Alexander Luke Osborne – Prestige

Anatomy of Disgust

 

p.89-108

 

Orifices and Bodily Waste-

 

Whilst inside, it risks defiling the outside.

Poisonous and polluting emissions.

 

Two groups of Orifices….

 

A. Freudian Trio of erogenous zones

Genitals

Anus

Mouth

B. Key Organs of Sense

*Eyes

*Ears

*Nose

The division accords with whether the disgusting involves the emission of raw bodily matter (liquids or solids), or whether the disgust is formed through revolting sights (eyes), sounds (ears) or smells (nose).

 

The Senses

p. 60.

 

Touch-

*Oily

*Filmy

*Gooey

*Slimy

*Mucky

All of these have a duality to them, an opposite counterpart.

This references itself on p. 63: Purity cannot exist as a concept, without creating its contrary or opposite…

Black needs White

   Good needs Evil

  Virtue needs Vice

We govern disgust through these opposites-

Squishy vs. Firm

Moist vs. Dry

Sticky vs. Non-Adherent

Scabby vs. Smooth

Viscid (thick) vs. Free-Flowing

Wriggling/Slithering vs. Still

Moist, Viscid and Pliable: Easier to come up with words that are disgusting that relate to these terms.

Dry, Free-Flowing and Hard: Harder to come up with disgusting words relating to these terms.

p.60

 Scabby or Crusty: There are tens of disgusting things that relate…

*Oozy

*Mucky

*Gooey

*Slimy

*Clammy

*Sticky

*Dank

*Tacky

*Squishy

*Filmy

NON – PEJORATIVE; Does not offend, Tasteful, not disgusting, non-derogative.

It is hard to find words that are non-pejorative that relate to the above list of consistencies, formally known as ‘Life Soup’.

p.61

Oil – Morally sinks into the slimy, as it once was pure (Religious)

Things of the following characteristics, are more likely to elicit disgust, over those things that these characteristics are absent in.

*Slimy

*Sticky

*Slithering

*Wriggling

*Oily

*Viscid

 

Certain occupations elicit thoughts of disgust, for example:

Rice farmers – Mucky

Eel fishermen – Slimy/Slithering

Doctors – Evil smelling/Decaying Bodies

Those things that SHOULD be moist, but instead are dry, hard or viscid, can also cause disgust.

p.62

More cultural work is needed to make something that slithers, non-disgusting.

The two categories of Tactile Disgustingness:

1. Those things that disgust by failure to accord with expectations e.g.- Skin of a human, that feels like the skin of a reptile, and visa-versa.

2. Met in full disgust, unless love or inurnment (got used to, unaffected by) prevents it.

This falls in the realm of slimy, oozy, sticky, wriggling and slithering. What draws the disgusting to these qualities?

Culture?

Do faeces and menstrual blood fall into the polluting side of the equation?

p.63

Purity cannot exist as a concept, without creating its contrary or opposite…

*Black needs White

*Good needs Evil

*Virtue needs Vice

The word ‘Cleanness’ owes its meaning to its opposite ’Stickiness’. The pure thus borrows from the impure its disgusting qualities to fight against it.

REF- Kristeva- Skin on heated milk (the piece de resistance of the disgusting)

Fear of it in the mouth, similar to hair in the mouth.

Crusts, skins and films that in-case or cover fluids: All have a special ability to elicit disgust. This is a phenomenon of coagulation, of curdling, which unites ideas of bubbling, seething, generative surfeit (to feed or supply to access, satisfy or disgust).

Relating to fermentation.

The process is thought about that elicits disgust.

p.64

The subsystem of touch, is Temperature.

Coldness > Clamminess > Death/Corpse.

Heat > Hellfire > Sulphurous Stench

 

But as a rule, temperature does not elicit disgust.

Most contamination does not come through ingestion, but through simple contact.

p.65

A person themselves can elicit disgust when touching or getting too close to someone else, without their permission. Yet the ‘toucher’ is able to plea – A ritual apt “sorry”, will prevent offence being taken.

Non-unattractive people (beautiful or good-looking people), are often granted a privilege of having their un-permitted ‘touchings’ processed as if they were proper requests for permission for the toughing to take place.

Beautiful people have a tendency to believe they are allowed to touch others with less, or no permission. This tends to be the first escalation that happens during courtship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is been taken out of the Book, Powers of Horror – Julia Kristeva (1941)

NEITHER SUBJECT NOR OBJECT

There looms, within abjection, one of those violent, dark re- volts of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside, ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable. It lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated. It beseeches, worries, and fascinates desire, which, nevertheless, does not let itself be se- duced. Apprehensive, desire turns aside; sickened, it rejects. A certainty protects it from the shameful—a certainty of which
it is proud holds on to it. But simultaneously, just the same,
that impetus, that spasm, that leap is drawn toward an elsewhere as tempting as it is condemned. Unflaggingly, like an inescap- able boomerang, a vortex of summons and repulsion places the one haunted by it literally beside himself.

