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Thursday, April 28, 2005

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 20:31:52 GMT

Anthony Dattilo Final Draft
"Abject Thriller"

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight.
Michael Jackson, Thriller

Within the chorus of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" a certain ambiguity quickly asserts itself. Who is fighting for their life inside a killer tonight? Who is the beast about to strike? It is precisely because of this ambiguity that it would be difficult to find a more apt subject than Michael Jackson's video "Thriller", in order to explore notions of abjection. Little did one realize in 1982, that Jackson's own career and iconic status would acquire much of the dark transformational tone that his ground-breaking video established. Jackson himself is a constant point of speculation, raising questions about boundaries and signifiers, with regards to race, gender, success and -- most important to this text-- the blurred distinctions between performer and icon, art and artist. In order to explore abjection in the "Thriller" video and to a lesser extent in Jackson's career, it is essential to first delve into some conceptions of abjection.

From the vile to the decomposed, the unspoken intention to the fear of a possibility, one
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confronts abjection. Abjection sits uncomfortably in all company, shifting its weight, only partially alluding to its source, without any commitment or stasis. Or, in the words of Julia Kristeva,
The abject is violence of mourning for an "object" that has always already been lost. The abject shatters the walls of repression and its judgments. It takes the ego back to its source on the abominable limits from which, in order to be, the ego has broken away - it assigns it a source in the non-ego, drive, and death.

The experience of abjection goes beyond the rational or pragmatic fear and enters the realm of the phobic. Abjection is the removal of boundary between the subject and the object it ascertains, the self and other, the wound experienced and the wound remembered.

Any text that attempts to qualify abjection is quickly confronted with a series of problems. Abjection itself is a transient signifier, alluding to what it is not and threatening its possibility. It is this elusive transgression that gives abjection its power and quality. Julia Kristeva goes even further, characterizing it as a vestigial assertion of the pre-symbolic. Abjection is the closest one comes to the experience of "the real" in Jacque Lacan's terms. Kristeva, referring to that early state prior to identity differentiation notes, " The non-distinctiveness of inside and outside would thus be unnamable, a border passable in both directions by pleasure and pain." While each of these considerations is pertinent, one might find it useful with regards to this text to primarily consider abjection
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as an insistent foil to the image presented to us within Lacan's notion of the mirror stage; prior to the induction to language, one apprehends a cohesive image in the mirror with which to identify, while the body itself is experienced as a series of conflicting drives and impulses. It is essential to this text to have a clear description of Lacan's model, which is deftly described by Kaja Silverman as
. . . a mis-recognition; the subject apprehends itself by means of a fictional construct whose defining characteristics - focus, coordination-it does not share. The body objectified, viewed from an external locus becomes abject. … the mirror stage is one of those crises of alienation around which the Lacanian subject is organized, since to know oneself through an external image is to be defined through self alienation.

It is through this perspectival notion of interiority and exteriority that Jackson's video has particular resonance, mainly because Jackson seems to relish switching roles within the piece and perforating this boundary in a public manner.

