January 27th, 2010 / 7:01 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Alec Niedenthal—
This semester I’m taking a class on embodiment. You have a number of options for a final project. One of them is: “The construction of an original piece (or pieces) of art and a 7 page discussion of the impact of one or more of the theoretical works on its production.” How cool is that? What are some good works that deal creatively with the body, or with the collapsing of mind and body? What’s compelling or unique about the work’s approach?
embodiment or simple awareness of body?
i don’t think the two are mutual.
embodiment or simple awareness of body?
i don’t think the two are mutual.
willie masters’ lonesome wife. text, language as body, lover, etc. there are naked in it pictures too.
willie masters’ lonesome wife. text, language as body, lover, etc. there are naked in it pictures too.
Patchwork Girl and/or The Melancholy of Anatomy by Shelley Jackson.
Patchwork Girl and/or The Melancholy of Anatomy by Shelley Jackson.
Art wise I’d look at Marina Abramovic, Chris Burden, and the impossibly overlooked Theodore Wan… You might also take a peek at Richard Schechner’s writings on “performance studies,” as they have had an impact on the consideration of the body as site of communication. People tend to site Cindy Sherman, though I have no idea why. Leigh Bowery also tends to come up, ditto. AA Bronson, also comes to mind, but his work, especially his photograph of Felix Partz, goes a very long way, and is maybe the single most powerful image to come out of the North American part of the AIDS crisis… A good catalog to seek out is “The Body at Risk” by Carol Squiers, which covers photography and the uses of it, and take a look at “Spectral Evidence” by Ulrich Baer, which deals with Charcot and Salpêtrière efficiently. On the theoretical side, see Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind”, “Art and Visual Perception” by Rudolf Arnheim (a very useful book for artists, btw), but before reading anything I’d check out “Man a Machine” by Julien Offray de La Mettrie. Endless subject (sic). It’ll, like, get under your skin…
Art wise I’d look at Marina Abramovic, Chris Burden, and the impossibly overlooked Theodore Wan… You might also take a peek at Richard Schechner’s writings on “performance studies,” as they have had an impact on the consideration of the body as site of communication. People tend to site Cindy Sherman, though I have no idea why. Leigh Bowery also tends to come up, ditto. AA Bronson, also comes to mind, but his work, especially his photograph of Felix Partz, goes a very long way, and is maybe the single most powerful image to come out of the North American part of the AIDS crisis… A good catalog to seek out is “The Body at Risk” by Carol Squiers, which covers photography and the uses of it, and take a look at “Spectral Evidence” by Ulrich Baer, which deals with Charcot and Salpêtrière efficiently. On the theoretical side, see Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind”, “Art and Visual Perception” by Rudolf Arnheim (a very useful book for artists, btw), but before reading anything I’d check out “Man a Machine” by Julien Offray de La Mettrie. Endless subject (sic). It’ll, like, get under your skin…
Cite. Dammit.
Cite. Dammit.
Ok, one more and I’m out of cite/site/sight. This is good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOb-E98Q2c8
Ok, one more and I’m out of cite/site/sight. This is good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOb-E98Q2c8
wow-za
commentary by George Barker
damn
wow-za
commentary by George Barker
damn
Um, Beckett?
And what hallucinogenic university offers a semester-long course on ’embodiement’? What the hell are you majoring in?
Um, Beckett?
And what hallucinogenic university offers a semester-long course on ’embodiement’? What the hell are you majoring in?
Joel Peter Witkin
Joel Peter Witkin
For real. What the fuck is ’embodiment’? Sounds not-real.
Alec, you should train with an amateur MMA team and write about getting your ass kicked. That’s embodiment if anything is.
For real. What the fuck is ’embodiment’? Sounds not-real.
Alec, you should train with an amateur MMA team and write about getting your ass kicked. That’s embodiment if anything is.
I would choose The Pain Journal of Bob Flanagan.
I would choose The Pain Journal of Bob Flanagan.
Alec, if you wanted to you could probably write something pretty interesting about contemporary literature’s fascination with embodiment: Molly Gaudry’s new book, Aaron Burch’s new chapbook, Blake has talked about the importance of the body on/in his work, also Justin’s suggestion above re: Shelley Jackson.
Alec, if you wanted to you could probably write something pretty interesting about contemporary literature’s fascination with embodiment: Molly Gaudry’s new book, Aaron Burch’s new chapbook, Blake has talked about the importance of the body on/in his work, also Justin’s suggestion above re: Shelley Jackson.
Clarice Lispector’s work, maybe? Some of the stories in “Soulstorm” hitch tightly to the experience of exisiting awkwardly, intimately, and emotionally in-the-body. Transvestites, prostitutes, pregnancy, murder, sexual attraction, the threat of rape. For me, the heart of her work is always palpitating.
Clarice Lispector’s work, maybe? Some of the stories in “Soulstorm” hitch tightly to the experience of exisiting awkwardly, intimately, and emotionally in-the-body. Transvestites, prostitutes, pregnancy, murder, sexual attraction, the threat of rape. For me, the heart of her work is always palpitating.
I think it’d be good to look at some Ballard for some background theory i.e The atrocity exhibition and Crash.
Baudrillard wrote a great essay on crash as well.
I think it’d be good to look at some Ballard for some background theory i.e The atrocity exhibition and Crash.
