<div dir="ltr">Woah, the crystal ball story – so glad the flames didn't go higher. Thank you WhiteFeather for your story and words evoking queer becomings. I'm struck by how trauma and healing are frequent through lines in people's recollections and connections with texts.<div><br></div><div>Here are the last two sections of descriptions of artist projects from Two Chairs in <i>Queer Paranormal (an exhibition concerning Shirley Jackson and the Haunting of Hill House)</i> at Bennington College and their framing namings: Mediums, ESP and Extra-Human Manifestations; Witches and Witchcraft. Once again, the categories are mostly superficial, for the sake of the linear text – and don't encompass the richness of the discussion on here. The work often points to social constraints and norms. The exh is up through December 7th in case you're near Southern Vermont.</div><div><br></div><div>With admiration and gratitude, for this discussion among other things,</div><div><br></div><div>Rachel / Two Chairs</div><div><br></div><div>/ /</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Mediums,
ESP and Extra-Human Manifestations</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Susan
MacWilliam’s video, The Last Person (1998), is an imagined</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">reenactment
of a séance conducted by the renowned medium Helen Duncan</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">who,
in 1944, was the last person tried and convicted under the British</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Witchcraft
Act of 1735. The artist, standing in for Duncan, disgorges</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">“ectoplasm”
(white gauze) from her mouth and under her skirt while her</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">hands
and feet are bound by rope to a chair. Such restraints were imposed by</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">the “psychical
researcher, traditionally male” on “the medium, usually female”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">in an
effort to control the environment of the séance room and lessen the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">potential
for fraud. MacWilliam further explains that these “bodily controls”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">were
often “invasive” and strictly gendered. As the scientist looks on “the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">medium
becomes a body observed, while the medium’s body itself acts as an</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">image-producing
device.” In MacWilliam’s reconstruction, the artist is both</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">observer
and subject—working both sides of the camera—and she considers</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">her
assumption of Duncan’s position through reconstruction is an act of</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">empathy
in accord with filmmaker Harun Farocki’s definition:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><br></span></p></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Empathy
is a finer expression than ‘identification,’ and the German</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">word
einfühlen has a transgressive overtone. A compound of</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">eindringen
(to penetrate) and mitfühlen (to sympathize). Somewhat</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">forceful
sympathy. (xiv)</span></p></div></blockquote><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The
artificiality of the individual elements presented as “apparitions” are</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">mediated
through photographic means and the desire of the viewer. In both</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><i>The
Last Person</i> and <i>Pull Down </i>(2016)—MacWilliam’s video “hidden” in</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Jennings—the
viewer is left to interpret the authenticity of what is on view.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Looking
for something that remains insufficiently present requires us to take</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">an
active role in articulating what might be there.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In
MacWilliam’s sculptural installation <i>Bookspheres </i>(2013-14), covers of</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">books
concerning parapsychology are made into spheres to suggest</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">telepathic
devices like crystal balls. The artist “imagines the book as a</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">telepathic
device 'transmitting' information from writer (sender) to reader</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">(receiver).”
The dates of publication are clustered around the mid-twentieth</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">century,
the era of Jackson’s novel and its subsequent film version.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Peggy
Ahwesh’s <i>Nocturne</i> (1998), shot in 16mm black-and-white film and</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">with a
consumer-grade Pixelvision camera, has a grainy feel that renders the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">story
all the more terrifying, as if we are witnessing a horror film encoded as</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">a home
movie rife with genre and gender play. Images of the central</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">character
trying to bury the lover she has killed, and then wrestling with his</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">ghost
back inside the house, are cut with nature scenes and sounds along</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">with
richly textured domestic interiors. A pastiche of philosophical voiceover</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">quotes
directs our attention to forms of love unbound from human</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">sentimentality—impulses
more akin to the brutal logic of the “natural” world</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">than
to traditional notions of twentieth-century desire. A third character</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">appears
in the film, a woman whose presence suggests the sophisticated</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Theo. (The Pixelvision aesthetic gained popularity in the experimental film</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">community
in part through Sadie Benning’s diaristic coming out films, which</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">she
made as a teenager in the early 1990s.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Ahwesh’s
video <i>Omedium </i>(2006) evokes the uncanny of disembodied</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">electronic
communication. Email spam—something recent algorithms have</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">partly
shielded us from—in the artist’s inbox is the medium and the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">message.
