intertribal | and he that toucheth the flesh of the unclean becomes unclean.

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and he that toucheth the flesh of the unclean becomes unclean.

Re: The recent controversy over the Smithsonian Institute's installation "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture."

I actually really, really like the "video in question:" "Fire In My Belly," created by David Wojnarowicz in 1987. Brutal and sad and frightening for sure (it almost reminds me of Begotten, but better). But powerful, I think, and evocative. You can hardly accuse it of having nothing to say or being "merely competent." And look, people: I have mummy-phobia, and I have it pretty bad. I don't find it pleasant either. But judging by the way people were talking about it, and the way it was described in news articles, you would have thought it was a 4-minute video of ants crawling on a crucifix (or as the Washington Post puts it "Ant-covered Jesus video"). That segment is 11 seconds. 11 seconds! And not even a memorable part. That's like calling Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing a "book about abandoning dogs."

But, the video was removed after people like the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (hahaha), House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Republican Whip Eric Cantor complained about it. Catholic League guy is just grossed out: "The material is vile... This is hate speech... It is designed to insult (Christians)." Eric Cantor is pitching to the Putting the Christ Back in Xmas demographic: "an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season." Just want to remind: 11 seconds. Also, not everything is about you. Boehner threatened the Smithsonian with... something, when the Republicans take control of the House in January, if they didn't fix the problem. But another Republican, Jack Kingston, wants to launch a Congressional investigation, because he is very angry about tax dollars - no, no, public space - being used to fund this "really perverted sick stuff" (he also thinks "Male nudity, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breast" are sick and perverted and kinky and questionable; presumably female nudity can still qualify as art): "They claim that this is not paid for by tax dollars, yet this is a public building with a publicly paid staff, public heat and air-conditioning, if you will, public security. So there’s no question the taxpayers are subsidizing this."

Contrast this with this snippet from the Publishers Weekly review of a book about Wojnarowicz, David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side: "informed by his outrage against America's treatment of outsiders, in particular those suffering with AIDS."

So on the one hand, video informed by outrage against America's treatment of outsiders. American politician condemns video as, essentially, not representative enough of the public experience to justify public dollars being spent on it. Yes, you ARE an outsider, says Jack Kingston. You are not one of the public. Your pain and your experience are not ours. Sit down and shut up.

Which is fucking bullshit, in case I needed to add that.

See also, a great article by John Coulthart (he makes the same point I do - "Among other things Wojnarowicz’s film depicts the artist having his lips sewn together. By shutting out Wojnarowicz from their exhibition the gallery and the Smithsonian Institute re-affirm the point he was making in the 1980s about the voices of the afflicted being silenced" - and adds a ton more, including a bonus riff on The Passion of the Christ, re: who is "allowed" to depict violation of Christ's body): "Ecce homo redux."

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Oh yeah, for sure. And of course that does make basic biological sense - support what's going to let the species survive, and such. It's when these lines get drawn while ignoring ethics or decency - or, more relevant for me, when the lines get drawn without any biological basis (i.e., there's nothing actually wrong with the people being condemned except from a social engineering standpoint, or that the people who are doing the condemning don't see that they themselves are not very "healthy" and they're not actually supporting a "healthy" system) - that I like to parse stories/ideas out.

I wouldn't disagree with your descriptors, because I think it is vengeful and angry and trapped in a cage, and it probably was made ugly - or at least harsh, since I don't know if I'd go so far as to say ugly - to get attention. I guess that just doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you (which is very much, I understand).

I think this encapsulates why I'm bored with anthro (sorry). It's like 'Yeah, we get it, ideas of beauty/cleanliness/etc. are socially constructed and support the social order. Great, can we discuss something else now?'

I just don't think it's a healthy state of mind. It's self-destructive, destructive of others, and intellectually uninteresting.

...unless you want to study the psychology of the artist, I guess.

Why sorry? Because you're bored with what I'm interested in? Yeah, I'm sure it's old hat to you - I didn't study any of that. But it's not like that's all I care about in my writing either. Or at least, I don't think it is.

Well, no, probably not a healthy state of mind... and that's the point. Whether that's a worthwhile point or not is I'd guess where we disagree? But I will say that I was probably thinking more about the artist and what was going on for the artist than I was about the video. Which is probably why I felt emotionally affected.

Yeah, to your first question. I think the people who can maintain an interest in it are more interested in the particularities, whereas to me it is just one set of ideas. Writing has a lot more going for it in general, though. It's not just 'data' + 'theoretical filter'.

I'm not sure it is the point. If vengefulness as self-destructive were self-consciously the point, I'd probably thing it was worthwhile in the same way The Genealogy of Morality is worthwhile. Hmm...perhaps I lack that kind of imagination.

*think

Goddamn.

