2013 - Visual and Critical Studies

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canon is the resultant collective
intentionality of the spring 2013 seminar
research & production, convened at the
school of the art institute of chicago.
this issue of canon is generously
funded by saic’s department
of visual and critical studies.
for more information, follow us @
visualandcritical.org &
visualandcritical.tumblr.com
special thanks to: f newsmagazine staff,
joshua demaree, danny floyd,
joseph grigely, terri kapsalis,
quinn keaveney, and teena mcclelland
“the look”—olivia benson and the case of exemplary displays of emotion
michelle weidman
My favorite stories have always been detective stories. I have read every
Nancy Drew book ever written, sometimes more than one a day, while
growing up—even the newer additions to the series, which were more
about Nancy’s crushes and Bess’s never-ending weight issues than any
kind of crime and intrigue.
My first job was at a litigation support firm, which was a cover for
a private detective agency—getting to hear scraps of my boss’s cases,
and catching glimpses of his spy cameras and revolver, sustained
eight months of otherwise mind-numbing work. Many times I have
questioned my decision as a 16-year-old to go away to college, rather
than taking the firm up on their offer to train me beyond my duties
transcribing litigation hearings—I could have had my own revolver.
As I got older, it was an easy transition to the ranks of mystery-andcrime television enthusiasm, in lieu of solving my own mysteries; I
reveled in bad acting, predictable plots, and lots and lots of horrific,
violent crime. All of this is to say that I approach the topic of crime
television first most as a viewer who is invested in and appreciative
of the entertainment value of shows like Law and Order.
However, as you probably know, these shows rely on much more
than inventive, intelligently written scripts and unexpected turns of
plot. In fact, some of them don’t rely on these characteristics at all. In
Ernst Bloch’s “A Philosophical View of the Detective Novel,” he posits
that, “[Suspense] is characteristic of the genre. [Yet,] though built on
blood and bodies, no good detective story achieves its fame with such
attractions. They are merely the pretense for a purely intellectual exercise.”1 This may have been true of the novels Bloch was writing about,
but you could argue the opposite (maybe without Bloch’s particular
definition of goodness in mind) is true about most contemporary
crime television. Blood, violence, sometimes even suspense, seem to
be what drives much of the appeal of the programming.
There is one particular recurring shot in Law and Order: SVU that
made me start to think about these issues in terms of displays of affect
and emotion. In nearly every episode, Detective Olivia Benson (played
by Mariska Hargitay) makes a face during the episode’s climax at the
moment when the extent of a particular crime’s horrors are fully
grasped that combines disgust, fear, and shock.
For example, in the episode “Lessons Learned,” Detective Benson
and her partner Detective Amaro (played by Danny Pino) are sitting
in on a meeting of men who had all attended a prestigious, private
high-school. The meeting was for former students who had suffered
sexual abuse at the hands of a teacher who had been found dead at
the beginning of the episode. When Detective Amaro leaves to take
a phone call, Detective Benson is left in the company of the men,
who then reveal that it was not one teacher, but multiple teachers,
who abused dozens of the students. Much of the scene focuses on
Detective Benson’s response to this horrific discovery, which is itself
appropriately horrified.
I want to take a moment to describe the expression to which I refer.
In most instances, Detective Benson looks off into the distance; her
head and shoulders fill the frame of the extended shot; her face is
captured in sharp focus, while everything else blurs and recedes into
the background. Her forehead is furrowed, and her eyebrows are
pushed together (although sometimes they are raised, depending on
the amount of surprise that accompanies her disgust and contempt).
While her scowl forms, her mouth opens lopsidedly, exposing her topand bottom-teeth slightly, almost in the form of a sneer. The object
of her feelings remains off-screen, which reinforces the primary
importance of her own response to the shot.
1.
Ernst Bloch, “The Philosophical View of the Detective Novel,”
Discourse 2 (Summer 1980): 37.
2.
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank, Shame and Its Sisters:
A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Durham: Duke UP, 1995: 74.
3.
Ibid., 107–08.
4.
Ibid., 108.
5.
Jeanne Deslandes, “A Philosophy of Emoting,”
Journal of Narrative Theory 34.3 (Fall 2004): 335–72.
6.
Ibid., 370.
The emotions vary slightly, but not much, in regard to what is
occurring within the plot of the show. Whatever the combination
of emotions, what is always shown is an expression that is either
supposed to elicit an additional emotional response from viewers, or
stand-in for the absence of any such feelings. We are either supposed
to be feeling with her, or her expression is a cipher for feelings we
are unable to feel toward the characters ourselves. I think that this
is not only a plot device, which usually occurs immediately before
the episode’s resolution, but also an exemplary case of emotion itself.
In “What are Affects?,” theorist Silvan Tomkins names eight different affects and their corresponding facial expressions.2 Usually in
the types of scenes described above, Detective Benson first displays
the surprise-startle response, characterized by raised eyebrows and
blinking eyes. Tomkins notes this as a neutral affect that serves the
function of a “circuit breaker.” It creates an increase in attention
that allows for new—in this case, more horrific—information to be
immediately enfolded.3
Following this, Benson displays a series of negative affects, including distress-anguish (characterized by arched eyebrows and a mouthdown expression, among other things), and contempt-disgust (sneer,
upper lip-up).
Contempt, according to Tomkins, “is a response in which there is
least self-consciousness, with the most intense consciousness of the
object, which is experienced as disgusting.”4 Usually the object, for
Detective Benson, is a piece of information that suddenly reveals the
world as much worse than originally thought. Also, it is important
to remember that in these scenes the focus is never actually on the
object itself so much as on Benson’s response to it. Just in case we
didn’t already realize how repellant this information was, we are
shown Detective Olivia Benson’s desire to separate herself from
the object because of its offensive nature. In other words, there is a
strong desire to establish the line between oneself and the object of
contempt-disgust.
