Most interesting for me, is this notion of language as a form of representation, unequipped in many forms to give a voice (or an image) to loss (death). I have been writing on desire, and that loss is a space which is not based in desire, which makes it an interesting starting point for looking at the limits of representation.
If representation is based in desire, and loss is not, how and under what circumstances do the two intersect, if at all? Here is a small section that I wrote last night in another attempt to write down my thesis topic. :) This is one of many, but the one most appropriate for the question of language:
This thesis is an investigation into the experience of artwork, and how certain modes of making work become an expansive experience, despite the limits of representation. The reason I have chosen to investigate this notion through loss, is because loss is that which is not based in desire: it is not a construct, but a reversal of construct. A diminishing of preconceived notions, a lack within an otherwise constructed self. If this is correct, then loss will be the process of undoing rather than doing, a space we can start over, where our positives are put into question in the face of the negative.
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2 comments:
hmmm.... can it not be a construct and a reversal of construct at the same time? That of necessary, sometimes desperate, confrontation?
"a lack of preconceived notions": possibly the fight against the acceptance of that lack, and so the battle between the lack of the security (reality?) of many preconceived notions.. what one wants to see and what it really is?
and then "a space we can start over, where our positives are turned into question in the face of the negative"... negative or the unfamiliar, the untested, the uncommon and the uncomfortable?
semantics, yes. but a vital debate for a intra-personal redesign.
Thanks dan,
The experience of loss, though it might be based outside of systems od desire, is not safe there for long. It is an interesting thought to consider how quickly we 'rebuild' constructs in the face of their destruction.
In the case of lack, or nostalgia, whereby we place objects 'of the past' as stand-ins for an inadequate present- the loss of these is the loss of this role, this dependency. When we lose these, we lose the physical representation of "what one wants to see".
let's think of Rachel Whiteread in relationship to the negative, unfamiliar, untested, uncommon, and uncomfortable. She casts the space that we occupy and take for granted, and in doing so, flips our perception of ourselves in space. In order to cognitively understand or comprehend her work, we must imagine ourselves as negative creatures movig through positive space.
This disorientation is key for all of this- in the sense that we are 'thrust' into a space which is not designed in our image of 'what we want to see'; it is the excess, the left-over 'waste' created by our desirous contructs.
indeed, perhaps, if I uderstood you correctly, this could be termed an 'intrapersonal redesign'.
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