out of your head
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8/7/2019 Out Of Your Head
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OUT
OFYOURHEADMORAG KEIL
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Language and dress are, at any moment in history, complete
structures, constituted organically by a functional network of
norms and forms; and transformation or displacement of any on
element can modify the whole, producing a new structure: so,
inevitably, we are talking about a collection of balances in
movement, of institutions in flux.
Roland Barthes, The Language of Fashion
03.04.10 - 02.05.10THURS - SUN
1200 - 1800
OPENING: 02.04.10
1900 - 2100
Titles.
But where were we?
Exterior.
What were we doing?
Establishing shot.
It was raining when we pulled into that petrol station as far as I
remember. But nothing was established, media, mediation,
leather gloves. Interior. Books.
Yeah, so we were in the car, it was raining.
Oh, but I was talking about Pierre Macherey, like how he was
saying the image that corresponded perfectly with the original
would no longer be an image; it remains an image by virtue of i
difference from that which it resembles. So I wonder then, if I
should commence by confessing that I am a composite
character or that any resemblance to persons living or dead is
purely coincidental. You had a generous personality, I loved it
and asked you if I could try it on.
Don't you think I understand? The hopeless dream of being. No
seeming, but being. In every waking moment aware, alert. The
tug of war, what you are with others and who you really are. A
feeling of vertigo and a constant hunger to be finally exposed.
To be seen through, cut down, even obliterated.
Two characters.
Two characters. Interior. Medium shot. Immediate, perfect
tense, perfect tension. I should have explained that much of thi
picture has been drawn from memory. Theres a game, Kims
Game, you might have known it from Kipling. Firstly, I needed
you to empty your bag onto the table.
Birkin, Kelly. Two characters, the latter was merely a retroactive
capitalisation upon a self-evident and unpremeditated piece of
celebrity endorsement. The former, though, was a much more
cynical attempt to insinuate a seemingly spontaneous logic into
the hitherto ideologically reluctant acceptance of an inevitable
sociological shift towards affluence, among a superficially
emancipated cultural demograph. I like them both, and we
shouldnt underestimate the value of liking things. Most art has
nothing much to say if you don t actually like it in the first place
Every tone of voice a lie.
Every gesture false.
Every smile a grimace.
So then you emptied the bag onto the table. The past is a
paradise from which we are necessarily excluded, declared
Mary Warnock, and Im trying to recall its contents. This is Kim
Game, attempting to recollect, endeavouring to enter your bag
aspiring to infiltrate your head. We could concur with Mary that
in recalling something, we are employing imagination.
So the articles in your bag would represent you, in the way that
metaphors go beyond misleadingly literal words and sentences
beyond language to an unconscious understanding, beyond th
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subject towards pure predication.
Close up. A cup of coffee.
It's bad luck to compare hands.
I was trying on each metaphor at a time, the personification of
Paul Ricoeur, where turning an animate, non-sentient, abstract
entity into a living and feeling being, into a person, reminds us of
the metaphorical transfer from the inanimate to the animate.
Exterior. A cliff top, two horses move synchronously. Grass
wearily perseveres in yellowing tufts, besieged by the elements
and clinging to the unsympathetic terrain wherever it can. The
possibility of the sea is an indistinct dream in the distance.
What does it mean to persuade?
People tell me that I'm a good listener. Isn't that strange?
So did I want the truth? I can t handle the truth. The fact was
fiction was as far as we could go. In childrens literature,
empathy with animals is common, the acceptance of metaphor
initiates an implicit understanding of the authors position.
Intimate objects intuit a true picture of the real Grace Kelly or
Jane Birkin. Where there is no self, no subject, only predication.
Circumstantially I am alone, washing my hair, making coffee. But
if I smell this coffee and involuntarily Im in another place at a
distant time, is this purely an intellectual process? Or is it
physical, like emotional intelligence, thinking with the heart. An
earring, reflective, a listener, reflexive.
Two bluebirds. We took a coffee break on our way to our
central metaphor. The white cliffs of Dover, our journey was in
progress, would we be united? Perhaps I wouldnt know you,
perhaps we wouldnt recognise Suzanne Keen. Empathy with
situations tends to zero in on episodes, circumstances, or states
of relationship at points of irresolution. That is, empathy with plot
situation gravitates towards middles of plots, when problems
and enigmas have not yet been solved or brought to closure.
Dover, after the beginning and before the end, a romantic
symbol of past optimism, a memory of what could still be.
And what happens to everything that you make up your mind to
do? Is it necessary to do it all? Is it possible to be one and the
same person at the same time? I mean, two people?
Kims Game. I have been trying to remember each item, one by
one, each with a specific presence, each with a specific
resonance. The System of Objects. The tense of the
mythological object is the perfect, it is that which occurs in the
present as having occurred in a former time, hence that which is
founded upon itself, that which is 'authentic.' Antiques. Craft.
We are fascinated by what has been created, and is therefore
unique, because the moment of creation cannot be reproduced.
What Baudrillard has been telling me is that it's not enough to
remember the objects from your bag, the bracelet from your
wrist. To become you, to feel authentic empathy or absolute
metaphor, persuasion must come from the work of fiction. I
must make these objects myself. I must craft them by hand.
Two horses in sync. Two cups of coffee. One kitchen. A supermarket
shopping trolley serves as a clothes dryer.
9.15-10am.
When I came home and looked in the mirror, I thought, but we look
alike. Don't misunderstand me. You're more beautiful. But somehow, I
think I could change myself into you if I tried.
But then, it wasnt us who were going to France, so I wonder just who I
expected to end up as.
If I remember an incident from a long time ago and I smile, am I being
optimistic?
Insert shots. Interiors. Actually, I was trying to become everyone, to go
everywhere at once. I was alone, watching the television screen,
reading a magazine. Baudrillard said that travel is a necessity and
speed is a pleasure. Possession of a car implies more: the driving
licence is a sort of a passport. I cant drive, but Im a good passenger,
Im a good listener. The places youve been, the friends youve made.
Ive been there, I know those people. Your handbag, your baggage, the
stories youve told. I made it myself, Ive made it my own, these are my
stories.
Did you speak to me last night?
Were you in my room?
Credits.
J. A. Harrington, London, 2010.
Plagiography:
Ingmar Bergman Persona
Paul Ricoeur The Rule of Metaphor
Pierre Macherey A Theory of Literary Production
David Lodge Language of Fiction
Jean Baudrillard The System of Objects
Suzanne Keen Empathy and the Novel
Mary Warnock Memory
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