What is emphasized by these repetitive displays of emotion is a relationship between the viewer and Detective Benson. In “A Philosophy
of Emoting,” Jeanne Deslandes discusses the relation between the
virtual world (which Deslandes employs as being synonymous with
fiction) and that of the viewer. She explains, “Others reveal themselves
through appresentation: always signaled by signs, gestures, countenance or physiognomy.”5 Deslandes makes a distinction that virtual
others [Benson] reveal themselves through representation rather than
appresentation. She goes on to point out that, “When the imaginary
being of the narrative borrows my [the viewer’s] body to stir up emotions, symbolic embodiments surfaces. I participate emotionally in the
virtual world. The ontological status of fictional worlds is determined
by the fact that fictional characters can only exist by virtue of the
emoter’s investment.”6 There is an attempted affective exchange on
which the embodied existence of the virtual other depends.
I would also add that often—and with regard to my own serial viewings of Law and Order—the intended emoter (viewer) does not always
completely buy into the emotions of the virtual other (sometimes I
can’t lend my body). In that case, the expression may be a placeholder
of sorts for feelings not felt, left to be sensed as if they should be.
Considering every episode of this program involves some sort of violent sex crime, it amazes me that the character can still be expected
to express surprise, distress, or contempt toward anything. She may
have a stunted feedback system.
— 2013
— canon —
Arièle Dionne-Krosnick
Michelle Weidman
Genevieve Bell
Paul Smith
Chloe Chu
Jillian Gryzlak
Felicia Mings
Ivan Gaytan
Kelly Lloyd
Ryan Wright
2—
social technology and the post-woman: a study of le trung’s “aiko”
genevieve bell
recognition. All of Aiko’s abilities are conducted through Trung’s selfmade software, the Bio-Robotic Artificial Intelligence Neural System,
or BRAINS. Aiko, whose name literally translates to “loved one,” is
Trung’s companion and life’s work.
Upon further research one can find several photos of Trung and
Aiko celebrating Christmas together. While Aiko cannot walk (yet),
Trung claims she helped with decorations, cleaning, and cooking,
and she loves dressing up for the holidays. (Creepy, but wonderfully
eccentric, I decided.) It was hard not to notice that the functions
she performs are that of the prototypical, mid-century American
housewife. The creation of the idealized female is not uncommon
in androids, accounting for its most commonly produced form, and
this extends to artificial sexual partners, as well. All of these female
androids have idealized facial features, offering a sort of hyperreal
alternative to the average woman. It is no coincidence that these
androids were created during a time period that saw steady growth
in women’s progression toward equality. Androids of Aiko’s nature
tend to possess similarly regressive embodiments—the form of the
android is controlled and passive, so she can only appear to make
her own decisions.
The act of creating a human replica extends back to the dawn of
man. The earliest signs of (wo)men are documented through means
of cave drawings—our clue to our earliest known ancestors occurs
in the form of symbols. Paleolithic man portrayed himself in scenes
of the hunt, and early civilizations depicted their leaders carved in
stone for permanence. Any portrait artist must learn and unlearn the
difficulty of drawing their own features instinctively, as humans are
consistently shaped and facilitated by their self-awareness.
Recent technological developments have utilized this action and
applied it to robotics. Androids are progressing rapidly and endless
research continues to produce human simulations, all of which
increasingly attempt to perfect the fluid movement and appearance
of a human life. While robotic technology has been used in manufacturing since the 1970’s, androids were not developed for economic use
until the ’90’s, and have not been considered truly reproducible until
the millennium. The sole difference between manufacturing robotics
and the android comes down to the issue of coexistence. This alone
suggests that our relationship with technology is either the symptom
or the cause in a shift of consciousness: in order to use technology
to its highest potential, it must be personified, rendered, inhabited.
The discussion of our human ability to learn, retain information,
and develop social skills has been a topic of interest synonymous
with “Generation Y” and its millennial constituents. The technological, economic, and social implications of the internet have been well
established as fundamental modes of learning and development
throughout the passage of childhood into adulthood; through the
course of this generation’s coming of age, technology and its uses
have catered to our human needs for and means of communication.
Everyday activities of our late-capitalistic culture are constituted
through communicating with technology, and by the replacement
of human assistance and dependencies with their automated alternatives. Simultaneously, the age of social media has created new agency
in our ability to communicate with others through virtual space.
Despite the years of research and financial sacrifice Trung endured
to create Aiko, I couldn’t help but wonder: what purpose does Aiko’s
existence serve technologically? She neither creates nor destroys
materials; she does not maintain or repair instincts, objects, attributes. Her sole purpose is to simulate human speech and movement.
Her existence, her life, is mainly for her creator—and his attempt
to generate and facilitate a human alternative. But ultimately, what
kind of satisfaction can he achieve through the act of generating a
completely dependent, controlled, and unchanging female life-form,
no matter how “human-like” it appears? I suppose an artificial
companion would be ideal for one with severe social anxiety. Trung
is able to imagine Aiko as anything, because she is nothing; whoever
he wants her to be, she is.
In this sense, these androids fulfill a purpose. The alternative
companion of the future serves as a way to purchase oneself out of
loneliness through the commodity form. If someone cannot engage
in relationships with others in a healthy way, this seems like an
easily marketable alternative. Technology already readily accesses
us through forms of social media, so the leap to quantifying and
qualifying our emotional needs through a physical entity with seems
likely enough to follow. We interact with real people through virtual
space, so interaction with a simulated physical presence could be
social technology’s next transformation.
As Le Trung states, “Aiko and her software have almost limitless
possibilities. But the one thing that I will never be able to give her is
true emotion or a soul.”
