ARTISTS TALKING

# 79 [9 November 2008]

Emailed to me by Jonathan Swain: 

"We control the daytime, they control the night throughout."

David Davis describing the military situation in Helmand Province,
Afghanistan.
BBC radio 20.10.08

# 78 [9 November 2008]

a text message exchange I had with Liz Whitehead, one of the Co-Directors of Fabrica Gallery: 

Susan: I love your hopefulness. It's rubbing off on me. 

Liz: You have to be hopeful if you are running a publicly funded arts organisation. 

Susan: Yes. I guess so. 

Liz: I guess artists need to be even more optimistic. 

Susan: Yes! The question is: how to show it. 

Liz: By expecting the best of people every time. My experience is that most people respond to it positively.

# 77 [5 November 2008]

A response emailed to me recently about 'The Incommensurable Banner':

"I was in the gallery yesterday, briefly as I had to leave my daughter outside, 

I will come in again but I wanted to put forward some thoughts.

The images are dreadful. One’s mind stops and reels in horror from them, as it always does with such images.

The display of these sorts of images is not a new idea and the notion that by showing people the horror of war you prevent it is, I am sorry to say, entirely discredited by the example of history.

In an historical context I would associate the display of photographs of wretchedly mutilated bodies in order to resist war with the First World War (especially by the pacifist movement in the 1920s and 30s)  and Vietnam and the most affecting images of those conflicts present live suffering; the burnt girl fleeing her village, the wounded man carried on the back of a comrade or the last moments of an executed suspect. In my opinion images that present corpses in such a state of destruction have a tendency to distance us from the event that led to their death.

I am sure that these images and this installation are well intentioned but they tend to de-humanise the victims.

Photography is an extremely blunt instrument when it comes to this sort of imagery. The nature of the imagery is to preach to the converted. It serves as form of impromptu shrine before which the supporters of a particular point of view can perform their obligations.

These poor people deserve the right to have their bodily remains respected. Personally I find that these sorts of displays only extend the dreadful humiliation of the victims."

# 76 [5 November 2008]

I cannot help feeling hopeful.

# 75 [4 November 2008]

Speechlessness 

How to talk about speechlessness

When words leave me

Leaving me utterly without utterance.

Devoid of my coating. Freezing cold. Shivering, not even stammering. 

Contrast with His voice: emphatic, declaiming,

Certain, he says:

“This is exactly what I want to insist upon.”

“It is essential to me.”

“It is so easy.”

“So possible.”

“I want to do a work which reaches Universality.” 

He so fully inhabits his sentences.

His words fit him so completely. 

I want to talk tonight about speechlessness,

About how I don’t know what to say.

I’m going to put some words on a bare skeleton

And have it walk off, reconstituted

Fleshed by my tongue. 

I can take his confidence and appropriate it:

Turn “I’m not sure” into “I’m certain”.

Believe me, I’m absolutely certain I can do this,

Display my empty mouthing mouth,

My silent clagging tongue.

Its speech act heroics

Making you

Forcing you

To witness  -  nothing. 

I can only beat you into submission

To my way of describing the world. 

Can I be companion, I, shy, unsure,

To your huge, definite shape on the page, 

Your stature in person:           

words on hips           

hands on lips?   

This text was written at a workshop called ‘War and Writing’ led by poet Judith Kazantzis on Monday 3 November 2008, at Fabrica and organised by The South. The idea came from having led a guided tour of the three exhibitions: Iraq through the Lens of Vietnam at the University of Brighton Gallery, Geert van Kesteren at Lighthouse and ‘The Incommensurable Banner’ by Hirschhorn at Fabrica. At the start of the tour in the first of these exhibitions I found myself in the awkward position of becoming speechless before the images just at the moment when I was supposed to be talking about them to a group of people. In this text I place myself next to, “contrast with His voice”, the written statements by Hirschhorn about his work, which demonstrate such emphatic confidence and which are often so boldly and uncompromisingly written. I imagine appropriating his boldness and making it my own but with this strategy I cannot but become oppressive. The last two words are a response to the confident pose struck by Hirschhorn in the photo of him on the Fabrica brochure. I ask how I can befriend such dominant boldness “be companion” without surrendering uncertainty, which can be seen as a strength.

# 74 [4 November 2008]

Close up it’s harder to see.

This is resistance! 

Light reflects off:            

the surface of the ink,           

off faces, flat off,           

resisted facts,           

glue splatters,           

explosive matters,           

creases in the paper.

Where the Iron Duke is - pixellations. 

Where are you now? 

I have to stand back

And just keep walking.

Judge the right distance

Once in my life.

To be able to see.

Done in.

Headlessness.

Hollowed out. 

Why can’t I see?    

This text was written at a workshop called ‘War and Writing’ led by poet Judith Kazantzis on Monday 3 November 2008, at Fabrica and organised by The South. I wrote some words down after viewing the “Incommensurable Banner’ which all related to trying, and failing. to find a suitable position to stand in relation to it from which to be able to see (in the sense of ‘grasp’, ‘take in’) what is being portrayed in the images.  Judith recommended we use a technique of collaging words from other people in with our own so I chose a short passage by Hirschhorn about collage and lifted lines from it to intersperse with my own. During this one of the workshop participants received a telephone call from a friend asking directions and I began also to lift lines from her phone conversation and place these into the mix.        