Who is speaking? What otherworldly logic dictates the ordering and</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">timing
of these fragmentary communications, sometimes catastrophic,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">sometimes
smutty? Ahwesh’s recasting of these insignificant texts as a performance</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">of
authoritative words on the screen, with a dramatic soundscape</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">of
noises plus music by Um Kalthoum, amplifies the abject and banal.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Dramatic
words such as “fire” and “murder” share our attention with crass</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">signifiers
such as “Cialis.” The specter of out-of-time incantations of specific</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">topical
words from not-too-recent, but not-too-long-ago histories, such as</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">“Bush”
and “Saddam,” recalls news cycles tied to wars waged in the Middle</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">East
and leverages a collective anxiety over an unwieldy archive and communications</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">underbelly
that can erupt at any time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Lana
Lin’s 16mm film <i>Stranger Baby</i> (1995) expands the territory</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">of the
paranormal through the sci-fi genre and avant-garde film aesthetics in</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">a
retro-futurist portrayal of “alien” identity and mis-communication that still</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">feels
contemporary in its engagement with outside-the-mainstream forms</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">of
identification. Characters such as a loving extra-terrestrial of indeterminate</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">gender
are embedded in a landscape of imagery, rich sound effects, and</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">themes
borrowed from 1950s and ’60s B movies. Voiceover texts that express</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">a
sense of being an outsider, mis-recognized and misunderstood, mirror, in</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">the
exhibition context, <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i> main character Eleanor’s</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">sense
of not belonging. This poetic and anxious narrative deftly turns the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">viewer’s
layered readings toward immigration and race and gender identity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Witches
and Witchcraft</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Macon
Reed’s video <i>All the World Must Suffer a Big Jolt</i> (2016) concludes with</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">a
quote by feminist theorist Silvia Federici: “Hundreds and thousands of</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">women
could not have been massacred and subjected to the cruelest tortures</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">unless
they posed a challenge to the power structure.” (xv)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Reed
presents the viewer with a candy-colored set and props reminiscent of a</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">puppet
show. Human hands emerge from openings in the set, first holding</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">each
other and then moving in and out, setting out props and caressing</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">figures
hanging over fire from a scaffold. The colorful imagery is interspersed</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">with
text that concerns the murdering of witches. Power, represented by a</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">pyramid
with a circle, is clumsily dumped onto the stage. We recognize this</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">symbol
as the dollar bill’s eye of providence (seen as well in Tony Do’s</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">installation).