The song "Thriller" itself, along with Jackson's now famous zombie dance have received both critical acclaim and pervasive media presence, due in part to Jackson's troubled personal life being a continuous point of public scrutiny. Jackson's video begins with a self-aware representation of a fifties couple, replete with letterman jackets and a convertible running out of gas on a lonely stretch of road. As the couple walks along, Jackson announces that he is in love with the girl but that he must share something with
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her because he is different. If she is to be with him she must accept him as he truly is. As the full moon peeks through the clouds, Jackson goes through a metamorphosis, becomes a werewolf and proceeds to terrorize and brutalize his date. The scene then cuts to Jackson and the same girl, now in contemporary dress, sitting in a movie theater watching the previously pictured scene unfold. Flustered, the young woman insists on leaving in the middle of the film and Jackson accompanies her home. The previous scene in the theater might be interpreted in two different manners: the young woman was terrified by seeing such a close likeness of herself being brutally murdered (and/or raped) by her current date on the big screen, or the entire scene was simply an extension of Jackson's fantasy, which he was heartily enjoying. This particular point is pertinent to this exploration because it infers Jackson's willingness to identify with that which is transformational, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Jackson, now in his signature red leather jacket is the recognizable pop star. Out on the street, he begins to taunt his date for being scared within the confines of the theater. On the way back a similar transformation takes place, except this time it is not instigated by the external power of the moon. Now Jackson switches character quickly, becomes a zombie, and proceeds to terrify his date a second time. It is difficult to determine what degree of camp is intended by Jackson, considering the narration by Vincent Price and the fact that the zombies are more interested in syncopated dance than inflicting any real damage at this point. Yet one cannot help but to pose the question: Why does Jackson choose to represent himself as a monster and a corpse who is unable to contain his true
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impulses towards murder and cannibalism? Is this all a simple representation of ghoulish sophomoric bravado intended on quelling public discussion of Jackson's gender preference? Is his implied comfort with zombie status in a poor urban area at night intended to garner street credibility? Such coarse assumptions bare little scrutiny; a campy dance number with chiffon wrapped mummies might not be the best strategy if one is intent on asserting a cogent signifier of machismo. In addition, Jackson's on screen crotch-grabbing and pelvic thrusting have an affectation that seem like a forced hyperbolic display of heterosexuality, which paradoxically makes his movements suspect. Other examples of a male hyper sexuality being perceived as a form of gender ambiguity can be found throughout the same period. John Travolta's portrayal in “Saturday Night Fever”, of a disaffected youth consumed by dancing, conveyed a similar meaning. While both Jackson and Travolta were considered extraordinary and groundbreaking in their depictions, they soon came to bear the brunt of many jokes. Ironically, Jackson's campy jest might be just the element that is needed to avoid responsibility for the previous assertions or any allusion to a more grizzly subtext that can be read into Jackson's meaning. Sigmund Freud saw the Joke as functioning directly in this manner; " . . . internal resistance is overcome and inhibition is lifted with the aid of a joke. This enables the intention to be satisfied. . .." , in a way that avoids culpability. One may also assert that the figure Jackson presents is simply a satirical indictment of the way the media had fictionalized his life, but one must remember that these representations came long before Jackson's fall from grace; his plastic surgery was minimal and the questions he would raise with regard to race and gender were still predominantly on the horizon. Jackson's entire upbringing was essentially a public affair (and a function of his representation) from the age of five, so it is important here to explore how media representations might have some role in the formation of his identity, because much of Jackson's career can be seen as an overt response to his public portrayal.

If one accepts that Lacan's notion that the mirror stage is the precursor to the construction of the ideal ego, and that perfected form has some bearing on the impetus to narcissism, then what part do those we attempt to emulate play in this model? In a culture that is obsessed with celebrity, it is this very transposed narcissistic affiliation that is at work. Furthermore, it is important to consider that the chronology of introduction to an ideal self can be reversed to some degree, if only incrementally; it is not necessarily true that one is introduced to the mirror and then to cultural representations. If one accepts that children in American households spend close to 3 hours per day watching television it raises some fundamental questions about which cohesive image is perceived first or as more mocking. When one's own body is rendered other, abject or alienated in this virtual manner, the process is even more complete than that described in the mirror stage. One can at least witness a child affecting his own image by moving his arms and legs, while corresponding media figures do not respond at all. But the question that begs to be
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answered is: What if they did? In the case of Michael Jackson this question is not rhetorical. It may very well be that the primary reason Jackson sought to fracture his identity within the "Thriller" video was as a means to revealing his real experience of abjection. If one considers Freud's original model for narcissistic neuroses, ". . . in which the subject's libido is attached to his own ego instead of an object" one must consider the predicament of being presented with one's own image and identity as an externalized fictional object to be beheld, bought or sold. If one imagines that one's experience is essentially displaced by cultural representations of oneself, as in Jackson's case, then one of the only recourses left is to destroy that image. Spectacle might be construed as theatrical and short lived by definition. If Jackson actually consciously manufactured this subversion without unhinging his career, all within the guise of a campy dance number, it only would further concretize his moniker as "The King of Pop", but this does not seem likely. Such facile manipulation of public persona infers a manipulation of the extended contextual media environment Jackson exists within. Such an extraordinary management of perception might preclude one's need for subversion or a proclivity for surrounding oneself with children and chimpanzees instead of rational, critical adults. If this assertion seems unfair, it would at least explain Jackson's beguilement as to why the public is so critical and judgmental of his lifestyle. It does not however vindicate those who vilify Jackson for refusing to remain a static predictable signifier of race, gender and age. One may consider Jackson's insistent refusal to grow up; his, purported sleeping in an oxygen tent, extensive collection of amusement rides and toys, and the fact that his estate is named “ Neverland” , all point to a consciously arrested development intended to stop
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the body's demise. This preoccupation with age may in fact offer a binary opposition to his sustained fascination with abjection, which became quite public as he repeatedly attempted to attain the skeletal remains of Joseph Carey Merick “ The Elephant Man”.

