Solondz and Fiction

It has been a bit since last writing (although not sure who this is supposed to be directed towards besides myself), and there has been some stunted amount of activity since my previous post. The one thing that I was able to take notes on and respond to in a somewhat responsive manner is Todd Solondz's second most recent film Storytelling. My "notes" basically outline a rambling invested in the agency of the film. It seems to have been a film for the most part attempting to shock. However, it seems like 2001 is a bit too late for a film of this type to have any type of lasting infliction or shock. If anything, it's shock is rather predictable and pedantic, however there is an underlying layer in the material and the representations that take place: the relationship between irony and truth. This relationship, although somewhat cliché in terms of its leading the viewer into certain instances of second guessing agency and motivation, as well as forcing the viewer into polar relationships between fiction and fact, seems to be a thread throughout Solondz's work. However, the irony aspect of the film does not pan out for me. The more interesting part of the overall "narrative" or "motive" behind the film for me lies in the idea of trying to convince the audience of the "truthfulness" of film, or oppositely the inherent lieing that narrative film plays on the viewer. It seems that Solondz isdesperately trying to make a statement where we have to consider how the relationship of polar camps like "fact" and "fiction" come so scarily close to each other in their extremes.

This all being said, I want to say that Palendromes is one of my favorite new(ish) movies that I have seen in a while. I think the shock value in this movie don't play out as being simply ironic or comical/satirical as an ends in itself. Instead, the fiction(s) that is(are) developed in that plot line are more serene, less contrived, and strangely more accessible. This concept of seeking love in wrong places is approached (however disturbingly) with a type of flavor that makes you simultaneously empathize and loathe. The physical appearance of the main character shifts to reflect appropriate moods, or modulate in accordance with the fluctuations of the ever-changing persona of sexual development. It also illustrates the triviality of physical being, and instead aims at showing how our own perceptions shape our sympathies and receptions. Not to mention that the "story" to me is just more interesting, but perhaps not as forcibly jarring as Storytelling.

I feel like I had more to say, but perhaps this is significant for now. I've got more to write in the near future.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (a Study of Memory/Remembering/Forgetting)

For a while, I've been invested in making (somewhat) stable distinctions and delineations between memory, remember, and forgetting. My personal systems and approaches have been invested in investigating how remembering is a distinct entity from memory, and that remembering, through the pool of memory, is a construction; a process of producing tangibility in a void that otherwise wouldn't have substance. Memory, as a resource, is uninterrupted, continuous, and self-sufficient. There is an amount of self-conscious solidarity that Memory has built into it; an ability to exist without the need for persons to remember. Remembering, perhaps, is how we shape Memory to fit our personal narratives, which as happenstance or oppositional to Memory itself. That is, Remembering is an interruption, discontinuous, and reliant on outside resources (usually documents of our past like photographs, letters, or other memorabilia). One way, or perhaps the only way in different forms, that we are able to accommodate Memory through Remembering is by means of embodiment. We inhabit Memory through Remembering. Memory is always there, but we cannot always Remember it. The substance of Memory has so many layers of abstraction that Remembering is always, inherently going to be false, and although Remembering is a testament to its parent, it's tribute is always obscured.

Alain Resnais seemed to understand this quite clearly in his portrait of the devices we use to Remember. It is fascinating how in Hiroshima Mon Amour he investigates the mechanisms of memory in times of (post)trauma. Nevers (although the character is names Elle) embodies her memories of madness and love by vicariously reliving her forbidden love through Hiroshima (Lui). But I shouldn't continue to give a synopsis, but instead discuss how the powerful elements of this film occur through the actual film technique. The post-Eisentein stylistic use of montage is used to resemble a continuity of distance places, a relationship between forgotten places. But in the opening sequence the montage not only expounds these kind of hyperlinked relationships, but also how these relationships are trivial and amount to nothing. "I've seen the hosiptal of Hiroshima," "You've seen nothing."

The power in this opening sequence, the forceful embodiment of the city renders the memories useless. Resnais shows us that to Remember is to destroy memory, and in affect, forget. Nevers tells us that to try and remember more and more enables us to lose those thoughts forever. That in essence, Remembering is forgetting. To settle the past, to reconcile our personal histories, we must forget them, both individually and collectively/culturally (thus Hiroshima). One of the fascinating things is that Nevers has to embody here memories through a new love. She speaks of the dead as living, and speaks of herself (alive) as being dead. She speaks to Hiroshima as if her were her past, alive, moving, breathing, empowering her will, eating her alive. "You're good for me, you're destroying me."

Another incredible undertaking that the movie attempts to make is the process of Forgetting (as I've mentioned a little bit above). Resnais does a beautiful job of showing how we have to remember things, in order to justify our personal interactions. But in these moments of justification, we forget the original purpose for remembering. We know that we must remember, but the reasons for those Memories become superseded by the act of Remembering. We are forever forgetting. But perhaps I can suggest (or Resnais suggests), that Remembering allows us to forget, and in doing so we are able to make new memories. Now Nevers will remember her old love again (perhaps driving her back to madness), but not as she had originally remembered him, but as a by-product of telling his story to a new love. In other words, her first love has now been folded into another love, creating a string of memories tied together by a city, by a moment.