***
Is it a device to reassert—or even reassure—our dominance over
nature? Perhaps we desire to exercise our control over the purpose,
identity, and longevity of a human life, no matter how artificial that
life is. What constitutes this “life?” Does the “truth” of a living being
come from the presence of biology, or energy in its purest form? Is a
life somehow rendered falsifiable if it is constructed by means outside of what we conceive as the biological? Can any life be a fiction
in the first place? Time and time again these questions are posed by
our conception of and research into the development of the android
(or—in a broader sense—the human replica).
Regarding my use of gender pronouns and the term “existence” instead
of construction—
The production of artificial humans is rarely of any practical use
other than through surface engagement with lifelike presence. The
simulation of human-like, fluid motor movement comes as the highest priority in development, followed by a simplistic set of tasks and
functions. Androids often perform these simple tasks, which are then
supported by a series of smaller tasks.
While visiting the Project Aiko website (www.projectaiko.com), I
stumbled onto the research of Canadian scientist Le Trung and his
constructed companion Aiko: a highly advanced android capable
of speech, upper-body movement, touch and sensitivity, and visual
—3
— canon —
2013 —
rendering shade
paul smith
discobolus: a pledge
chloe chu
Shadow is a fixture—an appendage. It clings to the body, not as a trace
or footprint; instead, it is both time-and-location specific.
Immortality is implicated online as footprints or fossils litter
pages or windows, as a kind of permanent web presence. Information
accumulation occurs on a massive scale irrespective of longitudinal
difference. Because we’re archived by where we’ve been or the repetitive places we still inhabit, exemption from death is ever-presence, as
past personas are fixed with nametags in global storage units.
The shadow is the only phantom limb that could find absence, in
bright sun or overcast glare. The shadow is therefore tactile in that it
exists only as long as you are where you are; this is what it is.
Locating people: one tactic is the panoptical opposite—singles
made subjects, singles going steady, because they are the circle-center
where diameters and radii of gazes converge or cross. In data-tracking
(personalized advertisement), activities both recent and archaic are
collaged to produce you as subject of the territories of your perceived
interests or [mis]steps. These inquiries track prints or traces, building persons from disparate materials in our browser history. This is
poaching; its goal is to pin (to place), to demographize (to sell).
Pixelization is the raw file-data not detailed enough to get closer or
larger in focus; a pixelate is what you make of someone from where
they place themselves and from where they might then be (there).
Threaded [on]lines are like plugging in: information outlets are connected via cables into systems which then produce altered representation out of coded speech. These files or conclusions are the same size,
regardless of what station you inhabit.
Telescoping optics, which bring the far near, are like JPEGs, finite
to their own degree of clarity. Distance can only be effaced so much
before blurriness sets in. But as blurs are patches of color, pixels of
information that comprise a common shape, the collation of digital
stimuli is necessarily always out of date—to this end we wonder what
role date and time still play in making a person feel like herself. The
inverse is fossils, tactile, which only produce sketches of what might
have been where before the strata shifts again.
Digitized records track, map, collect, erase temporal segregations,
and amalgamate stories into easy charts of interests, curiosities, comments, and views—to sell something.
Phenomenological locating (making meaning out of eyes or touch)
is a 2013 extreme. Dedication to following (to trek beyond consolepathways), to catching the fleeting subject ever voluble, is indeterminate as it is only always becoming what/where it is. Thus, it is not
static; thus, it is maybe the closest we get to what or where someone is.
Is not scientific is an attempt, however vain, not to abstraction.
Empiricism or observation is not a standard for any view; a meter is
“the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum during a time
interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.” A second is “the duration of
9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the
caesium-133 atom.” I am (8/5)/299,792,458 tall; my height is unreal to
my touch.
Daily rhythms: the observed unknowingly dictates geographies.
These are itineraries or daily stories specific to urges, whims, and commitments, uncertain. Thus, this is not data and its record is fleeting.
Shadow: a body miraged. Touched objects have only contingent
relevance to the person as now documentary [coded] representations
eclipse essays out of refuse or trash affects. Object-rejects can trace
only a loose bodily experience, which intersects with a seemingly
minor or unimportant mode of production—the way one walks about.
Veracity is predicated on the authority of permanence or things we
wish were permanent, as permanent as our blogs or emails, which will
outlive us. Thus, meaning accrues around what we cannot inhabit—
and cannot even dream of experiencing. Mystical transcendence or
communion now is to seek the feeling of fleeting or of forgetting.
Body-empathy with the imagined: “Even facts become fictions without adequate ways of seeing the facts.”—R. D. Laing. To try to anticipate
and constellate places another passed (past) through is to invest in both
in&visible making and consuming. Trinket-thefts extrapolate wildly
what small objects might mean now to him or to me.
Shadow is not a sum, or an accumulation. It is not a frozen image
standing in as abstract proof.
Today my shadow, or what makes me, was not distinguishable from
the ground it laid upon; the worldwide day (or the earth that never
turns) made it impossible to see myself but for sight.
Put a hand over your heart
(On a bed – monument to our taciturn allies)
EVERYBODY:
I feast on the ineptitude of the past I see that, this from here
CHORUS:
How can we be lost when there are so many people in the world?
Sleeping and awake?
EVERYBODY: I see that, this from here
On this, that which is mine, elevated above yours
(Weight on quadriceps, legs apart – twist, weight on left)
I: say it
To never betray that which is mine to ours
(Weight on right, arms apart to the left)
Our muteness is mine
But mine
(Speaking of perversity: wind up, all orbit, release)
Is not ours
I: pledge
CURTAIN
— 2013
— canon —
4—
woven communication
jillian gryzlak
Cultural meaning is expressed in textiles through color, motifs, the
process of weaving (the handling and counting of threads, the threading of the loom, the weaving of the cloth, cutting the cloth from the
loom itself), and the temporality of cloth as it deteriorates through
use. The symbolism of textiles, which is developed by a culture over
time, is one example of visual storytelling. The textile, as a vehicle
communicating folklore, cultural belief, history, politics, status,
kinship, and other messages, engages a culturally understood, visual
language. This type of symbolic communication is part of a broader
happening of creative symbolism through abstraction, exemplified
by mediums such as painting and poetry, as well as the culturally
specific symbolic communication of dress. Weaving communities
are both recording and reacting to the culturally learned language
of creative symbolism within the medium of cloth and through the
creative agencies of individuals as designer, weaver, finisher, and
owner. The textiles they produce are both utilitarian garments for
everyday use and ritual objects with great cultural importance.