# 73 [2 November 2008]

Answer to question 4 continued from previous post. For an introduction to this question see introduction to entry 70

I have received several comments on the work mainly via the email address that I set up as well as the blog. I then ask people if I can have their permission to transfer their comments to the blog. I will admit that I like to have this kind of editorial control, that in many ways the blog is ‘mine’ and that I want to keep an overview of it. I am aware of the politics of what this says about me as a person, I mean, this attitude in comparison say, with setting up a WIKI. But I don’t have a particular problem with that. In fact I am pleased that I can have such a sense of ownership of my work and I definitely see the blog now as a very significant part of my practice. My new website also has a blog on it on the ‘news’ page and when the Fabrica residency ends I will be able to carry on with a blog in some form there even if it’s just as a noticeboard for my activities. But there’s nothing to say I won’t be able to continue with the a-n blog too.
I record on the blog conversations I have with people about the work and I have also been typing in comments from the comments book because there people have been registering their responses in very long, considered and articulate ways. Here people tend to be very much in favour of the work and I’ve noticed that a lot of them display gratitude towards Fabrica and Hirschhorn for providing the work. A lot of people say ‘thank you’. I read from this a response that might be similar to my very first thought about the work that it was a relief to hear that someone was showing the images of war that are not usually shown, the images that show just how horrific war actually is.

I would be very interested to know the responses of those people who choose not to look at the banner at all or who look but leave quickly without wanting to talk or leave a comment. Those would be extremely valuable responses to bear in mind and consider, I am aware of that. But catching them is to trace around craters on the dark side of the moon.

# 72 [2 November 2008]

For an introduction to this post see introduction to entry 70

4. In what ways is the blog part of your project and how keen have people been to comment on the work?

The blog has become a very important part of the project. It has become a daily notebook for the residency and a way of noting down developments in my thinking. Not requiring the structure or editing of a (hard) published document it leaves me free to post a variety of types of entries that, together, can lead to unforeseen connections. The growth of the blog as a document that evolves through time can be as organic, as wilful or as arbitrary as the processes that I go through when making artwork. The presence of an imagined reader or readers leads me to be more thoughtful in what I am writing than I might be if I were just noting things down for myself. I feel a responsibility to the reader to try to be interesting, to keep things relevant and not be too obscure.
Originally, I thought that I had wanted to set the blog up as a kind of conversational space hoping that others would join in and add their comments. It was to be a kind of repository for my own and other people’s comments about the Hirschhorn banner. When this didn’t happen and I realised that only one or two comments every now and then would be forthcoming I think I kind of resigned myself to the idea of ‘talking into the void’. Then of course, I realised that I really enjoyed this: the notion of there being no audience other than the possibility of one. That gives me a wonderful sense of freedom. To be myself, whatever that is. And to have to answer to no one. Because to worry about what I am writing, whether it is erudite or informed enough, for example, would stifle my voice altogether, so, far better to get on with it and try some ideas out.
I do get verbal feedback from people that they are reading it and this is extremely encouraging and exciting. Lisa, who works at Fabrica, has told me several times that she always reads it. To think that there is at least one person who is following the thread all the way through is just so incredibly exciting. It’s like having a witness to the workings of my mind and that is such an affirmation of my thinking and such a gift of the generosity of another human being. I find it extremely moving and it gives me great strength and it strengthens my voice too.

# 71 [2 November 2008]

For an introduction to this post see introduction to post no. 70

3. Do you think that an audience can become desensitised to images, such as those used in the banner, through repeated or prolonged viewings?

This is a very interesting question but one that it is extremely difficult to answer without really carrying out some kind of controlled research project with audiences. I wouldn’t want to speculate on this at all. I think we all talk a lot about how we have become desensitised to images because of how we are bombarded by so many visual signs every day. I think it really depends on what the image is and how we look at it. Also, of course, and crucially, on the context in which the images are presented to us. I can now look at the Hirschhorn images quite easily compared with how it was when I first stood before the banner. But I wouldn’t call this ease desensitisation. I was thinking the other week about how I think I am now less afraid of dying a violent death because I have looked this (indirectly, very indirectly of course) in the eye, so to speak.  But maybe this decrease in fear is as a result of an intensification of sensitivity to the images. Maybe my body has adjusted its ability to consider its own potential differently? Even if I say the question about whether an audience can become desensitised can’t be answered, I have to admit that it’s a really interesting question to speculate upon because the increased ability to look could have such different reasons depending on whose looking one is talking about.

# 70 [2 November 2008]

I am in touch with someone from The Forum, which describes itself as "an innovative weblog featuring reviews, previews, opinion pieces and interviews from independent arts writers." She has sent me four questions which have actually been very timely in prompting me to write about aspects of my own responses to Hirschhorn's Incommensurable Banner. I have decided to post these (rather lengthy) entries in this and the following posts. The first question began on post no. 64.

2. What kind of audience reactions have you noticed?

The range of audience reactions has been broad: from deciding not to look at all to an apparent laughing enjoyment of an overt and hungry looking at them. (Though I would question what such laughter is and where it comes from. Laughter can often be a very effective way of releasing fear, embarrassment and anxiety, for example.)  To describe all degrees in between these two poles would amount to another long passage.  But generally, as regards my own perception of these responses I would have to say that I have remained very open to what others’ responses might been. More open than usual perhaps as a result of the extended process of observing the vacillations in my own developing responses. I feel I would not want to condemn any kind of response but rather take them all on board as interesting and necessary to try to understand or at least to discuss. I find it slightly hard to understand those who will not look at all because I don’t understand how you can know you don’t want to look at something if you don’t even try. But perhaps I am just judging others against my own, very strong, curiosity?