Abjection itself permits but does not exactly encourage a sustained affiliation; to do so is to continually embrace death too literally, paradoxically undermining its most salient attribute of finality. Yet what one finds inside the Thriller video's plot is a repeated yet fleeting encounter with death and its representation. The death drive and mastery have a binary relationship according to Freud, where death is seen as an evacuation of tension or a natural insistence of the organism in which it, " . . . shall follow its own path to death, and to ward of any possible ways of returning to inorganic existence. . .." One may find a more cohesive and slightly differing description of this dynamic in Kaja Silverman's, Male Subjectivity at the Margins, where the ego seeks a constant level of mastery by engaging its own destruction in a mitigated manner,
. . .the repetition through which psychic mastery is established exists in such an intimate relation with the repetition through which it is jeopardized that Freud shows himself unable to distinguish clearly between them.
Notably, a fundamental question is raised within this assertion with regards to the difference between media representation and firsthand interaction with the abject; Is the representation of abjection a viable access to its experience or is it an effective means of dampening its effects? If one were to make a habit of visiting morgues, slaughter houses
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and medical waste facilities, one's sanity might be questioned, yet it seems perfectly within the confines of civil society to view programs and films that deal directly with these subjects in graphic form.

If one considers the real threats the abject presents us with, then why is its representation so pervasive? Bodily fluid, corpses and decay seem to permeate television and film, yet few of us are tolerant of personally seeing the bloodshed incurred in the production of our food. From Levitic law to Victorian moral dogma, there was a prescribed means of sanitization of the way one interacted with life's detritus and eventual demise. Consider the following excerpt from Leviticus, " . . . whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, or of a man of whom he may take uncleanness, whatsoever uncleanness he hath; The soul which hath touched such shall be unclean . . . unless he wash his flesh with water." This brief excerpt from a much larger text is explicit in its terms and procedures, carefully enumerating the ablutions one must endure to insure salvation. One might assert that contemporary social codes are still quite strict with regard to the "unclean", considering the pervasive advertising dedicated to the eradication of filth, germs, and sanitization of bodily fluids. So, why within Pop-Culture are we so predisposed to representations of death, defilement and gore? It is the contention of this text that representation of abjection is a paradoxical attempt to control its effects while experiencing its diminished and therefore nullified quality. In other words, the repetitive viewing (or crafting) of the representation of gore, decay and dismemberment can be seen as an attempt at its mastery. Abjection by its very nature
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defies mastery because it breaks down the separation between subject and object, signifier and signification. The sign can no longer hold its traditional signification because the subject comes to a point of empathy and transcendence, displacing that which was signified. Abjection beheld as media representation is quickly transformed into an objectified scene, despite time based media's ability to coax its viewer into an encompassing diegesis or any number of perspectival positions. Conversely, what one sees in Jackson's video is precisely this type of attempted mastery; Jackson continually and effortlessly switching roles between ghoul and protector, corpse and savior. The problem lies within this predicament of mastery itself because it too remains within the realm of representation, which mandates that the final manner one comes to view the mastery is voyeuristic. One can explore this dynamic a third and final time within the video.