Cultural aesthetics and nonverbal communication understood
through intrinsic response and culturally learned visual language
within textiles is both an historical and contemporary form of communication. This visual language is not interpreted by the viewer,
but understood as a clear message developed over time. Speaking of
textiles generally as symbolic objects is possible, as art holds creative
space cross-culturally. However, speaking to specific communication
of textile symbols in a homogenous way engenders the thinking that
one culture’s symbols should be understood by another, which is a
perspective many anthropologists have been working hard to leave
behind. Looking at textiles as expressing a universal message undermines the intricacies and diversity of culture and cultural expression.
Textiles, across many cultures, are objects imbued with meaning.
Because of their importance within folklore, politics, kinship, and
ritual, textiles gain their own agency, not only having power placed
upon them through ritual, but actualizing their own power through
repeated use, motif, and color.
This yardage will not be finished into a garment, but through the
process of weaving, this cloth will show dedication, obsession, ability, skill, and commitment, and in this way, hold meaning similar
with that experienced by other women weaving marriage garments
around the world.
I have confronted a complicated mosaic of personal and theoretical
concepts. While thinking about identity, culture, and my role as a
weaver—attempting to remain attentive to a complicated history of
ethnocentrism and appropriation in anthropology and ethnographic
art research—a symbolic textile was produced. This project has
blended the roles of producer and researcher. The eight yards of white
silk, due to the time and commitment required, becomes a sacred
object. Textiles have literally become modes of communication due to
their abundance and roles in the lives of communities; their intimacy;
and the amount of time and specialization they required for production. People have intimate relationships with fabric and textiles due
to their daily contact with our skin. It is tactile: a sense-memory of
touch, smell, and often an association with family history. For me, this
particular object challenges the boundary of researcher and maker,
of observer and producer, and the role of personal perspective and
history in generating culturally expressive objects.
1
A. B. Weiner, “Why cloth?: Wealth, gender, and power in Oceana,” in A. B.
Weiner and J. Schneider (eds.), Cloth and Human Experience (New York:
Werner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 1989): 35.
With the premise that all tradition is change, when is the agency
of a designer expressed versus being guided by cultural motif? Many
of the weavers I have researched do not have a say in the cultural
symbols absorbed, prescribed, and learned from society, and I
include myself in this experience as a weaver influenced and guided
by my own cultural aesthetic and symbols. Through both reading
literature related to textile production and expressiveness, as well as
through my own experience in Indonesia, I note that female weavers
are given the task of creating complex symbolic textiles, often for
garments. This is due to the importance of these textiles and the
roles of their cultural production in relation to politics, kinship,
folklore, and ritual.
“For example, in Samoa and the Trinidads, women are the producers of cloth wealth and they control its distribution in part
or in full. Because the circulation of cloth wealth has political
consequences and because women figure in the public aspects of
its distribution, cloth and women are inherent part of political
affairs.”1
Some women create intricate textiles for their wedding ceremonies
or as symbols of fertility in connection to marriage and the female
lifecycle. With this in mind, I reflected on the symbols of marriage
garments in my culture and decided to weave yardage of white silk.
This object was created through a severe dedication of time, in solidarity with many female weavers of the world and it communicates
cultural symbols of abundance and purity.
When looking at weavers’ lives and the metaphors their weavings
communicate, I notice that their weavings hold the ability to nonverbally give information to the viewer. The production of cloth as a
material symbolic of coming of age, and more typically in my culture,
the purchasing of a white garment for a single-use representing
purity, wealth, and abundance are concepts combined for this piece.
By weaving yardage of white silk as a cultural symbol of the purity
requisite for the traditional marriage act, I place myself in the action
of weaving the symbolic and raw material for a wedding garment.
—5
— canon —
2013 —
interwoven threads: fashioning black canadian identity through hilary & denise
felicia mings
Toronto is located, first saw concentrations of black people shortly after
the fugitive American slaves escaped to Canada via the Underground
Railroad and settled in places along the Canadian–American border such
as Amherstburg, Buxton, St. Catharines, London, Windsor, and Chatham
(Mensah, 46). More readily acknowledged is the contemporary trend of
black migration to Canada’s diverse cultural, artistic, and commercial
center: Toronto. Recent historical spikes in black migration occurred in
accordance with changes in immigration policy, including the introduction
of the points system in the 1960s, which enabled an influx of Caribbean
migrations (Mensah, 71). In addition, civil wars in East-African nations
lead to a surge of refugees and migrants relocating to Toronto in the
1990s (Mensah 105, 131). Whether one was born in Canada, or later
migrated to the country, a notion of alienation and familiarity—of connecting with and beyond Canada itself—is a part of the identity experience of
many young black Canadians.
Black Canadian identity is marked by inhabiting a shared national and
geographical space, while simultaneously needing to signal outside
oneself toward embodied experiences and familial lines from different cultures, eras, and places.1 This politics of this construction of
identity is reflected through the diverse artistic outputs and cultural
production of black Canadians.
Toronto2-based clothing line Hilary & Denise is one example of this.
Created by Andrea Ngozie Roberts and Jade Lee-Hoy, Hilary & Denise
is described by its founders thusly:
“A vintage and pre-loved clothing line that aims to celebrate the
conscious self-expression of womyn of color. Rooted in both classic
structured designs and bohemian fashion trends, the Hilary &
Denise collection is a fusion of styles.”
