck out to the parking garage for a cigarette and spoke with cancer patients that still hadn't managed to kick the habit. We hid between the air conditioning units and due to the noise only caught every other word spoken. The absurd is not a tool within a technician's belt nor a contrivance designed to mitigate effect; it is the only course available to the rational.
Lacan states, “ The real supports the phantasy and the phantasy protects the real. ” The real is unknowable, for the means by which it is ascertained can only be broached through the dissolution of identity and the language that contextualizes it. The real is both attractive and horrific, its assertion marks a time prior to gender, when one did not distinguish between oneself and the extended environment of the maternal , yet as something that is only negotiated through memory's imbrications, it harkens back to the violent act of separation and individuation. Even the utopian image of transcendent identity contains its referent: that from which we cannot separate. Is this notion contained in every creative act? Does one fall into this binary trap: to seek lost unity or subconsciously avoid the original split? How palpable is it in one's life? When does the real intrude?
As her fever began to consume us both, I felt those edges and their fray. I also knew that to be with her fully meant to allow her death to transform both my practice and my relationships. As I went back to her (our) house that night, I rolled underneath the staircase I was terrified of as a child and videoed every knot and splinter. I considered that most dust is composed of human skin and I wondered if its origin predated myself, or was myself. After I emerged, I documented every floorboard, switch plate and the clunk of the skylight closing. I wondered about the danger of removing mystery from my compulsions. This was not really a risk though, video like photography rests on contingent language and possibility; “I never recognized her, except in fragments, which is to say that I missed her being, and that therefore I missed her altogether.” I detested the part of me that saw this all as potential material, yet in the words of Benjamin, there is merit in being “ . . . the man who could let the wick of his life be consumed completely by the gentle flame of his story.” . I sat on the stoop and let the cement cut into my legs until the circulation stopped and I learned to enjoy their perceived distance. I knew then that I would never separate my relationships, my places, my readings and my practice again. I thought about the absurdity of Gilbert and George, on a street corner in the seventies, donning their brown polyester for the first time: whistling.
If one questions the relationship of product to process too profoundly, does one run the risk of dismantling one's impetus to create? What is left? Who is left?
ON AUDIENCE
Dear Humberto,
Please forgive me for I am quite sure that the bulk of the following assertion was predicated on not only a misinterpretation of your words but a mis-distillation over time. You spoke of a “lock out” once: privileging tactic over strategy with regard to activism. You spoke of how the margin is always excluded, precluded; to critique the spectacle head-on was to participate in its hegemony. I can't tell you how uncomfortable I was/ am with this. I am not sure if I understand you correctly but I think this quick assertion, at an all school meeting, transformed my course of study. While I think I understand your point, I am not sure where the lockout begins or ends. I am even more uncomfortable with its implications. Is one's only recourse to undermine cultural representation on the fray? If one foregoes the language that surrounds art theory and cultural critique, does one run the risk of confronting an intended audience directly? Are artists intentionally balkanizing themselves as a means of preserving territory while insuring a mitigated access to effect, thus limiting responsibility? Is a deft delineation between tactic and strategy sufficient to counter well-crafted euphemism? Is there a genuine fear amongst intellectuals that if their work is simplified it will cease to exist? Please Humberto, don't consider these challenges or accusations, they are genuine questions.
What of a unified vision, or at least a face (or word,) on which to place a heterogeneous approach to representation -- could we not call it freedom? While conservatives do not utilize the language of bell hooks and Cornell West, they certainly understand the rules of engagement when it comes to crafting language and demographic.
A student at the school once described the dichotomy of Modernism and Postmodernism as the difference between expression and critique, candle and mirror. This model might be simplistic but still serves as a decent analogy of center to margin. If one is forever engaged in critique, what does one offer anyone who is interested in participating? While it seems worthwhile to understand and avoid the means of those one is critiquing, does one gain enough by an avoidance of prescription? Anyway, I simply thought it was worth mentioning some of this, as a way of illustrating that our conversation has continued despite our lack of communication. Again, I apologize in advance for misrepresenting you.
As always, thank you,
Tony. May 04. Semester 2
At some point one asks, “Who is this for?” There is something perfunctory in this question; it speaks to self-help seminars and demographics, the ideal ego and the ego ideal, in the Lacanian model. Who is one making for?
John said that he was interested in materiality and Minimalism. The florescent lights in the second floor bathroom made for odd conversation. I do not really know what I said, only what I wish I had said,
No . . . I am not sure if Minimalism could function outside the broad confines of critical analysis. Funny it was called minimalism when such a preponderance of critical context could only be described as an opulent back-drop of detail. Painters, paintings and their critics came to supplant the audience it had lost to film and TV, and in doing so, transcended the notion of producer and consumer, until one could barely distinguish painting from its critique; this is positively Baroque. But what of the audience that was lost? If the Avant Garde does not return with useful information it runs the risk of a presumed death and co-option, right?
Miguel limped to the cliff's edge by his sister's home and kicked some dirt at the water below. As it rolled down the hill, the bank erupted in a cloud of Arctic Terns. Terns do not exactly flock nor behave as a single mind the way Starlings sometimes do. They rolled back and began to dart at Miguel's uncovered head. Still limping severely, he headed back to the relative safety of the scrub Pines planted along the yard's edge and marveled at the bird's staccato calls and self-preservation. He startled himself by asking aloud, “ What do you do when I am not here?”
At times, the dominant culture's power and position are radically implied by their absence. All marginalization is a function of summation and the normalization of assumption; this delineates the aspiration to non-signification.