Here, it stands in for capital accumulation, which Federici has</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">shown
led not only to witch hunts throughout centuries but continues to</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">create
a misogynistic context leading to violence against women worldwide.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Reed’s
video is a call to action and a threat through an imagined dialogue with</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">intergalactic
ancestors encapsulated in the title: <i>All the World Must Suffer a</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><i>Big
Jolt</i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In
Reed’s <i>Brigade</i>,“megaphones” are positioned above cheerleader pompoms</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">unceremoniously
dumped on the floor. The artist’s intention is to question</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">notions
of team spirit, nationalism, and patriotism in a particularly gendered</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">American
context. Much of Reed’s work reflects on “what it means to belong.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Compulsory
positivity as optimism shows its toxic side when its expression</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">turns
a group into a mob (“Lock her up!”); also toxic is when the need to</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">belong
causes injury to self and others through bullying or self-harm.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Belonging
at any cost is exactly what Jackson’s character Eleanor is seeking</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">and
finds at Hill House: “Eleanor thought, I am the fourth person in this room;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">I am
one of them; I belong. . . . An Eleanor, she told herself triumphantly, who</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">belongs
. . .” (xvi) On the other hand, the megaphones, like spirit trumpets, or</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">the
people’s microphone of Occupy Wall Street, signal communication and,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">presumably,
protest and rebellion. Belonging for Reed is a call for “collective</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">imagination
in response to the growing apathy and isolation inspired by late</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">capitalism.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">APRIORI
</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">(</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Efrén Cruz Cortés; Margaretha Haughwout; Suzanne Husky; Elæ</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">[Lynne
DeSilva Johnson]; and Gabi Schaffzin) </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">has taken witchcraft into both
a</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">more
speculative and materially grounded realm. </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i>Notes for Haunting</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i>Properties</i>
(2019) is </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">presented as a tableau of resources, software, fieldwork</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">findings,
and strategic interventions into the College landscape. </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">APRIORI,
a</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">techno-botanical
coven, proposes that plants</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">, particularly those with</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">paranormal
and healing properties, are in communication with AI (Artificial</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Intelligence),
bypassing the human middle man. For Queer Paranormal, the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">coven
has planted Broom Corn, Flax, Mugwort, Rose and Hawthorn—labeled</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">with
stakes—in the field between Usdan and the CAPA building. In the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">gallery,
visitors find interviews with queer witches and plant-centric healers;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">diagrammed
spells; seed packets; and offerings that serve “extra-patriarchal”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">and
anti-capitalist forces. Mugwort, a feral resident of the campus, likely here</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">since Shirley Jackson’s time, has been harvested from the grounds.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">NOTES</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Baskerville,serif"><span style="font-size:10pt"> </span><span style="font-size:10pt">Antje Ehmann and
Carlos Guerra, <i>Harun Farocki: Another Kind of Empathy</i>, (Barcelona:
Fundacio Antoni Tapies, 2016), 34.</span></p><p class="gmail-MsoEndnoteText" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:Baskerville,serif"> </p><p class="gmail-MsoEndnoteText" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:Baskerville,serif">Silvia Federici, <i>Caliban and the Witch:
Women, the Body and Capital Appropriation</i>. (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004),
164.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
</p><p class="gmail-MsoEndnoteText" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:Baskerville,serif"><br></p><p class="gmail-MsoEndnoteText" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:Baskerville,serif">Jackson, <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i>,
43.</p><p class="gmail-MsoEndnoteText" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:Baskerville,serif"><br></p></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 1:51 AM WhiteFeather <<a href="mailto:whitefeather.hunter@gmail.com">whitefeather.hunter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div>Jess, you're so fresh, I love it - I appreciate your candor. <br></div><div>I once had a year like you describe: It was 2008, a very bad economic year, if everyone remembers. I had finally filed a workplace harassment charge against my boss, who had for three years in a row, cut my teaching hours in half at the craft college where I'd been teaching for seven years. She told me it was part of her personal workplace equity policy to hire more men and get rid of more women, since there were "too many damn women" working at the college (perverse, I know). The result was that she was essentially 'fired' very quickly following the complaint but in government that means 'reassigned' to a policy desk job in another department, at another building, and never allowed to return - effectively banished. <br></div><div><br></div><div>At the same time this was occurring, my crystal ball lit my apartment on fire and I lost almost everything I owned.
Folks, it's not just a Twitter meme. That meme is me.
