"turning vague and smily and looking away I-dont-want-to-talk-about-it"
This in response to a comment from the last post from J- a good friend and always insightful comment-leaver. In my world a response is not an accusation, but rather a sign of graditude. I don't mean to imply that the idea I am setting myself up to counter in this post has any more than a passing resemblance to an idea that may have flitted through J-'s head.
I feel you J-, but I'd just like to state, for the public record, that while I recognize that the so-called "'turning vague and smily and looking-away I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it' thing" has been an unproud feature of my communicational mode in the past, and will probably unavoidably be so in the future, as the things left unsaid are often as powerful as the things spoken aloud, and also as this is an instrumental technique of the flirtational mode in which I often interact with people (the fantasy me in others' minds always being more attractive than the "real me" if such a thing exists, and certainly more attractive, at least to the "other" than the fantasy-me in MY mind), this all causing righteous trouble for me recently... While I recognize this "thing" within myself, I do think that this blog, being such an important part of my inner intellectual and emotional life (obviously more so than as a tool for communication with my friends and dear readers)... That this blog represents an attempt to counter that "thing."
It surprizes me therefore that this should come to be perceived as part of that conversational style (evn though I don't think this is what J- was talking about, really). I guess that each antithesis still shares basic assumptions with each thesis, that no two opposing nodes can come close to containing the four-dimensional space of thought (if indeed thoughts can be mapped to any space at all), but I was trying to counteract this trend within myself with this blog. Among the thousand things this blog attempts, it is an attempt to communicate in a style that is not a power game, at least not primarily, for each communication also contains an encoded power-relationship sign. And because this blog contains thoughts about art, which was so famously framed as founded on lies by Plato and his ilk, and outright fantasies, which are consciously glamourized untruths, and all lies are devised as moves in a mind-game of power.
So yes, there is an element of cruel game here, but I hope that this blog is possessed primarily by a chihuahua spirit, a submissiveness, although of course submission is a form of power, in that my private thoughts are open, my underwear (literally) on display for the public to see. Good friends have warned me that I am sharing too much here, and I hope that they are right. I suspect they are right because recently the things I have posted here have come back around to bite me in the ass. I know that there is at least one veil I place over this blog, which is the one by which I protect the privacy of my friends. I want to share myself fully, but there are lines of ethics that are drawn inside one's self. I am also sharing ideas about my art that can be exploited now or in the future (especially if I ever hope to succeed by wearing a mask, the mask of the silent mystery, the mask of minimalism, the mind-game mask, the mask of art's mystical origins, the mask of inoffensiveness, the mask of confidence, the list goes on). And recently there have been two occassions where I have had a strong feeling that there has been some pakuri going on, some copying, someone whose ideas are too close, too close for comfort. Whether or not true, it tends to make one's guard go up automatically, a shock reaction. But also there has been one strong incident where I felt accused of pakuri, whether or not this was true, and this made me very uncomfortable, and brought both opposing nodes of this idea into my mind. Sorry if this leads to confusion and run-on sentences, though I suppose these can be re-edited.
So, yes, perhaps there are reasons why the veil is sometimes drawn on this blog, but I hope that is not its main feature. In fact, I know that this blog is obsessively personal to the point of boredom most of the time. The old adage that "the personal is the universal" is very very true when it is true, and false in most cases due to the nature of synchronicity, that we only have a limited capacity to feel close to others, that our receptor-triggers have a very small window and are easily overwhelmed, although these receptors can be teased open with drugs, charms, sex and music. Recently a most amazing person reminded me what an egocentric maniac I am in a way that seems to have gotten through my thick skull, so these thoughts have been on my mind, though I can't say that I've figured it out at all. So I'll be crushing myself a little bit for a while in this way, though not to worry, self-crushing is an ongoing process.
So, to dress up a messy post, if this blog seems self-obsessed please understand that it is not trying not to be, but that the self-obsession is only an attempt, however misguided and unsuccessful, to get in touch with others. But if this blog seems strongly veiled, well, I must concede an unexpected failure.
3 comments:
I am reading too quickly but I certainly didn't mean anything about your blog! I just was remembering times when you were working on projects and I was curious about them and you didn't want to talk about them maybe, like during your Senior Project or something; I liked to come by your studio but I often felt like it was a kind of secret, what you were up to. Of course I always declined to show people what was the collar, what was the sleeve, in my drawings too, so I can't really talk.
I like this intention-blind dialogue of pure misunderstanding. It could be nice indeed.
You can talk John! You can! Just move your mouth and constrict your throat in this funny way and force air over your tongue!
But you are right - I do love secrets. I guess it might be an oversimplification just to say "secrets are fun" but they ARE, aren't they? Whatever I was doing there in my studio senior year, it was a SECRET, perhaps even from myself.
Anyway, what you said about not revealing the KEY to deciphering your drawings is something that is very important in my artwork recently, and perhaps it comes directly from that air of secrecy I had back in the day. Now I would say "information asymmetry" or something, but it's different because in my current projects I try to deny the idea that there is an original truth behind the work. Sometimes this means forgetting the idea, or consciously trying to confuse myself, or attempting to erase it in my mind, and sometimes I might have succeeded through no fault of my own I'm sure. But this is different than having a SECRET where the original idea is fetishized and becomes an all-important absence.
I think the idea of whether something is a buttonhole or surface patterning allows the people who are looking at your work to dream their own clothing onto your drawing. It may not do as a tailor's guide, but it does it for me.
I'm glad we are writing because I've been talking to this cat but I can't understand what she is saying back to me.
So you're talking about always having a mask and I wanna talk about always being a critcal beeha which is me.
What's driving me crazy? Maybe you wondered. I'm driving myself crazy!
Because I'm always qulitative about people. how stupid is that. Always asking if I like them or not or if I APPORVE of things and I'm tired of it and I'm going to stop. I wonder if I can.
gossip driving me mad. But it's usually me who brings the gossip up! compulsion.
Love,
alexis
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