Prefix – Poly

Inverse

[Seduce and Destroy?] Notes on masculinity and failure #2:

In my search to define my detective character, I have begun to think about the notion of masculinity of which I aspire. The more I dwell upon it. The more I see that it is almost like a caricature of manhood. A childish demonstration. He is a strange mixture of sexualised rogue and asexual Oxford don. The serious, stalwart gentleman who’s authority never falters, and never succumbs to failure (my childhood fantasies of Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse & Hercule Piorot), and the serial womaniser (an exaggeration of my father) who’s every swagger exudes sexual prowess, like a lion in his cage stalking the meat on the floor. “I can have any woman I want” he utters. As a woman I am disgusted by this type of man, and yet I want to be that man, to possess that kind of arrogance and power. Tom Cruise’s character in the film Magnolia exemplifies this ridiculous parody of manhood, which I find simultaneously revolting and horribly seductive. I am seduced by the way he moves, cock first. I love the opening sequence of the ‘seduce and destroy’ clip (see below), he is illuminated, grandiose and inflated with sex. It’s like an exaggeration of masculinity, and I want to gulp it up.

Clip from Magnolia film

[Seduce and Destroy?] Notes on masculinity and failure #1:

I am finding it difficult to visualise my detective character, it is something that I have been trying to bring to fruition for some time now. I don’t understand it, perhaps I am not focussing enough, perhaps I do not want to give him a face, maybe he has too many. He is within me, I can feel him. He is the stuff of my pubescent dreams. He is me. And yet, he does not want to come to the surface as I try to re-imagine him. An imaginary friend, he never needed to have a self. He came out through me. Perhaps that is what is more important. I have been trying to make myself a parody of a man, but it didn’t quite fit. It seems to keep rejecting. For me, it is not about a certain look, more of an attitude, a demeanour. As a child without the restrictions of societal morals of which I had not yet learned, and with a basic need to satisfy desire, I was able to ‘act out’ the man of my dreams. This masculinity was a part of me, with no need to separate. I objectified. My only concern was with my own desire. I think in this process I confused what I perceived as masculine desire with the greed of my childish need to gratify myself, and now they are one in the same. And so I possess an imperfect understanding of men and their own desire. And how, am I, as a woman mirrored back within that? Sometimes I am not sure who is desiring whom anymore.

Over time I think my practice has become less about dress-up and more about the manifestation of an object as a translation of my narrative. The sculptures seem to possess a subtle communication, which the physical characters do not. However, I am not sure I want to lose the costumed character completely. I would like to find a way to assimilate the two.

I include two images, one of my detective character in costume, and one as an object (please see here for a better version of the image http://cargocollective.com/audessusde#2496064/Orna…). The costumed detective did not reach my expectation of what I was hoping to convey, for me he possesses none of the intrigue, arrogance and sex appeal of my imagined detective. He is without. But the object is able to offer more subtleties, the smooth china puckering at its centre suggestive of a luscious hole into the inner recess of the body. A solid black mass, simultaneously malignant yet benign. Sitting in-between what is nameable and known, almost ornamental, bodily, organic – a long-lost appendage to my form. It lies there lonely, cast off, seeking to return yet finding no solace in any reunion. Still the object is not without its failure, of which I write about on the image. It’s construction too evident upon inspection for the object to offer any real intrigue and spectacle. In order for this to be achieved I need to remake the object with a different assemblage method in mind and then one can hold it between one’s hands and feel the stirrings of its beauty.

After speaking to a few fellow artists I have begun to get the feeling that we all seem to share a similar relationship with our studio. It’s almost like a torrid love affair; passionate, intense, where sometimes I feel I cannot get enough, and I long to be there all the time, a place where we bruise and break and then punish ourselves with prolonged periods of absence, a need to separate and displace, but then we always come crawling back for more, pining for her comforting embrace.

I have been a bad lover, I haven’t visited my studio for more than three weeks now, sickness, travel, holidays, meetings, friendships etc have all stolen me away. I feel guilty as I enter her glass fronted door, that familiar scent reaches me and pulls at my heart strings. Tentatively I walk inside, not daring to look her in the eye. I smooth my hand over her walls as I pass, cold to the touch. The floor is strewn with my fleeting visits; suitcases, and sequins litter her world. “I’m sorry” I whisper. “I have not forgotten you.” As the overhead light flickers on, and the radiator warms under my touch, I begin to feel her stir, to respond to my sorrow. With a heavy heart she allows me to tenderly caress her, to wipe the dust from her brow, we make up slowly. My eyes become accustomed once again to her beauty, and I feel at home again. She is mine.

(Please read the previous post first!) A love letter to Nabakov continued….

….I secretly enjoy being fetishized, something I should not admit. I love to be adored, and pampered and preened. Wearing little dresses, my shoe tied. Can I relate to Lolita? Simultaneously Lolita and Humbert the barbarian?

I wouldn’t say I understand obsession but I know it. I know what it is like to be held in its thrall. Perhaps that is why I have this insatiable desire to repeat the reading of Lolita again and again. Or is there something that I am subconsciously looking for, trying to draw out, like a greasy pore underneath the hot compress of a heated woollen towel, whose job it is to ease the aperture open in order to discharge of its contents.