Designers Andrea Ngozie Roberts
(left) and Jade Lee-Hoy (right).
Photograph courtesy of:
Revealing the Roots.
The clothing line couples the glamorous luxury and sophistication
of Hilary Banks from the 1990’s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
with the more free-spirited, salt-of-the-earth fashion sensibility of
Denise Huxtable, from the archetypal African American television
series The Cosby Show.3 The Hilary & Denise clothing line offers a
mixture of primary-colored boucle jackets, top-hats, berets, harem
pants, floral prints, earth-toned button-down shirts, African-cotton
prints, denim vests, and layered outfits.
2.
The city of Toronto is home to 2.48 million people and is a Western
metropolis where graffiti and fine-art galleries inhabit the same block;
where Spanish and Amharic are spoken; where saris, denim, hijabs,
and plaid are worn (City of Toronto; Enwezor 246). Toronto’s young black
artists live all over the city, from the west-side neighborhood of Etobicoke
and the east-side’s Scarborough to uptown’s North York. Many have been
raised predominantly in Toronto, which they affectionately call the “T.dot,”
while others migrated from smaller towns in Ontario. Some artists live in
Toronto’s downtown core, within the hipster scene of galleries, art bars,
and eccentric fashion on Queen St. West, while others prefer the restaurants, bookstores, and community of Little Jamaica along Eglington
West. One can find young black artists residing on top of the bars and
restaurants of Little Italy on College St., or among the vintage stores
of the Junction, where Roberts and Lee-Hoy reside. Artists are also
sprinkled across Toronto’s thirteen priority neighborhoods, located on the
periphery of the city and characterized by a higher density of populations
of color and lower socioeconomic infrastructures than other neighborhoods. Some young artists lived in Toronto during their childhoods, but
as their parents gained further financially stability and wanted to become
homeowners, they moved to the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area
(GTA) to the cities of Brampton, Ajax, and Mississauga, which allow them
to remain only a thirty-minute GO Train commute away from the Toronto’s
center. As evidenced by these scenarios, the people and neighborhoods
of Toronto enable young artists to draw inspiration from, reference, and
represent the confluence of cultures that abound in the city.
3.
Denise Huxtable (played by Lisa Bonet) was the eldest daughter of Doctor
Heathcliff Huxtable and his lawyer wife Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show.
Denise was sixteen years-old at the start of the show, and by the time she
reached the end of high-school, her interests in black consciousness and
reggae music, as well as her series of boyfriends (who rarely broke her
heart), become central to the show. Denise was independent—after two
years of college at an historically all-black institution, she dropped out
to travel through Africa as a photographer’s assistant. While traveling,
her character fell in love with Navy Lt. Martin Kendall, and she returned
to her parents’ home in Brooklyn, New York, married and with a stepdaughter. Denise’s creativity and independent spirit extended beyond
her actions, but was often exemplified through her style of dress. Denise
frequently wore knee-length cardigans, boots, wide-legged pants,
layered outfits that hid her figure, and large jewelry. Denise’s counterpart
in the clothing line, Hilary Banks (played by Karyn Parsons), was a sassy,
fashionable, sometimes snobby, and occasionally ditzy young woman, the
eldest child of Judge Phillip Banks and his professor wife Vivian. Growing
up in Bel-Air, California, Hilary lived a fairly luxurious life of shopping and
fraternizing with celebrities, though episodes of the show were careful
to portray her love of family and offer more nuance than was typical for a
Valley Girl characterization. It goes without saying that Hilary’s fashion
sense was often more memorable than her character’s arc: widebrimmed hats, sexy black dresses, boucle jackets, and primary-colored
blazers branded her style as simultaneously sexy and professional. In
both programs, photographs displayed in the families’ homes, jazz or
hip-hip music sourced for the episodes, and screenwriting that deferred
to the socioeconomic standing of the well-to-do American nuclear family
worked to portray a positive, upper-middle-class, everyday black identity.
4.
The community to which Roberts and Lee-Hoy belong is a complex web
of art collectives, youth-led initiatives, and not-for-profit organizations within which many young, black Toronto artists have come of
age. These groups include the Somali girls-group Gashanti Unity; the
People Project, an arts-and-leadership initiative for LGBT youth of color;
T.dot Renaissance, an artists’ collective; Lost Lyrics, an alternative
education through hip-hop program; the Jane and Finch theatre group,
Nomanzland; Young Diplomats, an Ethiopian youth-leadership group;
the Manifesto Festival of Hip-Hop and Community; the Remix Project,
a hip-hop-rooted design, photography, and music entrepreneurship
program; the Eritrean Youth Coalition; the Africana Gatherings, which
are performance outlets for womyn of color; and so many more. Although
the mediums used and mission of each group is different, within all of
their agendas is the goal of providing opportunities and greater positive
visibility to Toronto’s youth of color.
When we focus specifically on the artistic production of black youth
in Toronto, on the surface it may appear similar to the works produced
by black communities in other regions of the world; but, like a great
hip-hop song, through its materiality and construction, this production signifies and brings visibility to a sphere wider than itself. With
this in mind, the Hilary & Denise line draws from and reflects the
experiences and values of the community that locates the designers
socially, culturally, and geographically, ultimately imbuing a sense
of consciousness, a style that is reflective of black Canadian identity. 4
1.
Hilary & Denise (advertisement).
Photograph by: Yannick Anton.
— 2013
One reason as to why black Canadian identity is so multifaceted can be
attributed to the fact that although black persons have long been a part
of the Canadian citizenry, they are always assumed to be from elsewhere.
