Making art politically

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.