Jonathan Allen was the guest lecturer this week and his focus was that of secular magic and the notion of deception. We see secular magic as a more noteworthy form of magic because it makes no claim to be ‘other worldly’ or mystical in any way; it is pure deception. However, this deception comes in many forms. There is a difference between illusion and delusion – illusion being temporary (a film or story), and delusion being constant and fraudulent. This idea of a film being a lie is an exciting proposal; to create is to lie. When one fabricates something, which didn’t exist ‘naturally’, they are lying. But this occurrence need not be negative; it is us who have attached the negative connotations with respect to the action of lying – pretending to a teacher that you’re unwell is almost criminal yet to write a novel is often prize worthy. These are obviously the extremes, but one is stifled while the other is encouraged. The line between them is no thicker than a proverbial hair and so differentiating between the two can be confusing. Issues of this kind tend to bring up question about reality and fantasy and where (if at all?) the two meet. If you’re being told a story, which you believe to be true, and then it is revealed that it is in fact a work fiction then, was it ‘real’ until that point in time? Or was it never ‘real’? Sophie Calle is an artist who invested a lot of her time into questions of reality (in particular her own). In ‘Detective’ Calle is followed around for a day by a private detective, hired (at Calle’s request) by her mother. In doing this, she is attempting to prove her own existence through the eyes of another, whilst also questioning the concept of proof and evidencing. In the realm of philosophy, Aristotle had questions of reality and suggested that existence is conceptually prior to predication; merely by having features that can be described it must exist. Truth and truths are also very relevant here and a performance titled ‘White Balance: A History Of Video’ by Robin Deacon that beautifully captured these ideas about constructed narrative and story telling. The title White Balance refers to the process by which a camera is adjusted to account for differences in light, changing the relative strengths of colors to reach a truer sense of what is being seen. The performance uses a series of outmoded vintage video cameras to explore how our ways of seeing and ways of remembering may be informed by the medium used to capture the event – the artists document, the family gathering or the news broadcast. It creates fictional narratives and explores their potential relationship with real life and autobiographical experience. The history and use of the video camera in the setting of the gallery or the studio has now widened to encompass an exploration of its employment in domestic settings to give a broadened visual palette to work from in terms of imagery and content. In his explorations of numerous video formats, the focus of these explorations is what the tone of the given image might suggest. For example, the association of a particular kind of warmth, sharpness or softness associated with a particular video format popular at a specific point in time. The performance speculated on the possibility of using video to ‘tell the time’ so to speak. The thesis is that our memories look like the things they were recorded with. That the sense of another time or place is not dictated by the content of footage - temporal pointers such as a location that has not been visited in recent memory, or a clear visual evidence of ones own ageing. Beyond the understanding of a particular space and a particular time is a third dimension: a particular format. The vessel that carries the signal now seems the primary point of reference.