When I am beset by abjection, the twisted braid of affects
and thoughts I call by such a name does not have, properly speaking, a definable object. The abject is not an ob-ject facing me, which I name or imagine. Nor is it an ob-jest, an otherness ceaselessly fleeing in a systematic quest of desire. What is abject is not my correlative, which, providing me with someone or something else as support, would allow me to be more or less detached and autonomous. The abject has only one quality of the object—that of being opposed to I. If the object, however, through its opposition, settles me within the fragile texture of

a desire for meaning, which, as a matter of fact, makes me ceaselessly and infinitely homologous to it, what is abject, on the contrary, the jettisoned object, is radically excluded and draws me toward the place_where meaning collapses. A certain “ego” that merged with its master, a superego, has flatly driven it away. It lies outside, beyond the set, and does not seem to agree to the latter’s rules of the game. And yet, from its place
of banishment, the abject does not cease challenging its master. Without a sign (for him), it beseeches a discharge, a convulsion, a crying out. To each ego its object, to each superego its abject. It is not the white expanse or slack boredom of repression, not the translations and transformations of desire that wrench bod- ies, nights, and discourse; rather it is a brutish suffering that,

“I” puts up with, sublime and devastated, for “I” deposits it
to the father’s account [verse au pere—pere-uersion]: I endure it, for I imagine that such is the desire of the other. A massive and sudden emergence of uncanniness, which, familiar as it might have been in an opaque and forgotten life, now harries me as radically separate, loathsome. Not me. Not that. But not nothing, either. A “something” that I do not recognize as a thing. A weight of meaninglessness, about which there is noth- ing insignificant, and which crushes me. On the edge of non- existence and hallucination, of a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. There, abject and abjection are my safe- guards. The primers of my culture.

I guess if someone one did now know what I have been through. As they walked through the freshold, they would immediately discover my big, tall, and heavy Gallows, wish would shock them at first. I want to shock the audience. They would probably be thinking, “Why has with ‘artists’, bought an implement of death, inside!!!”.

It is all apart of the magic trick. This is the ‘so called’ first part. The Audience who who do not know my story, or work, could encounter my work as Abject or Disgusting, for example my Gallows and Canular Man, could be more distressing so the Audience, particularly if they do not understand what I am trying to say through my work.

 

 

After they have discovered this massive wooden beast, They will encounter the rest of the artwork surrounding it…

 

Sculptures:

* Stroke Mannequin.

* Canular Mannequin.

* Brain Sculpture.

* Collapsed-Lung Sculpture.

* Hospital Bed, Side Cabinet and Chair.

* Stomach Sculpture.

* Crushed Aluminium Cans. (not pictured)

 

Paintings:

* Large Painting of My Face. (painted before my Stroke)

* x4 Paintings. (painted with my Stroke affected hand)

* Stomach Painting.

 

Photography: 

* Aurora.

* A picture to do with my stomach coming out. (not pictured)

* x4 Pictures of me when I had my Cancer.

 

Video Work (to be put into the cupboard) ?):

* Batman Clips.

* Video’s from when I was younger. (family film)

 

The room would be lit from above, with some of the lights turned off. I feel this would have a more dramatic feeling to the artwork. As I have said before, if the viewer did not know what all this artwork was all about, they would probably think I was a nutter! But, if the viewer was to spent the time to discover what I have been through: Cancer, Stroke, Stomach removal etc., they would realise there is more to me than meets the eye.

One of the things that I am thinking of doing, is smashing the glass on the Gallows…

 

I have not Smashed it, as yet,  but I was thinking of a real-life performance piece with will be filmed. I was going to get on top of the Gallows, and smashing the glass with my feet or a hammer? I will have to talk to the tutors to see if it will me possible to do, due to Health and Safety. We will see.

 

 

 

This song from Star Trek: Enterprise. It is how I feel. Struggling on, to finally reach my final destination: becoming a true Fine Artist…

It’s been a long road, getting from there to here.
It’s been a long time, but my time is finally near.
And I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky.
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more, no they’re not gonna change my mind.

Cause I’ve got faith of the heart.
I’m going where my heart will take me.
I’ve got faith to believe. I can do anything.
I’ve got strength of the soul. And no one’s gonna bend or break me.
I can reach any star.
I’ve got faith.
I’ve got faith, faith of the heart.