Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

I found the first short, Vertical Roll, to be the most intruiging of all the shorts we viewed.  It was painful to watch and I did have to close my eyes here and there to stop from feeling too dizzy. But this was a really interesting and effective technique.  It was almost as if the viewer had to embody the shock, disjointedness and tortuous repetition that the artist did in her own experience.  It reminded me of Artaud's Theater of Cruelty.  

The bodies of the workers are an extension of the world they inhabit and the machines they work with.  In some sense the relationship between worker and machine could be considered symbiotic, as they both depend on each other's existence to continue functioning.  However each member in the relationship is completely disposable and replaceable.  It is hard to tell which party in the relationship is in control.  

i was told that i was not holding it correctly. that eventually, i would develop arthritis in my joints, the knuckles would freeze up and i would not be able to grasp efficiently.  do i remember the first time i held a pen or pencil or crayon in my hand? no. but i do remember being enamored with the fact that it was possible to manifest thoughts, images, ideas with the help of a prosthetic: the writing or drawing utensil.  

an observer in the background swells over the eras. she is hit low by invention. she is hit low by the dreams of machines. all of the gears churn to produce light, the faint whirring sound echos off the walls of her bleached forehead.  there are no smells here, nor fatigue.  all is bathed in the tiny patterns and formations, the variance of organism's shedding or wheel's kissing the dirt and leaving uncured pock marks bears the same weight.  

          Emily RitchieOctober 28^th, 2007Fashioning the BodyConcept Rhyming Paper #2 Mug-Shots and Mauss            We are creatures of habit.  From the ways we learn to tie our shoes to the ways we approach the world, our movements, mannerisms and ideas are conditioned and solidified through processes of routine.  We are also consistently over-stimulated.  Because of this our brains are forced to minimize and simplify what sensory data is translated into what we perceive.  The more straight-forward and accessible the data that we interact with is, the easier time we have processing and remembering it.  Therefore, it is not surprising that the routines we adopt arise from the sensory input we can most easily manage.  Mauss calls “technique an action which is effective and traditional”(p.75).   The creation and utilization of mug shots is a manifestation of how humans depend on straight-forward categorization.  They are a technique of classification that have been made into a routine procedure through the appeal to over-simplified material.  Mug-shots have become a tradition. The creation and practice of this tradition is biologically constructed.  While being able to process sensory data smoothly is to our species advantage, it may not be as advantageous as we think it is to categorize.  The key to being able to reverse possibly damaging traditions, like that of the mug-shot, is by understanding how categorization is not always beneficial to our survival.              The tradition of mug shots is biologically constructed because their format is a product of our need to order and simplify to make sense of what we experience.  The positioning of a face on a mug shot is easily processed: frontal and profile view.  There is no distracting addition to scenery or clothing: all emphasis is placed on recognition of the facial features.  The composition is based on utility.  This technique is effective in the sense that it hones the viewer’s perception to very specific characteristics.  Whenever these mug-shots are used for identification there is nothing to get thrown off by.  However, in making these photos so over-simplified they also become removed.  They become lifeless, static, a relic testifying to a human who used to embody this uniformed number.  So in that sense the photos become disassociating and unbelievable.  There is a fine line between making sensory data manageable and over-simplifying it to the point at which the viewer no longer has to interact with it.  This is where categorization becomes dangerous: when critical thought is no longer required at all because the object is so glossed over or removed, we lose our ability to process any of the data in a meaningful way at all.  This is what a lot of techniques originally implemented to supplement our survival turn into: means in which we actually lose our ability to remain self-sufficient and aware.  Take Number 968 for example: there are no signifiers lending to the context of this situation.  Simply because of the format, the viewer is led to categorize the subject of the photograph as some kind of criminal.  There is no history or details available, except for his height, and because of this the photograph becomes dead in a sense.  There is nothing to understand in this photograph, only something to observe.  There is nothing you can change in this photograph, only something to endure.  It is a passive experience.  Yet regardless of its inactivity, the mug-shot continues.  As Mauss states, “This above all is what distinguishes man from the animals: the transmission of his techniques”(p.75).              Another to continue the tradition of the mug-shot, even if in a different context, was Andy Warhol.  Commissioned to create a piece for the 1964 World’s Fair, Warhol fashioned an extremely large silkscreen titled ‘Thirteen Most Wanted Men’.It is interesting to see that out of such passive material Warhol was able to create a piece that has at-least somewhat more active qualities about it.  The way he has positioned the figures has them confronting one another and interacting on some imagined level.  However, the piece still seems very rigid and dictated by its past.  “The child imitates actions of adults, which have succeeded and which he has seen successfully performed by people in whom he has confidence and who have authority over him.  The action is imposed from without, from above, even if it is an exclusively biological action, involving his body.