The young woman runs from the zombies, Jackson included in their ranks, and finds an abandoned home in which to hide. Quickly zombies begin to break through the walls and floor with a ferociousness and intention lacking in the previous scene. Just as the young woman is abandoning hope, curled on the couch in a fetal position, the nightmare evaporates leaving only a tidy suburban living room and Jackson as a consoling boyfriend. If a viewer was still bent on seeing this production as a series of psychopathic episodes suffered by the young woman, Jackson drives the point home a final time by looking back over his shoulder at the viewer with glowing demonic eyes. It is more than simply this author's characterization of Jackson's portrayal as demonic, apparently
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Jackson also found it necessary to denounce the occult with a disclaimer in the opening credits of the video, " Due to my strong personal convictions I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult." What is in question here may have to do with Jackson's choice of words; is he questioning the occult's existence or disavowing his endorsement of people's participation in it? One would think that simply representing traditional characters of the horror genre, such as a wolf-man or a mummy would not require such an overt testimonial. Jackson' s preliminary disclaimer almost functions as a warning label.
One possible explanation might be that since Jackson portrays himself as having unlimited power over the dead it may infer malevolence. Another explanation might be the very manner in which Jackson interacts with abjection itself and how ultimately we are made complicit through our viewer-ship.
While it is difficult to determine meaning from the choices Jackson didn't make, it is conspicuous that the self-possessed vampire is omitted from Jackson's pantheon of kitsch monsters. Jackson's initial shape shifting into the wolf-man character is highly graphic, portraying subtle shifts in facial construction, skin texture and hair growth, that were all transfixing and state of the art in 1982. An added point of speculation lies in Jackson's reported skin condition: Vitiligo, by which the skin eventually turns white in patches most commonly found around the mouth and eyes . While many individuals suffering from the disease utilize makeup in order to cover the discoloration, Jackson's makeup seems to lighten the areas that have yet to be affected. This act alone implies, if not confers, his association with the disease and otherness, in part, by visually portraying
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something alien to his own life. While it's impossible to know exactly why Jackson has chosen to do this, his identification with transformation and the transient remains consistent. One may consider that both the wolf-man and the zombie are out of their own control; in fact, it is this lack of control of movement and action that typifies their condition. It is noteworthy that Jackson chose to represent the horror of his transformation through illustrating hair and nail growth, tooth elongation, and the shedding or morphing of skin, all of which are constant reminders of transience and the constant sloughing off of the body and its limits. These corporeal transgressions imply a certain co-mingling that is more ancient than contemporary in its view. The body is not seen as whole, monadic or self contained but porous and in flux. If one construes Jackson's media life as an extended body, its perforation seems quite reasonable. It is almost as if Jackson is portraying a festering condition that erupts from within, making that which is interior condition (literally and figuratively) an exterior manifestation. It is in this very manner that the viewer participates by proxy, while suspending disbelief and again directly by experiencing abjection through fascination, in the truest sense of the word: an inability to free one's gaze. It is within this context that the requirements of religion (notably the Christian religion) are both transgressed and upheld, first by, " . . . threatening the divinity, acting independently of it and analogous to the autonomous power of a spirit of evil. [or conversely, by] . . . the fact that it is subordinate to the will of God." The latter of the two positions allows for the collapse of the separation between subject and object to qualify as a means of self mortification, confirming one's abject position as unworthy of God's grace. What complicates this binary further lies in the difference between religion and the religious experience. Ultimately the two are quite different yet depend on each other as referent. While religion and its moral laws frequently function as social stricture and a means of dictating difference, religious experience is anathema to borders and difference, because it is transcendental. The experience of abjection borders on religious experience in a number of ways. In both, there is a moment of transcendence where the viewer is veritably included in the event by means of the subject/object collapse. Secondly, both inhibit, or even prevent, the cognitive description of the event as it occurs. Thirdly, each hint at a nebulous system of meaning that lies outside the grasp or construction of the subject . Finally both are marked by an altered sense of time that is both dilated and fleeting. What is remarkable is that Jackson's video engages many of these distinctions by default. The filmic medium almost always places the viewer in a privileged voyeuristic position that implies complicit meaning construction. Usually the audience is not regarded as part of this meaning construction in such an overt manner but Jackson's video ends with him turning to the viewer as if to imply knowledge of his true intention and that we are complicit with him. In addition, both music and film defy a separation from the event presented and are equally hard to evaluate cognitively while they are still being experienced. In actuality, one must briefly remove one's self from the experience in order to judge it. Ironically, the tragedy of Michael Jackson's meteoric career does not allow him the same ability or luxury; he cannot remove himself from the product he produces in order to weigh its effect or tenor.
If one considers Jackson's career as an extension of the mirror stage - as previously described - one may consider Jackson's insistent infantilization not as a willful or predatory act but possibly as symptomatic condition. Ultimately, Jackson and this text's conception of abjection have much in common: while abjection itself cannot ultimately be mitigated through its representation without destroying its character, Jackson has been unable to portray his public persecution without destroying his own image. This is what Kristeva dubs the "deject", always straying, always defining, " He is on a journey, during the night, the end of which keeps receding. . . .The abject from which he does not cease separating is for him, in short, a land of oblivion that is constantly remembered." Michael Jackson's Thriller album still maintains the record for the most albums ever sold. While its popularity may have been primarily because of its many hits, ground-breaking companion music video and marketing strategies, its longevity may owe something to Jackson's loss through public portrayal: abjection.

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Thursday, April 28, 2005

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 20:28:46 GMT

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 .