The other good things that happened during my session in Fabrica yesterday were: initiating discussions with visitors to the exhibition in front of the work and a large, round table discussion taking place spontaneously when a female visitor with a good strong voice came up and addressed the room in general with her response to the work.
I approached a man who was carrying a tripod and a backpack and told him that I would be very interested to know what his thoughts were on seeing the work because I was artist in residence for the exhibition and that talking to him about the work would help my own reflections. As I was saying this I realised that this was the key: it was actually true! I was presenting myself to him not as a sort of 'listening ear' for him to offload his reaction to the work onto, nor as some sort of background filler-in of facts about the piece but as who I was and with a genuine offer to have a conversation because I wanted to. Obvious really, isn't it.
We went back into the viewing space and stood and talked about the work. As we were talking a large part of my thoughts was observing our interaction. It felt friendly. I found myself thinking about our two bodies facing each other in front of the array of images of bodies on the banner. Worlds apart. They as dead and no more than flat images. Us as living embodied beings. They voiceless, exploded, contorted, rendered immaterial through the destruction of their materiality exaggerated further by their reproduction as mass-produced images. We full of potential and of the moment. Possible progenitors of future generations, but now also having witnessed through the work (indirectly, oh so indirectly) the results of the worst of human behaviour.
[I can't remember much about what we spoke about I was so absorbed in my reflections about our encounter.]
There's a vague whiff of exploitation in the binary opposition I've drawn here. I can't put my finger on this element but it's something to do with the potency of the living being enhanced by the presence of the dead. I don't like it. I've frightened myself with it. Should I call it 'fascist'? Use that word with extreme caution. Is it Sadeian excess? To use the dead to make oneself feel more alive? Maybe this is what B means in her condemnation of the work? Is it in all of us? Maybe I shouldn't speak for 'all of us' but I spot it in myself at least. Latent. It's how tyranny takes hold. By exploiting that streak. Better to get it out and look at it.
Too scared now. Back to bed for me.
Note to self: take another look at Angela Carter's 'The Sadeian Woman'.