The reading for this week’s seminar was Roland Barthes’ book, ‘Camera Lucida’. In which he brings up is that one never actually looks at a photograph, but at the image it represents. Barthes connects this eternal present tense of the photograph to the impossibility of separating a photograph from its referent. The apparent difficulty this causes Barthes, ultimately serves him in his purpose; he says, "I didn't yet know that this stubbornness of the referent in always being there would produce the essence I was looking for." In examining the public photographs that "exist" for him, Barthes provides a new vocabulary to speak about Photography, and provides a means to distinguish them. The photographer becomes the Operator, the subject of the photograph is the Spectrum, and the viewer of a photograph is the Spectator. Barthes does not speak to the role of Operator, because he is not a photographer. He speaks most extensively on the role of the Spectator, but in his brief discussion of the Spectrum Barthes touches on one of his main arguments; speaking about a photograph of himself, he says, "Death is the eidos of that photograph." He further develops this theme in the second half of the book. Speaking about photographs from the role of the Spectator, Barthes distinguishes between the important elements of a photograph. He notes what he calls a "co-presence" of elements in a photograph that strikes him. These co-presences become the studium and the punctum. The studium "is an extant, it has the extension of a field, which I perceive quite familiarly as a consequence of my knowledge, my culture." However, the punctum is what truly makes the Photograph exist in Barthes eyes; it disturbs the studium. He frequently describes the punctum as a wound and this bodily-ness connects to Barthes later discussion of Death and Photography. The film was Hollis Frampton’s ‘Nostalgia’, a 38 minute 1971 film that’s composed of still black-and-white photographs taken by Frampton during his early artistic explorations which are slowly burned on the element of a hot plate, while the soundtrack offers personal comments on the content of the images, read by fellow artist Michael Snow. Each comment/story is heard in succession before the related photograph appears onscreen, thus causing the viewer to actively engage with the 'past' and 'present' moments as presented within the film. The idea of burning the photos comes from a belief that in doing so he would release something animate <soul(?)> trapped within the inanimate <photograph>. Something else that could be said to happen when something is deconstructed is that you would get to the origin. This relates to another book by Barthes, ‘Death of the Author’, where he writes about how one can no longer trace the meaning of what you’re reading back to the author, and that instead one must delve into the history of language. It’s referring to the same loss of origin that Frampton is exploring; at the point of deconstruction the origin defers and defers and defers indefinitely (nothing is original). This is out very eloquently by the 12th century French philosopher Bernard of Chartes when he said ‘we are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants, and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter.’ And Five hundred years later, English scientist Sir Isaac Newton paraphrased that thought in a letter, “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.” We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. Erasure is a very important aspect of ‘Nostalgia’; why does he want to get rid of the photos? Because by doing so he is attempting to erase part of his history. A parallel can be drawn between this and Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Erased de Kooning Drawing’, a work where Rauschenberg erased a drawing he obtained from American artist Willem de Kooning. In this piece the process of deconstruction becomes the construction. It is then referenced by Tom Friedman and in particular his work ‘11 X 22 X .005’. This piece comes in the form of a white piece of paper in the dimensions that make up the title. It is in fact a Playboy centre fold and has been erased by Friedman. Within Frampton’s film there are references to other artists and works including one to Man Ray’s ‘Indestructible Object’. This work is a metronome with a photograph of an eye affixed with a paperclip to the swinging arm and was first created in 1922-3 and titled Object to be Destroyed (Objet à détruire). It was eventually cited as the ‘Indestructible Object’ due to it being destroyed multiple times and consequently being reproduced. He was displaying the effects of reproduction and how it creates indestructability; there is no original, only reproductions. It is not deconstruction but transformation; it’s the opposite of destruction, it’s dispersion. Through the transfer, ‘something’ is being produced. Thinking about this in relation to our own practice is fascinating, and instigates thoughts of moving further into a narrative based, story telling model or working.
At Spill festival this week we managed to watch Cassils’ performance, ‘Inextinguishable Fire’. A piece that involves dressing the artist, head to toe in protective clothing, and setting them on fire for 14 seconds. Cassils’ performance takes its name from Harun Farocki’s 1969 film of the same name, which suggested that when we shut our eyes to images of violence, we also close our eyes to the facts. By making us bear witness to the live event on stage, Cassils makes us look at the film through new eyes. We understand that what we are watching really is a human being on fire, as the 14 seconds of live action and 14 minutes of film merge together. Of course, what we are also seeing is violence constructed and deconstructed. There was a particular reverberation in having ‘Inextinguishable Fire’ take place on one of the National Theatre’s main stages because this is a stage where every night audiences watch actors pretending to be shot, murdered and mutilated; they fall and die night after night and rise again for the curtain call and are shot and die again tomorrow night. They simply play at being dead. Cassils’ piece plays on the idea of performance and performing violence. It is itself a construct, but one in which there is real and significant peril. You feel the tension; you can see it in Cassils’ body. But nonetheless, this is a performance, and it never tries to hide that: we watch Cassils being prepared for the moment when the first flame will flare, being robed in layer after layer of protective clothing, just as an actor gets into their costume. Also during Spill we attended a think tank titled ‘Demise of the Urban Free’, the main theme of which was, ‘what does liberty look like now?’ It began as being described as a sort of utopia; out of grasp but still worthwhile to peruse. Self interest and communal interest has to interact in order for people to feel as if they have autonomy within their space because there is a difference between being free and being outside of <something>. This brought up the idea of the art institution and what is the institution that can sustain radical art practice? How can an institution disrupt the dominant narrative in public place? The language of ‘radicalized’ and how this has become a negative is something to consider here; being political is now not a good thing. It is associated with terrorism and destruction as opposed to freethinking and progression. Social structures seek to dehumanize us and this is an aspect of culture that needs resistance if we are going to disrupt the imperative of a public space. But the question is what are the barriers to it not being effective? Because it is our generation who feels powerless and they don’t vote or protest or think that their contributions will be of any significance. This applies to political and non-political actions but either way victory comes in many forms and the fact that failure is OK is something we need to learn.
