[-empyre-] abstraction an multiple possiibilities

[Jessica Posner]

Thank you, Rachel and Emily, for sharing these stories. It’s amazing to connect to these works and artists as templates for feelings and intimate/public encounters—particularly feminist and queer ones. 

How lucky to have these works and artists as models. 

Chantal Ackerman’s “je tu il elle” was an important text for me too. Still mourning her loss. 


Jessica Posner
jessicaposner.com


> On Apr 26, 2019, at 10:21 PM, Emily V Duke <evduke at syr.edu> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> So into this.
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for the stories.  This is the gift of these artists, to allow us to reimagine, repeat, repair our own stories.
> 
> 
> 
> E
> 
> 
> 
> Emily Vey Duke
> Pronouns: she/her/hers
> Associate Professor | Department of Transmedia | Syracuse University
>  
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Rachel Fein-Smolinski <rfeinsmo at syr.edu>
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 8:58:29 PM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] abstraction an multiple possiibilities
>  
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> I feel privileged to be reading these descriptions of your experiences and relationships to these works, and I want to respond to a few things mentioned that I deeply connected to:
> 
> As Jessica said:
> 
> "The first time I saw Barbara’s work was in the year I first made love to another woman, and the aesthetics of her work—particularly work with optical printing, doubling, mirroring,layering and her playful edits—looked the way very good queer sex feels "
> 
> I relate to this on an unbelievable level. In an anecdotal experience, I have been thinking about the first time that I watched Carolee Shneemann's Fuses. I was 14 years old and it hurt me and held me in way I never imagined was acceptable. This was when I started to feel less like a passive object when watching something, and more like a productive, consumption, machine. I was in Ithaca College for the New York State Summer School of the arts, and it was part of our nightly screenings. I sat in the dark of the theatre next to another student, a girl who I was supremely attracted to, and supremely ashamed of for desiring so genuinely.
> 
> Shortly after this screening, one of the male students in the program was kicked out after multiple female-identifiy students in the program reported him to the director for repeatedly groping and inappropriately touching them in the darkroom. He later claimed that he was confused, because it was so dark. After he was asked to leave, our teacher, a powerful woman who intimidated me and made me feel small and big at the same time, took me, and the girl who I was attracted to aside, and told us that she was concerned that we were the only ones who didn't report his behavior, yet when she asked us both later, we admitted that we had experienced it, and hadn't said anything because it didn't feel "bad enough" to bring up.
> 
> I felt like I had been told that I had a curse of quiet and was ashamed of it. This feels connected to something Emily said
> 
> "I was so resentful then of the way that the spotlight was ceded to boys without question, while as a girl I felt accused of neediness for wanting the same thing."
> 
> That night, the girl and I who were pulled aside had sex. Sex that made me feel the way that Fuses has. It wasn't the first time I had been with another girl, but something about it attached me so deeply and joyfully to Fuses. I thought about the unapologetic body asserting existence amongst a visual cacophony, the body that I was a sole owner off, and the ways in which my body could multiply, and lay itself upon another body, and hold on so deeply to this joyous queerness I was so apprehensive to acknowledge.
> 
> Thanks all for the amazing reads. Continuing to catch up on the conversation!
> 
> -
> Rachel
> _____________________________
> 
> Rachel Fein-Smolinski
> Digital Services Coordinator
> Light Work
> 
> 316 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244
> lightwork.org
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Emily V Duke <evduke at syr.edu>
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 9:27:08 AM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] abstraction an multiple possiibilities
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> _______________________________________________
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