Dear Sharon,
We have never had much of a conversation, yet somehow you have made it into that pantheon of voices in my head, ( the fact that you remind me of an affable gun slinger does not hurt). I am not sure what you say there. It is through your lecture that I came to reaffirm just how pervasive the issues of marginality are in all aspects of representation and perception (Also the cumulative effect of it [ your lecture] was a dissolution of the term marginality. I mean, I thought I was getting a handle on all the different elements that surround the subject: burden of representation, diversity of the margin, non-signification of the center, tokenism, privileging the subjective, etc. - but now, I feel like it all got so big it isn't really a subject anymore.). I was reminded of the distance and time that seems to permeate contemporary perception through media, and how that perception and time seems manipulated. I wonder if this remote means of recognition belies a psychological condition constituted within the mirror stage (or some other) or if it is a broader political dilemma harkening to Said's notion of the exile as national identity , or any disempowered voice without recourse, or if this (your) work is about something else all together. I must admit it is confusing for me to distinguish what is going on when communication itself becomes a subject. And here I am writing a public text with personal prose to someone other than my intended audience-go figure. Stranger yet, somehow I believe that you will understand all this. 10/ 10/ 04
PS, You didn't need to tell me to “watch out” for you, I was already.
Tony
The Absurd: Poor Excuse for Mystery.
The heartbeat fluctuates and dips to 110 beats per minute. When this persisted for 6 minutes the doctor noted her concern and mentioned it should be back up around 150. A groan penetrated the wall and a distinct voice called out, “ Get the fuck out of me, get out now. aaoow. ..” Moments later a baby screamed and my wife and I looked over at each other with what might only be described as jealousy and contempt for the woman next door. Another 30 hours and witnessing my wife Bridget's cesarean and I was positive that I knew absolutely nothing about everything; my video camera was never removed from the case.
Prayers plow not! Praisers reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
William Blake. “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” Plate 9
There is something extraordinary about having one's own TV show. It is a sinking feeling of pride and shame that does not seem to quit. Its existence on the dial at a specific place and time, with its extended myriad of contingencies threatens co-option. It is a reminder that the aura of the original was not really depleted or negated, but was never actually there.
The value of the absurd lies in recognizing that there is no viable recourse or solution; it is triumphant surrender. At some point in my studio practice's evolution I came to realize some basics:
I rarely create what I intend.
The more I care about my initial intention, the better the divergent outcome.
When I have nothing to say I should file and sweep.
Terms like “flow and immersion” express an elusive state that is briefer than its memory.
All of my work consists of a tremendous amount of regret and expectation.
Normalcy is a crafted political tool.
Stupidity, arrogance, ignorance and poor planning see many jobs to completion.
Sincerity, control and people skills are over rated.
All humor is derived from a form of terror.
The absurd is privileged; it is where: the abject, the sublime, the liminal and desire meet; cherry bombs, “reject” stamps, incredibly long string in hallways and misspelled menus sing.
To publicly engage in pointless activity is a dangerous radical exposition of love, soon to be punished.
It is through these terms that I have come to consider my process and intention. In the process of composing, I am constantly reordering my world and its inhabitants. Eventually, I am struck by those smallest elements that contain my real intention. Frequently, poorly rendered, obstructionist elements that do not belong within the piece hold that which is of meaning for me. They are coaxed into being by a fixed peripheral gaze. Too easily they are transformed and rendered impotent by dissection, “Foucault - history of madness.”
Dear Michael/Debbie,
You are a friend because you say out loud/in writing what others are afraid to mention. You understand that a relationship to my practice is the only religion I will muster. You understand that the personal is subversive and political, and the failings of memory are an asset to be cherished. You value misinterpretation and failure and most of all the absurd. I'm reminded (no, it was you who pointed this direction), in Walter Benjamin's essay, “ The Storyteller” of the perils of psychoanalysis and its effect on the story: shutting it down, explaining it away. There is value in,
. . . that chaste compactness that precludes psychological analysis. And the more natural the process by which the storyteller forgoes psychological shading, the greater becomes the story's claim to a place in the memory of the listener, the more completely it is integrated into his own experience. . ..
Its right in there, isn't it? Despite all the Freud and positioning within the point of view, its inferred complexes and referents, it is about not understanding. Isn't it? Smart work doesn't sum up anything and recognizes that when we let it, it is smarter than we are. It is here that our critique becomes expression again. This is the absurd niche where one can fit. I am concerned to say this aloud. This is my real process: it is about the distance between the signifier and the signified. The longer one crafts the symbol the greater the distance and the sillier it all seems. The greatest joy of surrender seems to be counting all the other white flags against the greenery. Some where in this process I have managed to create community. April 1, 05
XO,T
Absurdists are frequently seen as flippant or lacking in political conviction; If politics are construed as gaining, mitigating, usurping or undermining power within any given relationship and said power is only maintained by rigid control over the language that codifies that relationship, then the absurd might be the best way that this language is made flaccid, fragile, or porous. One should consider what one is up against, “ The spectacle is a bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.”
Miguel entered a corner-shop called “Hammies.” Earlier that day he had pocketed a pack of Toblerone candy from a different store. Here, in the second shop, he was confronted by a similar display with an identical carton of candy to the one from which he had stolen previously. Unable to control his impulse, Miguel decided to exchange the candy he had in his pocket with the one before him; thusly, committing two crimes with only one candy bar gained. A half hour later a policeman gently guided his head into the patrol car, noting his odd limp and curious way the man held his arm. Miguel craned his head up from inside and asked him in a thick accent, “ For what am I charged?” After a long pause the policeman replied, “ Petty theft, sedition, fraud, turbary, vagrancy, perversion -- personally, I'd simply say you were stoned.” A slow smile of misrecognition crept across Miguel's face, for he had not understood the man's curt English, “ Stoned huh? - well at least that's something I have history with .
| | | Posted 4/28/2005 5:28 PM - 4 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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