I think the rush of Memory, and the pursuit of Remembering, is poetically outlined in the scene of the march/protest that occurs during the film that Nevers is involved in. Hiroshima and Nevers are struggling to get out of a dense crowd of people, and accidentally get swept into the marching Japanese men that are carrying signs of protest about the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. In this moment the couple attempts to go against the current, as if trying to retrace steps through a past. Hiroshima starts to show a sever look of anguish as Nevers seems complacent, and almost seems to be enjoying this struggle against the current. This reflection upon this scene strikes me as a core element of the film, not only from a character development standpoint, but also from a poetic illustration of two navigational routes through Memory, as well as showing the binaries involved in Memory and Remember; both coexisting in the same realm, but going against each other, and unable to quite reconcile there differences.

Near the end, another amazing montage sequence occurs when Nevers is walking through the streets before her departure. The overwhelming neon is interspersed with the stones of France, the architectures melt into each other, although each are distinct and could be considered polar opposites of each other. The movie starts to show how its own contradictions are what make it so delicate and beautiful. Enemies as lovers, "the morality of others" as "immoral," Power as surrender, War and Peace; these binaries can allow for grey areas, and that they also reflect the relationship between Memory and Remembering.

//Beckett (comments on Beckett)

To tackle, or to attempt to tackle, or to think about what it would take to tackle, a book, a book of books, if one could say there is a book in this book, if there are any books in any books, or what books were like, when books were books, written by Samuel Beckett, it is hard to imagine, if imagination comes to mind, an approach of considering the depth, and emptiness, the vastness, and the scarcity. Even worse, when there are three, books, or novels, within one, outside of each other, but all in one connexion, all speaking to each other, if books can speak, the certainly don´t have mouths, or any other apparatus to deliver speech, but nonetheless, the phrasing seems to stick. But since this area is supposed to be a diary of thought, or at least it´s proposed to do as such, the attempt at the tackle will be delivered just the same. But before I get to that story, i should first examine the contents of my blog, for which, without those items, the substantiation of my story would be meaningless. There are two items of that are held within my blog, although I´m not entirely sure how they got there, but there they rest still the same, waiting for appraisal, or recognition, for although i see them, I am not sure whether others do or not, since i have yet to recieve any comments on this matter, i assume that they are perhaps only for my eyes, but then why would they be here, and whom brought them down to me? But then how did it occur that I was the one that had wrote them? The language is mine, and i recognize bits of it, all though in entirety they are not completely clear to me, but when i wrote them I am uncertain, or I was once, but now can remember when that was. But they are there nonetheless, or at least I´ve convinced myself otherwise, for if they weren´t there, then i would have to make much more rash statements about the general status of the internets that currently surround me. But perhaps that´s where my story was going, or where my story starts, or how the tackle begins, or ends. But in this nonsense, there are bits of substance, and perhaps that is what I wanted to say, or was it Samuel that said that. No, i couldn´t of been him, he doesn´t speak, or at least I´ve never heard him, which makes me think that he might never, or if he did, he would never do so in front of me. But that reminds me of my story, because the story is formulated from two quotes, two phrases from three books, books put into one book, and discussed amongst each other, or at least just one to the others. The quotes, for me, are like book ends, book ends to a books, keeping the books together, but also apart, or near each other at least, like neighbors, but maybe more like siblings, or descendants, or ancestors, or cousins, yes, like cousins, sharing common blood, but not very closely related, or maybe one of them is like an uncle. The first quote :: ¨The shadow in the end is no better than the substance.¨ in Molloy, outside of the police station, riding his bike, almost taunting the patrolman. ¨... ah yes, I nearly forgot, speak of time, without flinching, andwhat is more, it just occurs to me, by a natural association of ideas, treat of space with the same easy grace, as if it were not bunged up on all sides, a few inches away, after all thatś something, a few inches to be thankful for, it gives me one air, room for the tongue to loll, to have lolled, to loll on,¨ is the second quote, the last that I will give here, the only two that I think are appropriate for right now, or for the time being, or perhaps for all time, or the time that I will see through, which sits near the end of The Unnamable. Perhaps these quotes, this exercise of quoting and speaking of books without tongues, or stories without a stroy, is my tackle, not to create a dog pile, but rather instead to fish.

MexicoCity.DF writing

Almost a month ago, I came back from staying in Mexico City for a media.arts festival called r4wB1t5.marcoFest (pronounced rawbits). I stayed after the festival for another week with close friend, collaborator, and mentor jonCates, and found the experience haunting, intoxicating, and extremely lonesome. I´m not completely sure why this occurred, but here is an attempt at responding to my time there ::

[side note :: Dedicated to my amazing friends and collaborators in the .DF]

There was a moment, before I knew where I was, before I knew just how foreign I was, after I had known that I was already lost.

this moment was everlasting. Transfinite, like a moebius strip, folded into a fractal. Or else it seemed as though it is still existing, although my absence form that moment has passed, or the moment is passing with me still.