Baudrillard wrote a great essay on crash as well.
Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson)
The Body in Pain (Elaine Scarry) (shit, sp?) Eh, IDK, Google her, or someone help me out here.
The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Jillian Weise)
Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson)
The Body in Pain (Elaine Scarry) (shit, sp?) Eh, IDK, Google her, or someone help me out here.
The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Jillian Weise)
okay so no delineation huh?
i’m gonna guess you meant ‘body’ and not ’embodiment’.
for body i would say the most recent book would be blake’s ‘ever’.
embodiment though. i dunno.
i am not done with the book but i’m reading ‘the red truck’ right now, which has been talked about here, and so far i would say this book would be a good candidate..
halfway through and the story is rife with the concept of ’embodiment’.
okay so no delineation huh?
i’m gonna guess you meant ‘body’ and not ’embodiment’.
for body i would say the most recent book would be blake’s ‘ever’.
embodiment though. i dunno.
i am not done with the book but i’m reading ‘the red truck’ right now, which has been talked about here, and so far i would say this book would be a good candidate..
halfway through and the story is rife with the concept of ’embodiment’.
stupidly obvious i feel, but i second MoGa with Written on the Body, or in fact, most of Jeanette Winterson’s stuff does in some way or another deal with the body quite deeply …
not fiction, but “Formless: A User’s Guide” By Yve-Alain Bois & Rosalind E. Krauss is one text i’d go STRAIGHT to when thinking about the body and the abject… on a tangent “Sexy Bodies – the strange carnalities of feminism” by Elizabeth Grosz & Elspeth Probyn might offer something interesting too…
in terms of visual art, i would say Elizabeth Peyton, Marlene Dumas and the fantastic volume “Curve: The Female Nude Now” by Jane Harris – i also tend to think that Cy Twombly deals with embodiment in an abstract sense – it is fleshy, just… not.
stupidly obvious i feel, but i second MoGa with Written on the Body, or in fact, most of Jeanette Winterson’s stuff does in some way or another deal with the body quite deeply …
not fiction, but “Formless: A User’s Guide” By Yve-Alain Bois & Rosalind E. Krauss is one text i’d go STRAIGHT to when thinking about the body and the abject… on a tangent “Sexy Bodies – the strange carnalities of feminism” by Elizabeth Grosz & Elspeth Probyn might offer something interesting too…
in terms of visual art, i would say Elizabeth Peyton, Marlene Dumas and the fantastic volume “Curve: The Female Nude Now” by Jane Harris – i also tend to think that Cy Twombly deals with embodiment in an abstract sense – it is fleshy, just… not.
I second Twombly and Krauss.
I second Twombly and Krauss.
That Massumi book, Parables for the Virtual, subtitled “Movement, Affect, Sensation,” seems pretty damned relevant. If you are planning on doing the discussion group hereabouts, you could kill two with one. Also, Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses, and maybe some Damasio, like The Feeling of What Happens. I’d consider crossing over into Neuroscienceland for sure.
That Massumi book, Parables for the Virtual, subtitled “Movement, Affect, Sensation,” seems pretty damned relevant. If you are planning on doing the discussion group hereabouts, you could kill two with one. Also, Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses, and maybe some Damasio, like The Feeling of What Happens. I’d consider crossing over into Neuroscienceland for sure.
Text kernels and computing, Reformation aesthetics, W.J.T. Mitchell, Hans Belting… There are lots of ways to go with this, the more you read it just gets more complicated. Husserl vs. Adorno (really Adorno vs. Husserl). Neuroscience (or Neuroaesthetics) starts roughly at Nelson Goodman, but I haven’t gotten a handle on it… Pro or contra, taking a side about living, made Carla Harryman’s “Adorno’s Noise” impressive to me, I read that recently. Good medicine. Better than getting fucked-up by Kimbo Slice. This is all unreal… Yes, Beckett (he liked a guy named Worringer, who had something to say…) comes up, along with Deleuze, and then Francis Bacon. Badiou comes in later, in opposition, with something about set theory, but then my brain gets all mushy. That Ackerman book was a surprise, I liked it. Bob Flanagan is a good way to go. Cigarette burns heal characteristically, better than tattoos or piercings for the OMG “extreme” factor. I won’t comment again, but this is a passionate thread.
Text kernels and computing, Reformation aesthetics, W.J.T. Mitchell, Hans Belting… There are lots of ways to go with this, the more you read it just gets more complicated. Husserl vs. Adorno (really Adorno vs. Husserl). Neuroscience (or Neuroaesthetics) starts roughly at Nelson Goodman, but I haven’t gotten a handle on it… Pro or contra, taking a side about living, made Carla Harryman’s “Adorno’s Noise” impressive to me, I read that recently. Good medicine. Better than getting fucked-up by Kimbo Slice. This is all unreal… Yes, Beckett (he liked a guy named Worringer, who had something to say…) comes up, along with Deleuze, and then Francis Bacon. Badiou comes in later, in opposition, with something about set theory, but then my brain gets all mushy. That Ackerman book was a surprise, I liked it. Bob Flanagan is a good way to go. Cigarette burns heal characteristically, better than tattoos or piercings for the OMG “extreme” factor. I won’t comment again, but this is a passionate thread.
2nd Scarry
2nd Scarry