    

that small but most finished piece of mechanism

turns the hay to rust.

whether the rooster knows of his own futility

is unknown in the calls and sparks of the morning.

once a graceful instrument,

the decrepit heaving loom now only weaves

to the will of its master.

in harvest or harmony, hell or here else

all falls to the rage of man.

 

but raw skin pushed always sits the same way.

according to all the laws of taste

what we have digested is becoming repetitive.

according to all the laws of taste

it is hollow to sit in the sills of windows.

according to all the laws of taste

there was a lull today in the churning of rubber as a young girl remembers a truck that has dissapeared from her realm of experience.  dissapeared from their driveway long ago, whether or not it still hums along some back road by the coast is a pleasant but irrelevant thought as it is dead to her and with it took many a moment.

its two doors saw the insides of infants spindlings. it raced to the sand and conquered fields of tulips and lilac hair. at one point the truck was said to have held all of the wishes small walrusses mull over in their tusks, all the whimsy present in scattered kites and ocean glory.  it bounced over cobbles, diced over the leaves, sat jauntily resting in the rays by the bright house, its bed filled with crisp fall sticks or christmas trees.

it left behind a family that wanted to hold onto all of the memories squished in between the cracks of the seats, that played out on the windshield with joy; traversing over and over again in their heads of what chipped the paint that one time over the right wheel, or the blood from the scraped knee on the floor. it took away the reality of those memories, leaving their visions of past entropy to reside even more far off to the left side of the netherworld, fog nebuli and evening globe lights interchanging in the backs of skulls.  the mother reached to touch the side of a time held in blue paint when things were simple enough that contentment could be equated with a truck.

categorization is inevitable. the line between necessity and obsession is a fine one.

her arms like to feel productive.  the boxes are a relief, an outlet to perform well without effort.

 blank.                                 slate.                                  fill.

the tendons hear their own purpose in the lines designated by others. its easy to demarcate. and terrifying to let the etchings become scribbles. if you were to look at your world and the walls had become blips of seafoam and dotted gesture who would hold your hand then?

i cannot formulate whether the confined spaces bother me anymore or not. hyper-empty, protocalled dreams, all of the ticks and tocks chipped off the block and when the ice is thicker than your identity it is unknowable if it will fall away.

there is a face. his eyes are closed. his lips are thin, the ears a bit a-symmetrical.

rivets of hair, conundrum of a father, half tones bark, spin. it goes.

swagger between total order and total chaos. we're left looking at the spare skin pieces as testimony to our compulsions. the thin pieces of paper. the thin pieces of paper. if you could hold your life in your hands would you ever again condemn yourself to the back arches that led to a place which could never be seen.

even experimentation is contrived. the excercises fall in with the rest. motions gone through to break whatever will you thought you had left.

that one time.                that same time again.

check the vitals. underscore the initials. sign your duty. gaze at all the remnants that signified your ordering.

Emily Ritchie

October 18, 2007

Presentation

 

            The Washington State Capitol was completed in 1928. Existing as six main buildings, it was designed to appear as one building from the harbor, as people arriving by ship or train, (the most prevalent form of transportation at the time) would see it dominating the landscape from below. Much of the décor and layout is designed according to the hierarchy that operates inside of it.  For example, the House of Representatives is trimmed with gold while the Senate is trimmed with the more expensive material platinum. Apparently the Senate was very upset that the House of Representatives was installed with desks made of walnut which were higher in value than their own desks made of mahogany.  Even the dome of the building was subjected to representing its proper place in the hierarchy. The architects were ordered by Washington to construct a smaller dome than had been planned because the structure of a state capitol could not be taller than the main capitol building in DC.

            A lot of what the tour guide focused on was the opulence present in the space. She gushed about all of the different kinds of marble, the lights which held 5,000 bulb fixtures, the chandeliers that had 10,000 crystals, the expensive carpet. The entire space was extremely lavish, ornate and formal.  People in our tour group kept remarking, “It’s just so beautiful. It’s just so beautiful.” Their tone was one of awe and shame, similar to a kid in one of those living rooms off limits to anyone but adults where you can’t touch anything. 

the walls were white and bare. the small space hyperorganized. two chairs were squeezed against the wall seeming to be placed more out of obligation to courtesy rather than functionality. the seats were empty and the line of people careened down the hallway shifting awkwardly under the signs stating "DO NOT BLOCK DOORWAY" and "DO NOT BLOCK HALLWAY".

it was the same kind of institutional space you've seen continually for years. bland. mechanic. pragmatic. the high desk, stacks of paper, routine dialogue played out over and over again for maximum efficiency. question. process. file out.