I don't know if I can maintain an interest in contagion either, really, it's just what I'm interested in at the moment (because I started seeing it as a connective thread in various horror movies). But the social outsider/failure and social order and compromise stuff is probably going to be a constant for me, and for that I guess I am more interested in the particularities. And yes, writing involves other things/motions, although you still wouldn't want to tell the same basic story over and over.

No, I don't think vengefulness as self-destruction is the point - although you can infer that, I don't think the artist meant that - I meant that the "unhealth" of the artist (mentally and physically) is the point. I think the artist would probably say that was society-imposed, though, not self-imposed.

I mean I see the point as lashing out at society rather than reflecting on the mental/physical unhealth as a condition. It's an expression his mental state, and so the focus is on blaming, rather than making a point about his mental state, where the focus would be on psychology. Of course it is both socially and individually imposed.

Ah, I see. Yeah, lashing out at society probably was his point - but what I thought about, while watching it, was mental/physical unhealth as a condition. Like "how bad must you feel to make something like this, goddamn, what is that life like." Still not very interesting, perhaps.

Maybe not that interesting, but at least more emotionally pulling. You always seem to see visual art as part of a story you've made up, which is why I never get your aesthetic taste.

Yeah, I guess I do (and I never look at composition or the stuff that like, people that actually know art would look at). Is that bad/appropriating the artist? I don't know why that means you never get my aesthetic taste, though.

I don't have to know art--it is an automatic reaction to the composition. I don't know if it can be good or bad. I don't get your taste because I cannot see the story in your head; I am reacting to something else entirely.

Well... okay. Somehow I thought you've had more experience thinking about art as art, image as image, because you have actually made visual art and thought about photography. But yes to your last sentence. Maybe that's why no one sees what I see in the world :P Really though.

I have had a little, but it was practically redundant, because they were just things I sort of automatically 'got'. I mean, the artists didn't just make them up out of thin air. They already existed--in nature, in culture, wherever. Things like symmetry are everywhere.

And probably, yeah.

('in culture' - some cultures seem to prefer certain ratios more than others, but there always seems to be some basic system you can get, or modulations of something familiar--it's a logic of patterns that doesn't require thought to find. And it unfolds into the subject of the image, giving it life)

music is harder.

also, reiteration of what was said previously about the purely abstract elements being more universal but lacking emotional resonance without the culturally/historically/etc. particular aspects

Uh, sorry for going on a tangent. Point is, culturally bound or universal, I already knew them regardless.

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And probably, yeah.

This is actually somewhat disturbing/eye-opening to me. I mean, I wonder now how much I do that with everything. For sure I do that with polisci. No wonder my brain always feels like it's on hyper-drive, and why I particularly value "empathy" or even have a weakness for "cultural relativism." Good Lord (to myself).

I mean it doesn't bother me, I just feel like I would upon seeing, I don't know, roadkill, or an animal eating its own young, or something--it's not attractive, and I don't really think it's good, but it's not going to upset me. Intellectually, I'm either confused or uninterested. The mind of the artist, on the other hand, seems to be a very sad, repressive, repulsive place.

Hmm, you probably shouldn't see Antichrist then, because that whole movie is like an animal eating its own young. I have a higher tolerance for that kind of thing, but I will concede that intellectually it's not always very riveting (ex. Antichrist). It can work as symbolism, sometimes. I think I'm just less likely to be repulsed by unappealing imagery (that doesn't really make sense), though, like not to find that kind of thing that unattractive, just like I don't find this video ugly. I don't know, I guess my aesthetics are a little strange.

Actually, actual animals eating their own young are sort of fascinating in that awful car accident onlooker way. Maybe that's a bad example. Well, you also said harsh, and I might agree that that's a better descriptor. I don't find the images repulsive, is what I'm trying to get across. I just don't give a shit about them. They aren't pleasant, but they aren't upsetting either. They just are, and they're kind of weird. The music, on the other hand, really bugged me.

Yeah (to your first sentence). Okay - so imagery not repulsive, but artist's mindset repulsive, right? Out of general/self-interested curiosity, what would make you "give a shit" about images (any images)?

Yeah, and depending on how I view the images (like, see them as a sign of the artist's mindset or just look on in confusion), that changes my reaction, but they aren't repulsive in themselves.

Hm...I am a sucker for composition. Formal aspects of an image. I like images to have more than that, but I rarely like an image that doesn't have great composition. Bright or dark colors; contrast. Attention to tone/mood/atmosphere. Distortion or strange perspective. Subject matter of some degree of intellectual/imaginative/abstract interest (like shadows, figures, mysterious things, comments more on perception, rhythm, meaning, thought, psychology, etc. preferable to social commentary) is best. Subject matter of compelling human interest (like starvation) is also, well, compelling.

I don't think I know enough about composition to judge it. Sounds like it has to be well-made or at least very "deliberately" made. It's kind of interesting that you say subject matter of compelling human interest is compelling, but this video is not - but maybe that's because the video is not overtly about AIDS/disease?

Images that use form to transport you from the stillness of the image are best; images with rhythm (time), images that transcend.

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