Black people in Canada are constantly asked, “Where are you from?” If
one answers with a particular region of Canada, a second question is sure
to follow: “No, where are you really from?” With this question in mind,
black Canadians are quick to announce their land of ancestry: Jamaica,
Somalia, Eritrea, Barbados, Nigeria, Trinidad; the list goes on. Unlike
many African Americans, black Canadians are always under pressure to
trace their lineage back well-beyond the country they presently inhabit.
Although frustration is a common response to this experience, there is
an equal amount of pride and affinity at being able to trace back one’s
identity to elsewhere.
The presence of people from African descent within Canadian history
is largely forgotten due to a national narrative of multiculturalism that
neglects the fact that slavery existed in Canada, along with many other
travesties, and was formative to its nation building. Many are unaware
that black people settled in Canada as early as the 1750s—as slaves; in
particular, maroons from Jamaica—and the 1800s—as black loyalists
in the Maritime provinces (Crooks, 22). Ontario, the province in which
— canon —
6—
the evental-site of the bridegroom, the comedienne, and the pimp
ivan gaytan
Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub’s The Bridegroom, The Comedienne
and The Pimp was filmed in five days during the spring of 1968. What
is contained in the film is as follows: the streets of Munich at night
populated by workers and corporate signage—Bach interrupts—a
Ferdinand Bruckner play is produced in a single shot; the bridegroom,
James, leaves his soon-to-be wife Lilith’s apartment, and is followed,
Hollywood chase-style; their marriage; a pimp greets the newly
wedded couple in their home and attempts to “take back” the bride;
the bride steals the pimp’s weapon, frees herself from his dominion,
and turns toward the window to recite St. John of the Cross. The final
action of the film is the camera’s movement alongside a window, as
it eventually leaves the bride’s image behind entirely, and remains
transfixed on a tree whose leaves are being blown by the wind.
A tree in the presence of wind,
a long take on the nothing: the elements presented in The Bridegroom—
the adaptation of Bruckner’s Pains of
Youth, its sets and scenes, dialogue,
and characters—are all aspects of the
film’s construction, while the final
shot, the tree amidst nature, gives
rise to the idea of what is not presented within the film. The image of
the undisturbed landscape becomes
a space for the viewer to encounter—
explicitly and intimately—what is
otherwise un-encounterable within
a work of art. The inactivity of the
camera, as it focuses on a tree in the
landscape, calls for the activity of an
experience; it is this presented ‘nothingness’ that has the potential to contain an idea within the mediation of
an experience. Here, the extended
presentation of what is not-present
articulates the absolute necessity
of the category of non-presentation
for the film’s functioning. An empty
frame, in an artwork that is already
necessarily free, becomes activated
only by its engagement with what
is outside of its presentation, as it is
becomes ‘filled’ through the mediation of subjectivity.
Why is the “presented nothing” the evental-site?
The nothing presents no-thing for the experience that perceives it;
the thoughts that occur through investigating this nothing act under
no signification or law. The landscape rendered legible by the films of
Straub-Huillet serve as an eventual- space calling for a meditation on
what has been presented. Nothing fills the landscape but the thoughts
of the viewer, with the other aspects provided by the film suspended
over the presentation of the nothing. What the film presents can only
serve the purpose of mediating an experience—this much we have
said, but the space where this occurs is in the landscape shot.
An event is a rupture that is decided by an individual or community
previously not present; what the event engages with is the eternal
recurrence of the same; what the same perpetuates is the circulation
of what already has been decided. For
a subject in the process of becoming,
submitting to what is already per“To Nietzsche’s claim that, ‘the only being
petuated would mean that becoming
is not guided by un-decidability, but
known to us is being that represents itself ’,
instead is only rendered similar to
the Straubs would respond: only those who
something that already exists. Here,
the category of sameness is made comresist exist for sure. Resist nature, language,
plicit by the security of what will be.
time, texts, gods, God, chiefs, Nazis. Mother
The notion of the event must be tied
to a becoming guided by no objectivand Father. This is how the shot, basic atom
ity or legitimating discourse—it must
of the Straubian cinema, is the product, the
be the occurrence of novelty; it must
provide occasion for thought; it must
remainder, or rather the remaining, of a triple
allow what is currently given to be
resistance: texts resisting bodies, places
understood by asking why the given
should continue to be implicit. In this
resisting texts, bodies resisting places. One
sense, the event poses a question that
has to add a fourth: resistance of the public
concerns both metaphysics (Why do
we authentically consider what is?)
towards the shot as it has been ‘framed’,
and epistemology (What is our relastubborn resistance of cinema’s public to
tion to what is given—How do we
communicate that?). If The Bridegroom
something intractable, something which
succeeds in bringing about an evenrenounces it as a public.”
tal-site, it is because the space where
the site manifests is given without a
“The content of the shot... is what it hides.”
measuring stick. The landscape shot
is a call to provide a novel thought
“So there are two limits to the Straubian
toward what occurs in the film.
shot. One, internal, is what it contains–the
A film such as The Bridegroom
relays to its audience: (a) nothing,
The Bridegroom is a film disposed
shot as tomb. The other, unrepresentable,
and (b) the necessary element of
entirely to what is external to it—no
undecidable, is that all things filmed, framed,
interruption—not only through the
meaning is implicit within the work;
interruption of one scene to the next,
no one single message is conveyed
risk being something else as well.”
but also through Lilith’s resistance to
through the images and dialogue of
capture, her interruption of subservithe film. Straub-Huillet have no inter“...resistance is the only indication that
ence, and her move to render herest in telling the audience what to
doesn’t deceive, that attests to some reality or
self as Lilith. A and B become related
make of their presentation. Instead,
through the necessary investigation
what is given is a space wherein
other, to a node of contradictions.”