Our documentation workshop began with Walter Benjamin’s suggestion that documents are inferior to art as they only instruct; a document has use, art does not. We were asked what the point in documentation was and one of the thoughts was that it’s for sharing and publicizing ones practice. The issue with this, of course, is that what happens to other elements other than the image of the work. For example, the temporality if it is a time based work or the social impact if it is a project with individuals from the community. Therefore one would need to present work without imagery, but visualizing is about being present and therefore the absence of imagery means a total absence meaning that work (and us) cease to exist. Documentation can be a process of finding out, so providing evidence or proof; recreating an experience of viewing but not necessarily by employing stimuli that reflect the primary occurrence. The book ‘Evidence’, by Larry Sultan/Mike Mandel, is a collection of found and re-contextualized images taken from public and private American institutions, corporations, and agencies. At the time these objects or happenings were not seen as art but taken into a new context perhaps they are. Another point is that the book is called evidence but what is it evidence of? Without any information the images become a catalyst for imagination. When documenting a film one must consider the most important instant; outlined brilliantly in Bas Jan Ader’s famous film ‘Fall’ which by some people only ever seen as an image of the key moment when he is inches from the water. Stanley Brouwn is someone who takes documentation very seriously in the fact that he does not allow any reproduction of his work when it is on show. In the absence of imagery, what remains? Imagination and fabrication allow his work incredibly versatility. At this point we are given a blank piece of paper and told that this is a copy of a Stanley Brouwn and asked to consider whether is it a good or a bad copy. This initiates inquiries into the nature of blankness; is it empty? Everything? Nothing? It has left everything open and admitted everything but is also, at the same time, a refusal. Another artist, Ian Wilson’s work only exists as forms of dialogue and documents of these dialogues; a piece of paper that merely states ‘a conversation happened’. The spoken word has a fragile beauty and is the foundation of myth and, as artists, our work will inevitably travel through myth and he is embracing this idea.
Emily Jacir has an exhibition on at the Whitechapel titled ‘Europa’. A favourite piece from this show was ‘Linz Diary’, Jacir records herself in the Austrian town every evening, on one of the CCTV cameras watching the square. We see her distantly, down by the fountain. Some evenings she’s under a white umbrella. Or curled up like a ball. A little printed remark accompanies a succession of grainy stills. One evening, there’s a little gathering in memory of Edward Said, who had died the week before. On 14 October 2008, she’s “standing perfectly still. Disenchanted. On the left. A boring day in Linz. 1800 hours.” And so it goes. Made before we filled the world with selfies she marks her place in the world with a daily routine as night falls. A frustrating aspect is that she made a work that we have been thinking about for over a year (even thought she did it in 1998). She changes $100 at a bureau de change into francs. At the next change shop, she changes it back. From exchange to exchange, from “no commission” bureau to bureau she repeats the procedure. The money dwindles to a handful of coins. Annoying but still amusing to see it manifested. The exhibition’s studious feel is really a kind of deadpan. Stories and lives, including Jacir’s own, erupt within it.