[...]this is crucial in art and specifically in performance art for encountering something such as face, face of the performer or the face of the work. the face is perceived as something that resists possession or utilization. the face promotes a discourse when it invites me. (ranting against sober means of communication). the face to face situation founds language.
presence of the face coming from beyond the world , but committing me to human fraternity (Gemeinschaft) does not overwhelm me as a numinous essence arousing fear and trembling. to be in relationship while absolving oneself from this relation is ‘to speak’. the face always speaks directly and absolutely to me.
many late 20th century horror films feature a masked villain. the act of masking the face is not only metaphorical, but also has the terrifying effect of dehumanizing the villain. in herbert kelman's work on dehumanization, when the perception of a person “as an individual, independent and distinguishable from others, capable of making choices is denied, they no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses. the facelessness of the alien, swarms of ants, or other villains of pop culture.
for face look at facade too.
--> ‘provocation’ in performance. (read Haraway, Levinas)
--> ‘act’ in performance. (read grotowski)
what is to be: ‘completely natural and logical’. dealing with the discomfort of unreasonable presence on the stage. nonrepresentational aspects of performance
--> ‘teaching’ that is not rhetorics where the revelation of the other can take place (Avital, Levinas). teaching is synthesizing for someone else. what kind of communication is teaching involved?
the discourse inherent in the relation with the other is like or as a sermon.
--> ‘eyes’ threatening or seducing eyes of the performer (Rainer)
--> ‘ranting’ of the drunk in the face of the sober. disturbance of a continuity with attack with words.
--> ‘saying’, before it conjugates a verbal sign, is already an ethical gesture. saying is therefore already the proximity of one to the other, the commitment of an approach, the one for the other.
one saying enters into the service of the said, that is the thematization of being, purity of its intentions will be inevitably compromised. a saying that must be unsaid. a movement of thought that continues to resist collapsing into a settled expression, freedom from the cage of thematics. this mission (responsibility for the other) can be adequately expressed only through a certain impossible undoing of language. presenting a philosophical other is only possible when we generate a saying saying saying itself.
my performance talk: to situate my subjectivity linguistically (in a nonpresence and a nonplace). (?) (if the stakes are at situating myself, then the question is why?)
saying becomes totally exposed in its approach to the other. in limited social situations it creates risks of embarrassment or rebuttal and perhaps sounding psychotic. something that will strip away all protective layers, whether cultural or literal, from the body (of knowledge). it can also be masochistically painful for the subject. the absolute saying is a trauma, with vulnerability and passivity even is a bodily way, where the ethical being is: one penetrated by the other. (saying is ethical while said is juridical.)
--> ‘psychology’ not only what we do but why we do. the science that should be studied so much in art, specially in performance art. the how of human behavior, feelings and emotions.
the psychological space, the intermediary space of the ethical relation, shyness and commitment to the other. “i am infinitely more demanding of myself than of others”. (is this the realm of shyness being before god?)
--> ‘intelligence’ in the sense that what do i pay attention to and why, and what do i ignore and why, and how do i put it together. (synthesizing)
--> ‘cornered’ someone that is cornered ontologically. can not shy out of the corner.
--> ‘present’ of presence signifies nowness. The movement of time makes things present by making them now. What is the relation of this “making present” to the world? Is the movement of time ultimately to be traced to that of the world? On such a view, we take the successive nows that constitute time’s movement as a function of the world. Their origin is the successive impressions we receive from its objects. We, thus, come to affirm that nowness is the world’s presence to us in the impressions it leaves. Augustine gives the classic expression of this position when he writes: “It is in you, O my mind, that I measure time. ... What I measure is the impress produced in you by the things as they pass and [the impressions] abiding in you when they have passed."2 The impress is registered as the present now. We register the abiding impression left in the mind as the remembered now. If, however, we break the tie between presence and the world, we have to say that the impress is the result of our own activity. The impression that results in the now comes, in other words, not from the world, but from ourselves. It is a result of our affecting ourselves. In Derrida’s words, its origin is “the auto-affection” of consciousness.
--> ‘consciousness’ Since it involves the self-awareness that demands self-presence, the question of language expands once again. In answering it, we must inquire into the nature of consciousness.
--> ‘veil’ unveiled. a sign of difference, a kind of timidity? is shyness same as veil? is it a sheer projection? are we (am i) subdued?
--> ‘exhibitionist ambitions’ and idealized structures. the exhibitionist ambitions of these artists forswear all objective orientation. Their own uniqueness and grandiosity is taken for granted. it is not open to debate and need not be founded in a structured manner that is accessible and comprehensible to one's powers of appraisal and judgment. the representatives of postmodernism adopt the stylistic forms, themes and visual material of their art from the boundless treasure trove of art history so readily accessible today. dependence on what has already been formulated. the underlying tone of this art serves to flaunt an unparalleled sense of superiority and grandiose self-confidence. seen in many performance in this time too. (in my painting i have a rational point of view.) i don't want to orient myself towards ambitions, injected by libidinal energy, of my grandiose self-artist. of those, whose prime concern is to show their uniqueness find themselves faced with the question: “what is to be done?”. I too, choose to refuse to pander to the demands of innovation, style and integrity, but at the same time not to work myself up to grandiose self-image of artistic omnipotence.
look at the theory of intelligence for language and other kind of ‘enjoying’ the nature, art or other structures.
how is the philosophy of the sublime (quality of greatness) related to the format of my talks? if my work is not an endeavor on the philosophy of the sublime then what is it?
in this writing i am not going to work in the forms of claims as stages in a logical argument. my approach would we unsubstantial to break free from the process of offering philosophical evidence...
mobilizing forces
scoring system
opposition to shamanism in performance art, points in The Art of Modernism - Sandro Bocola, for critique on Beuys and Abramovich.
Faced with objects and performances by Joseph Beuys, viewers are as baffled as they are by Marcel Duchamp's Bottle Rack. They do not know what is going on, are unable to relate what they see to any known system and are left entirely to their own devices, i.e. to their own emotional responses, for all the good that does them. They feel affected, and have a vague and almost unwilling sense of being touched at a certain emotional depth, but are unable to interpret these feelings (isn't that the case with most art performances?). Beuys celebrates complex and incomprehensible rituals before an astonished audience. He subjects his person to difficult tasks and appears to be making some kind of sacrifice in doing so. Beuys, after all, wishes to heal. To judge by his statements, he wishes to redeem the German people and indeed all of humankind from their social evils, their petrifaction and impotence. In this sense, he transcends the role of the artist. He sees his audience not, in the traditional sense, as a free counterpart to whom he presents a work (as form and expression of his own self), but as a material to be formed. He appears as the people's tribune, as teacher, seer, healer and prophet, transforming the role of the artist [...]