What happens when things that are created to serve a purpose are no longer able to serve the purpose of their original intention? What about when things are discarded, and begin to become obsolete, stagnation and decay set in? There are times when all we are left with is the trace of something that once was, a husk that reminds us of what could have been. As people trying to come to terms with some of these concepts, we often struggle with the memories we have, and try to find a way to preserve them. It is only human nature to do so.
In the critical theory reading, many different topics were discussed, more than could possibly be discussed in a single short research paper. Some of the many themes that can be pulled from many of the readings have to do with death, loss and mourning. The ways in which we, as humans, both interact with and try to adapt to these ever present themes reoccurs throughout the readings, as does how these topics so close to human nature factor into art making and the creation of images.
From Pliny, the story of what was supposed to have been the first attempt of a person to freeze a moment and memory in time, we learn of a girl who wanted to keep the memory of her lover close, even though he would no longer be. She goes to great lengths to trace his shadow, and then her father Butades models a portrait in clay from the shadow traced by the daughter. In a way, it is a sort of pre-mourning ritual, preparing something that will serve as a visual reminder of what will no longer exist, or a time that will pass. In this story of the origin of drawing, the drawing is merely the trace of the shadow, and the trace of the person. The implication is that drawing could only have emerged through the sacrifice, loss or absence of her loved one (Fisher, 219).
The daughter was never trying to capture the physical likeness of her lover, but rather the memory of him. Focusing only on the shadow, and never on the actual person, the mark made by the girl becomes in and of itself the memory of the moment in which it was created (Newman, 93-97). The cast shadow of the lover was the indexical sign of her lovers’ presence in that specific place at that particular time, and her attempt to physically link the index to its referent by tracing his shadow on the wall as an attempt to preserve her lover’s memory speaks to the innate desire in people for something that will outlive our physical bodies and corporeal existences (Krauss, 198).[1]
As a mark becomes a line, a line becomes a form and a form becomes something to which we assign meaning. It is, however, “…impossible to observe, or to catch hold of, the precise moment, or experience, of the flip-over from the pre-sign…to signification, image and meaning” (Newman, 100). The very basic act of making marks that become an image with meaning, and something more than just a physical representation, begins to take place, can serve as a reminder for all of the things that we, as humans, cannot control. The creation and filling of the space of the paper also has to do with being and non-being, and is related to absence as well.[2]
The inevitability of death is something beyond our control, but in the face of this truth humans have nonetheless tried to find ways of outsmarting the inevitability of death. As in Pliny we see something intangible, a shadow, converted to a corporeal presence, a tracing, meant to endure in the absence of its inspiration, we can also see the physical being of people being reproduced as a means to preserve their everlasting form. In ancient Egypt, for example, the common practice of mummification and effigies of the dead were specifically created as a means of cheating death, and ensuring eternal life.
Mummification and the creation of statues of the deceased were meant to provide “…a defense against the passage of time” to satisfy the “basic psychological need in man, for death is but a victory of time. To preserve, artificially, his bodily appearance is to snatch it from the flow of time, to stow it away neatly, so to speak, in the hold of his life” (Bazin, 9). This way of cheating death through artistic recreations of a deceased person was also a way of coping with it, and facing it, in a way.
That need has persisted in us as artists and people, but has surely evolved over time. Our view and attitudes toward art, and life in general, have become more pragmatic, and less rooted in mysticism and magic. As art and civilization have evolved side by side, the plastic arts have lost much of the magical role they once had. “No one any longer believes in the ontological identity of model and image, but are all agreed that the images helps us to remember a subject, and to preserve him from a second spiritual death”(Bazin, 10).
These themes, however, exist beyond the realm of just literal death, and extended into other categories such as loss, degradation and obsolescence. Some times it is not actually death, or even real loss, but rather the perceived loss of something that can cause turmoil within us. This progress and change has been explored in the work of many artists and photographers, and has a lot to do with death and mourning, though not specifically about it per say.
In Freud’s essay, Mourning and Melancholia, he discusses not just loss and mourning, but what happens when it is never brought under control. If left unchecked, he asserts that it can consume and control a person, until they can ultimately overcome that instinct which compels “every living thing to cling to life”, and wander into suicidal territory (Freud, 246).
His point behind this is that the loss need not even be real, but that this situation may arise from the “perceived loss” of something in a person’s life.
…One feels justified in maintaining the belief that a loss…has occurred, but one cannot see clearly what it is that has been lost, and it is all the more reasonable to suppose that the patient cannot consciously perceive what he has lost either…he knows whom he has lost but not what he has lost in him (Freud, 245)
This hits on a main point of the themes from the reading, the fact that the external stimuli that cause us to respond internally are processed and then once again externalized in the form of visual expression, but take on new and varied meanings once re-presented in the form of visual art. It doesn’t matter what inspired the initial feelings of loss, or if they are even rooted in actual experience, but rather how that loss is anticipated, perceived and processed through our thoughts, memories and actions.
Whenever people see death or loss, degradation and decay, it elicits a response from deep within them. We, as people, seem to have a substantial reaction to things falling apart, and in there own way, passing on. Sometimes we find beauty in it, other times we find it sad, but always we are curious; fascinated by what was once there, and just how that has changed and/or is still changing. Emmanuel Levinas touches upon themes linked to this in his article, “The Trace of the Other”.
When he discusses “the other”, Levinas is referring to they way in which we view ourselves compared to the places, things and people around us, both literally and figuratively. Often times, we view (or at least want to view) the degradation or death that we see as the other. We want to separate ourselves from what we see, and add levels of mediation to keep “that world” separate from “our world”. The reason for this is often the inability to accept that which we recognize; namely the potential for that degradation in our own selves. Everything ends, and the inescapable truth is that everyone must die, but this can be hard to accept.[3]
Obvious truths aside, there are obviously elements in my work this semester that have to do with degradation and decay. There is also a sense of loss, and a grappling with the way things change over the course of time. This change is not always a positive thing, and often leads to more destruction and ruin. The places being documented this semester are not always what they initially appear, and there is a distinct grappling with many of the themes from the reading this past semester.
[1] The act of drawing seems specifically important to these concepts, because of its links to creation as well as destruction. As Michael Newman points out, drawing has a status of becoming, and it creates a consistency of sense, from one to the next.
[2] In a sense, the filling of the paper, thusly eliminating the absence that was the page, is a sort of death. What was once blank is now filled, and that emptiness is gone. What was once a blank sheet has been assigned new meaning.
[3] To categorize degradation and loss as the other is to give oneself the fleeting freedom to believe that it may not happen to us. Just as Butade’s daughter did with her lover, we try to capture and espouse the concepts of loss and mourning, to try and preserve them in a way that negates their potency. It is a way to try and overcome the inevitable, but it is also a way to embrace, and ultimately try and come to terms with, our own inevitable failure. We each only have so much road to walk, and eventually get to the end of the line.
No comments:
Post a Comment