of A; without A, B would only exist as
the audience can utilize its critical
an intangible series of occurrences in
faculty in order to make a decision
the film. Without the mediation of
concerning the film. What is then
Serge Daney, “La Morale de la Perception”
the artwork—without the experience
delivered? A work where the content
as a conduit or connective tissue—the
is only what has been decided to have
artwork remains in the space of the
occurred within it, by reflection on
nothing. This is an elaboration of one
what is external to it—a film on the
of the event concept’s most subtle
edge of the void. This presentation of non-presentation—the archepoints: that the event can occur and not be retained by the lack of
typal long take on the nothing—within the films of Straub-Huillet is
any fidelity. A work can exist without a contextualizing force that will
the scene of potential, the localization of the external. It is a submisarticulate its importance; a text can exist when no one will read it.
sion, on the part of the filmmakers, to deem what is contained within
the film “incomplete” and to await an intervention, a decision. The
Deciding what has occurred within an artwork is essentially an
presented blank is the event-space of the film—only able to be occupied
ethical task—one’s interpretation will become solidified through
by what is indeterminate. The nothing in the films of Straub-Huillet
communication with other subjectivities. Not only is this a space
is the un-decidable, the evental-space of the artwork that serves an
where the non-representational gains representation, but where
occasion of interpretation. It is a space clear of any dictation, a space
that representation is communicated—without precluding another’s
for the occasion of interpretation completed under the signification
potential interpretation; without providing a figure of thought that
of an empty signifier (the nothing).
presents itself as unchangeable; without simply justifying repetition
of the same.
—7
— canon —
2013 —
kelly lloyd
On the first day of History and Theory of Visual Studies, James Elkins
asked us to introduce ourselves, as well as offer up a chosen topic of
focus, if we had one. I introduced myself as a candidate for the dual
MFA in Painting and MA in Visual and Critical Studies (VCS) degree,
and I spoke of how I had clearly defined an interest in “investigating
questions around public artists, their art, and its role in the creation
of spatial justice,” in my application to the Department of Visual and
Critical Studies.
Although I have been interested in this topic for years, I have always
made art about myself. I think everyone does, but I am currently
attempting to use the occasion of graduate school to stop needing
to anchor my purpose and justify my artistic and research practices
with an artificially augmented interest. I believe that in order to really
learn, I must first locate myself. Instead of looking for a connection
between my varied interests and commitments, between painting
and visual studies, it is important for me to literally practice being
the connection. I would argue this decision is a product of the kind
of focus that I find apparent in fellow MFA/MAVCS-ers and their
approach to education.
After introducing myself on the first day, James Elkins asked me
why I decided to do a dual MFA/MAVCS degree. I think I answered, “Because I want to be at the adult table in both conversations.”
Although that is still true, this was the same reason why I chose
to take a physics course in college (Surprise!—my brain still doesn’t
retain physics after a four-year hiatus) in lieu of “science for [the]
humanities,” and almost failed—so I’m still seriously left debating
the why.
The truth is that I’m not entirely sure. I think it has something
to do with why I pursued a double-major in studio art and African
American studies and a minor in environmental studies for my BA
at Oberlin College. If I may take liberties here, I feel like it may also
have something to do with why Peter Kusek finished a 5-year BFA
program in 3 years cum laude only to come to SAIC and complete
an MAVCS/MFA Film, Video, New Media (’13) in 2 years. Why Danny
Floyd (MAVCS ’13/MFA Sculpture ’14) graduated from RISD in the
Photography Department, one of the most academically rigorous at
the school, as it required both an exhibition and a written thesis. Why
R. E. H. Gordon (MAVCS/MFA Fiber ’11) graduated from Hampshire
College with a BA in philosophy/visual arts, for which they generated
a thesis exhibition, and wrote an 80-page paper on Merleau-Ponty.
And probably for the same reason why Kristi McGuire completed 3
degrees—an AM (literary theory and criticism, University of Chicago)
and MAVCS/MFA Writing (’10)—in 4 years, while teaching and working
full-time. Because it felt right, and still feels right, because we made
it. When I expressed frustration with not knowing when synthesis
and clarity planned to show up, Peter Kusek comforted me with his
insight that, “that’s the way that artists work sometimes.” Do now;
have intent; follow what excites you and decide why you did what
you did later.
This focused intent in an approach to education was the main
connection that I found between all of the MFA/MAVCS-ers with
whom I spoke. They all had the drive not only to show up for class
and do well, but also had the presence of mind to test the boundaries of this institution early on in order to find out how many hoops
(Kristi McGuire said 8) they would have to jump through in order to
get exactly the kind of education they wanted and needed for their
present and future. Another connection that I found was in Danny
Floyd, Kristi McGuire, Peter Kusek, and R. E. H. Gordon’s commitment
to teaching studio and visual studies classes, art history classes and
classes with innovative formats and expansive syllabi, immediately
after graduating, without a PhD. Yet another was the negotiating
process that just had to be done, publically and privately, in order to
coexist in two departments.
Although SAIC prides itself on having an interdisciplinary graduate
program, departments are departments and departments are different: different pedagogies, different questions, different pressures,
different expectations, different histories, different cultures, different social dynamics, and different vocabularies. They feel pressured
to maintain their differences in order to define themselves. It seems
as if many MFA/MAVCS-ers find themselves formally at home in
their MFA programs and pedagogically at home in VCS. Although
Danny Floyd, Kristi McGuire, Peter Kusek and R. E. H. Gordon looked
at a wide assortment of graduate school programs, they eventually
came to visual studies because, as R. E. H. Gordon articulated, “these
programs respected artists as intellectuals and our work as forms of
knowing and modes of research.”
