A discussion on the relationship of art and theory in our work.
The discussion was led by Tom Tlalim who gave a short introduction of the texts, and screened his film 'Being a Border | 5.11.75'.
'Being a Border | 5.11.75' uses a scene from a film by Tlalim's father (Asher Tlalim) titled 'Jerusalem 22.4.75'. In the original work, his father and mother are filmed on set, just days before his birth, futilely trying to reach some form of communication, while his father is the director and his mother acting as a war widow. Tom Tlalim employs digital manipulations on the images and sound in order to undo some of the the signifying content of the family archive. He uses methods such as removing spoken voices and leaving only translation, erasing and cutting up the image, deleting the parents' silhouettes, as well as collapsing and juxtaposing materials from different points in the film, so that they tell the story about the conflict in their relationship, which becomes a model for negotiation of practice and theory.
Reading material were:
- 'Art and Philosophy' (1st chapter in Badiou's Handbook of Inaesthetics)
http://tinyurl.com/dxeehor
- 'A Whited Sepulchre: Autobiographical film/video as practise/research' by Tony Dowmunt
http://eprints.gold.ac.uk/2129/
- 'The 3rd Mind' by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin
http://tinyurl.com/bug2ntu
Guiding questions:
- What is the relationship between practice and theory in your own PhD work?
- Do you write about your art practice, or rather is your practice is driven or motivated by the writing?
- Or, do you separate the theoretical part from the practice component?
- Or how do you see the dialogue between the practise and theory in your PhD. "
* This is a recording of the discussion part only. unfortunately, the introduction file was corrupted.
** The texts can be obtained online, from the authors or from library resources, not attaching for copyright reasons.
*** This session took place on the 9th of November.
**** The next meeting will be on the 7th of December.
Hi everyone.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to resources for the Practice-Based Research and the REF2014 event at Kingston University that I attended a few weeks back
http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/pru/
Jonathan
Hey Jonathan
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, thanks.
Why dont u join the mailing list? I sent an invite to you all
d
Hi, some intro notes on Badiou's text for those who weren't there.
ReplyDeleteBADIOU:
Historically, a "judgement of ostracism" was directed by Plato sanctions against poetry, theatre and music..
Badiou notes that "philosophy and art are paired up like Lacan's Master and Hysteric. … The Hysteric comes to the master and says: "Truth speaks through my mouth. I am here. You have knowledge, tell me who I am." Whatever the knowing subtlety of the master's reply, ... the hysteric will let him know that it's not yet it. That her here escapes the master's grasp. ... In so doing, the hysteric takes charge of the master, "barring" him from mastery, and becoming his mistress"
He introduces three historical schemas of the relationship between art and philosophy, and a fourth one of his own. Apologies for this very quick and narrow summary...
In the didactic schema: "art is incapable of truth ... [but is meerly] the charm of truth. ... the appearance of an unfounded or non-discursive truth ... an imitation of the effect of truth" ... A charm of a semblance of truth". Truth is thus "prescribed from outside" which upholds "a didactics of the senses" it must therefore be judged by "its public effect". "The absolute of art is thus controlled by the public effects of semblance, effects that are in turn regulated by an extrinsic truth" [280-281] (Rousseau as model)
in the romantic schema: "art alone is capable of truth ... what philosophy itself can only point toward ... art is the real body of truth, or what Lacoue-Labrathe and Nancy have named "the literary absolute." ... philosophy might very well be the withddrawn and impenetrable Father -- art is the suffering Son who saves and redeems. [christian ideology] ... art is the absolute as subject - it is incarnation [the sublime?]"
the classical schema: accepts the didactic mimesis - art is incapable of truth. But this incapability is not a problem because art does not claim to be truth in the first place. Instead "art is something entirely other than knowledge. ... this other thing, ... "catharsis," involves the deposition of the passions in a transference onto semblance. ... [therefore] Art has a therapeutic function, and not at all cognitive or revelatory". it "does not pertain to the theoretical, but to the ethical".
Badiou's own fourth schema: truth originates in a truth event, which is an essential disappearance; a “radical multiplicity that eludes the grasp of any independent objectivisation”. Truth then evolves temporally through works, which are finite situated inquiries of that very moment of fleeting truth. All of these works together form an emergent structure. A "truth-procedure", which unfolds through works of both theory and art. Each these is a situated inquiry of the very truth of which it is part. SO a relationship is formed between art and theory, as mediators between truth and time.
There is a beauty to Badiou's model, which I think indicates that the model must be taken with some reservation because theoretical beauty tends to reduce complexity, resulting in an aesthetically judged world which may be too consistent, losing some of the noisiness and particularity of events.
Burroughs 3rd mind:
ReplyDeleteFor exercise, when I make a trip, such as from Tangier to Gibraltar, I will record this in three columns in a notebook I always take with me. One column will contain simply an account of the trip, what happened: I arrived at the air terminal, what was said by the clerks, what I overheard on the plane, what hotel I checked into. The next column presents my memories: that is, what I was thinking of at the time, the memories that were activated by my encounters. And the third column, which I call my reading column, gives quotations from any book that I take with me. I have practically a whole novel alone on my trips to Gibraltar. Besides Graham
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTony Dowmunt's account of his great grandfather's service in Sierra Leone, where the latter has written regular field notes, in which he separates "columns" or "faculties" of his memory. One part of the notes has accurate descriptions of what goes on daily, and another part seems to be reserved for reflection and personal commentary.
DeleteThis division in his writing brings to my mind the three columns method which is described by William Burroughs in an interview which I quoted in the previous comment.
Practicing writing with such a column division as described by Burroughs, might start to reflect the diversity of divisions between different levels abstraction in our thought process, and in our memory. I sense that practice / theory dualisms are not static, but modulating over time, between discursive and non-discursive visions or memories, and vice verse.