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

We are institutionalized to “know thyself” in which we form our lives chasing after ourselves.  Identity relates to the concept that a body can be segmented and known. Through the ascription of a label, we demarcate and produce the “other” who are unlike ourselves. It is in the individual sense that we compare and contrast, find our functions in society licit or illicit and thus justify our beings.  For my winter quarter project, I want to examine identity, to expose and explore the body strapped down by various categories.  I am not looking to make a succinct statement about identity but to problematize labels through blending techniques.  My challenge is to establish a space, which extensively looks at the concept from various angles.  The product of this inquiry will materialize as the ‘body on tape’.  The notion of a taped body highlights the concept of identity as a boundary of the body, identity taping down the body (holding it in place), and sealing the body as an idea. I plan to mess with (and blend) various forms, particularly through playing with points of view.  By using the style of experimental critical writing, I want to keep with the motif and not be limited by the alphabet, but use ‘sound’ language as well.  Not only through the use of sound will I break the flow of the writing, but also through playing with the space in and outside the distinction between narrative and expository writing.  Jenny and I plan to work closely and interact with each other’s manifestations, as we are both interested in this concept of identity.

        The idea for this project springboards from Scott Turner Schofield’s workshop.  He posited the sex/gender/sexuality inequation and questioned whether our use of labels along with the subsequent reinterpretation and coining of new labels was actually viable.  For the most part, we unconsciously conceive of and strap our bodies down to exemplify these labels, which we either internalize or ascribe to ourselves.  In this case, labels are normative for we cannot conceive of a world outside identity politics.  Moreover, we only have the notion of identity because we engage in and establish a certain form of discourse, which produces the individual commodity.  By exploring via the medium of experimental critical writing, it becomes possible to shift the language of identity politics. 

On Hannah Wilke's "Through the Large Glass"

Performativity, Cyborgs and Metropolis:

Foundation: Prosthesis is an extension or reorganization of the body that expresses and identifies the body.

Es gibt keine Augen und kein Gesicht

(In the tone of a late-night sex commercial)

Performative Performance

Structurally, thought and action are conceived as binary. The resulting simple framework forces sides: one either thinks or one acts. In this context, a sharp distinction exists between theory and performance. The discussion arising out of sharp distinctions classifies bodies into the two categories. On the other hand, Michel Foucault would take the analysis further and express how various networks of power cause the binary to establish and in effect, classify the body; moreover, he would highlight the indistinguishable qualities between the two categories and that thought and action (theory and performance) compliment each other. In a sense, Foucault holds onto dichotomous characters, if only to analyze their power-stratifications. Due to attachment to binaries, dichotomous distinctions are normative - where one cannot imagine life outside of the structure established by the categories. Judith Butler acknowledges the normative function of binaries, particularly in the realm of sex; more importantly, she deconstructs how a body is segmented in the power relations, looking rather at how a body can move and shift the networks of power. Scott Turner Schofield expresses that body. His workshop and performance enacted Judith Butler's analysis. Moreover, Butler's writing, her thoughts, are active and complimentary, just as Schofield's actions are thoughts. In other words, both focus not on dichotomous distinctions, but on how to use, shape and change the power relations of the body.
Networks of power establish an impenetrable field about normative functions, causing one to act and think around the form, never being able to access the function itself. Butler and Schofield grapple with normative aspects of sex, that certain licit and illicit acts are established and that the distinction causes classification and segmentation of individuals. Restated, the resulting figure deriving from the normative technique establishes "zones of social life which are nevertheless densely populated by those who do not enjoy the status of the subject." In this sense, "the subject is constituted through the force of exclusion and abjection, one which produces a constitutive outside to the subject, an abjected outside, which is, after all, "inside" the subject as its own founding repudiation." A subject is one that interacts licitly with gendered norms; on the other hand, the abject at one point held the status of a subject, but through various forms of discourse has been analyzed, known and marked perpetually as illicit, abnormal, and disfigured. The abject no longer is, nor can ever be again figured as a subject. Since normative functions can never be fully deconstructed, the distinction between subject and abject is incongruous. The abject establishes the legitimacy of the subject and sets unknowable boundaries for the subject's status. A subject only attains its status subject by the establishment of the abject. Because the boundaries of the subject are indefinable, the abject are innumerable. Many bodies fill the abject status for the quality of the subject is expressed as ideal and inaccessible. Some, however, are more abject than others. For Scott, the issue exists not in exploring the confines of abjectivity, but in looking at how to interact in a space and shift conceptions of gender and its related terms. Judith, in complement, terms the practice and shifts of normative functions, which establish abject beings, as performativity.

THE BULL

[These and the this been marked]. The equation sex inequals gender inequals sexuality; therefore, sex inequals sexuality. [and BY front had genital breathed functIONing potato]. The master’s tool is inapplicable to a mobius strip. [merely the technicalities, the not disBELIEf, a both human for itS PEAKed projection kneepit vagina skin].

Just how sharp is the double-edged sword? [oF, AT be been, the new a been. An appeared had hair a hAIR that knee pit form silence]. The body is a vessel in which various forms of discourse explore and breathe. [exPLANation had fronds]. Discursive breathing has its categorizing qualities. [up fixedly willing and intermittent to breathing awAY Ether iF AS Thigh that buttock rubber murmured “turn Not”]. The martyr’s perpetual plight: the cost of a life for social transformation [was of at or call couldn’t the liked or was liked to aloud the tongue calm]. A difference exists between process and progress in conceptualizing the body. [leg cry thing gaze rather of this if voluntary target be that front nonintimate]. In the end, it’s the fetish that defines gender. [by to time exPERIENCE flesh upper to a vision the out insured was pART. IT’S God as of to knees belt fiddled].

(I removed all pronouns and proper nows, then on a cycle of 3, 7, 9. Circled words and then reversed the order, playing with punctuation and inserting program notes -funny how it fell together)

Dated October 387, S:

I am a fully clothed and labeled iea, seeking a fellow inquiring into the depth of words. I'm interested in exploring texts' underlying meanings. The general space I plan to explore plays with writing in between the lines. Michel Foucault and Judith Butler highly interest me, and I want to model my discursive practice after their technique. I look to blur distinctions between fiction and critical writing.  If this seems within your region, or that working together would be a riot, then we should talk.