It was late October, when the sun is very low in the sky and quite potent from that angle. My niece had been playing with my crystal ball the night before and left it sitting on my couch - a beautiful, 102-year old, 6ft couch in chocolate brown and caramel
velvet brocade. I came home from work to find the couch smouldering from the sun magnified through the crystal ball, and as soon as I opened the door to my living room and the air flowed in, it very quickly progressed into flames. The apartment itself was not structurally damaged (thank all my stars), but because the old couch was filled with rubber foam cushioning, it produced a thick, toxic cyanide smoke which poisoned everything. The crystal ball cracked in half and the hex was done. There were more grief-causing episodes that occurred at the time as well, and that apartment was crazy haunted, but I'll stop here with that story by concluding that my generous community supported my quick recovery. <br></div><div><br></div><div>
<font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span id="gmail-m_-3806222340789310498gmail-m_-3422300609844595405gmail-docs-internal-guid-edf3d5ad-7fff-b9c4-8d6b-94845a6276f5"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Efrén, I appreciate your words so much and find some resonance with what I have</span></span></span></font> been reading today about orgies of witches and cults of healing through what I would call queer becomings - so I thought I would share. <br></div><div><br></div><div>With regards to supposed satanic orgies that witches were accused of during the era of the European witch-hunts, the text I've been reading provides an interesting assessment of these orgies as openly queer ('bisexual' is the word used to indicate a lusty free-for-all), boundary-less rites that were not necessarily purely fabrications of the inquisitors, but rather, reframed by clergy/ inquistors/ medical doctors as demonic behavior in light of their sexual freedom. The actual context of such underground gatherings was, the text explains, rooted in rebellion against the observed corruption and conservatism of the church, and in the persistence of older folkloric/ occult traditions. <br></div><div><br></div><div>In terms of those traditions and perhaps less explicit, one example provided discusses Romanian fertility cults that featured supernatural 'fairies' of an ambivalent nature that could not, out of respect/fear, be named but were instead referred to reverentially as "they" or Holy Ones. There were also "cathartic dancers" called the
<span>Călușari, a cult of men</span>
who healed diseases (inflicted by the fairies) through acrobatic movement. They used their dance to give an impression of flying through the air like the fairies: "...their cathartic and therapeutic techniques are based mainly on a particular choreography, which imitates the mode of being and the behavior of the fairies... the scenario actualized by the <i><span>călușari </span></i><span>consistently implies <i>the merging of the opposite, through complementary, magico-religious ideas and techniques.</i>" (emphasis in the original) By opposite, the author is referring to the two oppositional types of supernatural beings, one becoming the other, reconciling through conjoined energies. <br></span></div><div><span>The broader point he makes is that such magic-makers and artists were "radically assimilated to witches" by inquisitors and that their orgiastic shenanigans, "were not at all improbable... As a matter of fact, it is this type of ritual orgy, undoubtedly the most archaic, which discloses the original function of promiscuous collective intercourse. Such rituals reactualize the primordial moment of Creation or the beatific stage of the beginnings, when neither sexual taboos nor moral and social rules yet existed." <span></span>
</span><i>-- Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions </i>by Mircea Eliade (University of Chicago Press, 1976) p84-88<br></div><div><br></div><div>I appreciate this nuanced re-take - I hope some of you will as well. <br></div><div><br></div><div>WhiteFeather<br></div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><font size="1"><br><font size="2">Rachel Stevens<br><a href="mailto:racheljstevens@gmail.com" target="_blank">racheljstevens@gmail.com</a><br><a href="mailto:rachel.stevens@hunter.cuny.edu" target="_blank">rachel.stevens@hunter.cuny.edu</a><br>NYC</font></font></div><div dir="ltr"><font size="1"><br></font></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="http://rachelstevens.net/" style="font-size:x-small" target="_blank">www.rachelstevens.net</a><font size="1"><br>Editorial Board – <a href="http://www.mfj-online.org/" target="_blank">Millennium Film Journal</a></font></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:x-small">Adjunct Assistant Professor – </span><a href="http://ima-mfa.hunter.cuny.edu/" style="font-size:x-small" target="_blank">IMA MFA</a><span style="font-size:x-small">, Film and Media Studies, Hunter College, NYC</span><font size="1"><br>Curatorial Collaborator – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/twochairsprojects" target="_blank">Two Chairs Projects</a></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>