I am interested in having this conversation if it allows me to get to
know my colleagues better. I am interested in having this conversation if it might bridge communities that, because they haven’t spent
enough time engaging with one another, work-off of prohibitive
assumptions about how one can and cannot produce and speak. I am
not interested in having this conversation if it results in prescriptive
advice about how I need to choose to be either an academic or an
artist, and if I want to be a “real boy” in either. I am not interested
in having this conversation if it spurs premature and potentially
unnecessary anxiety. I’d rather trust R. E. H. Gordon (artist, writer,
curator, founder and director of the Center for Experimental Lectures,
and instructor at Parsons, the New School for Design) when they tell[s]
me that, “the world is changing really fast in regard to this issue . . .
. People are not confused.”
— 2013
— canon —
the head, wherein doing the splits counts
ryan wright
These brain curls desire a myriad of objects, but to be facetious, I’d say none
drives my focus quite like the urge to deftly do the splits, right there, in midstride—SPLITS—and I’d tell a joke—SPLITS—and that, yes, that agility, that
pedestrian panache, I aspire to THAT brand of f lexibility; ah, to split! One leg,
submissive and laid pointing north; the other laid out, submissive, pointing
south. In that stance, split, my root-chakra hugs and kisses the Earth, you see,
hugs it and kisses it xoxoxo and thereby channels and invisibly tethers to the
molten core incubating miles below my leg-separation .... I have it in my head
that meditating suchly, split, truths shall begin to reveal themselves to me,
axioms in the guise of objects ....
I overheard and paraphrased the above waiting in line for a doctor’s
check-up and it got me thinking, which got me motivating, motivating both movements of association in which by habit I congratulate
my ingenuity and puzzle-solving, and movements of the pen tracing
relevant dissociations involving important, life-altering statistics, a
writing-down looking sort of—in fact—exactly like:
Andorra has the highest concentration of splitters per capita. If
you see four Andorrans walking together along Ordino’s pavement,
watch: chances are sometime along the journey one of them will split
midstride, go down gracefully, and spring back up again with all the
nonchalance of a deft hurdler. Is it any wonder Andorra boasts the
world’s most impressive longevity? (Is it any wonder deft plagues my
lexicon for this article, my having heard it and subsequently typed
it in the portion paraphrased above?)
Sometime around 2008, scientists from Universitat d’Andorra’s
Nursing School, administrated by Andorra’s Ministry of Health,
began investigating the physiological benefits of doing the splits.
Here, it remains unnecessary to mention that splitting improves lung
capacity by virtue of the enthused aerobics involved as one dips down
daily en route; nor do we need bring up splitting’s propensity to drop
cholesterol and triglyceride levels, thereby safeguarding against serialkilling heart disease; certainly, the immune system’s fortification as
a result of the latter, though compelling, is besides the point, as is
stress reduction, and, as a result, the increase of one’s self-acceptance,
to say nothing of enhanced sexual prowess (if only ostensible and
therefore if only in service of the benefit cited directly before this
one), because the chief health benefit—and it is truly categorized as
such—is a philosophical one: the body-self stretched as a veritable
perpetual bridge, a transition conceived as an incessant movement
(according to a particular deceased German’s conception). Consider,
as did the one on whom I eavesdropped, this: the extension of one
leg backward (past), one forward (future), the genitals (root-chakra
notwithstanding) in between the two, pleasuring on the warm ground
now, pleasuring because knowing, yes, here, from whence they came,
as it goes—the soil—and, as it goes, there they’ll go again, corpselike
to rot, body-self split thus between these extended legs always in
pedestrianhood where it is safest—necessary—to remain, walking,
splitting; no matter that in order to split seamlessly while advancing,
say, along a slippery sidewalk, slippery perhaps because it has been a
dreary, rainy day, or if the sun has been out and some proprietor you
don’t and will never know decided in the brightness to why not take a
hose and spray, polish up a bit, make the path new-like and simultaneously hazardous for those on foot, especially if, in service of the seamless
split, said footmen have applied the necessary footwear augmentations to the toe and heel to facilitate a—I’ll say it again—seamless
descent-into then ascent-out-of-splittage, augmentation of the slick
variety; for instance, greased portions of curving metal the presence
of which, on the shoes, requires a specific mindfulness unneeded in
typical strolling and which mindfulness is precisely the point: be
careful as you maneuver, as you make your way, gliding into a split,
sliding back up, both without displaying the slightest suggestion of
a seam between the three positions, first upright and then splitright
and then upright again, no seam with aid of slick sneakers, no seam
with our passage from uterus to casket, no seam as we negotiate this
troubling business of making our way; nothing is as it seems, and that
is the driving force behind Andorra’s 2009 “Do The Splits” initiative.
For nearly four years, Andorrans have been routinely splitting, and
now there they rejoice, atop the life-expectancy summit, doing the
splits. Among the youth, new playground games akin to hop-scotch
have popped up across the island, dating rituals have evolved, and
because walking is now so fun, millions have eschewed vehicular
conveyances in favor of striding, marching, promenading, stepping,
treading, traipsing, perambulating, rambling, hoofing it, strutting,
parading, all punctuated of course by the frequent going down for a
split. Still, it is not the physiological taking the heroic steps. Let us
make a stretch: are they ruminating, the splidestrians (if you will)?
We can be sure of it, in the open air, outside. And when the moment
strikes—SPLIT—they go down and up in a burst of concentrated
willpower, masters of themselves, masters of the surrounding terrain, able to link to what is there, connect, and scurry off afterward
having graced ever so delicately the foundation for uprightness itself.
Extending further, let us say one of these splitters (splidestrians, I’ve
decided, is distasteful) goes off and buys something edible but before
she does so, she reads the label. And after that, the splitter decides
to quit the assembly line in appropriate fear of noxious adhesives.
Bridging together all of what was and is and will be, mindfully—
mindfully because to do the splits with the inertia of forward motion
requires acuity of both perception and coordination—then maybe
the splitter, sitting at a laptop, might assert, like a certain corpsed
Frenchman, that there is a universe behind and before her, and that
she is the one who splits the night.
8—