Otherness & Perception

I recently heard it expressed during a group discussion that the prevelence of digital communications has created an even playing field in which to make art. Apparently because of a democratic and widely available sharing of art theory personal experiences artists have are no longer relevant contributers to art. Has concept driven art gone to far? Really! How can it be possible that experiencing the same intellectual location can nullify the experiences of the physical one?Why would you even want this to happen? Different art comes from different perceptions of the world and these different perceptions of the world come from seeing from different places.

Epeli Hau'ofa writes about the residents of Oceania who experience their universe as

'comprised not only of land sufaces, but the surrounding ocean as far as they could traverse and exploit it, the underworld with its fire-controlling and earth shaking denizens, and the heavens above with their hierarchies of powerful gods and named stars and constellations that people could count on to guide their ways across the seas.' (Hau'ofa 7).

Great news for them, for me its a slightly different story andI think the reason for my differing view of the Oceanic universe has alot to do with my personal history, most of which has unfolded here in New Zealand. As much as I would like to believe in an underworld of 'fire-controlling and earth shaking denizens' (Hau'ofa 7) I don't, I'm also lacking in any sort of confidence in my ability to exploit or traverse the sea and I can't name any stars. I am used to large living spaces and believe visible terrain to be the extent of my domain. To me Hau'ofa's Pacific Islands will always be 'islands in a far off sea' (Hau'ofa 7) . This empirical evidence of mine is reflected in Olu Ogauibe's ideas about the contribution of location to personal experience. In 'The Heart of Darkness' he writes that;

'The West is as much the Heart of Darkness to the Rest as the latter is to the West. Invention and contemplation of the Other is a continuous process evident in all cultures and societies. But in contemplating the Other, it is necessary to exhibit modesty and admit relative handicap since the peripheral location of the contemplator precludes a complete understanding' (Oguibe 23).

Ogauibe's highlights for us the fact of our current and continual seperation from each other. If artists will remember that this 'peripheral location' cannot be altered by a 10 gig internet connection then hopefully any further de-valuing of lifes contribution to art will be prevented.

Oguibe, Olu. “In the Heart of Darkness”, Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Market Place. London: Institute of International Visual Arts, 1999. Print.

Hau’ofa, Epeli. “Our Sea of Islands”, A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea Of Islands. Fiji: The University of the South Pacific, 1993. Print.

The Flower Vase Cut

In Michael Taussig's 'The Language of Flowers' he describes a work of artist Jaun Manuel Echavarria which is titled the Flower Vase cut. Echavarria cites the title of his work as '...referring to the name of one of the mutilations practiced in the Colombian violencia of the 1940's and 1950's in which the amputated limbs were stuffed, so it is said, into the thorax via the neck of the decapitated corpse.' (Taussig 189)

The fanciful titling of this brutal treatment rather than Echavarria's art in response to it is what catches my attention, it seems that somehow the naming of this psychotic deed as something so whimsical like 'The Flower Vase Cut' has removed it from the glaring reality of a killing which will shortly be followed by stinking decay and has instead changed it into something else entirely. This magical ability of language to transform is exhibited by Sigmund Freud in his essay 'The Uncanny' where he devotes four entire pages to an examination of different translations of the German word heimelich. Of his findings he writes that:

What interests us most in this long extract is to find that among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one (meaning) which is identical with its opposite...In general we are reminded that the word heimlih is not unambiguous but belongs to two sets of ideas which without being contradictory are very different (Freud 132).

Freuds examination of language to help define the uncanny has in fact moved him further away from an exact meaning rather than closer to one, it is this ability of words to conceal rather than concede the truth that is both magical and menacing in its possibilities.

The Flower Vase Cut doesn't sound like a bloody, screaming, entrail dragging type of thing, giving it a whimsical title has moved it far from its existence as a brutal and violent death, its new name has placed it calmly in a new corner where it sits as a finished object, an outcome that has been achieved.

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Britain: Antony Rowe Ltd, 2003. Print

Taussig, Michael. The Language of Flowers,Walter Benjamin’s Grave. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print