Re: [-empyre-] Contrapuntos Dinamicos, forward from Renee Geuzen

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

this post was in html format, so i am forwarding it in plain text. 
sorry for the delay .
--cm


From: Renee <geuzen@xs4all.nl>
Date: Sat Apr 30, 2005  5:50:26 AM US/Pacific
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Contrapuntos Dinamicos



Okay Empyreans finally, those thoughts so late and so half-baked,


First of all the discussion between Raul and Eduardo, has been very 
insightful.  Raul asked about the silence on the list and Eduardo went 
further wondering if "part of the reason might be that people on the 
list don't know much about Latin American History, or simply do not 
care."  To speak for myself, the former is applicable (meaning a lack 
of knowledge).  Regrettably, as a young girl growing up in Texas, I was 
taught a very one-sided version of our connected histories.  I have 
been and still am in the process of undoing or sabotaging that 
education and your conversations have contributed thankfully to that 
process.

Also, thanks to Ryan and Eduardo for bringing up the work of Lygia 
Clark.  So many theoretical concepts have been brought up on the list 
that I quite literally started to drown.  Especially, when Kate brought 
in Bracha Ettinger's and Pollock's notion of matrixial space, the idea 
is exciting but highly complex and I felt the need to find works that 
could anchor me.  In other words, what would this notion be in 
practice?  Intuitively, Clark's work came to mind.  Specifically, her 
1967 piece, The I and the You: Clothing-Body-Clothing and her 1966 
work, Object: Stone and Air.

Another work which the discussion made me think of was Susan Hiller's 
1973 piece, Dream Mapping where she tried to connect multiple 
subjectivities to geography.  When I went to refresh my memory about 
the work, I found this quote by Hiller which I think touches upon a 
core theme raised during our discussion:   "Identity is shared, the 
self is multiple.  My self is a locus for thoughts, feelings, 
sensations, but not an impermeable corporeal boundary. 'I AM NOT A 
CONTAINER'. (p.216, Out of Actions between Performance and the object 
1949-1979)

The last image I have in mind is one which I have kept on my desktop 
for some time now.  It is an image which fascinates me, or somehow 
touches my heart.  Nonetheless, it is a problematic image, one which is 
all about "the other", "the exotic" and for that matter "female 
hysteria".  It is a picture of the jacket of Agnes Richter, a 
psychiatric patient who spent most of her life institutionalized in 
Austria.  Issued in the mid 1890's, the jacket is a standard grey 
institutional uniform from its time but on its surface is a swarm of 
frantically embroidered text. Words appear and disappear into seams. 
Although much of the text is unreadable because she has embroidered 
over and over lines, you can catch hints of declarations stating:, "I", 
"mine", "my jacket", "my white stockings"., "I am in the Huberusburg* / 
ground floor", "children", "sister" and "cook".  In the inside she has 
written "1894 I am /today woman".  She has also embroidered the laundry 
number printed on her jacket " 583 Hubertusburg" (*Hubertusburg was the 
institution in which she was confined).

I guess the jacket makes me think of many things which have been 
written about on the list over the past month.  For one, she is an 
'other' speaking through a trace left behind. Sadly, I will never fully 
know the story behind this object but for some reason which I cannot 
put my finger on, it speaks to me.  I can only speculate and connect 
through my own projections.  (so what I make of this representation is 
yet another representation, perhaps even fiction which can be risky 
business). Nonetheless, the image remains on my desktop. When I look a 
the garment and the borders she's traced with each stitch, I wonder if 
she was trying to take them into her possession within the means she 
had at hand. Maybe I keep this picture because I want to believe that 
somehow within the panopticon, this jacket was her voice and the thread 
was her resistance.

As with so many ideas brought up in this discussion I know that many 
have been left untouched.  Know, in my silence I am listening and 
thinking about everything that has been said.

x Renee