sketch

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31808466@N06/sets/72157616236562649/show/

thoughts that came up as I was sketching:
-corresponding to chakras in the body
-begin with beads on the floor
-beads as vibrations, as conversation, as dialogue (and then the physical movement of each string)
-a form of speaking with each other in silence
-women's work- sewing, decorating
-more importantly connecting
-sit as meditation with another- communication, commune

I want this performance to be a vision for what we can create between ourselves.
"In Almost Absolute Silence"
Here is my latest paper that will explain this further:

(Who knows- maybe we lose the necklace and just look at each other in silence)...




Tereza Swanda

Visual Culture Project
Semester 2 – Packet #1

Redefining Love through the Female Perspective

March 23, 2009
Sowon Kwon

What am I searching for within the texts written by or about feminists? Certainly, there is the underlying connection that since I have a female body/mind/spirit, there will be something within the lines of the previous writers that will reveal what is me; clarify what/who I am and reach me at the core; my beliefs, wants, anima. I am re-positioning, redirecting my education; not studying institutionalized (male) knowledge which I had throughout previous schooling, but the periphery which is continuously emerging as a parallel study (even as many of the writers are recognized as scholars in their own right). As Judith Butler has realized, so to have I. “I might not find my version of philosophy mirrored for me in any institutional form.”(240) Within feminist education lies a blueprint, a sketch of another possibility and through my reeducation there can be a deeper shift within the paradigm of my life. “For it is not a matter of changing this or that within a horizon already defined as human culture. It is a question of changing the horizon itself—of understanding that our interpretation of human identity is both theoretically and practically wrong.” (Irigaray, 20)

Let me/us consider one way we interact with one another, the monetary economy, which is a mediating structure between us all. Let us also consider the present moment as this structure is slowly and finally crumbling—or at least standing on shaky ground. How dynamite to think of breaking through this barrier to one another—to see, really see the other! I am not alone in my thinking:

It would entail, beyond the enslavement of property, beyond the subject’s submission to the object…, becoming capable of giving and receiving, of being active and passive, of having an intention that stays attuned to interactions, that is, of seeking a new economy of existence or being which is neither that of mastery nor that of slavery but rather of exchange with no preconstituted object—vital exchange, cultural exchange, of words, gestures, etc., an exchange thus able to communicate at times, to commune…, beyond any exchange of objects. (Irigaray, 45)

To quote from an interview with Millay: “Should the profit system be abolished?”

Yes, I blame the system…. I should like to live in a world where everybody has a job, leisure to study, leisure to become wiser, more perceptive…. I am willing to give up everything I possess, everything I will have…. I am willing to live in the simplest life … to live in a hut, on a loaf a day (Oh, I do know this sounds idiotic!) to achieve it. (Millay, 387)

They [women under a capitalist system after the fall of communism] had freedom to speak but no voice. They had freedom to buy essential services with money they did not have, freedom to indulge in the oldest form of private enterprise, prostitution, prostitution of body, mind and soul to consumerism, or else freedom to starve, freedom to beg. (Greer, 11)

…we discern some value in not being sure about the value of becoming a philosopher, unless a resistance to its institutionalization has another kind of value… (Butler, 234)

What do we truly value? What structure or system can we create between ourselves that upholds those values? What does that look like?

Another median between us is language. Unlike a physical exchange however, it has the potential to be much more. It is a much more nuanced exchange—with tones and pitches, pauses, rich subtleties, with many dimensions, not to mention the variety of languages.

If we are to regulate and cultivate energy between human beings, we need language. But not just denotative language, language that names, declares the reality or truth of things and transmits information; we also and especially need language that facilitates and maintains communication. And it is not just the lexicon we are talking about, but a syntax appropriate to intersubjectivity. This also calls into question why we speak—the very purpose of speech. (Irigaray, 100.)

How we speak to one another becomes of utmost importance. Luce Irigarauy’s answer,
“In Almost Absolute Silence,” is a chapter dedicated to this notion. “This silence is the condition for a possible respect for myself and for the other within our respective limits.” (Irigaray, 117) “But above all, it gives you a silent space in which to manifest yourself.” (118) Therefore, language is not just the speech we communicate with but also and more importantly that space of interaction, between action and stillness, between sound and silence.

One artist that embodied this play between silence and sound in language was Edna St.Vincent Millay. She wrote her poems in silence, completing them in their entirety before writing. In addition, however, many whom she reached knew her from her vibrato voice. (Milford, 383) Millay toured and gave readings continuously throughout her life as well as doing radio shows. It was her inner strength, her love, which she revealed as she sang each word. (http://static.salon.com/mp3s/millay_sonnet090601.mp3)

What do we know of love, loving, being with love, sharing love? I agree with Krishnamurti from his chapter, Freedom from the Know, in his text, On Nature and the Environment that we do not know much about the topic.

When I say, “Love has no tomorrow and no yesterday,” or “When there is no center, then there is love,” it has reality for me but not for you. You may quote it and make it into a formula, but that has no validity. You have to see it for yourself, but to do so there must be freedom to look, freedom from all condemnation, all judgment, all agreeing or disagreeing. (33)

We do glimpse it however, when we start talking about love between. Not love of one for another, a subject/object relationship. Not something, I alone create and then pass on to another to receive. But a vibration, energy between us in which I try to see you as clearly as possible and vice-a-versa. “Transcendence is thus no longer ecstasy, leaving the self behind toward an inaccessible total-other, beyond sensibility, beyond the earth. It is respect for the other whom I will never be, who is transcendent to me and to whom I am transcendent.” (Irigaray, 104) Luce Irigaray comes closest to Krishnamurti’s notion:

I am listening to you, as to another who transcends me, requires a transition to a new dimension. I am listening to you: I perceive what you are saying, I am attentive to it, I am attempting to understand and hear your intention. Which does not mean: I comprehend you, I know you, so I do not need to listen to you... (Irigaray, 116)

Another feminist that seems to know of this kind of love is bell hooks. Through her book, The Will to Change; Men, Masculinity, and Love, hooks connects with many men and presents their perspective:

My vision for myself and for all men is that we reclaim every piece of our humanity that has been denied us by our conditioning. Obsession with sex can be healed when we reclaim all the essential aspects of the human experience that we have learned to manage without: our affinity for one another, caring connections with people of all ages and backgrounds and genders, sensual enjoyment of our bodies, passionate self-expression, exhilarating desire, tender love for ourselves and for another, vulnerability, help with our difficulties, gentle rest, getting and staying close with many people in many kinds of relationships. (Bearman, quoted by hooks, 182)

It is rare to read such honest self-expression from anyone but more so from a man.

Within feminist education lies a blueprint, a sketch of another possibility; to have a universe of two who not only coexist but also love. Love not only between lovers, but also between children and elderly, between men, between women, between friends (who are initially strangers), between father and son, between colleagues, between us. “The subject does not produce meaning alone, does not realize a task alone, nor accomplish an undertaking all alone.” (Irigaray, 126)

Work Cited
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Greer, Germaine. The Female Eunuch. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Atria Books, 2004.
Irigaray, Luce. I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Krishnamurti, J. On Nature and the Environment. San Francisco, Calif: HarperSan Francisco, 1991.
Milford, Nancy. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Random House, 2001.