out of your head

8/7/2019 Out Of Your Head

1/4

OUT

OFYOURHEADMORAG KEIL

ROXY ART HOUS2 ROXBURGH P

EDINBURG

EH8 9S

WWW.EMBASSYGALLERY.OR


2/4

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

EMBASSY is a non-profit organisation for the promotion ofcontemporary art run by a committee of volunteer directors:

Benjamin Fallon

Shona MacnaughtonFrancesca NobilucciAshleigh Reid

EMBASSY GALLERY LTD is registered in ScotlandCompany Number:259872Charity No. SC035780

EMBASSY is supported by:

ROXY ART HOUSE

2 ROXBURGH PL

EDINBURGH

EH8 9SU

WWW.EMBASSYGALLERY.ORG


3/4

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


4/4

out of your head

Documents