This moment was in an invisible city, one with a name, and a finite, certain location. But also one without boundaries, municipalities, and infrastructure. Or if there were such things, they were ambiguous, liquid, and altogether understood as paradoxical; axioms of indifference. But perhaps these things reflect a large feeling I gained from my time there, in that void, in the abdomen of the earth.

It was either death, or luck. Two tarots with equal faces, both played by Fools. Or was I the fool? Better; were there fools? Regardless, the decks had been dealt, without my understanding of rules of engagement. If there were rules, I neglected to ask if they were in play. Everything was wilds, but no one seemed to ever win, particularly me. Perhaps it was that the ante was never agreed upon, or else the bet's were made on honor instead of paper and silver.

A city, a moment, of exhaust, not just from our means of travel, but also by our means of justice. Decisive
neglect, impossible management, and understood entripenurialism kept this sinking city afloat.

There were moments within the moment I had, now that I remember that there was a moment to begin with. They were folded together, like Aztec origami. Moments of clarity, or retroactive perspectives of The West, of a home, that seemed as unstable as this supposed third world. Similarities were alarming. Corruption perhaps was more transparent, or maybe not, I can't remember which one held the other's throat, or which had the other by the balls. Then moments of confusion, but satisfaction. Incapability. Miscommunication. Recognition. We were not as different as the myths had proposed.

The moment, or the moments within it, were filled with passion; a young, supple, marginalized, and paranoid lust. I looked on, at others, people's in parks, couples of uncertain relationships, comfortable in their lack of definition. These moment filled with compassion spilled into their polar cousins: jealousy. I knew then that I was alone, regardless of my companions, or of my hosts. I knew that the moment had struck me like a spectre. A banshee of intimacy swept me into it's chimney of poison.

Perpetual, never ending, repurposed jettisons flooded the borders, if there were such things. The old, the independent, engulfed by the ooze of this metropolis, seemed complacent in their sacrifice of individualism. It could be said, the we were just part of the trash, the muck, ushered around this zone by unknown forces. But our reciprocating amazement by these beings, this ether, was just as confused at the city itself.

In another moment the depression of lonesomeness rushed back. I thought of moments before this moment, when i had felt the same way, and of course, as if it were built in human nature (and I'm sure it must be), I thought of her. She was sitting next to the bowels of this beast, respectfully standing aside waiting for me to find her. But she was not there, not next to the digestive systems of the city, nor around the bend. Instead she was waiting at it's source, at a delta, washing my filth, cleansing my misgivings. Or maybe she was never waiting there. Maybe that's why I was looking for her, why I am still looking for her, because I knew she was lost to me in my lost state in this rhizome, this cancer. She was even further away, even more distant, but, just as the city intended it to be, she was as close as ever.

The streets were her hair.

But then there was the moment when this moment stopped mattering, still existing, still incoherent, still impossible. The moment when my will was broken, and my insides spilled into a basin of lava. But as the magma surfaced, or is still surfacing, still flowing in some parts of my veins, the cooling and hardening of their texture forms another surface for me to walk upon, one just as unequal and treacherous as the galleys of the city. This is a new soil; a sediment where the old lakes have been siphoned and the new grasses flow in a different wind.


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... Towards a Mission Statement

I decided, for better or worse, that I would start a so-called "real" blog. There are perhaps many contributing factors involved in wanting to create this ongoing document, but I think there are probably two to three main reasons. The initial reason is that I am no longer an official student. After graduating from SAIC in may, I felt as though my experience there reached an anti-crescendo. Not to say that the school didn't give me the direction and insight needed to actively and critically participate in an area of contemporary art that appeals to me, but
I still felt as though I had much to learn. I had an overwhelming feeling of being a complete amateur, and that because of this, I needed to continue my education on a personal level and continue to give myself the appropriate outlets needed for continued stimulation and critical engagement.

Another reason, is that I felt as though one of the primary influences on my continued pursuit of education and learning stems from my father, who with my mother, moved to Qatar at the beginning of this month for the next year. Because of this distance, and the difficulty it will be to communicate with them on a regular basis, I decided that I should motivate myself to create a space where i could continue to share thoughts on inspirational (and perhaps not so inspirational) moments, readings, watchings, and or experiences.

Although this blog serves as a public space where I can continue these thoughts, it is also an attempt at a log of an idea that I've had for some time to be able to not only comment on these experiences, but also allow myself to be critically creative with the process of observation and reaction. Criticism is narrow, and its aims are pointed towards reduction. I wish to allow myself the opportunity to engage with work critically but also creatively, allowing for noise, obscurity, and direct obfuscation/disturbance, to play a factor in this process of observation.

But i also feel compelled to say here, as an attempt to be humble and civil, that I am no expert, nor am I a person to be held in regard as authoritative, nor is it my aim to become someone who is a master. Instead there should be an understanding between myself and those that wish to participate in this blog (if there should be persons wishing to do so), to investigate their own process of education/learning. We are all teachers, we are all students. The hierarchy of expert culture will hopefully be undermined by my attempts to engage with work both critically and artistically. I encourage responses, and also expansions to this ongoing project of continued pursuit of knowledge.

thank you.
Nicholas O'Brien